Page 95 of In These Hills

“Take it on up to the first barn. Have one of the fellows help you.”

Aware of passersby looking their way, Dodge turned back. “Josephine, I really think we should take this inside.”

She glanced past him, her expression easing. “You’re right. We can go back in.”

Wary, he glanced in the direction she’d looked, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Once inside, he spotted a bottle of iodine and cloths on the desk. “What’s that for? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Then why—”

“I thought it wise to keep some supplies on hand. For emergencies.”

Hearing the lie in her voice, Dodge glanced around. Through the window, he spotted Clara Hackett hurrying down the street, clutching a box, coming from the back of the office.

He fixed Josephine in his gaze. “Remember what I told you about meddling in other people’s affairs. Folks around here don’t take kindly to it.”

“I’m not meddling, Dodge. I’m helping.”

“Same thing in their eyes.”

“Not to Clara. She and her children have nothing to eat, so I—”

“So you took it upon yourself to remedy that?”

“Yes, I did. Is that such a terrible thing?”

“No, it’s not. It’s extremely kind. Until Henry finds out. Then there’ll be the devil to pay, and you’ll be the one he comes after.”

“Dodge, he beat her this morning! All because she asked for money to buy food. She and the children have nothing to eat, because he drank it away!”

“Which, while despicable and wrong, is none of your business.”

“None of my—” Her eyes flashed. “It is precisely my business. I have made it my life’s goal to liberate women from the tyranny of men.”

“So all men are tyrants now. Is that it?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

“I think you just did.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, her jaw firming. “Drunkenness is a crime to be punished! No woman should be bound to a man who starves his children. The vice of intemperance is—”

“Who are you quoting now? Miss Anthony? Mrs. Stanton? Mrs. Stone? I know all of them, Josephine. Kathleen quoted them, too. And look where it got her. And where else do you think Clara Hackett has to go? Her parents still have four children at home and can barely feed them. They can’t take her and her children in.”

“Dodge . . .” She put up a hand, her voice softening. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Kathleen. But you can’t blame everything that happened in that situation on suffrage. Your sister made choices that—”

“Choices like you’re making. And just like Kathleen, you have no idea what those choices will cost you. I’m trying to protect you, Josephine.”

“I don’t need protection, Dodge. I can protect myself!”

“Is that right?” He laughed beneath his breath, and she stiffened, obviously riled. “You think you can protect yourself when the Hackett brothers pay you a visit? Maybe one evening when you’re walking back to Miss Mary’s alone? They drag you into the woods and teach an outsider—and, in their opinion, a loudmouth, sassin’ woman—a lesson in the only way men like that know how to.”

Fleeting dread, even fear, flitted across her features, and Dodge almost regretted speaking so plainly. But he’d already lost his sister due, at least in part, to the illogical courage the suffrage movement nurtured in women’s minds. As if women alone could change the world. There was a reason God had created men and women.

“I’m not trying to frighten you, Josephine. I’m just asking you to be careful. You have a good heart, and I know you mean well—”

“But you think you know best.”