Printer in Petticoats by Lynna Banning Page A

much, do you, Noralee?”
    â€œNo. And it isn’t just his breath. He’s mean. What are you going to do, Mr. Sanders?”
    Cole thought that one over. True, Jessamine’s latest editorial had hit hard on Arbuckle’s weak spots, his blustery attitude, his arrogance, his preference for insulting his opponent personally rather than engaging the sheriff on specific issues.
    He scanned the editorial again. “Bombastic...barbarian...bully...” Seemed she preferred the B words this week. Made for poetic reading matter, but she was skating on thin ice.
    Well, so what? Let her punch a hole in the ice and sink. In this business she had to learn to be not only smart but tough. If the intrepid young editor of the Sentinel wanted to take potshots at Arbuckle, let her. And let her pay the piper.
    Anyway, two could play at that game. He picked up his pen.
    * * *
    Jessamine slept late, bone-tired after scrambling to get the Wednesday edition of the Sentinel written, printed, folded and stuffed into Teddy’s saddlebags and Billy Rowell’s over-the-shoulder sack and then studying the soprano vocal part for tonight’s rehearsal.
    Her small upstairs bedroom was freezing cold, and while she could hear Eli chunking wood into the potbellied stove downstairs in her office, she knew the heat wouldn’t penetrate to the second floor for at least an hour. She snuggled down under the double layer of quilts and waited for the sun to hit the windows and warm up the room.
    Oh, botheration! She’d have to get out of bed to raise the window shades to catch the morning sunshine. Clutching a quilt about her shivering body, she crept out of bed and across the room, snapped up both shades and peered out.
    Oh, my stars! Directly opposite her, framed in the window above the Lark office across the street, stood Cole Sanders. And mercy! He wore nothing but his— She tugged down the shade. Then she thoughtfully bit her lip. If she could see him, then he could see her! But she always closed her shades at night, so he couldn’t possibly...
    Oh, but he could. Each night she undressed by the light of her kerosene lamp, and that meant Cole was in a good position to see her naked body silhouetted against the window covering.
    Why, that...that...no-account devil! Surely there was something in Sheriff Silver’s law books about spying on a woman? Hurriedly she pulled on her drawers and camisole, tied her petticoat around her waist, and donned a dark green wool skirt and a clean shirtwaist.
    Then she paused and swallowed hard. Before accusing him, she would have to check her facts. She would wait until he left his office for breakfast, then sneak across the street to the Lark office and check out the view from Mr. Sanders’s upstairs window. She was learning .
    At ten o’clock she watched Cole saunter off down the boardwalk toward the restaurant, and she grabbed her coat, sped across the street and made a beeline for the Lark office.
    The room upstairs was a mirror image of hers except that the bed was on the opposite wall, and he used fruit crates for bookcases and his washbasin was tin, not china, like hers.
    She advanced to his window. Just as she suspected; he could see directly into her bedroom across the way. She knew it! At night he would be able to see her shadow behind the drawn blinds and...
    Downstairs the door clicked open, and every nerve and muscle in her body froze. Then the door closed and she heard the woodstove grate open, wood being chunked in, and Cole’s voice humming. Clementine again.
    She would wait it out. She tiptoed over to the narrow cot and very quietly sat down on the rumpled quilt.
    An hour went by. Then two. More humming, and a chuckle or two. He must be writing articles for his newspaper.
    By noon she was so hungry her stomach began to growl loudly enough she was sure he would hear it. Could she open the window and climb out? Would a drop from the second floor kill her? Or