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undergarments. Mr. Martin had noticed that immediately when she had worn one on the train, but Peter seemed somehow oblivious to the makeup of women's attire. He rested blissfully at ease, staring up at the sky and enjoying his meal. She wanted to pour the pitcher of lemonade over him.
    "What is it you do all day at the store?" She tried the soft, seductive voice she had tried on Mr. Martin, hoping Peter wouldn't think the question too unfeminine if she asked it properly. To add to the illusion, she leaned over and tickled him with a piece of grass.
    "Work." He grabbed her hand and kissed it, robbing her of the grass at the same time. "What do you do all day?"
    Georgina wanted to groan, but she obediently replied, "Play. Will you tell me about your work if I don't tell you about my play?"
    Peter grinned, and the shock of it nearly mwade her jump out of her skin. He looked just like Mr. Martin when he did that. Of course, he didn't really look like Pecos. The cowboy's hair was light and straight and his face was much longer and leaner with that unfortunate bump in his nose, but there was just something...
    She shook her head and willed him to make a sensible reply.
    "I'm a glorified handyman," Peter admitted. "I fix whatever needs fixing."
    That didn't sound very likely. Peter was always elegantly dressed in tailored coats and silk cravats. Georgina frowned. "You mean you go around with hammer and nails and pound boards all day?"
    Peter laughed and reached for another chicken leg. "Not that kind of fixing. If one of the customers takes a liking to something but tries to go out without paying, I'm the one they call. The other day we had a nosy journalist asking questions of our shop clerks, and one of the managers asked me to remove him. That's the kind of thing I do."
    Nosy journalist. Georgina's eyes lit up. What could Pecos be up to now? She spread jam on a roll and handed it to Peter. "What kind of questions would a journalist ask a shop clerk? I shouldn't think they'd have much to say."
    "He's just drumming up a story, I imagine. There's always someone willing to complain, and newspapers will jump on their complaint just to put something on the front page. I escorted him out of the building."
    "You didn't! How awful. Did you find out who was complaining or what they were complaining about?"
    Talking about business was what Peter did best, and he had no objection to an eager audience. Swallowing the last bite of roll, he shrugged. "Hours mostly. And we won't let them sit down when they're on the job. I had to let one of our best workers go, though, because of the incident. She was telling the journalist how one of the new men got promoted to management over her when she had been doing the same work he does for years, without the pay he makes. She should know better. The man has a family to raise. Of course we pay him better. And you can't put a woman in management. No one would listen to her. She was a good worker. It's a shame she got to thinking so much of herself."
    Peter's smug logic peeled away the last vestige of her patience. This time the temptation was too strong. The lemonade pitcher was down to the dregs, but it made a satisfyingly sticky trickle over Peter's dark curls when Georgina tilted it over his head.
    Startled, he shouted and leapt to his feet, scrubbing at his hair, staring at her as if she were crazed. Georgina merely grabbed her skirts and stalked off, leaving him to think what he would.
    She wanted to scream at him, "What makes you think men are so much better? Don't women have families, too? Shouldn't they be paid for the work they do?" But it was worse than useless, she knew. She couldn't change the opinion of half the populace by screaming at Peter.
    But a newspaper could.
    As Georgina marched out of Peter's reach, a whole new horizon spread out before her. Her dream of love and romance fell by the wayside as she imagined the frontpage story she could write. At last, she had a real goal to work