Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles] Read Free

sounded from behind them.
    “S–Simone? Is that you? Oh, thank God!”
    The speaker was at least an inch shorter than Sadie—Cass could not make himself think of his own sister by the name she’d taken for herself. Wiry blond curls framed the stranger’s round face. Dark eyes glimmered behind spectacles. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it across her shoulders. Then he spoke to Cass. “You must be the brother.” He thrust out his hand and introduced himself. “Ludwig Meyer.”
    Cass didn’t quite know what to say to that. Sadie talked about family with her clients?
    “It’s him, all right,” Sadie said, looping her arm through Meyer’s and looking up at him with a familiarity Cass found embarrassing.
    But Meyer’s expression was all devotion as he smiled, first at Sadie, and then at Ma. “You must both come home with me tonight.”
    Ma hesitated. She glanced across the way to the saloon. “I’m sure Goldie will have made arrangements.”
    “Come with me,” Cass said.
    Sadie’s voice sounded disbelief. “Unless you’ve moved, your landlady might have something to say about that.”
    Just as Cass opened his mouth to retort, the back wall of the burning building fell in. The crowd gasped and moved away as one as a shower of sparks and a cloud of soot shot into the night sky.
    Ludwig Meyer tightened his grasp on Sadie. “Please,
mein Schatz.
Come with me.” He fended Cass’s protest off. “I have a small house. They will be comfortable.” He patted Sadie’s hand. “Have I not been saying as much for weeks?” Then he smiled at Ma again. “Allow me to help you.”
    Ma looked to Cass. “You know Sadie’s right about your landlady.” She glanced at Sadie. “If Sadie’s in agreement—”
    “I’m in agreement with anything that will get us away from all these holier-than-thou sightseers.”
    Cass glanced around them, not knowing whether to feel embarrassed or defensive on Sadie’s behalf about the mutterings and the leering glances.
    Sadie nodded toward the saloon. “We’ll have to tell Goldie.” She led the way across the unpaved road.
    Cass hesitated before offering Ma his arm and following. Then he cursed himself for being a hypocrite.
They wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t run off and left them to
—A familiar horse and buggy just crossing the street to the north caught his eye. Cass frowned. What was Mrs. Sutton doing down here? And was that the boss’s aunt? Neither woman was the kind to chase a fire out of curiosity.
    “What is it?” Ma followed his gaze, but the buggy was already out of sight, headed east.
    “I just saw the boss’s wife. And one of his aunts, if I’m not mistaken. Headed east, which means—” His heart sank. It meant the boss wasn’t home. The Suttons had a phone, one of only a few hundred in the entire city of twenty thousand. For Mrs. Sutton to have driven down here … The boss must have told his wife he was working late. They’d probably called to check on him when they heard the fire alarm. And if he hadn’t answered—What that probably meant sent a flash of anger through Cass as he glanced toward the office and the adjoining lumberyard just a few blocks away in the warehouse district.
    What was it Jessup had said a while back? Something about seeing the boss’s horse tied up at a farm house over by Yankee Hill. When Cass said the boss was always looking to buy property, Jessup had grinned. “Sure he is. And everybody knows it takes a man several lo–o–ong visits to inspect a place and make a decision. Especially when there’s a pretty girl involved.”
    “You want to keep working for Sutton Builders,” Cass had snapped, “you’d best shut your imagination and your mouth. Permanently.”
    “Didn’t mean any harm,” Jessup had said, and that had been that.
    Ma’s voice brought Cass back to the moment.
    “Well,” she said, waving a response to the salute Goldie sent in their direction, “that’s settled.”
    “This