Angel In The Saloon (Brides of Glory Gulch) by Jeanne Marie Leach Page B

paperwork he had started the day before. Amelia
escorted him to the saloon door in order to ask him when she might be able to
use his piano to practice.
    Paul told her he would take her to the piano only
after she agreed to first accompany him to lunch. She agreed, and they arranged
a time for him to come for her the next day. He placed his arm around her
waist, but she drew away from him.
    “I don’t kiss blackmailers!” Amelia turned to go back
upstairs.
    “You do now!” He grabbed her shoulder and spun her
around to face him and kissed her firmly, but lovingly.
    “You’re a scoundrel, Paul Strupel,” she said when he
allowed her to take her leave.
    “And a pleasant evening to you, too, Miss Jackson.”
    › › ›
    The rain continued in torrents through the rest of the
day and remained relentless through Monday also. This cooled the air
considerably, causing a chill and Amelia decided to cancel her plans for lunch
that day. She wasn’t particularly interested in venturing out into the cold
rain. Walking on a clear, dry day was a difficult enough feat for her to
perform, but slippery mud was not something she was eager to negotiate.
    The peculiar thing about the rain was that her Aunt’s business
seemed to be booming during parts of the day that were normally slow. This
certainly made it easier for Corrin to find a crony of hers to take a message
to Paul that Amelia was canceling their luncheon and her practice session.
    Amelia spent the day downstairs in the Saloon chatting
with her Aunt and the two saloon girls who were on duty. Occasionally, she was
introduced to a client and conversed with them for awhile. The men understood
that she was a lady and treated her respectfully. The conversations were
certainly not stimulating, but were interesting enough to pass the time.
    Late in the afternoon, she retreated into the upstairs
parlor to read one of her Braille books she had brought with her from Georgia. These
were very expensive and she only owned a few of them. Even though she had them
pretty well memorized, she read them every chance she could just to stay
abreast of her reading skills.
    Reclining against one end of the couch with a small
quilt around her shoulders, her feet were comfortably wrapped in the layers of
her petticoats drawn up beside her.
    Corrin appeared shortly with a tray containing a bowl
of hot vegetable soup, some bread and butter from the bakery, and a pot of
freshly brewed tea. After depositing the tray on Amelia’s lap, she started a
fire in the fireplace to take the chill out of the air.
    “Thank you, Aunt Corrin. You’re so sweet. I love you.”
    “I . . . love you too, sweetie.”
    Amelia smiled. She knew the words were difficult for
her aunt to say, but she’d said them. As her aunt headed back downstairs,
Amelia burrowed in with such a warm feeling, not from the soup or the fire, but
from her heart burning with a sense of being where she belonged. And it felt
good. Soon she was bathed inside and out in warmth and couldn’t keep her eyelids
open any longer and yielded herself to a nap.
    › › ›
    Amelia wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep. Drinking
some of the room-temperature tea, she settled in to begin reading, unsure if
the gray gloom of the day had given way to the dismal darkness of the night.
One thing was certain, though; the cold rain still beat unremittingly against
the window pane.
    She detected footsteps in the hallway outside. They
weren’t her Aunt’s dainty steps. Then a knock at the door. “Come in,” she
called.
    “Hello,” Paul said as he opened the door. “Corrin told
me you’ve been up here alone for some time, and I thought you might like some
company.”
    “Good evening, Paul. Yes, I would enjoy your company. Please,
come in and sit down. I hope you don’t mind if I just stay where I am. I’m so
lazy today that I just don’t want to move.”
    “No, I don’t mind at all. You look so comfortable---and
pretty the way the firelight is