The door stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open. What she saw made her stop and straighten. The place had been ransacked.
She rushed inside with Braddock on her heels. All the drawers of a pine wardrobe sagged open. Lorelei’s few possessions spilled over the edges and onto the floor. The red checked curtain beneath the dry sink hung askew, revealing that the few supplies she had bought were gone. She turned in a half circle to surmise the damage but stopped abruptly when she noticed her black beaded purse carelessly tossed on the bed.
The quick prayer she said was futile. If the intruder had found the purse… She sank onto the bare, straw-stuffed mattress. He had even stripped the bed. A scribbled note lay next to the bag. IOU, luv, C. She checked the purse anyway. The silk lining gaped back at her, empty. The purse had held less than fifty dollars, but the money was all she had left in the world. Not enough to get Corey far. She didn’t dare think of what the loss meant to her.
“What happened here?”
She crumpled the note in her fist and tried not to sound like her last shred of security had been severed. “Corey needed a few things.”
“So nobody came and carried your brother off? He did this?” The slight sneer that tugged at Braddock’s top lip as he surveyed the damage made her want to flinch.
“He was in a hurry.” With as much dignity as she could muster, Lorelei drifted to the open drawers and started folding her collection of tailored gloves, suddenly finding her favorite things as worthless as they really were.
She rescued the lithograph, the only one ever taken of her entire family, from the dirt floor. She wiped the cherished picture with a wad of pink silk from her dress. What good did the tin do her if she couldn’t eat or sell it?
“I’m taking you back into town.”
She tucked the lithograph in a drawer, unable to gaze upon the faces that stared back at her.
Braddock touched her shoulder and she turned. She blinked, surprised at how dry her eyes felt. The hot wind that constantly blew across the yard seemed to have sneaked inside and snatched away her tears.
“I’ll be fine here.”
He took off his black felt hat and tossed it on the table. “Yeah. You look real fine.” He braced his hands on his hips. “Let me put you up in the hotel in town.”
“This is my home.” She almost choked on the words. She was starting to despise this barren place. “This is where I’ll stay.”
He nodded and walked out the door.
Lorelei’s chest hollowed as she watched him disappear. He took the air with him, and she could no longer breathe. How was she going to survive? At least back home she could forage for dandelion greens—even shoot squirrels at the toughest of times. Out here, dust and rock sprouted in place of the bluegrass she’d taken for granted. Lizards darted around the yard in abundance, but she couldn’t see eating them even if she could catch one.
For the first time the fire to trudge on dimmed in Lorelei. She’d picked herself up too many times. Knowing Corey would need her had sustained her after her mother’s death. But clearly she could do nothing for him. She gravitated to the table in the center of the room. She touched it to steady herself, though she yearned to sink to the cool dirt floor.
Braddock strode back through the door, a large wooden box in his arms. Without looking at her, he piled sacks of dry goods onto the table.
“I hope you like beans and rice, because you got a lot of them.”
She watched him, unable to speak. He had woken the owner of the only store in town before they set out for here. When he had loaded his purchases in the back of her wagon, she had been too preoccupied with worry for Corey to pay much attention. She swallowed her desperation, trying not to blatantly covet the food. She could live off of his supplies for a good six months. God knew she had survived on less.
“The shopkeeper must have charged you a fortune after you woke him and made him open the store just for you. ”
“He owes me a favor.” Braddock headed for the door. “There’s just a few more things.”
“Don’t bother. I can’t pay for any of this. You’ll have to take it back.”
“I’m not taking it back. I got the supplies for you.”
“Why did you do that?”
He shrugged. His usually penetrating gaze jumped, looking for a place to land. “I don’t know. I needed things for myself and I thought you might need some things, too.”
She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears. “I guess you could say I could use a few things.”
“Good. Now you have them.”
“Thank you, Mr. Braddock.”
“Don’t call me that. I feel like I’m back in school.”