“If you say so, ma’am.”
He followed her into the parlor, where he noticed that she didn’t light the lamp as they sat down together. She waited until he’d swallowed a few sips before she said, quietly, “I’ll be going into town myself, in the morning. Would you take me with you?”
“You leaving for good or just shopping, ma’am?”
“For good. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve returned the hired buckboard. I could ride you postern on the chestnut, if it was just a shopping expedition. Packing you and all your gear on one horse, though, is another story, I’m afraid.”
“I won’t be taking much. Just my personals, in one bag. I noticed when Nan left that a woman can carry all she really needs in one neat bundle.”
“What about your big bass drum, Miss Prudence?”
She laughed oddly, and said, “To hell with the big bass drum! I’m so tired of beating it I could scream!”
Not meeting her gaze, Longarm asked, “Don’t you want to be a missionary any more, ma’am?”
“I never wanted to be a missionary, but what was I to do? I don’t know how to play one of those new typewriters, I’m not pretty enough to be an actress, and I don’t know how to walk a tightrope in the circus.”
“Now those are purely interesting trades for a lady, ma’am. Are you saying you just took up reading Bibles because you needed a job?”
“Of course. It was that or work I’m not ready for. I was rather desperate when I checked into that home for wayward girls, and when they offered me a position as a missionary … well, damn it, what was I to do? Work in a fancy house? I may have strayed, some may have said I was fallen. But, damn it, I never fell that far!”
“I see.” Longarm nodded sagely. “That gal you were telling me about—the one who ran off with a rascal who deserted her? She was you all the time, right?”
“Of course. Don’t tell me you didn’t have that figured out!”
Longarm winked. “The thought sort of crossed my mind, but it wasn’t my business.”
“So now you know. And I don’t mind telling you it’s a load off my mind! I was getting so sick of playing Little Miss Goody.”
He chuckled and said, “A little goody ain’t all that bad, taken in moderation. If you’re giving up on being a missionary, what’s your next goal—learning to play a typewriter after all?”
“Anything would be an improvement over reading the Bible to a lot of people who just aren’t interested. I thought I’d get back to civilization with the little I have left and … I don’t know. That story about Madam Lamont had a moral, all right. I noticed that while she was atoning, she got rich at it.”
Longarm drained the cup, placed it on the floor, and leaned back to observe, “You ain’t as wicked as you’d have to be to take up that line of work, honey. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“What makes you so sure I couldn’t be one of those women?”
“You ain’t cold-blooded enough. There’s a poor, lonesome fool right next door, with a good income, and he’s ripe for the plucking. A wicked lady would be over there right now, helping him forget his troubles while she taught him to leap through hoops. A gal who was willing to sell her favors could take that idiot for every cent he had and make him wire home for more!”
“My God! The thought never crossed my mind!” Prudence gasped.
“There you go. You just don’t think like a dance-hall gal. You’ll likely wind up an honest woman in spite of yourself.”
She laughed and said, “You have a wicked imagination. Now that you’ve pointed it out, I can see how I could trap poor Calvin without, as you put it so bluntly, selling anything at all.”
“Yep, he’d likely marry up with you if you took him under your wing. Old Cal’s the marrying kind.”
“Well, I’m not a mother hen and if I was I don’t think he’d be my cup of tea. Nancy was an awful girl, but I could see how living with such a wishy-wash could drive most women to distraction. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I ran away from a husband who was twice the man Calvin is!”
Longarm shifted his weight and observed, “He’ll likely find some gal in Switchback. Word gets around quick about a lonesome cuss with a good job. Besides, he ain’t that bad—just has some growing to do. He’s already learned to ease up on the Indians and brand his livestock. He’ll make some gal a good man, provided she ain’t as particular as yourself.”
“Could we please drop Calvin Durler? A body would think you were trying to marry her off to the nearest thing in pants! Maybe I am particular, for a woman of my age and looks, but when I am ready to try again, I shan’t make the same mistake. I was a teenaged silly and my mother was after me to marry the boy next door and … no, the next time I’m going to have a much better notion what I’m getting myself into!”
“Pays to shop around a mite, eh?”
Prudence sighed. “I suppose you could put it that way. I’ve wasted some of my best years on a nice boy who bored me to distraction; I’ve made an awful fool of myself with a no-account handsome devil, and for a while, acted so crazy I hardly remember what it was like. Now that I’ve seen I’m just too … well, healthy to give my remaining good years to mission work-Heavens, what am I saying? Why am I baring my soul to you like this? And is that your arm around my shoulders, sir?”
Longarm gently drew her closer, and observed, “Lots of folks seem to tell me things they hadn’t intended to. Gal I knew once, said it had something to do with my not getting all excited in the middle of a quiet conversation. As to why I’m holding you friendly, I reckon I’m cold or something. I’ll stop if you want me to.”
She reached up to clasp the big hand cupping her shoulder as she sighed, “It does feel comforting, but you’re to go no further. Just because I’ve let down my hair a mite is no reason to get ideas. I may be middle-aged, and not much of a looker, and I’ve told you far too much about how weak I’ve been, but-“
“Slow down! You’re talking silly. You can’t be thirty yet, you know you’re a right pretty little mouse, and friends don’t take advantage of each other’s weaknesses.”
“Oh, you’re just saying that,” Prudence scoffed. “I’ll admit I’m not deformed, but ‘fess up—you wouldn’t have your arm about me if I hadn’t confessed to being a fallen woman, would you?”
“I might have hesitated if you’d stuck to beating drums for the Bible Society, but as for being fallen, I suspicion you haven’t fallen as far as you might have aimed to. Most of us have more lust than nerves. We’ve been brought up to think a lot of things that are only natural must be wicked. Somehow the people who wrote the rules got the funny notion that anything that felt good had to be bad for us.”
Her reply, if she had one, was muffled against his lips as he gently pulled her closer and kissed her. She responded, started to struggle, then moaned in pleasure and started kissing back.
Longarm put his free hand against her firm little belly, felt that she wore no corset, praise the Lord, and started moving up. Then he decided what the hell, and slid his hand down between her thighs and began to stroke her gently through her cotton twill skirt and whatever was under it.
She gasped and twisted her lips away from his, pleading, “No! I don’t want to!”
“Sure you do. Don’t you think I can read the smoke signals in your pretty brown eyes?”
“Oh, I’m so bewildered! My body’s saying one thing, but my head tells me this is wrong. The Bible says it’s wrong!”
He noticed she wasn’t pulling away all that vigorously, so he massaged her through the cloth and soothed, “Go with your body, honey. Anyway, if you really want to talk religion at a time like this, don’t you reckon the Lord would never have made us like we are, or let us be together like this, if He was so dead set against it?”
Even as she stopped struggling and opened her thighs to his caress, she protested, “Damn it, you know that’s pure sophistry!”