Tom's Angel Read Free Page A

place. He revised his previous assumptions about her.
    “ No, Ma'am, that wouldn't be my first choice.”
    “ The El Paso Hotel, at the corner of Third Street and Main, is quite nice. I think you'll find it to your liking.”
    “ Thank you, Ma'am. I believe I passed it on the way here.”
    She averted her eyes, stared at her feet, straightened her skirts. “I must apologize, Mr. McCabe, for your having to come to...this part of Fort Worth. Have you been to the city before?”
    “ Not for a long time, Ma'am.”
    “ Please don't judge the whole city by this place.”
    “ No, Ma'am. Denver has an area much like this one. I understand what you're saying.”
    She seemed to relax a bit. “Good.” She smiled.
    The gesture transformed her face. Tom took a step back toward the porch, needing to be closer for a moment before leaving.
    “ Are you happy to be going to Denver, Ma'am?”
    She hesitated. “Yes. I am.”
    Considering where she lived in Fort Worth, he could believe that easily. Yet, something in her eyes, and that brief hesitation before she spoke, told him she might not be telling the whole truth. He replaced his hat, climbed on the horse, nodded once, then rode off down the street.
                 
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    Rosalie watched until he'd disappeared behind the buildings then hurried back inside, careful to lock the door behind her. Most doors in the Acre stood open, night and day, as did the wooden shutters on the windows. With doors and windows closed, and temperatures reaching one hundred degrees or more in the shade, the house and anyone inside sweltered during the day. But she preferred suffering in the heat to having drunken cowboys wander in from the street, stinking of cows and dirt, whiskey and sweat, “looking for a good time.”
    At last, she might be able to escape this fetid sewer. Never, living here, could she expect to be accepted as a lady and treated with the respect she craved so desperately. Going to Denver meant climbing from a dark, airless well into the light, where she could breathe clean air, hold her head up, and apologize to no one for who she was, where she lived, or what she'd done. Even though, in Denver, she'd be house maid for a man she'd never met and for his vile son, the Strickland family had to be better than the scum who frequented the establishments in the Acre. Perhaps Mrs. Strickland, at least, would be kind. She might even provide some protection, when needed.
    For years, since Rosalie had gotten old enough to recognize the truth of where they lived, and what kind of man her father had become, she'd begged him to move to the north side of Fort Worth, where they could live in a decent house, among respectable people. Instead of a dance hall, she'd suggested a dry goods store. But William Kincannon had no interest in respectability. And he certainly didn't like hearing her complaints.
    “ Get yourself a job at one of the houses!” he'd yelled at her dozens of times. “If you want to leave this place, it takes money. You'll have to earn your own. The hall hardly keeps us in beans and ham.”
    Rosalie knew better. They'd had a nasty fight when she'd needed money to buy material to sew a new dress. He said he had no money, but she'd seen folding money in his pocket earlier in the day. It didn't take much snooping to find his stash, in a can, buried under a board in his bedroom floor. He had hundreds of dollars hidden away. Since then, he hadn't spent a fraction of that amount. There had to be a substantial sum under that board, no matter what he said.
    Yet, stealing the money would make her as bad as he. She had to escape without any additional burdening of her soul. And, if at all possible, she had to take Elizabeth with her. The thought of leaving her behind was abhorrent.
    The means for escape —for both of them, perhaps—had just arrived in Fort Worth. Tom McCabe. Thinking about him comforted her. She lingered on the way his mouth crinkled at the corners