The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [56]
O’Hara watched her with grudging admiration. She had spirit and she had guts and he liked that. She was cleaning the saloon as he lighted his first cigar of the day, and he grinned at her. “You’re the sort they needed on the covered wagons, me girl,” he told her as he watched her scatter the fresh sawdust over the shining clean floor. “You’re pioneer stock.”
Leaning on her broom, Missie watched as he drew in the smoke luxuriously. “That cigar cost one quarter of my night’s wages,” she told him. “Don’t you think it’s about time I had a raise?”
She laughed as he choked on the cigar, his big-boned Irish face reddening as he thumped his chest with a fist the size of a football. “B’jaysus, girl, you almost sent me out o’ here feet first, saying things like that,” he cried indignantly.
“Two dollars,” she said, folding her arms belligerently, “and you know I’m worth it.”
They glared at each other across the mahogany counter like boxers sparring in the ring and his green eyes twinkled suddenly. Running his hands through his halo of curly red hair, he said, “You’ve beat me, girl. Two dollars a night it is—but only because you’re worth it.”
Missie stamped her foot angrily. “Then damn it, why didn’t you offer me it instead of making me ask?”
He leaned on the counter grinning. “Maybe it’s because I like to see you get angry. Maybe it’s because I wanted to see what the real Missie O’Bryan was like, instead of the tired girl who does her job and says little and never smiles. You know that today is the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh?”
“That’s because I don’t have too much to laugh about,” she replied shortly.
O’Hara drew on his cigar, watching as she picked up her broom and began to spread the sawdust evenly across the floor. “I’ve seen you on the street with the little girl,” he said, glancing at her ringless left hand, “but there’s no man around?”
“Her father is dead,” she said, not looking at him.
He nodded. “’Tis a sad thing for a child to be without a fayther, and even harder on a woman left to bring her up alone.”
Missie’s head flew up and she looked at him, startled. “Oh, but … but …” she said, and then stopped herself quickly. Of course, everyone on Rivington Street thought she was Azaylee’s mother.
That night there was two dollars in her pocket instead of one, and O’Hara himself filled a plate with boiled beef, cabbage, and potatoes and made sure she sat down for fifteen minutes to eat it. Faced with the huge plate of food, Missie suddenly lost her hunger, and she felt O’Hara’s sharp green eyes on her as she put it into a basin to take home for Sofia and Azaylee.
After that, work at the saloon seemed to get a little easier, and sometimes O’Hara asked her to help at lunch-times as well. He looked out for her, made sure the men didn’t bother her, and he made sure she ate. His broad, handsome face always broke into a smile when he saw her and he paid her promptly. There were even a few precious dollars saved now, alongside the worthless jewels in the cardboard valise under the brass bed.
A few weeks later as she was carrying a heavy tray filled with Irish whiskey to a table of brawny shirt-sleeved men, sweating like pigs from the heat and the drink, Azaylee suddenly hurtled through the swing doors with Viktor at her heels. “Missie, oh, Missie,” she screamed as everyone’s eyes focused on her. “Come quickly! Grandmother—”
After thrusting the tray at the nearest man, Missie grabbed her urgently by the shoulders. “What’s wrong? What has happened to Sofia?”
The child’s blue eyes swam with tears. “She was standing by the stove stirring the pot. Then she cried out. She fell down, Missie. I couldn’t wake her.”
The streets were crowded with people spilling from their tenements in an attempt to catch a breath of cooler evening air, but Missie pushed them ferociously out of her way, dragging the child by the hand as they ran back home, the dog at