4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

S omething was amiss with Junior. Isa couldn't put her finger on it, so she studied him from the corner of her eye as their horses clopped through the streets of downtown Austin.

His shoulders had certainly broadened in their years apart. At twenty-eight, Junior was built like a mountain man during a lean season. Isa peeled her eyes from his narrow hips and contemplated the other changes in him.

"You have a new scar," she said. It was above his left eye, just below the tail end of his eyebrow.

"It's not new." He seemed uninterested in discussing it. "What did you and your boss man talk about?"

"He gave me my wages and asked that I not leave." Isa fiddled with the ribbons of her hat. They were so wide they acted like blinders, which was precisely why she'd tried to leave the apartment without the hat in the first place. One couldn't safely travel if one's peripheral vision was hindered, but Miss Pickney had insisted respectability was more integral than practicality.

"Sounds like he respects you and your work," Junior offered, glancing at her surreptitiously.

"Mr. Corner respects money. He does not respect women."

"You one of those suffragists?"

"Yes, I'm ‘one of those suffragists.'" She glared at him. "I'm a part of NAWSA."

"What-uh?"

"The National American Woman Suffrage Association. You don't pay it any mind because you can have a bank account, and decent pay, and you have the right to vote. Among a thousand other things I won't bore you with details of."

"Thank God."

Isa's head snapped his way so sharply that her hat went askew. "I ought to wallop you."

"I'm only teasin'." He sighed. "Hell, Izzy, if anyone has taught me that women are just as capable as men, it's you. You're the cleverest person I know. And not just out of the women I know, out of everyone . I'd put you in Congress if I could. You'd have the world set to rights after a day. No more panic, no more depression. Though I can't say you would be levelheaded if another country wanted a piece of us; you need to work on that temper."

If words could club one over the head, his could. Her jaw was suddenly without working hinges.

"Still want to wallop me?"

No . "Yes."

The noise he made wasn't quite a laugh, and he grew quiet again as the smell of the Colorado River strengthened. A waterfowl cried out as it flew overhead, feathers gleaming white beneath its tapered wings. Junior paid it no mind and continued to scout the way ahead, every face receiving a once-over as they rode sedately by. She had seen him in many moods over the years: angry, petulant, jolly, drunk. She'd never seen him vigilant. On high alert. A fury lay just beneath the surface, boiling beneath an icy layer. He was changed. More unsettling. In the apartment, his long-lashed indigo eyes had been eerily steady. On David. On Miss Pickney.

On her.

The consistent stillness was so unlike the Junior of old that it unnerved her. And Isa did not like to feel unnerved.

He's just disappointed to be babysitting you across half a dozen counties.

She frowned down at her gloved hands.

As a child, she'd pestered and needled him relentlessly, but he'd returned the favor in kind. He would best her at her own games until it was she who exploded into frustrated emotional uproars, not him. There hadn't been a time in her life when her brother's friend wasn't there, scuffling and wrestling with her in the dirt, shouting from her pinches while she screeched at holds from which she couldn't escape.

She could not imagine trying such tricks with him now. Had he finally grown out of it…out of her? Had her presence ultimately become a terrible trial for him?

An unexpected ache stirred behind the bone of her sternum, and she rubbed it resentfully with two fingers. By her seventeenth birthday, she'd come to terms with the fact that Junior would never see her as more than just a sister and that any love he held for her in his heart would always be platonic. She'd inured herself to that truth, and her love for him had morphed into something deeper. Softer. All its sharp edges had smoothed so that it no longer cut nor wounded nor incited her to wound back. She had loved him for who he was, whether he returned her feelings or not.

Of late, she felt prickly and hurt all over again. Once more, she felt ignored. Discarded. She was unsure if she could soften toward him again.

Not this time.

Their grim little procession rounded street corners and parked wagons. Once, they had needed to wait for a harassed-looking older gentleman to push a stalled automobile out of the way. The automobile looked like a horseless carriage with its cover down.

"Have you ever driven an automobile?" she asked.

"No."

"Oh. I have. It's wondrous fun. It goes as fast as a galloping horse if you can find a road not riddled with potholes."

She sensed his face turn her way. "When did you get your hands on an automobile?" A pause, then, "Did you steal it?"

Isa couldn't help it—she laughed. "Egad, no! Calvin Cheswick's father purchased one and took David and me out last year. I drove it perfectly well. It has countless gauges you must manipulate to control the steering. David was hopeless when it was his turn; he drove us straight into a ditch. Do you know how heavy steam engine automobiles are?"

"As I've never had much use for 'em, no."

She ignored this lackluster response and continued excitedly, "Calvin had to arrange for a group of men and horses to pull it out. Then the blasted thing wouldn't start for a half hour. Steam engines are very temperamental and would do far better with flash boilers. I advised Calvin's father to sell it and buy one of those automobiles with an internal combustion engine."

"Are you going to be like this the whole trip?" Junior asked politely.

Isa didn't hesitate. "Yes. Do feel free to ride ahead if you get tired of it."

Junior groaned quietly but made no other objection.

"Have you seen the new dam yet?"

"Why would I want to see that?" His peeved tone made her bristle.

"Because it's one of the tallest dams in the country?" Her voice rose. "Because it will power street cars, and people won't have to walk or ride horses everywhere? Because electricity in the city will industrialize Austin by leaps and bounds?" She continued to spew facts like weapons at him all the way down the street, and several men gave Junior pitying glances from their buggies or the sidewalk. His response to her scolding was to look blankly at her. She shook her head incredulously at his lack of enthusiasm. "Are you such a Luddite that you don't wish to see new things? Wonderful things?"

For the first time since their uncomfortable reacquaintance in Miss Pickney's parlor, Junior peered at her as though he truly saw her. The steady onslaught of his gaze made her uncomfortably aware of how her body moved on Mirage, how awkward her arms felt in her puffed sleeves. Gradually, the harsh planes and lines of his face eased until he was the old Junior again. The young man who had witnessed Isa's awkward transition through puberty as a tomboy reluctant to appear girlish during her shift to tentative womanhood.

This Junior gestured a hand outward, encouraging her to lead the way. "Alright, then. Show me this dam."

"IT'S INCREDIBLE, ISN'T it?" Isa shouted over the surging water of the Austin Dam. "This is what will power the city with electricity. Did you see all the new street lights on the way here?"

Junior had to stand close to hear her, even with the shouting. He'd known about the dam; hell, that's all that was in the newspaper these days. Hearing it from Isa, with her icterine green eyes sparkling excitedly, piqued his interest in ways the written word couldn't. He studied the flow of water rushing over the dam with astonishing force. Behind them, their horses were tied in some shrubs. Mirage's lower lip drooped sullenly, ears at half-mast. He'd made damned sure to tie up Champion and Red far away from that heathen.

Isa went on about the man-made waterfall in front of them.

"Did you know this is one of the tallest dams in the country?" she was shouting at him. "It's sixty feet high! See that powerhouse? It looks like an English lord's manor, doesn't it? Mayor McDonald spared no expense on this project."

He nodded, pretending to be interested. "Must be why Austin is in debt up to its ears."

"What?"

"Nothing."

They stood beside the crashing water until Isa eventually sat, tossing small rocks into the water. With nothing better to do, he sat beside her, plucked a piece of brush from the rocky soil beneath them, and pulled its leaves off, one by one. Overhead, the clouds rolled across the horizon, a dark, ominous shelf promising miserable traveling weather. He swore aloud, but the roaring waters swallowed it up. Twice, he glanced behind him and pulled his watch out.

"Ants in your pants?" Isa called out, her eyes following his movements. Her hat was so expansive it looked like a giant baby's bonnet. The way she watched him irritated him. Made him feel like a bug scurrying at the feet of a magnifying-glass-wielding being.

"I'd like to get home at some point this week. Look at that storm rolling in."

Astonishingly, she didn't argue or complain; she hopped up, dusted off her skirts, and held her hand out to him. A brow raised, he smacked her hand indignantly away, rising of his own accord. Her quick, wicked grin gleamed before she turned her back on him and glided to their horses.