Read Online Love in Disguise by Carol Cox - Free Book Online

continued toward her house, reminding herself to quit gawking and keep a closer watch on where she was walking.
    When she turned right off of Grant Street onto Second, her heart sank at the sight of a row of dwellings that looked as though they’d been slapped together from cast-off lumber and sheets of canvas. Lavinia and Jessie were supposed to be ladies of some substance. Surely the Pinkertons wouldn’t have chosen to house them in a hovel.
    The next block featured somewhat larger shacks that appeared to be made of mud bricks.
    Ellie shuddered. She had slept in some odd places during her travels with Magdalena but never in anything that resembled these decrepit dwellings. She stopped on the edge of the street, wondering if one of these was to be her new home. Unbidden tears pooled in her eyes, blurring her vision.
    “Mrs. Stewart? Over here.”
    Ellie blinked the tears away and looked ahead to see one of the delivery boys waving from the end of the street. Behind him stood a small white clapboard house with a neat shake roof. With as much haste as the leg wrappings would allow, Ellie closed the distance between them, arriving just as the second young man jumped off the front porch.
    “This is the Cooper place? I mean, my new home?”
    Both youths tipped their hats. “Yes, ma’am,” the taller one said. “I think you’ll be comfortable. I’m sure glad they found someone to live here. It’s too nice a house to have it just sit empty and—”
    A scowl darkened his face. “Shoo!” he bellowed in the direction of a small lilac shrub under the front window. “Get out of there!”
    Ellie clutched at her throat. What sort of creature was lurking there in the bushes?
    The lilac swayed, and a skinny towheaded boy about ten years of age emerged. “What’s the matter? I wasn’t doin’ nothin’.”
    “Nothing except peekin’ in the windows.” The delivery boy pointed toward a little wooden house across the road. “Get on home. And don’t be bothering Mrs. Stewart. She’s a lady, and she doesn’t need any pestering from you.”
    The youngster puffed out his chest but decided to abandon his show of bravado when the delivery boy started after him. He scurried to the house across the street, where he took a wide stance and glared at them all.
    Ellie’s protector shook his head. “Sorry about that, ma’am. That Taylor kid is always up to some kind of mischief. You’d better keep an eye out for him.”
    Without missing a beat, he added, “We laid on a fire for you. All you have to do is light it.
    Ellie shook her head and dug in her reticule to pull out a few coins for each one. Be it ever so humble, it appeared she was home.

7
    E llie took a deep breath and mounted the three steps to the porch that spanned the front of the house. Deep red curtains covered the windows, and a climbing rose twined its way up one of the porch supports. A pair of wooden rocking chairs invited her to sit and rest. Someone had obviously spent time and effort in making this place a home.
    She bent over and plucked one of the rose leaves, still shiny and green even in the middle of winter. She tried to imagine sitting on the porch in the spring months, enjoying the desert breeze and the scent of rose blossoms. What color would they be?
    She shook herself out of her reverie. If the investigation went as planned, she wouldn’t be around long enough to see the roses bloom.
    The front door swung open with a slight creak of the hinges. Ellie stepped inside and couldn’t hold back a smile at the charming scene before her. The parlor took up half the width of the house, with good-sized windows on the west and south walls. She pulled the curtains back, letting sunlight spill into the room.
    A small pedestal dining table divided the space between the kitchen and the parlor, where a tufted sofa sat in the center of an oval braided rug, flanked by a matching side chair on the right and an upholstered armchair on the left. A round marble-top