Suddenly it occurred to her that anger lay very close to arousal. She felt the same heat on her cheeks, the same tightness in her stomach, the same tension drawing taut between them that she had felt when he kissed her. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and she swallowed, feeling a great weakness spread through her knees. Following the direction of his gaze, she realized that she stood silhouetted in the light, her waist and hips in sharp relief. She told herself to move, but she didn’t.
Knots ran up Sam’s clenched jaw. “You know, sometimes this feels like a real marriage,” he said quietly, speaking through his teeth. “We see each other every day, we argue all the time, and we don’t have sex.”
Turning, he strode away from her and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 9
“May I speak frankly, Mrs. Holland?”
“Please do,” Angie said coolly. She objected to the frown the cobbler had continued to direct at Daisy’s hem since they entered his shop. While she understood Mr. Kravitz’s professional interest, his thoughtless stare had cast Daisy into an anguished state of self-consciousness. She hid behind Angie’s skirts.
“For the smallest young lady, patent heels and top-grade kid uppers are a waste of my skill and your money.” Because Daisy would walk on her ankle and scuff the patent and wear through the soft uppers. “A better choice would be a tough, thicker-grade leather.”
Angie drew herself up as she felt Daisy press against her side, trying to disappear. “We want everyday shoes, Mr. Kravitz, and we also want Sunday shoes.”
“I understand. But the little miss is going to scratch the patent and—”
“And I understand that.” She leveled a flat, cold look at a point midway between Mr. Kravitz’s eyes. Her tone, posture, and icy expression all stated the offensive discussion had ended. How dare he suggest that Daisy should make do with everyday boots for Sunday wear?
“It’s your money,” Kravitz said with a shrug.
“How gratifying to discover you realize that. Now may we get on with it?”
After sizing her up with a sharp glance, Kravitz beckoned to Lucy, who stood before the window peering out at the traffic congesting Bennet Street. “If you young ladies will take a seat, we’ll measure your feet.”
Daisy tugged Angie’s sleeve and gazed up with imploring eyes. “I don’t want new shoes. Please don’t make me.” Tears of humiliation choked her voice.
The right answer didn’t come instinctively when Angie faced a problem with the girls. Certainly she understood Daisy’s abhorrence and why she shrank from allowing a stranger to examine her twisted foot. Daisy still hadn’t allowed Angie to see. But how was Daisy to get new shoes if the cobbler couldn’t measure her feet?
“Measure Lucy first,” she instructed Mr. Kravitz, then walked to the big display window facing the street.
Bennet Street baked in the sun beneath a cloud of dust and powdered horse droppings kicked up by a constant stream of wagons, carriages, and riders. Angie could barely read the shop signs on the far side of the street through the traffic and haze.
Unlike the shops in Chicago, businesses were not grouped by commonality in Willow Creek. A saddler’s storefront and a hotel rose on either side of the cobbler’s shop. The grocer conducted business next to the stables. Assay offices dotted the landscape like widely spaced weeds. Saloons had sprung up willy-nilly, here beside a medical office, there beside the lady’s notions emporium. One tack shop was on Golden Avenue, another lay across town below Myers Street. Angie could identify no rhyme or reason to the town’s layout.
“Angie?” Daisy whispered at her side.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“I’ll do anything you say if you don’t make me do this.”
She sighed and pushed at the fingers of her gloves. “Do you have another pair of shoes at home?”
Daisy nodded. “Old ones.”
“All right. Take off your shoe.” Kneeling, she gazed into Daisy’s moist gray eyes. “We’ll leave the shoe with Mr. Kravitz.”
“Why?”
“Instead of measuring your foot, we’ll tell him to use your shoe as a pattern. But you’ll have to walk home in your stocking feet.” Smiling, she tucked a strand of ashy gold hair behind Daisy’s ear. “Are you comfortable with that plan?”
Daisy closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Angie’s shoulder. “Oh, thank you.”
Angie took the twisted battered shoe to Mr. Kravitz. “I want the patent and good kid shoes and a set of everyday shoes for both girls. For Daisy, use this shoe as your pattern. Only make the new one a bit larger.”