TEN

 

 

August 4th, 2018

Boise, Idaho

 

SOPHIE SAT IN Brooks Garden Restaurant, in the same wooden booth she and Wade had sat in last night. She figured Wade would find her easier there than anywhere in this plant-filled place.

She had on jeans, a light blouse, and a thin dress jacket to keep the sun off her arms. She had picked a different wide-brimmed hat today, one that had a style more like the type women wore in the Old West and matched the blue in her blouse. She had found the hat in a vintage clothing store and just loved it because of its distinctive weave pattern around the top.

She was sipping on her coffee and studying some information about the old mining town of Grapevine Springs on her tablet. She had spent a few hours earlier this morning in her office in the institute library digging up information about the town that Wade had mentioned.

And the more she dug into it, the more she liked the idea of studying it and the families and people who had lived there. It was a perfect sample of the Old West mining towns. A contained sample because of the remote nature of the valley.

The town had had a newspaper for ten years called the Grapevine Gazette, and also much of its news was also printed in the Grangeville paper, a larger farming town to the north.

The society page in the town’s paper was larger than most mining town papers, which allowed her some basic start on the residents. Amazing what she could find by combining census data with the social pages and obituaries.

She had no doubt she was going to also need to go into the valley in person and check out the old cemetery and the historical museum that existed there now.

The town even had an unusual share of photos from a couple of the most famous western photographers of the time, Jackson and Watkins. Plus numbers of other uncredited photographs.

Perfect for her research.

The entire idea had her excited.

“Morning,” Wade said as he slid into the booth across from her.

She looked up into his wonderful green eyes and smiling face and that just made her stomach flutter like a high school girl on a first date.

He looked to be a little flushed from his walk.

“Getting warm out there?”

“It’s starting to,” he said, taking a drink from a glass of water on the table.

“You look refreshed this morning,” she said, smiling back and him. “Get some sleep?”

“Solid for almost eight hours,” he said, shaking his head. “I never sleep that long normally. And I already have a list of things I need for my place and a list of things I want to bring up here with me from my place in LA.”

“Wow, you got some stuff done already,” she said, laughing. “I’m impressed.”

“Feels like I have only scratched the surface.”

“I still feel that way and I’ve been here since May.”

At that moment the waitress in jeans, a white blouse, a red apron and bright red hair brought them both menus and asked if Wade would like coffee by holding up the coffee pot in her hand after she refreshed Sophie’s cup.

“Please,” Wade said.

He took a sip almost immediately, looking almost relieved.

For some reason the fact that Wade drank coffee black the way that she did pleased her far more than it should. She pushed the thought away of breakfasts regularly with him.

At least for now.

“So what are you working on?” Wade asked, indicating her tablet, “If you don’t mind telling me.”

She laughed. “No trade secrets around here that I know of. I got interested in learning more about Grapevine Springs after you mentioned it last night.”

“What do you think?”

“I actually think it’s perfect for both of our areas of research,” she said. “I downloaded a bunch of pictures from it as well.”

She slid her tablet toward him and he took it, looking at the images while she enjoyed watching his face and his wonderful hands as he slid one picture after another aside.

Then suddenly he stopped and stared at a picture, frowning.

He was even handsome frowning. How was that possible?

“What did you find?” she asked.

“You got family from the Old West?” he asked, glancing up at her and then back at the picture on her tablet.

She actually laughed at that. “Silverman. New Jersey.” She said the state name with her deepest New Jersey accent, something she had trained out years before.

“You sure?” he asked, still frowning and staring at a picture on her tablet.

“My family is all from Europe, both sides, moved over in the thirties ahead of the Second World War. Not the type to go beyond sight of the Atlantic Ocean. I think it was pathological.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head and sliding her tablet back to her. “You had a twin back in Grapevine Springs.”

She looked at the picture. It was of the wooden sidewalk in front of three buildings. One was a general store, another a lawyer’s office and barbershop with the candy-cane pole and the third building was a saloon with its doors propped open.

Five people stood on the boardwalk in a group, clearly not realizing they were having their picture taken. One was a short woman in riding clothes of the time. She was facing the camera and her face was clear under the hat.

It did look exactly like her.

And then Sophie noticed the hat the woman was wearing and got chills down her spine.

Then she looked at the other four people in the group. One of the men in a long oilcloth-style coat she recognized from dozens of photos around the west. His name was Duster Kendal and he was often a town’s marshal.

And the man standing beside him, wearing a dress shirt, dress coat, and jeans, with his back to the camera looked exactly like Wade.

She took a deep breath and laughed.

“That’s very strange,” she said. “Take a look at this?”

She slid the tablet back to Wade and then reached down on the booth beside her and pulled up the hat and put it on.

He looked at her, then down at the picture, then back at her. “Now that’s creepy. Same hat as well.”

“Take a look at the guy beside the woman with his back to the camera,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“That looks exactly like you from the back,” she said.

“It does?” he asked, staring at the picture more.

“Your hair is just like that from the back,” she said. “And besides, after watching you yesterday, I would recognize that nice butt of yours anywhere.”

He laughed and looked up, blushing.

And she had no doubt she was blushing as well.

He pointed to the picture. “I have a hunch this guy’s butt is pretty bony by now.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to stare at yours some more.”

With that they both laughed and she blushed even more. She had never been that forward before. No idea what had gotten into her this morning.

Thankfully the waitress saved them from even more embarrassment by coming to take their order.