Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [113]
“He doubled up soon as the harvest was in. Said he didn’t wanna go through another winter without a gal to snuggle up to.”
Luke smiled. “Well, I can appreciate that.”
“I can’t. I don’t want my haunches spurred by no drip-nose of a gal.”
“I imagine you’ll change your mind one of these days.”
“I don’t know. They seem like an awful lot o’ trouble to me. Besides, you ain’t doubled up and yer lots older than me.” Duane looked up from the lid he was slicing. “Or are you thinkin’ on it now that you got yer eye on our hello girl?”
The last impression Luke wanted to give was one which placed any more importance on Georgie than he already had. “I’m not what you’d call the marrying type.”
Tension eased from Duane’s shoulders. “Me neither.”
After finishing the last jar, they bent pieces of thin wire into J-shapes, turned them upside down, and secured one to each jar. From the tip of the wire, Duane hung a piece of toasted cheese. Though Luke recognized immediately how the trap would work, he allowed the boy to demonstrate.
With eyes alight, Duane cycled his fingers as if they were the mouse. “It’ll reach for the bait, see, and fall right through them cuts we made in the paper. Quick as a wink, the paper will flap back into place and wait fer the next mouse to come along.”
Luke watched the boy with a pang of grief. He wasn’t a bad sort and hadn’t done any killing that he knew of, but was simply bored and without direction. From what Luke could tell, his father didn’t interact with him much. He went through the same routine every day of opening the feed store, running the feed store, closing the feed store, then going home. He never kept up with Duane’s comings and goings. Never asked what he did with his time. Never praised, nor criticized.
It was another reason Luke hated going undercover. Under normal circumstances, he went in, made his arrests, and dropped the men off at jail. They had names, of course, and sometimes even faces, but Luke didn’t know them. They were outlaws and scoundrels, not men with parents, wives, children, and a sense of humor.
Duane continued to speak, animated in his excitement over the simple task of catching a few rodents. Luke wanted to interrupt him, talk to him about what he was doing, the direction he was taking, the different choices he had available to him. But his assignment was to become one of them and to cross enemy lines. If he tried to reform Duane or any of the rest of them, he’d never find Frank Comer, much less stop any train robberies.
The constraints left him frustrated and unsettled.
Georgie pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into Ottfried’s Millinery. In the year she’d lived in Brenham, she’d only been inside the shop once. She’d taken one sweeping glance at his inventory, then promptly turned around and left. This time, however, she was determined to stay.
The thick door closed behind her, shutting off sounds from the street. Not another soul was in the room. Lush carpets covered the wooden floor and cushioned her feet. Light-colored walls held drawers with shiny brass knobs, shelves with charming displays, and glass-fronted cabinets packed with merchandise.
Ottfried swept through a curtain in the back, then pulled up short. His face flushed. His breathing grew labored.
“I know you’re about to close for the day,” Georgie said, taking a tentative step forward, “but I saw your display window and couldn’t help but come in.”
That wasn’t exactly true. She had, of course, seen the window display just now. It held a variety of beautifully decorated hats—not a bird part in sight. But she’d come today because the women of town had told her about it.
“He’s completely redone his stock,” Mrs. Patrick had said. “Instead of every hat having a bird part on it, none of them do.”
Georgie had touched the receiver at her ear, ensuring she’d heard correctly. “None? Not a single one?”
“None,” Mrs. Patrick confirmed. “If a woman wants a bird part on her hat, she has to put in a special request.”
“But if he has no bird parts, how will he fill the request?”
“He still has the