Maybe needing another person's help wasn't such a shameful thing. Wasn't a sign of helplessness or weakness. It was simply proof of being human.

In her room Lily changed into a skirt and shirtwaist for cleaning. She paused to study the red dress hanging on her wardrobe door. Mollie had just cleaned and pressed it. Nate had likened it to a suit of armor.

She shook her head at the comparison. The dress did make her feel defiant and lent her confidence. Was it truly as scandalous as the women in town seemed to think? Or did it threaten them in a way she'd yet to understand? Did they see her as a threat?

Of course they did. But she couldn't see any way to change that. And-being honest with herself-she didn't know if she wanted to change that right now.

Lily placed the dress in her armoire and closed the doors.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

BY SUPPERTIME they had the bottom floor clean, and the Waldrops had taken care of the suite of rooms they would occupy. Lily asked Naomi, Helena, Mollie and a few others to gather at the building after they'd eaten.

She outlined a few plans for getting the hotel up and running, and they made lists of things they would need.

"Are you okay like this for a few nights?" Lily asked Naomi. "We do have rooms at the Shady Lady."

"We'll be fine here. It's not cold, and we have our own things."

"All right. I'm going to make arrangements for the supplies, then. Hopefully, we can buy some of the furniture and items locally. A lot will have to be ordered."

Lily walked to the jail and sheriff's office and found the door locked. She peeked in the front window. She hadn't seen Nate on Main Street, but he could be anywhere. She checked the restaurants to see if he was eating a late supper.

Suzanna Callahan came out on the boardwalk to stand beside her. "Could be he went home for his supper. He hasn't been in, and he does that sometimes."

Lily thanked her and stood at the corner of the block in indecision. She could wait until she saw him sometime that evening, but they wouldn't have an opportunity to speak alone. Or she could shrug off her hesitation and go to his house.

It was an impressive structure from the outside. Lily admired the two-story home with its red shutters and wide, shaded front porch.

On the front door was a knob to turn that rang a bell on the inside.

The door opened. Nate looked at her through the screen with surprise, then held it open. "Come in."

Lily stepped inside and glanced around. "You need some more furniture."

The side of his mouth quirked up. "Maybe something with tusks?"

She shrugged. "Were you eating?"

"I was done. Washing dishes, actually."

She noted then that his sleeves were rolled back and the dark hair on his forearms was wet. "I'll help you finish and we can talk. You'll probably need to get back to work."

"I take a few hours here and there. But come on back."

He led the way to the kitchen, where he handed her a towel and buried his hands in a pan of suds.

He rinsed a few plates in a basin of clear water and stood them beside the pail.

Lily picked one up and dried it as she glanced around.

The room held a table and chairs, a stove and an old china hutch, which was empty.

"I'll show you the rest of the house if you want to see it. I've ordered furniture."

She nodded, trying to find the correct words now that she was here.

Nate washed and rinsed the last fork and then dumped the basin outside the back door. "Sorry if I was out of line earlier," he said, drying the basin and hanging it on a nail on the wall.

"No." She dried a plate and found the shelf where it went. She played with a loose thread on the towel. "You were pretty much right."

Nate's eyebrows lifted in surprise. He hung his towel and propped his hands on his hips.

"That's all I'm going to say. You were right about me not being willing to let anybody help me."

"Okay."

"And I want to take you up on the partnership and let you pay for everything we need to get the hotel running."

He smiled then. "All right. We'll get started tomorrow."

She dried the forks and handed him the towel she held, and he hung it behind him. "Show me the rest of your house."

He led the way through the downstairs, then gestured for her to go upstairs first. His room was the only one with furniture, and it held a bureau and a bed covered only by a wool blanket. His washstand was a stack of crates with a bucket on top.

"You said I was right," he began.

Lily looked at a comb on the bureau instead of at him.

"Does that mean you might've been wrong about a few things?"

"A few," she admitted. There were half a dozen pennies lying beside the comb. She touched one with her fingertip.

"Think you might've been wrong about us?"

Lily looked over her shoulder. "No, I don't."

When her gaze traveled to the doorway, he backed away so she could make her escape. At the bottom of the stairs she paused. "We can go through the catalogs in the morning, if that suits you. I've already started lists."

"I'm sure you have."

"I'll probably see you tonight."

"Probably."

Lily let herself out onto the porch and hurried down the steps and toward the street.

It was full dark and the saloon was filled with patrons when Celeste came to get Lily.

"There's a woman out back. She won't talk to me. She wants you."

"I'll go, thank you."

Lily hurried to the back door and opened it to find Catherine Douglas with her face hidden behind the folds of a scarf.

"Are you hurt?"

Catherine lowered the green silk to reveal a swollen and bloody lip.

When Lily took her arm, Catherine gasped in pain.

"I'll get ice and some water. Go on up to my room."

A minute later she found Catherine sitting on the end of her bed, sobbing.

Lily dipped a cloth in warm water and knelt in front of her. "What happened?"

Catherine took the cloth from her and dabbed at her own mouth. "I burned the letter you sent, but there was a scrap of it remaining in the ashes."

"He saw my letter?"

Catherine shook her head. "No, only a few words remained, nothing readable."

"What was the harm?"

"He accused me of having a lover. Of carrying on a tryst behind his back. I told him it was only a letter from a woman friend."

"He didn't believe you?"

"He's not rational when he gets like that."

"And you couldn't tell him it was from me."

"He would have beaten me regardless of who it was from."

"Not if it had been from another woman and not me, Catherine. It's all my fault this happened this time. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault. It's because he's unreasonable and doesn't allow me to have friends."

Lily took the cloth from Catherine's hand and rinsed it. This time she insisted on washing the cuts on her face.

"Would it make any difference if I told him I wrote the letter?"

"I don't think so. And then he'd know where I went on these nights, Lily, and I don't want him to know. This is where I am safe. You are my place of refuge from him and his outbursts of rage."

"Of course. You're right." Angrily she wrung out the rag and draped it over the washbowl. She then brought the wrapped ice for Catherine to hold against her lip. "Let me see your arm."

Catherine allowed her to roll back her sleeve, and they both looked at the bruises. "We'll put ice on that, too." She backed away and sat on an overstuffed chair. "I despise that I had to do business with him to get the hotel."

"I wish you hadn't done it, either."

"Why?"

"I just don't have a good feeling about it. He doesn't talk about his work to me, but I've heard him mention your holdings and properties several times. I've looked at papers on his desk at home, and he makes lists of things. He even had documents from the assayers about your properties."

"He probably did that for the loan I just got."

She shook her head. "It was months ago. I should have told you, but I didn't know what it meant. I still don't."

Lily didn't, either, but she knew she didn't like Amos Douglas looking into her affairs.

"It's going to be all right," Lily told her. "You're going to stay here and get a good night's sleep. We'll think on it again in the morning."

"Thank you, Lily."

"You're welcome. And Catherine, that son John of yours is a fine young man. I watched him during the ball games."

"Thank you, Lily."

Lily laid out bedclothes and a wrapper for Catherine, then brought her a cup of tea.

By the time she returned to the dance hall, she'd missed the sheriff's round.

SHE SLEPT in her sitting area that night. The chaise longue that had been Antoinette's was every bit as comfortable as her bed. Her dreams were elusive images of lost and hungry women, and Lily didn't have enough soup to feed them all. She woke with a start to the muffled sound of a rifle shot.

Not all that unfamiliar in this town, but unsettling all the same. Someone could have been shooting at a fox getting to their chickens.

"Did you hear that, Lily?" Catherine called from the other room.

Lily got up. "I did."

She opened the front window and looked down onto the empty street.

Another shot sounded just then, the sound echoing hollowly.

An upstairs window at the saloon opened and Old Jess stuck his head out.

"I'm thinking we should go look," Lily called.

Jess's head ducked back in.

Lily pulled on her dressing gown and slipped her feet into her shoes. "Stay put," she told Catherine and took a derringer from a drawer.