Obviously Annie was the girl in the blue dress. You expected that, didn’t you? (Whoooo’s a good reader?) After the show she waited outside by the door with all the other young women—or, rather, stood slightly apart from them while they fawned over Mr. Butler, requesting his autograph and asking when he planned to take them out for supper. One even went so far as to ask whether he had plans tonight.
It was all so scandalous. Not a single one of those girls had chaperones. Or it should have been scandalous, because this was a wild level of impropriety she was witnessing with her very own eyes, but instead, Annie felt something akin to a thrill. Such independence and forthrightness these women displayed. They simply asked for what they wanted. Which was, apparently, Mr. Butler.
“Do all the young ladies of Cincinnati travel about without chaperones?” Annie quietly asked Mr. Frost.
“It depends on the young lady,” he replied.
“Hmm.” Annie watched Mr. Butler sign autographs and flirt with every single young woman who approached him. He was handsome, that much was undeniable. He had an easy smile, and was good with a gun, but what stuck in Annie’s mind was the way his dark eyes trained on his target with such an intense focus it’d made her catch her breath. With a stage presence like his, it wasn’t hard to see why all those girls liked him. Annie kind of liked him.
Then she went back and erased that liking, because she was here for a job, not a man.
“Do you think now is the best time to ask him about the job?” Mr. Frost checked his pocket watch.
“Yes, I’m going to ask him now. Any minute.” Annie continued studying Mr. Butler as he worked his way through the press of young women.
A warm body bumped against her right leg and rolled onto the ground, and when she looked down, she found George the Poodle resting on top of her feet, his tail thumping happily as he gazed back at her.
“Hello, handsome.” Annie would have bent to pet him, but he had both her feet pinned, and she couldn’t bear the thought of displacing him. She’d always been good with animals, even the ones that made her sneeze. “But you don’t make me sneeze,” she whispered. “You’re a good boy.”
George yipped and rolled over, giving her a chance to kneel and pet him properly.
“Well,” said Mr. Butler as the crowd of young ladies finally dispersed. “If you don’t mind—I mean, that’s my dog there—I hate to break this up, but I have somewhere to be?”
Annie stood and smoothed her dress. “Why, Mr. Butler, it’s nice to finally meet you, too.” She smiled widely. “Where do you have to go?” Goodness, she was being almost as forward as those other ladies.
“Poker, but I can cancel.” He offered a lopsided grin, and Annie’s heart performed a small flip. Gosh, he was cute.
But it was probably part of his act, so she kept her expression neutral and cocked her head. “Why would you do that?”
“Oh.” His grin faltered. “Did you just want an autograph?” He pulled out his pencil.
“No.”
The grin fell a little further as he put his pencil away. “In that case, I’m afraid I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
“You can give me a job.”
“A job.” He arced an eyebrow.
“Yes,” she said. “You have one. I want one, too.”
“You want a job.” He looked ridiculously (and some might say adorably) confused.
“That’s what I said. Try to keep up, Mr. Butler.” She couldn’t stop her smile.
He laughed. “All right. Can we start over? What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t. But I’m Miss Mosey, and this is Mr. Frost, my chaperone.”
“Yes, Mr. Frost and I have met. We’re staying at the Bevis House.” The men shook hands anyway. “Well, Miss—”
“Mosey,” Annie reminded him.
“Miss Mosey, I’m afraid I’m not in any position to hire people.”
She nodded. “Naturally I asked Mr. Hickok first, but he told me that you were the manager for the show now. He said I should ask you.”
Mr. Butler coughed. “We don’t usually stay in one place for very long, and we’re not looking for an assistant.” He glanced between her and Mr. Frost again, as though he couldn’t understand why a fancy hotel owner would be chaperoning someone like her. “But thank you for your interest, I suppose.”
“I’m not an assistant,” Annie said. “I’m a sharpshooter.”
Mr. Butler studied her more closely, making her skin flush all over as he took in her dress and stockings and buckled shoes. “You don’t look like a sharpshooter.”
“What does a sharpshooter look like?”
He coughed. “Um, me, I suppose.”
“And me.” She grinned as George bumped against her leg again. “Really, the only thing one needs to look like a sharpshooter is a gun.”
Mr. Butler seemed at a loss for words.
Annie sighed impatiently. “Truth be told, Mr. Butler, I came to Cincinnati to see your show and to make sure I really wanted to join.”
“And have we passed muster?”
Annie shrugged. “I’ll consider your offer.” In truth, she’d very much enjoyed the show, and she’d found his sharpshooting skills quite impressive. It didn’t hurt that they also went around having adventures in candle factories.
The corner of his mouth lifted like he was trying to suppress a smile. “Wait, did I offer?”
Annie waved that away like it would be merely a formality.
“So you want to join the show, now that you’ve seen it. Because you’re a sharpshooter,” Mr. Butler said.
“That’s right.”
“Have you ever even held a gun?”
“Yes, Mr. Butler, I have. How do you think I’ve fed my family?”
Mr. Butler looked down at his feet. “I really thought you might just want to have dinner with me,” he said. “Because my dog likes you.”
“Maybe I should have dinner with your dog.”
It might have been Annie’s imagination, but George seemed to sit up straighter.
Mr. Butler gave an amused snort. “I think I’m doing this all wrong.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I think what you meant to say was, ‘Why yes, Miss Mosey, we do have a job opening for you.’”
“Nooo,” he said slowly. “I don’t think that’s what I meant to say.”
“You should know,” she went on, “that I’m a better shot than you.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Is that so?”
“That’s so,” she said. “I’ll prove it if you allow a demonstration.”
Something sparked in his eyes. She wondered if he was used to being challenged—if after every show there was some fool who blustered that he was a better shot than the Pistol Prince. “I’d love to,” he said, “but I’m busy tonight.”
“When will you be available?” she asked in her most professional tone.
“Um,” Mr. Butler said eloquently. “I really must be going. Miss Mosey.” With that he tipped his hat at her and hurried across the street toward the saloon, taking his cute (and nonallergenic) dog with him. He probably thought Annie wouldn’t follow him there.
Annie’s eyebrows squeezed together in consternation. First the theater, and then a saloon? Her mama would be shocked.
But her mama wasn’t here.
Annie turned to Mr. Frost. “I’m going in after him.”
“What?” Mr. Frost looked nervously at the saloon door. “Why? He said no.”
“He said um,” Annie reminded him. “Which isn’t the same thing as no. He will say yes, once he understands that he needs me for the show.”
“Miss Mosey,” Mr. Frost said, his tone all reasonable, “perhaps your family is right. Perhaps the Wild West show isn’t the place for you.”
Annie shot him a look, one that always scared her younger siblings into doing what they were told, but Mr. Frost wasn’t Sarah Ellen or Huldy or John. He just smiled.
“I’m only asking you to think about it. The theater is no place for a lady.”
That was exactly what Grandpap Shaw had said before Annie left, while Mama stood quietly in the background, her silence as good as agreement.
Well, they were wrong.
True, the theater was rather dangerous. Upon entering the Coliseum, Annie had noted all the gas lamps, the curtains, the flammable props—and the disturbing lack of safety precautions. For example, there were no fire curtains, or fire exits, or axe cases marked “In case of emergency, break glass.” There wasn’t even a clear path to the front doors, to help people safely exit the building. In fact, Annie had rather felt she was risking her life simply by walking in.
But there was only one thing that really made Annie nervous, and she hadn’t seen any real garou at the show. All that was to say . . .
“The theater is a place for a lady, if a lady is inside it.” Annie glared up at Mr. Frost.
Mr. Frost sighed.
“I’m going to be part of that show,” she went on. “You’ll see.” She knew she could do it. She just needed someone to believe in her.
The hotel owner sighed again and glanced at the saloon, bright with lights and noisy with laughter and music. “Very well. What can I do to help?”
Annie grinned and judged the distance between here and the saloon. “It looks like you have about fifteen—maybe sixteen—steps to teach me how to play poker.”