crawled between the clean sheets. Her head hit the pillow with a weary thump. Just before she closed her eyes, she remembered the gambler and the way his lips felt on her skin. She wouldn’t let herself believe that he’d meant anything personal. She couldn’t afford to care.
Even though she didn’t trust him, the gambler continued to sit at the back table for the next five nights. When he wasn’t playing cards, he was listening to her sing. And each night she found herself watching for his smile of approval when the songs were over. On the sixth night, he wasn’t there, and she learned that he’d picked up his horse from the livery and ridden out around noon. She wouldn’t let herself care that he hadn’t said goodbye or wonder what the brief moments she’d shared with him had really meant. Instead, she immersed herself in the business of her life and told herself it didn’t matter.
A couple of days later, Will the Bartender was in the act of closing up for the night. He was polishing the glasses, and Eulis was sweeping up the floor for his usual three free drinks as Letty started up the stairs.
“Well, Letty, looks like you had a good night,” Will said, as he counted out the coins she’d laid on the bar.
Letty frowned. “Depends on what you call good. I made twelve dollars, half of which is yours, and thanks to the last three cowboys I pleasured, I smell like a horse.”
Will frowned. Keeping Letty happy was part of what made his business so good. His other girl, Truly Fine, had been gone for close to a year now and he couldn’t afford to have Letty leaving, too. He’d noticed that she’d been sulking some since that fancy gambler had left town. While he wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, he didn’t want her to leave.
“Eulis! When you get through sweeping that floor, you take Letty up some hot water for her bath! Do you hear me?”
Eulis braced himself with both feet apart and leaned on the broom before turning a bleary gaze toward Letty.
“Bats? Letty has bats?”
Will cursed and then came out from behind the bar and swatted Eulis on the shoulder.
“No, you old sot, I said, bath! Letty wants her bath.”
Eulis reeled back in shock. “I ain’t givin’ no woman a bath. Not even for a whole bottle of hooch.”
Letty clenched her teeth to keep from screaming.
“Eulis!”
He veered his gaze in her general direction.
“What?”
“Go get the hot water and bring it to my room.”
Light dawned. “Oh! Right! The hot water.”
He dropped the broom where he was standing and headed for the back room.
Letty glared at Will, daring him to argue. When he remained silent, she tossed her head and started up the stairs.
She left the door ajar for Eulis who thumped up the stairs with the two buckets of hot water. He stumbled in, slopping a goodly portion from one bucket into his shoe before getting it into the tub.
“Tarnation!” he yelped, as the hot water soaked through the threadbare sock onto his skin.
In pain, he quickly dumped the water into the small hip bath then dropped to the floor. He was in the act of taking off the wet shoe when Letty came in from the balcony.
She saw him taking off his shoes and thought he was getting undressed.
“Don’t even think about it!” she yelled, and picked up her hairbrush and hit him on the back of the head.
At this time of night, Eulis was always less than steady on his feet and sitting down made little difference to his equilibrium. The blow from the hairbrush sent him face forward between his outstretched legs. He groaned, both from the shock of the blow and from the pull of unused muscles at the backs of his legs.
“What did you go and do that for?” Eulis cried, ducking again in fear of a second swing.
“There’s only one reason a man ever takes his shoes off in a woman’s room and I’m done with that for the night,” Letty said.
Eulis groaned. “No. No. I wasn’t tryin’ for no poke. I swear. I spilt hot water in my shoe. That’s all.”
Letty frowned. “Oh. Well then. I guess I’m sorry for hitting you.”
Eulis shrugged. “It’s all right. It didn’t hurt none. It just startled me.”
He peeled the sock from his foot and eyed the skin.
“What do you think? Reckon it’ll blister?”
Letty snorted. “I reckon it didn’t make it past the first