- and she looked feminine and wise in a long skirt and white blouse. "I thought I'd walk to Old Town and check on The Burning Rose. Heritage Day always makes me nostalgic."
A visit to the brothel suddenly sounded perfect to Samantha as well. "I'll go with you."
Aunt Cat lifted one silver eyebrow. "You're feeling nostalgic too?"
"In a way." The Burning Rose would remind her of the Wilder legacy and help her forget the speechless man she'd left back at the park. They started off down the street, Samantha adjusting her pace to fit Aunt Cat's slower one. "You know, another thing I've always felt guilty about is not doing my penance in the brothel like you and Kitty."
"Penance?" Aunt Cat made a face. "Why would you call working in The Burning Rose a penance?"
"Come on, Cat. You never felt the slightest bit humiliated playing madam for the crowds?"
"Hmm." Aunt Cat seemed to contemplate her answer. "What about you? Did you feel humiliated taking your clothes off for men?" She didn't ask it unkindly, yet Samantha felt hurt by the question all the same.
"Yes," she admitted. "Sometimes. And sometimes I felt sexy and powerful, and sometimes I was just so sick of the whole thing that I wished I'd never started."
Aunt Cat nodded, her usual unperturbed self. "Exactly as I suppose the first Wilder sisters felt."
"So why isn't it a penance, then, playing them?"
"It's an honor, Sammy. It's representing women who found a way to survive, just like you did. Women who survived on their own terms."
"I wouldn't make the same choices today that I made twenty-six years ago."
Aunt Cat snorted, in a ladylike way, but she snorted nevertheless. "Well, I should hope not! What would be the point of experiencing life if you didn't get any wiser?"
Samantha shook her head. "I don't know, Cat, you're making it all sound a little too easy."
"I never said it was easy, Sammy. I'm saying living your life is like childbirth. Though there's pain, you usually get something worthwhile out of it."
Despite the reference to babies, Samantha laughed. "You're beginning to sound like a pot holder, Aunt Cat. We could start a business, embroidering and selling that homily. The Wilder one too, while we're at it."
Aunt Cat shook her head. "'Wilder Women Don't Wed And They Don't Run'? You and Kitty make too much of that."
They reached the entrance to the living-history district. Since her return, Samantha hadn't been inclined to visit this part of town, and as she looked up the steeply inclined street, her breath caught.
When she'd left Hot Water at seventeen, Old Town hadn't existed. The buildings had been there, of course, but most had been boarded up and long abandoned. Still, even then Heritage Day had been a time of celebration, and the Preservation Society had given walking tours through the original blocks of town. But it was so different now, the buildings in good repair, the street and sidewalks filled with people, many in period dress.
A horse-drawn wagon turned out of the stable nearby, the bells on its harness blending with the tinkling player-piano music drifting into the street from an open doorway. A man dressed in a homespun shirt, stained leather vest, and heavy work boots clomped across the wooden sidewalk in the direction of the assay office, carrying a bulging leather pouch.
Holding it up, he grinned. "I had good luck at the traces today, ladies. Drinks are on me at the saloon." He tipped his battered hat and continued on his way.
A couple of blocks up, in a niche between two tall brick buildings, Samantha saw clothing drying in the breeze. A sign painted on a sheet, "Lin's Laundry," hung by clothespins on the line as well. One block past that was the National Hotel, decorated with red, white, and blue buntings. On its second-floor veranda, people sat at small tables drinking lemonade.
At the crest of
Main Street
, the white-spired, red brick Methodist church presided. In front of the church stretched a long line of couples that disappeared around a corner. "What are they waiting for?" She pointed.
"The Hot Water marriage, our most popular Heritage Day event." Aunt Cat smiled, full of mischief. "Some call it a tourist trap."
Marriage. Samantha frowned. "Trap" was the right word for it.
Shading her eyes with her hand, she ran her gaze over the restored buildings, searching for the Wilders' ancestral home. "Where's The Burning Rose? It's on the right-hand side of the street, isn't it?"