Rebecca Hagan Lee by A Wanted Man Page A

shoulders and neck, and unlike the other girls, this one had made use of the feather pillow, curving her left arm around it and hugging it to her face. She seemed different somehow, maybe taller than he remembered, despite the fact that she was curled into a tight ball in the center of the bed. Will stared at the covers. Not just taller. Taller and curvier. He frowned, amazed at the ability of a simple Chinese tunic and a pair of cotton trousers to hide a woman’s assets. And yet, he’d seen her uncovered at the auction. He’d seen all of them uncovered at the auction, and he didn’t remember feminine curves on any of them. Will closed his eyes, then opened them once again. Maybe he was just recalling the way the younger girls had looked. If he remembered correctly, Ah So was about fifteen. She had to be a bit curvier than her sisters and cousins, who had no curves at all.
    Leaving Ah So’s room, Will moved across the hall to the other bedrooms. These rooms had been assigned to Ah Woo, Ah Fook, and Ah Lo, respectively. He knocked softly, then pushed the first door open, unsure of what he would find.
    Ah Lo, the eldest of the seven at seventeen, sat up in bed as he opened the door.
    “Shh.” Will put a finger to his lips, then quietly retreated, closing the door behind him. In the room next door, Ah Fook was sound asleep alone in her bed. Ah Woo’s bedroom was empty. The mystery was solved. It seemed Ah Woo had tiptoed across the hall to join the Ling sisters. She was sleeping in Ling Yee’s bed.
    With the girls all safe and tucked into bed, Will gave serious thought to returning to his, but, afraid of what his dreams might bring, he turned and headed downstairs.
    He stopped briefly at the bar for a bottle of the hair of the dog that had bitten him after he and Jack had gotten the girls settled and into bed last night, then headed to the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on to boil.
    Entering the kitchen, Will grabbed the coffeepot from its customary place on the stove. He primed the kitchen pump and, after checking to make sure Jack had measured the coffee and crushed an eggshell into it to keep the coffee grounds from floating to the surface, filled the pot with water. He set the pot on a rear burner, stirred the banked coals to life inside the stove, and added more coals from the scuttle to the firebox. His stomach rumbled, and Will checked the warming oven on the range for biscuits or bread and found it empty. The soup and the chicken and vegetables and rice from supper were also gone, the pots and pans left beside the sink. Glancing at the regulator clock on the wall, he saw that it was still too early to send to Ming’s or one of the other kitchens along the street for something to eat, but the bakeries on Fillmore Street should be open for business in a half an hour, and the milkman would soon be making his rounds through the neighborhood.
    His chore done, Will turned to pull a chair out from the kitchen table and discovered a dirty bowl, a spoon, a pair of wooden chopsticks, and an empty bar glass on the table. Seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d worked up an appetite last night. Jack had polished off the last of the soup and chicken and rice and vegetables. Grabbing a clean mug from the overhead cabinet beside the sink, Will shoved the dirty dishes aside, pulled the half-empty whiskey bottle from his bathrobe pocket, sat down at the table, and waited for the coffee to boil.
    Jack exited his rooms some ten minutes later and joined Will in the kitchen. “You’re up early this morning. Coffee smells good. Is it ready yet?”
    Will stood up as his second in command entered, then walked to the stove, grabbed a towel, and hefted the coffeepot. “You’re just in time.”
    Jack snagged a mug from the cabinet and set it on the table along with the sugar bowl. “Apparently not.”
    Will frowned as he filled the mugs with the steaming brew. “Come again?”
    Jack sat down at the table across from Will and nodded