Free Explaining Herself by Yvonne Jocks Page B

"Thank you for standing between me and that stranger, Ross."
    But any man worth his salt would have done that much. She hadn't had to kiss him for it.
    Ross Laramie stood and watched the trees where she vanished up the path for far longer than he probably should have. Then he left for the Red Light Saloon in Sheridan —to meet up with one of the Wilcox train robbers.
    The train robber who'd saved his life.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Victoria left her damp shoes and stockings on the mud porch, then padded barefoot into the parlor where the rest of her family was comfortably settled. Most of them, anyway.
    She was used to Thaddeas living away in town. But in the last two years, Mariah and then Laurel had moved out too. It felt odd sometimes to see just her parents, Audra, Kitty, and Elise. It felt even odder, with the memory of Ross Laramie's kiss on her lips. And yet this was still home.
    The room smelled of floor wax and fresh-cut flowers, as usual. Her weathered father still kept busy; tonight, he had leather traces in his lap. Her younger sisters amused themselves with their own pursuits, Audra with a book, Kitty practicing scales on the piano, Elise playing with her dolls and their newest dog, Duchess. And her m other, sitting quietly in a com fortable chair toward the edge of the room, was somehow the center of it.
    Despite having borne six children —seven, counting the baby buried under the elm—Elizabeth Garrison had thus far retained her dark-haired beauty and her tenaciously pleasant ways amid the hardness of the frontier. Mama loved the niceties of life, the iced lemonade and the electric lights and the cut flowers, almost as much as she clearly loved her husband. Papa, thought Victoria, would give her the world if he could—and had come pretty close to doing so.
    But just because he accepted Elizabeth's progressive ways did not mean he tolerated them in his daughters. "Throw a shoe, Victoria Rose?" he asked.
    "No, sir. Just got them wet." Victoria sat on the settee beside Audra, so she'd appear better-behaved by association. "So what are you reading tonight, Audie?"
    "It isn't a dime novel. You wouldn't like it."
    "Hard on footwear," noted Papa, looking back at the leather in his lap. He was fixing a bridle, Victoria decided.
    "Yes, sir," she said. "Just water, though." Only when she noticed him slant a gaze toward her mother did she realize a lecture was coming.
    "It's late for you to be out alone," noted Mama, who was sewing lace onto a piece of pink silk.
    Victoria sat up, unwilling to argue with her parents —especially in front of her sisters—but somewhat affronted. True, she hadn't exactly been behaving herself out by the creek. But she wasn't in school anymore. If she were a boy—
    "Of course, you're practically a grown woman," added her mother before Victoria worked herself into a froth. "And you're gainfully employed. You should have more freedoms than the younger girls. But y ou're our daughter, and we worry, all the same."
    Mama's eyes danced slightly when she said "we worry," so Victoria knew that we was mainly her father. She glanced back toward Papa, but he was scowling down at the broken bridle —and listening intently.
    'Yes, ma'am," Vic said.
    'Your father and I discussed it," added Mama, still smiling at her sewing. "I was all for barring your windows and locking you in the house, not letting you leave without an armed escort at all times, but your father thought that was a little extreme."
    Papa looked up from the bridle to stare at his wife, as if to protest that neither of them had said any such thing.
    Mama noticed, and laughed.
    Papa sighed. "Take the dog with you after dark."
    "Duchess?"
    The dog, a black-and-tan Alsatian, lifted her head at her name. Though barely a year old, she resembled a small wolf in size and, as she'd shown more than