Josie: Bride of New Mexico (American Mail-Order Bride 47) by Kristin Holt

feet.
    Just the right size to fit the boots Adam had pilfered from the back porch.
    “Done looking your fill?” the woman asked.
    Josie blanched. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Please— If my husband said he left fifteen dollars on the clothesline and back porch, I believe him.”
    “Josie—” Adam cut himself short with a growl of frustration. “You’re the worst possible vagrant I ever imagined.”
    “That’s because we’re not vagrants.”
    The woman looped two fingers into her mouth and whistled. Sharp and crisp.
    That’s when Josie noticed two dogs had been asleep in the corner, motionless, soundless— despite their entrance— until their mistress whistled.
    Josie flinched.
    She shook so desperately she nearly collapsed. She swayed on her feet.
    “Oh, for pity’s sake.” The woman yanked a chair out from beneath the table and pointed at it. “Sit.”
    In one surprising movement, she uncocked the gun and hung it on its bracket on the wall.
    What?
    Josie couldn’t believe her eyes— she watched the woman carefully for what felt like a very long moment or two, fully expecting her to wield her next weapon— a knife? A pistol? But all she did was approach on silent feet. “Give me the boots.”
    They fell out of Josie’s fingers and plunk-plunked onto the floorboards.
    Immediately, Josie bent to retrieve them. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to—”
    Her head connected sharply with the woman’s as they both grabbed for the boots.
    The woman growled. “Ouch.”
    Josie clutched her head, sat back with great care, sure at any moment the woman would draw back a fist and wallop her a good one. She’d heard several of the young women in the dormitory speak of working in service for wealthy families, and how quickly homeowners lost patience with the clumsy, any damage to their property.
    This woman, their… captor? Hostess? This person wasn’t wealthy, at least didn’t appear so on the surface, but she’d already been most proprietary about her clothing and boots.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
    “Call me ma’am one more time and I’m likely to do somethin’ we’ll both regret.”
    Josie glanced at the homey, clean living space, the open doorway that must lead to the second room in the house, probably a bedroom, but found no answers as to the woman’s name. Adam’s grim expression gave her no clues, either.
    “I’m sorry—”
    “Gertie. The name’s Gertie.”
    Josie didn’t know how to respond, what to say, how to acknowledge the woman had just given them her name. After she’d caught them buying her clothing and boots.
    “Miss Gertie?” Adam drew the woman’s attention. “Would you mind if I set your clean laundry on the sofa?”
    Apparently he had no trouble figuring out what to do with the woman’s name.
    She shrugged. In the lamplight she could’ve been anywhere from thirty to fifty. Lean and hard as the land she lived on, as sun-baked as the soil surrounding her adobe home.
    So very different than the tenements of Lawrence and absolutely nothing like the extravagant wealth of Cannon Mining’s third-generation owner.
    Just how were they going to find their way out of this mess?
    Adam set the clothing down, straightened his dirt-streaked jacket and held up his hands as if Miss Gertie still held him at gunpoint.
    “Mind if I ask you for a drink of water for my wife and me? We’re both powerful thirsty.”
    Water? All Adam could think of was water? Didn’t he have about twenty-seven questions for this odd woman who’d essentially invited them into her home… with a rifle as persuasion?
    To Josie’s surprise, Gertie rose, turned her back to them both— what an unbelievably strange woman this was— and filled two tin cups with water from a wooden bucket on what passed for a sideboard.
    Gertie turned about and set both cups at her table as if she’d just offered the finest tea service imaginable.
    “Do have a seat, Mr. Taylor.” She eyed them both, took in their dirty,