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“No
trousers, Miss Wilkes. Our heroine is a lady. She wears skirts and
dresses.” He gave Charlie a dirty look.
    Charlie grinned, as guileless as the new
dawn. Amy, watching them both, wondered if Charlie had tried to
upset her on purpose because she’d been behaving a teensy bit
stuffy. She was too relieved about the trousers to ask him. She was
so relieved, in fact, that she very nearly fainted from her sudden
exhalation of breath.
    Tomorrow, she vowed, she wouldn’t lace her
corset so tightly. This desert weather was less agreeable than the
weather in Pasadena. Or perhaps she was feeling another effect from
her attempts to appear cosmopolitan and fashionable.
    At the moment, Amy didn’t feel at all modish
or urbane. In fact, she wished she were back at the Orange Rest
Health Spa, drinking her uncle’s orange juice, and doing something
she understood.
    A gong sounded in the distance, and Martin
turned quickly. As if seizing an opportunity to extricate the three
of them from a ticklish situation, he said, “There’s the luncheon
bell, Miss Wilkes. Please allow Mr. Fox and me to escort you to the
chow tent.”
    “Thank you,” she murmured. “I believe I’ll
freshen up first. I’ll be along in a minute. You two go on ahead.”
She didn’t want to try walking alongside Charlie Fox before she’d
loosened her stays. She’d die of humiliation right here in the
wilds of El Monte if she fainted in front of him.
    “Hell’s bells, ma’am,” Charlie said with a
big grin. “You already look as fresh as a damned daisy.”
    Amy gaped up at him for a moment, appalled.
Whatever had she gotten herself into here? She feared for her
sanity. Not to mention any claim she’d ever had to propriety.
    * * *
    Charlie strolled along next to Martin Tafft,
whistling under his breath. He wondered if he’d overdone the cowboy
routine with Miss Wilkes, and pondered whether to be ashamed of
himself of not. His ma would have whupped him upside the head if
she’d heard him cuss in front of a lady. Heck, any one of his
brothers would have done the same thing if his ma hadn’t been
handy.
    But, ding-bust-it, she’d been so unfriendly
and cold, and she was so danged pretty, and those huge blue eyes of
hers had opened so wide, and he’d wanted to kiss her so badly, and
she’d irked him so much with her haughty manners, that his funny
bone had taken over and he’d let her have it.
    She’d probably never speak to him again.
Fudge. Charlie kicked a clump of creosote, and the pungent, oily
smell of the shrub kissed his nostrils, reminding him or Arizona,
soothing her nerves a trace.
    Martin cleared his throat. Charlie looked
down at him and realized the shorter man was having to hotfoot it
to keep up with Charlie’s long, country-bred stride. He slowed down
and smiled. He liked Martin Tafft, who seemed like a pleasant,
down-to-earth sort of fellow, even if he did wear some mighty fancy
city duds.
    Today Martin sported gray plus fours and a
Norfolk jacket with a polka-dotted four-in-hand tie and a tweed
cap. Charlie supposed the movie man’s sporty attire made Charlie’s
own denim trousers, plaid shirt, blue bandanna, sweat-stained
Stetson hat, and faded sack jacket appear mighty shabby. Although
Charlie had never cared much about clothes, today he wished he’d
visited a tailor in town before he’d hopped that train to
California.
    “Um, you might want to slow down on the
cussing a little, Charlie,” Martin suggested. His voice was totally
devoid of censure, and Charlie was impressed. He’d anticipated a
lecture. He knew he deserved one. “I think Miss Wilkes has lived a
pretty sheltered life.” With a chuckle, Martin added, “I think you
shocked her.”
    “That so?” As much as Charlie didn’t want to
disappoint Martin, who’d given him this chance, still less did he
want Miss Wilkes to think she’d cowed him into complying with her
personal notion of propriety.
    “Yes, I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of
Pasadena,