Free Summer Lightning by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

intentions at all. “It was so nice, I thought.”
    “What was?” Was she being sarcastic?
    “The waiter and Miss Carstairs.”
    “Having coffee spilled over you is nice?”
    “No, of course not. I mean, they’re so terribly in love. It’s nice. Not the sort of thing one sees every day, not even in my line of work.”
    Despite the people jostling past them on the sidewalk, Jeff stopped. The brisk clip-clop of the passing horses and the shouts of the drovers faded. He could even ignore the newspaper boy yelling his head off a few feet away.
    “What? That’s nonsense. Sabrina wouldn’t give the time of day to a man who couldn’t afford to give her the best.”
    “The best?”
    “Jewelry, furs, horses ... the best of everything. You should have seen where she lived before. It’s a good thing I only knew her for a month or she’d have driven me into the poorhouse.”
    “I suppose she felt she had to look out for her future. I have often thought a life of shame must be a precarious one. Of course, my life has been thoroughly proper and yet it turned out to be risky in the extreme.” She gave him a direct look. "That keeps me from looking down my nose at Miss Carstairs.”
    Jeff was left gaping. He never thought she’d look at it like that. Any usual woman would have been having hysterics at actually speaking to a “fallen angel.”
    Edith tugged lightly at his arm. “We are blocking the sidewalk, Mr. Dane.”
    He walked a few steps on. “Wait a minute. What about the waiter? You don’t mean that Sabrina and that ... I can’t even remember what he looks like. There’s no way those two are . . .”
    “But of course they are. It stands out all over them.”
    “You can’t know that for sure.”
    It had been like a halo shining around the two of them. A brightness that hovered a few inches above the heads of the dazzling blonde and the younger waiter. The closer they’d been to one another the brighter it had grown.
    “Any woman,” she said, settling for a mundane explanation, “who just received a cup of coffee over what was obviously a brand-new mantle and who didn’t instantly crush the offender must be in love.”
    “Maybe she didn’t want to cause a scene,” Jeff said and immediately reversed himself. “No, Sabrina likes scenes. The louder and more public the better.”
    “Love has the power to change people.”
    “Well, maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “Maybe she has settled down with a waiter. That would explain the cheaper rooms. But she was still flirting with me ... wasn’t she?”
    “I imagine it must be something she can’t help. Some girls are just born knowing how to flirt.” Edith wondered what it would be like to squeeze—ever so lightly of course—the firm muscle beneath his sleeve. But her upbringing forbade any such act.
    When they reached the hotel, Edith said, “Thank you again for lunch. Please don’t forget to give me Mrs. Waters’ address so I can write to her.”
    “I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes.”
    She nodded and headed toward the mahogany-railed staircase that swept up from the lobby. Passing two dignified older women on the stairs, she nodded and smiled. In return, she received a set of glances so frosty that the humid summer air seemed to harden into a winter’s chill. They seemed almost to switch their skirts out of range of some contamination.
    Pausing on the stair, Edith turned to watch the ladies descending, a puzzled frown puckering her brow. Had she accidentally offended them? How, when she’d hardly stepped out of her room? Perhaps her singing in the night had disturbed more people that Mr. Dane had told her about.
    From here, she could see him at the desk. Suddenly, he pounded his fist against the blotter. A faint ring sounded among the thudding, as the blows moved the summoning bell. Wondering, Edith started down the stair.
    Jeff met her halfway across the lobby. His tanned face showed red as an Indian’s, his brown eyes hard as