Coming Home to Wyoming (Peaceful Valley Series Book 1) Read Free Page A

cents?”
    “I thought you were going to pick out a new dress or two while you were in there, and some… whatever else you needed,” he added, remembering her threadbare underwear.
    She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t need nothin’ else.” She fingered the ripped skirt of the faded calico dress. “After I give this old thing a good scrub, it’ll do me just fine.”
    Griff shook his head, and tried to hand the bills back to her. “You may as well keep this, in case you change your mind, and find something else you want—or need.”
    “Nope,” she said firmly. “Rules of the road is one thing, like you said. Takin’ charity is somethin’ else. Put that money back in your pocket, in case you meet up with some poor fella who needs it.”
    As he returned the cash to his wallet, Griff was smiling. “You’re a surprising young lady, Clarinda Worthington.”
    The girl cocked her head with curiosity. “Why surprisin’? I figured you for the kind o’ fella who knows a bunch o’ women. All kinds of ‘em.”
    “I’ve known a few,” he conceded, “and not a single one of them ever seemed to mind spending my money.”
    “Maybe you been hangin’ around with the wrong sort o’ woman.”
    He pointed to the pair of used shoes. “Could be, but I still wish you’d go back and trade these for a brand new pair—that fit right.”
    “All them new shoes was a dollar !” she cried. “Who the Sam Hill gives a whole dollar for a danged pair of shoes that’ll just go and wear out on you after four or five years, anyway?”
    Griff sighed. “More people than you might think. All right, then, if you’re finished shopping, let’s see if there’s a decent place around here where we can have some supper.”
    “They got all kinda canned goods over at that mercantile,” she advised. “Beans and corn, and even three or four kinds of potted meat. Fresh crackers, too, and a new barrel of some right nice lookin’ pickles—two for a nickel, the sign said.” She pointed to the livery stable where he’d boarded Jack for the night. “And we could find us a couple o’ hay bales to sit on while we eat. There’s a big old shade tree back there behind that barn. I seen it when we rode in.”
    “I was thinking of a restaurant,” he explained, looking up and down the main street for something that resembled a restaurant. When he turned around, again, Clarinda was staring at him.
    “You rich, or somethin’, throwin’ away money like it growed on trees?”
    “No, Clarinda, I’m not rich, but I can afford to buy us supper.” He grinned. “If you don’t eat too much, that is.”
    She giggled. “Well, then, you best go get some o’ them canned goods I was tellin’ you about. I’m hungry enough to eat a couple o’ Missouri mules and a she-goat for dessert. Besides, I never been in no real restaurant. I’ll betcha a place like that wants folks to dress up nice.”
    Griff grinned. “Any restaurant in a town like this will probably be happy if we just don’t spit tobacco juice on the floor.”
    “You eat in restaurants a lot?”
    “Not often now, but when I was at home…”
    “So, where’s home?”
    “My father and I had a small cattle ranch in Nebraska, until he passed away. I was born there, and went to school there, as well.”
    “I reckon that’s a pretty long way from here.”
    He nodded. “A few hundred miles closer than San Francisco, probably—headed east, instead of west.”
    “So, how far did you get to—in this school you was at?”
    “I was in college, for a while—around three years.”
    “You been to college?” she exclaimed. “And for three whole years! I never knowed nobody who went to a college . I reckon that’s why you talk so good—with all them big words, and all. Did you get yourself one of them fancy pictures to hang on the wall? The ones with a big gold seal on the bottom. I seen one of ‘em once, in this doctor’s office my ma took me to when I come down with a bad