CHAPTER SEVEN

Mae answered the knock on her door to find Vance standing in the hall, a battered leather satchel in her hand and an equally weathered wide-brimmed black hat under her arm. Mae recognized the hat as the kind worn by army men, and the dark blue trousers looked like army, too. Her shirt was gray flannel and her coat a darker gray.

Her black boots showed no trace of dirt on the well-shined leather.

Although not dressed in finery, she had taken more care preparing for her visit than most well-to-do gentlemen bothered with. They often arrived in a state of dishabille or near inebriation, two conditions in which they would never admit to visiting a lady. But then again, Mae and the others were not ladies.

"Hello, Vance," Mae said with pleasure as she swung open the door.

"Frank told me to come on up when I inquired as to your whereabouts," Vance said, resisting the urge to stare before deciding that Mae probably intended her appearance to be noticed. Otherwise, why wear something that flattered the figure so thoroughly while leaving only the most tantalizing of secrets to be discovered? Her deep burgundy dress, almost as fancy as a ball gown with its elaborate black stitching along the scooped neck and hem, was cinched at her narrow waist to accentuate her voluptuous curves. Black silk laces on the bodice seemed barely capable of containing her full breasts. Her shoes were the color of blood and matched the silk that brushed against her ankles. When Vance completed her appreciative survey she raised her eyes to find Mae regarding her with the faintest of satisfied smiles. "I hope you don't mind me arriving unannounced."

"No, I don't mind." Mae let the door close behind them and held out her hand. "May I take your coat?"

Vance hesitated, then shrugged her right arm out of her sleeve and slid the coat off her left shoulder with a practiced motion, catching it in her hand before it could fall. She held it out. "Thank you."

Vance's left sleeve was empty from the region of the elbow down.

Mae watched as Vance deftly rolled the cuff up several times. Then Mae draped the coat over the back of a brocade chair, walked to the sideboard, and poured two neat shots of whiskey. She turned and held one out. "Drink?"

"Please." Vance welcomed the familiar burn as she took stock of her surroundings. The sitting room was well appointed, with a thick rug, several cushioned chairs and a matching settee, tea tables, and a fireplace. An archway led into the adjoining bedroom, and she could just make out a deep blue coverlet on the corner of a poster bed. "If all the rooms are like this, perhaps I should be staying here rather than the hotel."

Mae laughed. "You'd be likely to find yourself with an unwanted visitor in the middle of the night, and the townsfolk would no doubt take up a petition if they heard that the new doctor was sharing rooms with the girls at the saloon." She indicated the settee. "Sit down. I'll get us our food in a minute."

"I have a feeling," Vance said as she settled into the plush seat, stretched out her legs, and crossed her ankles, "that the townspeople don't need too much of an excuse to take up a petition."

"Met some of them already, have you?" Mae topped off their whiskey and sat next to Vance.

"Mmm-hmm. I paid some visits with Caleb today on his rounds. I can't tell you how many people were scandalized."

"I imagine you're used to that. Couldn't have been that much different where you came from."

"Philadelphia," Vance said, answering the unasked question. "And no, it wasn't, although the outrage tends to be more subtly expressed in that social setting."

"There's nothing quite like polite indignation, is there," Mae said with a trace of bitterness.

Vance set down her glass. "You sound like you've experienced it firsthand."

"My mother was a lady's maid in Baltimore. I was raised around the privileged." She waved her hand as if swatting away a troublesome insect. "I could play with their children, even take lessons with them, until we were of a certain age." Her smile was brittle. "When the young men--the sons of the wealthy--began to find me of interest, I was suddenly no longer welcome in the same circles."

"I'm sorry."

"No need to be. Let me get you some dinner." Mae rose abruptly and moved to the sideboard, where she uncovered the platter of cold chicken, bread, and cheese. She lifted the tray. "You must be hungry if you spent the day with..." To her surprise, she felt Vance at her side.

"What is it?"

"Let me take that for you."

Struck by the intensity in Vance's gaze, Mae extended the tray.

"Why, thank you."

Vance gripped the tray on one side and steadied the opposite edge against her chest and her left upper arm. As she carried it back to the sitting area and carefully set it on the low table between the chairs, she said, "I can load and fire a rifle as quickly as I could with two arms. I can also saddle my own horse and do most other things."

"You think I was serving you because you've got one arm?"

Mae gave her a look between exasperation and affection. "I'm used to serving men, who rarely lift a fing--"

"Although I can pass for a man, and have, I'll not have a woman do for me."

"Habit is all I meant," Mae said gently. Seated once more, she rested her chin in the palm of her hand. "I don't imagine you allow anyone to do for you." Her gaze fell on Vance's empty sleeve. "How did it happen?"

"No one ever asks," Vance said curiously, almost to herself, wondering how they had so quickly moved to such sensitive topics. It seemed that when she was with Mae, she revealed far more than she intended. With a conscious attempt to redirect the conversation, she said lightly, "I doubt you'd find the details of any interest and--"

"You should let me judge that." Mae leaned forward and prepared two plates, then handed one to Vance. "I know you were in the army.

Did anyone know you were a woman?"

"How did you know that?"

"Your trousers. They're army issue. I've seen enough army men to know." She nibbled at a bit of cheese. "And you do not look like the kind of woman who buys secondhand clothes. Or steals them."

Vance laughed. "There was a time or two, especially when the campaigns were long and far from home, when I was tempted to...

expropriate a new pair. But you're right, these are mine, and yes, I served in the Union Army for three years."

"All that time, and no one knew."

"Some did. I wasn't the only woman. I know of at least one officer whose wife joined at the same time he did and served in his outfit."

Although she wasn't hungry, Vance ate a little. "The services of every able-bodied person were needed, especially doctors. No one cared what was under my clothes." She smiled grimly. "Or what wasn't."

"What about your family? Surely, they were opposed."

"My father was against it."

Vance's face closed on some hard memory, and Mae knew instinctively she'd gone as far as she could that night to assuage her not-inconsiderable curiosity about the mysterious doctor. "The war didn't touch us that much--not like it did you back East. We knew about it and the soldiers have been straggling through town more and more since it's been over. So many of them--like they have no purpose anymore."

"I imagine you've been fighting your own wars out here."

Thinking of the arduous trek by foot and wagon when food and shelter were always scarce, the deaths from accidents and disease along the way, and the harsh and unforgiving land at the end of the journey, Mae nodded. "True enough. It does feel that way at times."

"How many girls work here?"

"Around about a dozen or so at any time. Some get lucky, find a man who doesn't care what they've been, and they move on. Some hope they still have a home somewhere back East to go to and they leave."

Mae shrugged. "Most stay because they've nowhere else to go."

"And you...look out for them."

"You could say that. I do what I can to see that they don't get hurt." She sighed and gave Vance a weary smile. "We live outside the law, what little of it there is here. No one will take our side against a man, no matter what the offense."

"But you protect them somehow."

With a delicate, well-manicured hand, Mae drew up the hem of her skirt to just above her shapely knee, revealing a small revolver secured with a thin strap above the top of her stocking. "I know how to use this, and I have."

A grin spread across Vance's face. "Fear is a powerful weapon."

"That it is." Mae rose, poured brandy, and returned. She handed one glass to Vance. "What was it like doctoring today?"

Vance considered her strange travels with Caleb to several outlying ranches as well as to the homes of some townspeople. "Funny, the people on the ranches seemed far less disturbed by me. Of course, most of the people we visited in town were ladies." Vance flicked her empty sleeve. "Not only is this shocking, but the rest of me is apparently just as bad."

Mae snorted derisively. "You could be wearing the finest Paris fashions, but as long as you're doing the work of a man, you're going to cause talk. Are you good at it?"

"I don't know," Vance said quietly. "I was. Once." She met Mae's eyes and saw acceptance, before she had even confessed. "I haven't been able to do much of anything since I was shot."

"That's when you lost your arm."

"Yes." Vance cleared her throat, which had gone tight. "My skills are...perhaps somewhat lacking now."