Banner O'Brien by Linda Lael Miller

just as though she, like Melissa, was going home.
    *  *  *
    Francelle’s father sat directly across from Banner, at the Corbin table, and smiled his senator’s smile.
    “A lady doctor!” he boomed. “Well, well. Francelle told me, but I confess that I didn’t believe her.”
    Banner felt like a carnival freak. A bearded lady! Well, well. Francelle told me, but I confess that I didn’t believe her.
    Katherine had been badgering the dictrict’s representative to the territorial legislature about one thing or another throughout the meal. Now, she smiled at Banner and then Adam and then the senator. “Don’t you think it strange, Thomas, that a woman can practice medicine in this territory yet be refused the vote?”
    Thomas Mayhugh looked pained, and one of his chubby hands went nervously to the watch chain stretched across his stomach. “Now, Katherine, I’vetold you before. I myself presented an amendment that would grant suffrage to women and—women and—”
    Katherine leaned forward in her chair. “Women and half-breeds, Thomas.”
    Senator Mayhugh’s rescue was brought about by his daughter, who flashed a venomous look in Banner’s direction and said, “I think women should keep houses and have babies. Why should we bother to vote when our husbands would dictate our choices anyway?”
    When no one spoke, Francelle shifted her gaze from Banner to Adam. “What do you think, Adam? Should women vote?”
    Adam smiled. “Some women,” he said, in tones of sweet acid. “Furthermore, since I have to live in this house, that wasn’t a fair question.”
    Katherine was watching her son with interest and a measure of wry humor. “You’ve missed your calling, dear,” she said. “Anyone who can utter so many words and still say nothing belongs in politics, not medicine.”
    Adam lifted his wineglass in an amused salute.

Chapter Five
    T HE RIDE DOWN THE HILL TO P ORT H ASTINGS SEEMED more perilous than ever that night, especially with Adam Corbin at the reins of the buggy. Typically, Banner made conversation to distract herself.
    “Mrs. Corbin was right, you know,” she ventured. “You didn’t actually say whether or not you think women should vote.”
    He looked at her—she knew that by the motion of his head—but his expression was hidden in shadow. “I’m not against suffrage, O’Brien,” he replied.
    “But you’re not exactly in favor of it, either, are you?”
    Adam appeared to be concentrating on navigating the steep hill. “Since women are held accountable under the law, I think they should enjoy the rights it provides.”
    Banner frowned. “Most men don’t feel that way, though. Why is that, Adam?”
    He was watching her again. “The issue is linked with prohibition. They probably envision an army of Carrie Nations converging on the polls, hatchets in hand. And when liquor is outlawed, prostitution won’t be far behind.”
    Banner fell silent, and she huddled deeper under the lap rug as a snow-flecked wind howled around the bonnet of the buggy. How dearly men regarded their two favorite pleasures, she thought to herself.
    “Talk to me, O’Brien,” Adam said as they reached the bottom of the hill and turned in the direction of the business district. Banner’s hotel was only about a block ahead.
    “I was just thinking how selfish men can be,” she replied honestly. “Imagine denying adult people simple, basic rights just to drink rum and—”
    Adam laughed and drew the buggy to a stop under a spill of golden light coming from the streetlamp in front of the hotel. “And what?”
    She colored in anger and then realized, too late, how deftly he had baited her. And she had risen to the hook. “You know what!” she hissed.
    Buggy reins draped between his right thumb and index finger, he lifted his hands in comical surrender. “Don’t shoot, O’Brien. Have pity. ‘And what’ seems to come into my mind a lot when I’m around you.”
    Banner hurled back the lap rug and