"Your skills," Mae rejoined, both amused and adamant, "have got to be far better than most anyone else's in the territory. Doc Melbourne is about the only real doctor out here." She leaned forward, displaying an alluring amount of cleavage, and tapped a delicate finger on Vance's thigh. "So don't let anyone in town or otherwise make you feel like you shouldn't be doing what you know how to do."

Vance registered the subtle sway of Mae's breasts but it was the hand on her leg that shocked her, the touch so foreign she barely recognized it. The only people in memory who had touched her had been those changing her bandages. They had come once a day, bringing unspeakable pain through no fault of their own. She saw the endless rows of beds, standing open like graves, heard the plaintive cries of the dying, felt the pathos seep into her bones. She shivered and a trickle of cold sweat ran down her neck.

Mae moved closer still, dabbed the sweat from Vance's throat with a white lace handkerchief she withdrew from her bodice, and murmured, "You're not there now, wherever it is."

"It's inside me," Vance gasped, not even meaning to speak.

"Well then, we'll just have to see about getting it out." She sat back and spoke in a normal tone, knowing that the only way to chase away the terror was to get on with the living. "One of my girls is pregnant."

Vance blinked and narrowed her eyes. The room came into sharp focus. She knew that Mae had witnessed her lapse, but it didn't embarrass or humiliate her the way it usually did. Mae regarded her with no hint of pity or morbid interest. She drew a breath and felt the nightmare release her. "Pregnant?" At Mae's nod, she went on, "How old is the girl?"

"Fourteen or so. She doesn't rightly know. Her parents died from typhoid while traveling overland and the wagon master brought her this far and left her on her own." Mae shook her head. "I suppose he should be given credit for that. She would have brought a fair price in one of the mining camps."

"Christ." Vance stood and paced, stopping before crossing the invisible border into Mae's boudoir. "How far along?"

"I'm guessing seven months. She's only been here five. Someone got at her before she arrived." Mae stiffened, her smooth delicate features hardening. "There's others here as young as her, younger. But when I saw she was in that way, I kept the men away from her."

"How does she support herself?"

"I see that she's fed and has a room."

"You could wear yourself out trying to save them all, I imagine,"

Vance said softly from across the room.

"I imagine you would know," Mae murmured, her gaze traveling gently over Vance's pale face.

v "How anyone ever took her for a man, I'll never know," Annie said a touch breathlessly. "She has the most beautiful eyes, so kind."

"Put her in a uniform with a couple of layers of long johns underneath," Sissy said, "smudge a little dirt on her face to cover up that lily-white skin, and who's to say she wasn't what she claimed."

Mae listened to the idle chatter with half a mind. She stood huddled with a few others against the railing on the second floor, looking down through a cloud of cigar smoke into the saloon hall below. It was packed with men whose voices converged to create a blanket of sound that nearly drowned out all other conversation.

"People see what they expect to see," Mae murmured.

"She's a darn sight easier to look at than Doc Melbourne," Sissy acknowledged grudgingly. "I'd rather have her poking at me than him."

"Doc Melbourne's always been a gentleman," Annie replied primly.

"That's because you've got a soft spot for him," Sissy griped.

"So what if I do? I saw you giving Vance a smile or two."

Mae bristled inwardly at the gossip that ordinarily she wouldn't pay any mind to. Hearing the other women discuss Vance so casually made her irrationally annoyed, even though she understood their interest. Vance was not just a newcomer, which always garnered curiosity for a few days, she was a woman doing something these young girls had never even imagined possible. On top of that, she was intriguing--in her independence and her differentness. Of course they were going to talk about her. Even flirt with her a little bit. Seduction was their primary means of survival, and it came as naturally to them as it did to Mae. Vance, however, had seemed to be immune to even the most flagrant flirtations. Still, the way Sissy had flaunted her youthful attributes had rankled.

At Vance's request, Mae had accompanied her while she made her initial examinations of all the girls, questioning them gently about past pregnancies or female troubles they might have had, asking if they knew how to take care of themselves and prevent disease and impregnation.

Vance had been thorough and gentle and kind. She had neither judged nor attempted to change what they were. She had merely given them her attention and her caring. It was a wonder they all didn't fall in love with her, whether they were of a mind to lie with a woman or not.

"And so what if I did give her a little look." Sissy's voice interrupted Mae's musings. "You think men are the only ones who enjoy our company? You could do worse than having the town doctor take a shine to you. It might keep the cowboys off you for a while."

Startled, Annie looked at Mae. "You mean sometimes women might come to a place like this?"

"It's not unheard of," Mae snapped, giving Sissy a withering glance. "But just because a woman wears pants doesn't mean she likes to sleep with her own kind. Don't go jumping to conclusions."

"I'm not about to jump on anything," Sissy said with a toss of her head and a satisfied smile. "But I won't be jumping out of the way either if she should take an urge to climb aboard."

"I wouldn't be counting on that," Mae said. Vance had given no indication she was interested in lying with anyone, man or woman, but Mae had a feeling that might be because that part of her was buried under the pain and misery she'd suffered. Looking at the hungry gleam in Sissy's eye and the enchanted one in Annie's, she had no doubt there would be willing partners if it was women she wanted for comfort. She didn't want to think about to whom Vance would turn when her feelings came back to life.

"There's work to be done if we want to earn our keep," Mae said.

"Let's get to it."

v Vance stood in a pack of men at the far end of the bar, nursing a whiskey that she didn't really want. It was the only company she was used to, however, and after leaving Mae, she hadn't wanted to go back to her room at the hotel. The little bit of her past she'd shared with Mae during dinner had opened a tiny chink in the wall that she had built to keep the pain at bay, but oddly, it wasn't pain that had surfaced through the hole in her defenses. It was longing. A restless sense of yearning for something she couldn't name. Whatever it was, it pulled at her belly, dragged at her heart, and she hadn't wanted to lie alone in the dark with it.

She sipped at her whiskey and saw Mae come down the stairs with some of the girls. Although Mae was only half a dozen years older than the oldest among them, she looked like a woman in full bloom and not a girl. Vance watched Mae move through the crowd, bestowing a touch or a smile on some lucky man or other. Watching her produced an odd combination of pleasure and pain, neither of which Vance could explain. She turned her back to the room and drained her whiskey, then signaled for another.


CHAPTER EIGHT

Mae dabbed scent behind each ear and restoppered the small, pale green glass bottle. Just as she set it down on her dressing table, a knock sounded at the door. At four in the afternoon it was likely to be one of the girls. Frank knew better than to let anyone else upstairs before dark. There were a few wealthy gentlemen who had private arrangements for her time, and she no longer needed to bed a saddle tramp to secure her next meal. She was not expecting one of her special customers; they would be far too cautious to venture to her room during daylight, no matter how dire their circumstances. Still clad in only a camisole beneath her dressing gown--a blue and red China silk robe that had been a present from one of her admirers who had traveled to San Francisco--she opened her door expecting to find Annie or one of the other younger girls. They often came by before the night's activities to share gossip they'd overheard in the saloon or complain about one of the other girls. Or to share their fantasies about a future they were unlikely to realize. She didn't disabuse them of that notion, because they had little enough in life without stripping them of hope.

"Kate!" Mae took Kate by the arm and pulled her inside. "You're the last person I expected." She glanced up and down the hall, saw no one else, and firmly closed the door. "Where's Jess?"

"She's out on the range with Jed for a few days. I'm visiting my parents."

"Lord. Are you never going to learn you can't be seen here?"

Kate laughed, loosening her cloak and removing it as she deposited a basket on a nearby table. "Are you never going to learn that I intend to visit my friends regardless of where they may live?" She turned, meaning to give Mae a welcoming hug, then stopped when she saw that Mae was not dressed. "Oh, I'm sorry. You weren't expecting visitors and here I am barging in."

"Don't be silly. You'd be about the only visitor I don't mind having this time of day." Mae gave Kate a quick squeeze, drawing back with her hands on Kate's forearms when she felt her stiffen. She cocked her head and studied the faint blush on Kate's cheeks. "Something wrong?"