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hysterical remarks about immigrants that your parents might not have been born in this country. It’s a telling sign when one—oh, how shall I put this?—when the lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
    He narrowed his glimmering blue eyes at her, his nostrils over that gigantic mustache twitching.
    Ah, she knew she’d found her mark and proceeded to annihilate. God save her and her blabbering mouth that always, always got her into trouble.
    “Or was it you who wasn’t born here?”
    Under his long black sideburns, his jaw line kicked. “I was born in America, raised in America, as American as they get.”
    Meredith suddenly got bored with the conversation and rolled her eyes, earning her the amazing sight of Mr. Bruisner’s face turning red.
    “You can be sure I’ll tell my employer, Mr. Cooper, president of the Butte Mining Company, about this. About all of this. He’d heard of the Casper coal here and was going to make a very lucrative offer for the land. But I’m sure he won’t touch the place now.” He pointedly looked at Laura then. “It’s dirty.”
    He knew he’d found her mark and smirked at Meredith, somehow conscious that insulting Laura would hurt worse than anything he might throw at her.
    Meredith slapped him across his freshly shaven cheek with the thick sideburn. The impact hurt so much more than anything she could have imagined. But she wouldn’t cradle her wrist as she wanted to. She wouldn’t cry out in pain.
    She glared at Mr. Bruisner as he straightened, touching his flaming red cheek. He flew at her, and, God, how she hated it, but she flinched, readying for his retaliation. But he just laughed. Opening her eyes, Meredith almost screamed seeing him inches from her face. His smile was close to maniacal, and his blue eyes were wild, raking over her face.
    Slowly he stood upright, towering over her.
    “Good day, miss.”
    He did leave. Nobody breathed for perhaps a full minute afterwards. Finally, Laura embraced Meredith. Hard.
    “Silly, girl. What do you think you were doing?” she whispered into Meredith’s ear.
    “He’s an ass.” Meredith’s voice shook, and she hated that obvious sign of her fear and intimidation. “No one should talk to you like that.”
    Laura laughed quietly, then pulled away, still holding Meredith’s arms. “No one should ever talk that way, honey. But they do. They do.” She pulled Meredith’s left wrist close, inspecting it. Laura glanced over Meredith’s shoulder to Mr. Wan and Chen. “Mr. Wan, could you please fetch some ice?”
    “Yes, yes. I’ll get ice for our little pugilist.”
    He and Chen left through the kitchen’s swinging door.
    Before she could censor herself, Meredith asked, “Why were you so polite? He’s a jackass.”
    Laura softly giggled again. But soon enough her smile slid off. Seriousness composed her beautiful face. “Did I tell you I was born a slave, honey?”
    Meredith’s heart stuttered and caved in with the knowledge. She shook her head.
    “Oh, I wanted revenge and vengeance for all the things done wrong to me.” Laura glanced back down at Meredith’s swelling wrist. “I was so angry for so long. When I met Mr. Casper, I was angry. Almost too angry to see him. But what I would have missed if I had. We had our son, lovely boy he was. And I was real angry when he died. I let myself be angry for a long time after that. But then...” She glanced back up at Meredith, “I would have missed out on you, pretty miss that you are, always trying to fill my belly with your bread.”
    “They’re your recipes.” Meredith smiled, although tears threatened to come.
    “But you make it better than I.”
    “No, I d—”
    “Yes, you do. Now hush. Let me tell you, there is a time to be angry, and there is a time to let it go. There is a time to let jackasses go about their merry ways being jackasses. Please don’t tell Mr. Casper I said that.”
    Meredith laughed. “Why? He’d agree.”
    “Oh, I know, but he gets