Softly Falling Read Online Free

Chinamen.
    Wing Li retired behind the beaded curtain again. Lily prepared herself for conversation, but Mr. Sinclair got up and walked to the counter, to a row of thick china coffee cups. She felt a smile coming on as he looked over the mugs carefully, perhaps after one with no chips and sort of clean. She hadn’t expected such nicety, and it charmed her.
    While he took his time, Lily watched him. He was tall and had that hip-sprung walk she had noticed on other men from mid-Nebraska on. She had never seen better posture, not even among the men who comprised her uncle’s hunt club back in Gloucestershire. They just rode on occasion; this man rode for a living.
    He had left his hat on a peg by the door. From the look of his hair, and the white line on his tanned neck, she knew he had recently sat in a barber’s chair. His hair was blond, his eyes brown like her own. She looked down at her ungloved hands; his skin was even darker than hers. She knew that his would change with the seasons, while hers would remain the same.
    Straight back, straight nose. He might have been a handsome man, except for a scar that ran from his left nostril down to the corner of his mouth, giving his lips, nicely chiseled, a lopsided look.
    She hadn’t meant to stare. Maybe he was sensitive to observation. He stopped his inventory of the china mugs and looked at her. “I earned it at Sayler’s Creek,” he said with no embarrassment. “I call it Sinclair luck. I fought through two years and got wounded in the last battle before Appomattox. I was fifteen.”
    Sounds like Carteret luck , Lily thought.
    He didn’t seem to mind talking about either defeat or his wound. “Someone dragged me to a Yankee aid station. They still had chloroform, so it could have been worse.” He couldn’t help going a little grim about the mouth. “Can’t say I was sorry to miss Appomattox.”
    He saw her puzzled expression. “The War of Yankee Aggression, ma’am,” he explained. “Maybe you called it the War between the States.” He gave her a wry look. “You know, we could have used some help from England. Just sayin’.” He returned his attention to the mugs.
    He had the same starved look as other cowmen Lily had noticed. She decided that western men were well enough, but there was no denying a certain gauntness of face, the look of hardworking men who never quite got enough to eat. She found herself hoping that Wing Li’s portions of chop suey were prodigious.
    He found a cup to his liking, reached over the counter to a coffee pot, and filled the cup. Another reach brought a tin of canned milk, followed by several scoops of sugar.
    She hadn’t meant to stare—so impolite—but she must have, because he grinned at her, which made his face look less gaunt. He did have good teeth. “The hands tell me I don’t drink manly coffee, but I don’t like it black. Do you?”
    “I don’t like it any way,” she said frankly.
    He chuckled. “In that case we’d better stop at the mercantile and get you some tea,” he told her, then glanced around as the beaded curtain rattled. “Slap my knee, Mr. Li, you’ve outdone yourself.”
    Slop mah nay , Lily thought, wondering what on earth he meant. He did have a lengthy way of speaking that she hadn’t heard before. Would it be impolite to ask the man where he came from? And what did he mean by “hands”? I thought we spoke the same language .
    Mr. Li slid a plate of something questionable in front of her and stepped back, perhaps expecting some sort of admiration.
    “Lovely,” she said, trusting that to be adequate.
    It must have been more than adequate, because Mr. Sinclair looked away and smiled at the wall. “There you go, boss,” the Chinaman said as he slid a plate in front of him. “You get more rice, even though she tall too.”
    Mr. Sinclair nodded. When Mr. Li retreated to the kitchen, his shoulders started to shake. “He’s a piece of work, Miss Carteret.”
    Lily observed the steaming