The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,328

done business with them was here under her roof.

Letty couldn’t help but note that, while she had been busy burying a husband and birthing his child, Denver City had been undergoing a change, too. She didn’t know half of these people, but they all sure knew her.

“Please, you must try some of Alice’s fruitcake,” she said, as she waved toward a table laden with food displayed on crystal and silver.

Within the hour, the whole downstairs of the Potter mansion was full of people talking and eating and making merry. It was at this point that Letty disappeared upstairs. She reappeared twenty minutes later with her baby in her arms.

She was halfway down the stairs when her guests realized an introduction was imminent. The oohs and aahs were followed by someone tapping their cane upon the floor to signal the coming speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen… my friends and I are honored to have you in our house tonight. Some of you I’ve known since the early days… some of you I’m meeting for the first time tonight. But I’m inviting all of you to meet my son, Eulis Slade Potter. We call him Little Bit… a name he will probably grow to hate.”

There was a round of easy laughter as she unfolded the blanket from around him and then lifted the crook of her arm so that they might easier see his face.

At nearly three months and twenty-plus pounds, he was a sight to behold. A little round face, a turned up nose, and a thatch of dark, mahogany colored hair, not unlike his mother’s.

He stared at the crowd with as much curiosity as they all stared at him, then delighted the gathering with a sudden flailing of his arms and a loud, piercing squeal.

Letty laughed.

“That means he likes you, and while he’s still making a good impression, he’s also going to make his exit before he shames himself, and me, by revealing how much I’ve already spoiled him.”

“A toast… to the little rooster in the hen house!” someone called.

“Here, here,” they all shouted, and raised a glass to the baby in her arms.

“Give him to me,” Alice said, and waved Katie up with her. “Katie here is almost asleep on her feet, too. I’ll put them both to bed, and then come down later. You stay with your guests.”

“He’s already nursed,” Letty whispered.

Alice nodded, took the baby from her arms, and herded Katie along with her.

The blacksmith had brought his fiddle, and was seated in a corner near the parlor fireplace, tuning up his bow.

The sounds of chairs being scooted back against the wall signaled the start of a dance.

Letty had moved to a spot near the punch table, and was holding a cookie in one hand and a napkin in the other, listening to two women who’d once shunned her, now gushing about her son, when she heard a low, familiar voice at her ear.

“Letty.”

Robert Lee!

She turned and then forgot what she’d been going to say. She’d never seen him like this—handsome beyond words, and so at ease in his elegance. His frock coat was black, as were the matching pants of his suit. The shirt under his silver gray vest was white, with a black string tie at the neck.

His hair was as black as his eyes, and when he held out his hand, she took it without thought. He was as far removed from the half-starved gunfighter she’d first met, as she was from the fifty-cent whore she’d been.

“If I may be so bold, I believe it’s the hostess’s duty to start the dancing. May I?”

She put down her cookie and walked away with her hand on Robert Lee’s arm.

The room fell silent.

The blacksmith ran the bow lightly across the fiddle strings, testing the tone.

Robert Lee couldn’t quit staring at her. She stood out in the room like a wild rose in a bed of plain daisies. The dress was satin and a deep shade of garnet, making her skin appear as white as the snow outside. Her hair was magnificent, like a crown on the queen she’d become. He wanted nothing more than the pleasure of taking it down and thrusting his fingers through the depths.

Just as the first notes of the waltz began, she looked up at him and smiled.

He put one hand lightly at her waist as he held the other level with his shoulder. When he swung her into the first steps, he felt like he was flying. The lights of the room spun