She cleared her throat. “It seems Miss Frieda is delayed, but I doubt she’ll mind if I pour. Shall we?”
She held her breath, although she did need to hurry. But plain and simple, she wanted Bronx Sanderson to join her over a simple cup of tea. No matter Emmett. No matter if red hair caused Bronx Sanderson grief. If he needed his soul saved, Emmett had taught her that, too. And then...her mood blushed with a funny jealousy. If he needed a woman, well, she knew just where to direct him to the healthiest ones. Mollie Price ran a decent house, kept her girls clean and healthy, and a few of them attended Saturday Vespers before a night of work...
Bronx Sanderson offered Lila his arm, and she led him to a big threadbare chair the color of spring mud.
He chuckled a bit as she poured. “I admit, I’m not much the man for tea. But it’s a bit early in the afternoon for a rumhole. My train mate mentioned Leadville’s one-hundred-twenty saloons.”
Lila hid a grimace. Emmett had never preached against potent potables because Jesus Himself had made wine—for His first miracle, no less, but she’d seen men in unpleasant stages of stupor and hoped this fine specimen wasn’t one of them.
“Miss Frieda runs a good house,” she said without thinking. “Warm and clean. Good food, too. No liquor. A moral house.” Lila threw in the last term, and shouldn’t have. It meant...activities of unmarried people were prohibited inside. The thought of Bronx Sanderson needing a woman stuck jealousy in her head. An unreasonable jealousy, for he’d never want her, an incomplete, incapable woman. Then, embarrassment broiled her cheeks. She was not impugning his integrity, but old habits were hard to break. Leadville had a blasphemous culture, and Emmett had reminded her every day of her true role.
Bronx settled across from her in a frumpy brown wingchair, rested his right leg across his left knee. “I heard of Miss Frieda’s good reputation from the very same seatmate on the Denver and Rio Grande. He directed me here. He’s lived in Leadville a long time.” He grinned, sly and slow. “And knows all the available accommodations.”
Heat brushed her. “Oh, indeed. Mr. Asa Tibbett. He’s a good man, and a good friend. But, Mr. Sanderson, I meant no insult. I fear my husband’s sermonizing has rubbed off on me.”
“A preacher man, I take it?”
“Yes.” The knife trembled as she sliced the cake, and the memories cut through her heart.
“You his disciple?”
She met his dark-blue gaze. ”Yes. I guess. We were newly married when he decided to missionize the lost souls of the Wild West.” She sighed and his eyebrows rose. Emmett had thought the lawless wilderness might relax her citified propriety. “We’d neither of us seen mountains, so we found ourselves in Leadville.” Memories hurt, but she plunged on. “One finds anybody and everybody hereabouts needing the Good News. From calloused miners to ragged grubstakers to the—uh, ladies of State Street. Even the town’s elite can lose their way. But Emmett’s done good sermons from both angles.” And he had, truth to tell. He’d not missed his calling as a preacher. “Warnings against the foibles of decadence, as well as lessons of non-judgment and forgiveness.”
“He must do a lot of preaching around here then.” Bronx Sanderson chuckled, low and deep. Then he quieted. “He won’t be minding, me sharing a meal with you?”
Now was the time. “He won’t mind. He can’t, not anymore. And yes, he did do a lot of preaching before...before he passed away.”
Shock stopped Bronx’s hand above his cup like a tintype had captured the moment. His mouth turned a round O beneath his mustache. “I am so sorry, Miz Brewster. Please, uh, forgive my impertinence. What a heartrending loss.”
She had no choice but to reach her hand to his, in comfort of his mortification, was all. But her flesh sparked, anyway. “Your condolences are very kind, but I am healing. It’s been two years.”
There. She’d said it, but it didn’t matter. Emmett, the vow, all they’d had and hadn’t, hung around her like a cloud nobody else could see. Guilt clamped her right now.
“I reckon Emmett was some lucky man, then.” Bronx re-crossed his legs.
Lila wanted to preen because Bronx’s words sounded like a compliment, but she twisted her wedding ring. She doubted Emmett would agree. Bronx might be a handsome man stirring her heart, but she was a married woman who had failed her husband. Instead, she forced herself to remember the beginning. The sparks, the head-over-heels. How Emmett had stolen her breath his very first sermon in the little log Hanover Chapel.
“Oh, I was the lucky one. So humbled to be chosen his helpmeet.” She swallowed the last word because she’d said it a thousand times to her reluctant parents. “He had truly been crowned by God.”