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her.
    â€œEmily, if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to get the notion you want me to kiss you.”
    â€œI don’t.”
    â€œThen stop staring at my mouth.”
    â€œWhat would you like me to stare at, Travis?”
    â€œThe water,” he snapped. “Stare at the water. You sure you don’t want me to kiss you?”
    The conversation was doing strange things to her. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She knew she was daring the devil, but she couldn’t make herself look away from him. She wasn’t at all interested in staring at the water; she wanted to continue to stare at him. What was the matter with her?
    â€œIt probably wouldn’t be proper for you to kiss me. I’m going to be married soon.”
    â€œYou have no business marrying a stranger, Emily.”
    â€œWhy do you care what I do?”
    He didn’t have a ready answer for the question. “I get bothered when someone does something I consider stupid.”
    â€œAre you calling me stupid?”
    â€œIf the hat fits . . .”

Five

    N either one of them said another word until they reached Billings’s way station. Henry came outside the rectangular log cabin to meet them. He was a middle-aged man, as bald as a rock, and just about as talkative. He greeted Emily—at least she thought he did—but he mumbled so, she couldn’t make out a word he said. He wouldn’t look at her either. He motioned her to follow him inside and showed her where she would sleep by pointing toward a closed door.
    The main room had bunk beds lined against every wall. A long wooden table with benches on either side was in the center near a potbellied stove.
    Travis acted as though he and Henry were good friends. During supper, he filled him in on all the latest news. Emily didn’t say a word. She sat close to Travis’s side at the table and tried to eat the foul-smelling soup she’d been offered. She couldn’t get any of it down though, and since the proprietor wasn’t paying any attention to her, she ate the brown bread and goat’s milk instead and left the soup alone.
    She excused herself as soon as she finished, but when she reached the door to her bedroom, she turned back to Travis.
    â€œWill we reach Golden Crest tomorrow?”
    He shook his head. “No, the day after,” he said. “We’ll stay with John and Millie Perkins tomorrow night. They rent out rooms in their home.”
    She told both men good night then and went to bed. Travis didn’t see her again until she came outside the following morning with her satchel in her hands. She was wearing a pink dress with a matching sweater. The color suited her, and damn, but she was getting prettier and prettier.
    He wanted to kiss her. He frowned instead and made a silent vow not to get near her today. He would keep the talk impersonal, no matter how much she provoked him.
    The day’s journey turned out to be extremely pleasant. Emily obviously didn’t want to argue either, so the topics they ended up discussing were of a philosophical nature.
    She confessed to being a voracious reader. He suggested she read The Republic. “It’s all about justice,” he explained. “I think you’ll like it. I did. Mama Rose gave me a leather-bound copy along with a journal, and they’re my most prized possessions.”
    â€œWhy did she give you a journal?”
    â€œShe told me it was for me to fill with my accounts of all the cases I defend. She said that when I’m ready to retire, she wants me to be able to hold The Republic in one hand and the journal of my experiences in the other. It’s her hope that the two will balance.”
    â€œLike the scales of justice,” Emily whispered, impressed by the wisdom of Travis’s mother.
    She began to question him about Plato’s work, and they debated justice and the law well into the afternoon. He