Glamorous Illusions by Lisa T. Bergren Page B

Butte felt healthy. The smelters’ smoke spewed into the air night and day, mixing with wood smoke from cooking stoves and becoming a cloying cloud that settled around the city, choking every living thing. Even now I didn’t feel I could take a deep breath, the odor acrid, vaguely metallic.
    I longed for the wide, open plains, the swaying grasses and ripening grain of summer. The wind off the fields, smelling of nothing but earth. Roads with a few horse-drawn wagons rather than the noisy motor carriages and horse traffic clogging the streets…
    So lost was I in thoughts of my home, I didn’t see them approaching me until it was too late to avoid them. Three men, one who’d clearly been drinking too much, staggering left and right, his companions laughing at him. I cut across the street, as if heading home, but one of the men moved to intercept me.
    Fear made my every pore tingle. What was I doing? Out at such an hour? Even at the Normal School, we were not allowed out unchaperoned past sunset. It wasn’t proper. Moreover, it could be dangerous. I paused, wringing my hands in front of me, then dropped them, recognizing that the pose appeared weak.
    â€œHey there, miss,” the man said, pulling his hat from his head and giving me a broad smile I could see even in the dark. “Aren’t you out a little late?”
    â€œI am. But I’ll be home in just a moment.”
    â€œMay I see you to your door?” he asked without pause. He’d detected my lie. I heard the other two shuffling behind me.
    â€œNo need. I am well aware of the way.”
    â€œStill,” he said, falling into step beside me, laughing over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t feel right, leaving a lady on her own in the wee hours of the morning.”
    I hesitated over his emphatic use of lady . As if it were a joke. Exactly who did he think I was?
    â€œJust got paid today,” he said with another smile in his voice. I didn’t dare look his way and kept walking. “Me and the boys, we’re in the mood to celebrate. Come out with us. We’ll treat you right.”
    â€œNo, thank you,” I said with every ounce of authority I could muster.
    He looked at his companions, and the drunk one cackled with laughter. But then all three were looking beyond me.
    I glanced over my shoulder and inwardly groaned, feeling like a small child caught stealing candy from the mercantile’s jars.
    William McCabe.
    â€œIs everything all right, Miss Kensington?” he asked, stepping up beside me.
    I didn’t know if it was the invocation of the family name, or his presence, or both, that set the threesome back a step, then two.
    â€œEverything is fine, Mr. McCabe,” I said. “These gentlemen were just heading home.”
    The first man had his hat off now and was partially bowing as he backed away. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss. We had no idea. We…” He looked at his friends, and then they turned tail and ran, rounding the corner and disappearing into the dark.
    I folded my arms and faced him. “Do you always have such an ill effect on strangers, Mr. McCabe?”
    He let a slow smile spread across his face. “Only when one of my charges decides to take her morning constitutional at two in the morning.”
    â€œIs that what I am? Your charge?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking, yes.” I liked how his brown hair curled at the nape of his neck and around his ears. His quiet, confident manner. But I didn’t like that I was noticing such things now, when we were alone, in the dark.
    I am his charge. I let the thought incense me. Just the latest of many humiliations.
    â€œI am twenty years old, Mr. McCabe, not a toddler in need of a nanny,” I said.
    I turned on my heel and began walking back to the house. He easily fell into step beside me. “No, you are clearly no toddler. But lovely young women are in need of an escort, especially at this time of