The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,196

lookin’ house, too.”

It wasn’t until they got closer that they realized it wasn’t just a house, it was an inn, and according to the sign, an inn called Four Mile Inn.

“Oh Eulis… can we stay here? Just for a night? I can’t remember the last time I slept with a roof over my head.”

“I reckon we oughta’,” Eulis said. “To get the lay of the land, so to speak.”

“I can’t wait,” Letty said. “I wonder if they’ve got a bath?”

Eulis chuckled. “Shoulda’ known you’d be wantin’ a bath.”

Letty frowned. “At least you won’t be the one hauling the hot water up the stairs.”

“And praise the Lord for that,” Eulis said.

Mention of a higher power reminded Letty that they had yet to decide how they were going to introduce themselves back into society—even if it was going to be a rough and tumble gold field.

She glanced up at the towering trees bordering the narrow road, took a slow, deep breath, inhaling the fresh, clean aroma of pine and rain-washed air, and thought about how far they’d come from Lizard Flats.

“Eulis?”

“What?”

“Are you gonna preach?”

“No. I told you before, it just ain’t right.”

She nodded. “Then that’s, that.”

He glanced at her and then clucked to the mules, urging them on as they traveled the last few hundred feet up the incline to the inn.

“Letty, are you mad at me?”

She frowned. “Of course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

“For not keepin’ up the pretense.”

Letty sighed. “Did you just hear what you said?”

“What do you mean?”

“Pretense. You said, pretense. That tells me that your heart was never in it… not in the way it needed to be.”

He thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Letty said. “You did good, and you made a whole lot of people happy. But unless you feel a real calling for the job, you don’t need to be doing it.”

“Yeah, okay. I just didn’t want you to be mad at me.”

Letty turned to look at him then, gazing her fill at the lean, brown lines of his face, and the hair in need of cutting and sighed.

“Eulis.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not the easiest person to be around and I know it. And I might get pissed off at you now and then, but not for anything real big. Truth is that I’m proud of you.”

A big lump tied itself into a knot in the back of Eulis’s throat.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at her briefly then quickly looked away, afraid that she might see what he was feeling.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”

Letty saw a muscle jerking at the side of his jaw. She thought about hugging him, and then decided he would get the wrong idea—or maybe the right one. Either way, it wouldn’t do either one of them any good. He knew too much about her past to ever look at her as anything other than a whore.

“The past is the past,” she said. “We got ourselves a second chance and, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna make the most of it.”

Unaware of what was going through Letty’s mind, and still overwhelmed by the fact that she’d praised him, Eulis just nodded in agreement.

“We’re here,” he said, as he pulled the wagon up to the Inn.

“Yep, we sure are,” Letty said, and quickly got down as Eulis set the brake and tied off the reins. It remained to be seen exactly where “here” was, but she was glad to be standing on solid ground.

Eulis shouldered the rifle as they walked into the inn together.

It was a strange set-up for a hotel.

There was a small saloon set up near the door, with a bar barely as long as a man was tall, but the bottles on the shelf behind it, and the stack of clean glasses were proof of its purpose.

The room where travelers ate was one big space, with an odd assortment of chairs and tables scattered about. Letty could smell food cooking, but the kitchen was somewhere out of sight.

There was an even tinier general store in another part of the lobby with some folded clothing on a table, a side of smoked pork hanging from the ceiling, and some flour and coffee beans. Before she could look further, a tall, middle-aged woman appeared in a doorway, moving toward them with a no-nonsense stride.

“Welcome, travelers. I’m Mrs. Cocker. You here just to eat or do you want a bed, too?”

Eulis glanced at Letty, who was unusually