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made me seem more unsettled than I was. Honestly, I'd been flirted with before—I'd been in love, I'd been kissed. And, I reminded myself wryly, I had kissed a total stranger in front of all Baltimore. But no one had ever spoken to me with that kind of—I didn't even know what to name it! Lust? Deliberation?
    When Emerson climbed up beside me, I turned on him and demanded, "Why is the clerk in a cage, in truth?"
    "To keep people from stealing the mail." He stared, as if thinking better of asking, but ask he did. "Why?"
    "Sheer curiosity."
    Emerson laughed, bafflement clear in the slope of his brows. But he said nothing else; he simply urged Epona in the right direction. Just as quickly as we'd come to West Glory, we'd exited, and I was glad to leave it behind.
    ***
    A strange, earthen lump greeted us three miles northeast.
    "What is that?" I asked, tipping my head slightly at what seemed to be a heap of mud and straw in the middle of the lot.
    "Home, I reckon." When I stared at him, he clarified. "It's a soddy."
    A soddy—a sod house. It looked dark and dank, as if the floor of a stable had risen up and cobbled itself into the vague shape of a building. My stomach clenched.
    Compared with the soaring three stories of the row house at home, this soddy was terrifying. But I wouldn't be missish about it.
    White chickens ran around it, chased by a little girl in a green pinafore. I guessed that must be my baby cousin Louella. Before I could call to her, she fled into grasses so high I couldn't make out the shape of her bonnet.
    While I considered my new home, Emerson hopped down, his stride swift as he rounded the back of the wagon. Since he seemed so completely determined to be a gentleman today, I felt it my God-given duty to thwart him.
    Despite his speed, I managed to let myself down before he arrived, and I fixed him with a sweet smile. He stood too close, and I tipped my head all the way back to look up at him.
    Innocently, I said, "You're out of breath, Mr. Birch."
    Reaching past me, he gathered my things and cut me a sharp look. "Pleased with yourself?"
    "I am. Thank you for asking," I replied, then jumped when a woman's voice cut between us.
    "Get your hands off my niece."
    The crack of a shotgun being racked punctuated the order, and Emerson all but leapt away from me. Two things struck me when I turned toward my Aunt Birdie. The first, uneasiness that she raised a gun so quickly, the second, that she too was hardly older than I.
    Though I knew Mama was Birdie's elder by fifteen years, I supposed I'd never considered what that meant. The tintype of her in our parlor was young and fresh-faced. Her pale hair coiled like a crown on her head, and the clarity of her eyes was apparent, even without color to define them.
    She was still that girl exactly—aside from the calico replacing her serge, and the shotgun in her hands in place of a fan. I put my hands out and approached her, praying there'd be no scent of black powder when I came close. "He did me a kindness, Aunt Birdie. The stage was robbed, and he..."
    Looking past me, Birdie gestured for Emerson to get back in his wagon. "Go on. I don't need you sniffing around here."
    "He's not, he's—"
    "Going, ma'am. Good luck to you, Miss Stewart." Emerson tipped his weatherbeaten hat at the two of us, then climbed back into the wagon. His voice was flat as slate, and he didn't meet my eyes. Bitter animosity weighed the air.
    Birdie's brow smoothed, but she didn't lower the gun.
    "Wait," I said. The wind kicked up, a hot breath that stirred the earth around us. A haze rose with it as I hurtled toward the buckboard. "Wait! My things!"
    Reining Epona, Emerson dropped the sorry bundle of my laundry into my arms, then drove away in an ashen gout of dust. Whatever had passed between him and Birdie did more than baffle me; it angered me.
    I could concede that Emerson did have a touch of arrogance to him, but he had, in fact, rescued me on the road. Given me a place to sleep for