Coming Up Roses by Alice Duncan Read Free Book Online Page A

of them.
    At least the reporters in Europe had been
polite. This H.L. May person was rude and intrusive, and Rose
wished he’d either get on with it or leave. Her nerves crackled
uncharacteristically. Perhaps she was only tense because she’d not
had her quiet time alone with Fairy.
    Twaddle. She’d been pursued by newspaper
people plenty of times after a show. Everyone who saw her
considered her act spectacular, and most folks wondered how such a
tiny, delicate-looking girl could do the amazing things she
did.
    Ha! If they only knew. Rose was about as
delicate as bear jerky. She never admitted it to members of the
press. When H.L. finally spoke again, Rose was so involved in her
own tumultuous thoughts that she jumped in alarm.
    “ Say, Miss Gilhooley, I get the feeling
you don’t like me much, but I’m really not such a bad
fellow.”
    Involuntarily Rose slapped a hand over her
thumping heart. She turned to stare at H.L. through slitted lids.
Blast him, anyway! How dare he lull her into thinking he wasn’t
going to talk any more, and then say something like that?
    Well . . . Rose realized instantly that she’d
just been irrational. She chalked up this aberration in her normal
clear thought patterns to H.L. May’s influence, too.
    After she’d caught her breath and her heart
stopped thundering, which took approximately five seconds, she
said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. May. I don’t dislike you. I don’t
even know you.”
    His grin made her heart stop for a second.
She felt the heat creep into her cheeks, and this time she wanted
to heave the mane-and-tail comb at him. Instead, she put the comb
in its place with the precision that had been drummed into her by
Annie Oakley and Colonel Cody, both of whom liked to keep things
neat, and walked over to Fairy’s own personal stall, where the
mare’s special blanket hung over the railing. Rose had embroidered
Fairy’s name on the blanket with her own fingers, under Annie’s
tutelage. Rose picked it up and carried it back to the mare.
    “ Hey, why don’t you let me help you
with that stuff?” H.L. said, jerking away from the wall he’d been
holding up. “That’s a pretty heavy blanket for a little girl like
you.”
    If there was one thing Rose resented more
than H.L. considering her a weakling, it was him thinking of her as
a little girl. She glowered at him from under Fairy’s neck as she
flung the blanket over the mare’s glossy white back. “I am not a
little girl, Mr. May. And I’m quite strong. If I weren’t, I
wouldn’t be able to perform my act, would I?”
    Thank goodness he didn’t laugh. He grinned,
but Rose thought she might be able to stand that—although she
wasn’t sure. His grin flashed two whole rows of gloriously white
teeth that made a remarkable contrast against his tanned face. He
looked too healthy to be a reporter. Rose had always been told
reporters stayed indoors and drank all the time, and were mostly
consumptive and dying. This specimen looked awfully darned robust
to her.
    “ I suppose not,” he said through his
grin.
    She sniffed.
    “ All right, Miss Gilhooley, I promise I
won’t offer to help again. And I also promise I won’t get in your
way.” He held his hands up, palms out, as a peace
offering.
    “ No?” She made sure she appeared as
skeptical as she sounded, because she didn’t want him getting any
ideas.
    “ No.”
    Fiddle Rose wished his eyes wouldn’t twinkle
like that. He was too good-looking for her peace of mind, and that
was a very bad thing. Rose knew all about newspaper men. She
understood they were men of loose morals and looser tongues. Annie,
Rose’s model for all things proper, had often told her so.
    Annie’s opinion of men in general wasn’t very
high. Her husband, Frank Butler, was a model of masculine
perfection, but there wasn’t another man in the world who measured
up to Frank, not even Rose’s personal hero, William F. Cody.
    Rose trusted Annie’s opinions absolutely.
Since Rose