Free Love's Rescue by Tammy Barley

share of the import store was hers now. She could support herself by helping Edmund to run it.
    Edmund…and Miriam. Jess pressed a hand to her eyes. The Van Dorns had been her parents’ closest friends since before she was born, and none of the Hales had arrived for the ball that night. The Van Horns must have been devastated to learn of the fire.
    No, she couldn’t let herself think of all that again. She had to focus on the months ahead. Jess dropped her hand from her eyes. Her father’s bank accounts would fall to her, and though she knew little about his investments, she would learn to manage them wisely.
    The uncertainty lay in what people’s reactions would be to her, a woman, co-owning a “man’s business.” She’d had conflicts aplenty while working discreetly as a bookkeeper in an unobtrusive corner of the showroom. Every situation imaginable had arisen, from women snubbing her as something less than a beggar to men who wanted her job making threats. None of these reactions had troubled her then, but now her income would depend on people accepting her new position.
    Jess frowned. When she was young, she had paid close attention while her father taught Ambrose the strategies of playing poker. He had frequently lifted his thick, gray eyebrows and warned Ambrose, “Never bet money if you’re holding less than two pair.” She could still hear his voice. What would he tell her to do? The way she saw it, she was holding a slim two pair—and an objectionable Southern accent, to boot. Hardly decent odds. At the same time, she had no other means by which to support herself.
    And there was also Kentucky. Bittersweet tears trickled onto the pillow. They had all gifted her with one remaining bequest. Greenbriar. It was hers now, hers to hold dear—but also hers to maintain for those who followed after, if it survived the war.
    Jess began to envision the possibilities. Perhaps, if she sold the Hale property in Carson City, worked hard, and lived meagerly, she could sell Edmund her half of Hale Imports when the war ended and go back home to rebuild. She would have her father’s investment money, and she would find some way to prosper in Kentucky. In the meantime, she needed to regain her strength and wait out the war. Jess wiped her eyes and sat up carefully.
    Besides, other Southerners live in the territory and occasionally come into the store, she thought. I might succeed or even excel in Carson City—who’s to know? Time would tell. She hoped it would also heal.
    Someone knocked softly on the door. Red Deer entered silently, her steps muted by the moccasins on her feet. She carried a tray with two bowls and a steaming teacup, which she placed on the chair beside the bed. “You look rested,” she observed. “This is good. When the heart is sick, the body suffers, also.”
    Jess nodded sympathetically at Red Deer and fingered her own hair. “You’ve known sadness too, Red Deer.”
    “Yes. I lost my sister, Blue Bird. Two summers ago, she traveled with her husband and son to the mountains. They wanted to live far from white men,” she said with an apologetic look, then specified, “the white men who kill our game until we starve and who hunt our people like dogs.”
    Jess understood and nodded for her to go on.
    “This winter has been very cold. Even in her dwelling, fire and blankets could not keep out the terrible wind. Each night, Blue Bird slept holding her son against her to warm him. But one morning, he crawled from her arms and spoke to waken his mother. She did not answer. He touched her, but she was dead.”
    Jess’s heart sank in regret. “She had frozen?”
    “Yes. Now my husband and I take care of my sister’s son. His father lives in the north, protecting our people. Blue Bird is gone only one month. It is difficult to speak of her.”
    Only one month. Jess didn’t believe a hundred months would lessen the pain either of them felt. “How long will you mourn?”
    Red Deer lifted the tray