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“We can’t go back like this,” Arthur says with a frown as he shakes out his stiff and bloody fist, “Mrs. Grimshaw will have our skins and I ain’t about to tell everyone we been causin’ even more trouble in Valentine.”
Sadie snorts, tapping at the bruise forming on her cheek bone just below her eye. It stings but it’s not as bad as it could be she decides, not compared to the black eye she’d given her attacker and the swift kick she’d driven to his crotch shortly after. She’d be sore for a day or two from the bit of beating she got but if she potentially messed up the guys chance of breeding more dumb-ass loud mouths who think they own whole towns then it was a win in her book.
“You mean you can’t go back lookin’ like this. I ain’t worried about gettin’ funny looks.” She laughs at Arthur and the way he picks at the mud that begins to dry in his hair.
“It ain’t pride,” he scowls, grimacing when the facial movement causes his split lip pain, “I don’t wanna ride all that way back caked in mud and horse shit.” And on that he had a point, they did smell pretty awful. It’s not like she liked being dirty or was against getting cleaned up, but it wasn’t because of pride, not like that, she’d wear the dirt and her bruises to show she wasn’t afraid of throwing punches and taking on men twice, even three times, her size.
“Hotel’s right there, why don’t you go take a bath,” she points at the building standing tall behind him, “I’m gonna go finish that whiskey those four interrupted.” She means every word, leaving him promptly for the drink she’d payed for and hadn’t even gotten to drink before some idiot lacked common sense and decided to make a comment to Arthur about her being a working girl. She hadn’t taken kindly to it and turned on him, he didn’t like that a woman challenged him, and she gave him hell for it. Sadie would feel guilty for dragging Arthur in on it except she hadn’t. She could have taken on the man and all three of his friends on her own but he stepped in and they split them by half out in the street.
The bartender nods to her and the glass where she’d left it when she strides back into the saloon. The looks she get don’t go unnoticed by her and she almost feels proud to have illicit such a reaction.
In one quick gulp she downs the whiskey and orders another as celebration for her fight well fought, followed shortly after by a third to drink in Arthur’s place, then soon a fourth to make it even.
While she can still think she decides it’s enough and hoped up on liquid courage she practically saunters out the doors. After descending the steps of the porch, she goes to her horse hitched right outside next to Arthur’s and digs a change of clothes out of her saddle bag, tucking them under her arm before searching his saddle bags, suspecting he hadn’t been smart enough to remember to get an extra set for himself. Judging by how all his clothes he’d pack for their trip were still in the bag she knew he had in fact forgotten.
She retrieves the set she liked seeing him in then crosses the street to the hotel. Sadie doesn’t pay the man at the counter any mind when she walks through the door and heads down the hall on the left. He starts to say something but she casts him a glance over her shoulder and the words die on his tongue.
The bathroom isn’t hard to find, not with the gold plaque on the wall with the word “BATH” etched into the metal next to one of the doors, the woman leaving the room is another give away.
No sooner than she’s begun to open the door he hears him say, “I already said I didn’t need any help,” and Sadie rolls her eyes as she enters.
“Well good thing I ain’t here to help ya anyway,” she teases him, dropping their clothes on a table by the door, which she closes behind her.
“The hell-“ Arthur is surprised when he notices her, watching as she undresses like she was putting on some sort of show, which she wasn’t but the way he was infatuated with her it might as well be to him, despite how scandalized he’d seemed when she arrived. To be completely fair they hadn’t exactly shared a bath before but it wasn’t any different or any more sinful than sneaking out of camp at night had been.
“Scoot back,” she demands, standing at the foot of the tub expectantly, rolling her eyes again and contemplating moving him herself if he couldn’t stop staring long enough to make room for her. He’s seen her bare before yet he still acts like it’s the first time.
“I thought you went to get a drink?” Arthur asks as he finally sits up and pulls his knees closer to himself and against the walls of the tub.
Sadie swings her leg over the side followed by the other before sinking down into the warm water in the space he’d made for her, “I did.”
“Then what’s this? You couldn’t wait.”
“Just saving water,” she scoffs, trying to have patience with the man who somehow had stolen her heart, even if he could sometimes be a few horses short of a herd whenever he was around her. She cups water in her hand and brings it up to wash out some of the dirt that still lingered in his hair.
“Since when were you big on the environment stuff?” Arthur leans forward so she can reach him better and then brings a hand up to ghost his thumb over the bruise forming on her cheek.
“You ain’t known me that long,” she laughs, doing her best posh impression with an expression that would suggest he was a lady of higher standard. Coated and mud and sharing a bath with a man was the exact opposite of a lady, she’s sure of that much.
“Long enough and good and personal you don’t mind strippin’ and interupin’ me,” he teases to which she responds by splashing water at him.
“Excuse me for thinkin’ you’d like the company from your girl.” Sadie doesn’t mean to refer to herself in such a way to him, even if they had been sleeping together some sort of endearment was far from the line they’d already crossed, it just serves to remind her how close they’d become.
She doesn’t get to think more on it because next thing she knows she’s got a face full of water and enough it’s gotten up her nose. She’s shocked at first, wiping away what’s gotten in her eyes to the sound of Arthur’s laughter, only interrupted by a splash back at him big enough that water spills out the sides.
By the time they’ve finished their bath half the water is on the floor, but they’re cleaner and happier than they had been before they’d walked into town.