Free Firefly by Linda Hilton Page B

presume she'd removed the things because she wanted to appear more attractive to him.  But it was probably less dangerous that way.  If she went to work for him, she would simply have to be more careful.
    But working for him was a terribly big "if" right now.  Katharine might be persuaded because she needed a doctor's care, and that need was Julie's leverage.  Katharine had already consented to tonight's errand, and with surprisingly little protest, as Julie recalled with a puzzled frown.  In fact, Katharine had hardly argued at all.  But of course, Wilhelm had not been home at the time.
    Wilhelm was a different matter entirely.

Chapter Seven
     
    Morgan said good night to Julie while he walked her to the porch of the darkened house.  Odd, he thought, that no one had left a light for her.  He waited an extra minute or two after she had gone inside, just in case there was an argument, but the house remained as silent as it was dark.
    He took the horses back to the livery stable, where he woke Gus and then helped the old Swede put the animals to bed. Tired in body but not ready for sleep himself, Morgan began the long walk back to the other end of town.
    Main Street was bright compared to the track up to Baxter's.  Light spilled from the Castle's wide windows and swinging door, and the saloon was noisy, too, even this late.  Fred's piano plinked away and raucous voices raised in what passed for song.
    The temptation brought Morgan up short.  He stopped and stood in the middle of Main Street, outside the lamplight so no one would see him but still able himself to see into the busy saloon.
    Two days of sobriety.  He couldn't remember when he had last gone that long without the comforting oblivion.  And tonight he needed it.  He had delivered a baby, a living, kicking, nuzzling little mite who curled into the comfort of his mother's embrace.  It was a scene he'd never forget, and one he couldn't bear to remember.
    He turned away from the saloon's enticement and headed home again, with a smile of self-satisfaction.  It hadn't been an easy delivery, but he had managed to save both mother and child.  He didn't know what made him insist the Hollstrom girl come with him, except maybe to pay her back for all the grief she had given him lately, but in the end he had been pleased with her.
    And hell, she wasn't a girl any more than he was a stripling boy.  She was a woman, a quiet and strong woman who on more than one occasion in his sometimes patchy memory had done what needed to be done.  And she made everything seem more normal, more like it had been with Amy.
    He pushed the front door of his house open and dropped the black bag to the floor.  Leaning back until the portal latched, he smiled at the lamp Winnie had left in the parlor window.  No doubt she had filled a big basin of water for him in the kitchen, too.
    He stripped off the filthy shirt and managed in the process to skitter another button across the floor.  The garment was beyond salvage anyway; he ripped it in half and tossed the pieces on top of the cold stove.  The pants landed there, too, though the worn denim resisted his efforts to separate one leg from the other.  He would have disposed of the boots as well, but they had to serve one more day at least.
    "You ought to be in bed," he told himself aloud, "not trying to take a bath in a dishpan." He dipped each arm in the tepid water and reached for the cake of soap.
    He couldn't rinse the soap completely off when there was soon more of it in the water than on him.  Without bothering to cover any of his nakedness, he walked out the kitchen door and crossed the yard to the creek.  The gravelly soil hurt his feet, but with some help from the bright gibbous moon he avoided any stray cactus spines.  Well aware of the temperature of Cold Creek, he took a deep breath and placed one foot in the shallow stream.  By this time of the year, there was barely enough water to splash in, and in another week