A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(36)

Astounded, she gazed at me blankly. “Like who?”

“Prostitutes,” I said. “And people with an illness. And people who just aren’t crazy about babies.”

“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met,” Millie said, after a second of silence.

“That means I said something wrong.” I couldn’t figure out what it might have been.

“Not at all,” Millie said. “Can you get the kitchen door? I can handle the tray.”

Very soon we were sitting in the living room, Eli and I side by side on the couch, and the Fielders in matching armchairs, a table between them. Its surface was mostly taken with a pile of books, leaving just enough room for their glasses. It was almost dark outside, and the bugs were battering the screen doors. The wooden doors had been left open for the breeze, which almost amounted to nothing now.

I took a cautious sip of my bourbon, and it was good. I was working, and I would not finish this glass, but I could savor a sip or two. Jerry and Eli were chattering away, while Millie vanished to do something in the kitchen every few minutes.

I was quiet for the most part. I felt like I was visiting another world. Jerry was asking Eli a lot of questions about healing magic, and when that conversation had run its course, Millie asked me how Eli and I had met.

I glanced at Eli, who was looking like he wanted to hear the answer. Okay. “He and his partner Paulina hired me to guard them on a trip to Mexico,” I said. “I’m from Texoma.”

The Fielders looked a bit stunned. “And you guarded them?” Jerry asked slowly, as if he was feeling his way through a jungle or something.

“I did.”

“How?”

“Oh, I’m a gunnie.” They looked blank. “A shooter,” I explained. “That’s my job.”

They didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “You shoot people,” Jerry said very cautiously.

“I do. If they attack whoever or whatever I’m hired to guard. Not for fun.” I wanted to make that clear.

“Lizbeth is famous,” Eli said, and damn if he didn’t sound proud. I smiled right at him.

“Are you armed now?” Millie asked.

And then the gun was in my hand. “Yep,” I said. And it was back in my handbag.

“We aren’t going to go after your husband,” Millie said teasingly.

“We got the walk back to the hotel,” I said, matter-of-fact.

And there was another one of those weird pauses. Eli kissed my cheek, just when I was feeling pretty bad.

Millie stood, still looking at me like a half-dead bird her cat had dragged in. “Supper must be ready to go on the table,” she said. She kind of braced herself. “You want to give me a hand, Lizbeth?”

“Sure.” I hopped up and followed her back into the kitchen.

Millie got a roasting pan with a chicken out of the oven, and I held the platter while she eased it on. The juice went into a gravy boat. The mashed potatoes went into a bowl. The snap beans into another. And the rolls came out of the oven and went into a basket. The butter dish came out of the icebox. “This is it,” Millie said. “I made a chess pie for after.”

“It looks great and it smells wonderful,” I said honestly. I hesitated, and then I said, “You know how people always ask you why you don’t have babies? People who don’t know the business, they always want to know how many people I’ve shot.” Not that I’d ever met many people who didn’t understand my line of work. But it had happened.

“What do you tell them?” Millie was fascinated.

“I tell them as many as it took to do my job,” I said, and we began carrying the food through the swinging door to place on the dining table.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Since Eli and I had only had ice cream for our lunch, we were very enthusiastic about Millie’s cooking. And it was fun to talk to people we didn’t have to lie to… or at least, we didn’t have to lie to them much. Millie told me about her ladies’ group at the church, and her gardening, and her elderly mother who lived two houses down. Jerry talked about going to medical school in Boston, and how living in Brittania and talking to its people had changed him.

Eli talked about wizard school (though the Holy Russians called it some fancier name than that). I hadn’t been in school of any sort since I was sixteen, and old to still be learning. I stayed quiet, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in what they were saying. I just couldn’t imagine myself doing any of those things.

Millie said she’d been to two years of teacher college before she’d left to marry Jerry. “And you?” she said to me.

“My mother taught our school,” I said. “I left when I was sixteen and started work. That’s what kids in Texoma do.”

“And you went right into shooting?”

“Yes. I was taken on by a gun crew pretty quick, because I was good and had the grit to do the job.”

“What sorts of jobs did you take? Typically?” Jerry said.

He was trying hard to make it sound like I was a normal person, which I’d always felt until I’d come to Dixie.

“Typically,” I said, savoring the word. “Well. We guarded farm people fleeing from Mexico to New America, most often. The Mexican government had taken their farms, and they wanted out. We guarded shipments that had to go from Texoma down to Mexico, and ones that had to come back up. We took up the bounty on some bandits, once or twice.”