Page 9 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“It’s a flower.”
“Yes, I know that. What sort of person names their child after a flower?”
“A perfectly lovely English woman whose husband brought her a bouquet of them when she’d gone to the trouble of birthing his daughter.”
He smirked. “Does that mean he brought her pearls when your sister was born?”
“Yes. He was a doctor. He had finished school and begun his practice by then, so he could afford something nicer than stolen flowers. Why? What did you give your wife?”
His expression twisted with discomfort. Regret, maybe. “I was working the steamboats when Levi was born. I sent her gold dust from California soon as I could after Nettie.”
“And your third? You have three children, don’t you?”
“Look.” He stopped to confront her again. “If you and I were marrying, I’d put up with you asking me personal questions about my first wife, but we’re not. I’m hiring you to mind and school my children. You want to ask me something, ask about that.” He started walking again, catching her by the elbow to steer her around some road apples.
When he released her, she felt untethered and had to work to gather her thoughts.
“I suppose I should ask how much you’ll pay me?”
“Nothing. You’re working off a debt.”
“That could go on forever.” She scowled, thinking it was too much like her arrangement with her uncle, which had been a similar quid pro quo for his giving her a home after she lost hers in the divorce. “I’d like you to pay me, and I’ll pay you back in reasonable installments.”
“I’ll be providing room and board,” he reminded. “I wasn’t going to pay my wife.”
“And therein lies the reason I told Pearl this was a bad idea. How much are you paying the Ute woman?”
“That was arranged through her cousin and none of your business.”
“Fine. Three dollars a day. A dollar per child. That way I can buy a few things I’m likely to need and can still pay you back by the end of the year.”
He snorted.
“What? I’ll be doing your laundry along with theirsandcooking for you.”
“My laborers get two dollars a day plus meals, and they’remakingme money. I’ll have to stake you for fabrics and sewing needles and what-not to make winter clothes for yourself. Your debt will grow before it shrinks.”
“Those are things I need to do my job. I’m not doing this for less than fifty cents a child. Is the youngest still in diapers? If so, he’ll be seventy-five.”
“He mostly uses the pot.” He scratched under his beard. “Levi minds the livestock and runs errands, so you’ll only have him for lessons. Nettie will help you with Harley. You’ll be teaching her how to cook and sew and keep house, so she’ll help with that, too. A dollar a day and at least fifty cents of that comes back to me every day.”
A letter to her sister was twenty-five cents. She could make her own soap and toothpowder, but she would need the ingredients. She’d lost her home remedy book in the fire as well as all her seeds and needed to replace them.
“A dollar twenty-five.” She saw a sign in a shop that prompted her to add, “And I can cut hair and keep that money for myself or apply it to my debt as I see fit.”
“You can cut hair?”
She’d only ever trimmed her sister’s and would need to buy scissors, but… “Yes.”
“A dollar twenty-five and my cuts are free.” He held out his hand.
What a procedure! But she was thrilled to have her first paid employment. She thrust her hand into the grasp of his. He waited until her eyes met his, then gave her hand a squeeze and a pump. It felt profound enough to be a blood oath and made her extremities tingle.
An echo of that sexual awareness from a little while ago seemed to creep into the moment, bringing heat into her face so she pulled her hand away a little too abruptly.
She tried to hide her disconcertion by looking around. They were on a main street of sorts, outside a shop that advertised itself as Pollock’s Stoves and Metalwork.
“Where, um… I understand you live in Quail’s Creek? Where is that?”
