Desperate Read Online Free PDF Page B

feared we would go hungry.”
    “Me too,” Annabelle replied.
    Meg shook her head. “It’s not good news. The balloon payment on the house and land is due in less than thirty days. We need double that amount to make the payment and buy food.”
    “What did Papa do with his money?” Ruby asked.
    Meg shrugged, times had always been tough, but in the last year a blown away barn and a late freeze had hurt their crops. Like a tide, money seemed to flow out, but never come back in.
    “Papa spent more time around the farm and hadn’t worked as much. That’s why he went on this last trip. He needed money for the mortgage.”
    “How are we going to make that kind of cash in the next thirty days?” Annabelle asked, her face white as she grasped the reality of their situation.
    “I don’t have a clue,” Meg responded, wondering if her own face had gone white when the banker had delivered the news. “And the bank is refusing to loan us more money or give us an extension. We must pay the loan in the next thirty days or lose our home.”
    Never one to sit still during a crisis, Annabelle jumped up and came back with a piece of clean paper and an ink quill.
    “What are you doing?” Ruby asked, frowning at her sister like she’d lost her mind.
    “I’m making a list of jobs for us to consider,” Annabelle replied, gazing at her younger sister like she was a fool. “We can either lose the farm or go to work.”
    “Oh,” Ruby said, and Meg could almost see the wheels of her mind working as she sat with her chin in her hands gazing at her two sisters. “We could sell baked goods to wranglers passing through town.”
    “Like we’re letting you anywhere near those men,” Annabelle replied, shaking her head but writing down the suggestion. “You’d be selling other goods.”
    “Hey, that’s not fair,” Ruby responded.
    Meg held up her hand to silence the outburst. “This will mean not only working in town, but also our normal chores here at the farm.”
    As if there wasn’t enough to do around the farm already, now they would be working in town for eight to ten hours. But if they lost the farm, Meg didn’t know what they’d do.
    Ruby frowned and glanced around the table at her sisters. “What kind of jobs can we get?”
    “That’s why we’re making a list,” Annabelle responded quietly.
    “Everyone give me ideas for a job,” Meg said, trying to keep them centered around how they could earn more money and not about the hopelessness of their situation.
    “Saloon girl,” Ruby said with a giggle.
    “Do you know the duties of a saloon girl?” Meg asked. She knew Ruby said it in jest, but still it was time this girl got the fantasies out of her head and faced the realities of the situation. Being a calico queen could only be a harsh life. She didn’t want her sisters in that situation.
    Ruby stopped, her innocent eyes glancing at each of her sisters. “Not really. I think she just hangs out with the cowboys who come in, and they buy her a drink or dinner.”
    Annabelle shook her head in disbelief and rolled her eyes.
    Meg gazed at her youngest sister, who thought of herself as a woman but had no clue about real life. “It’s time you knew the truth. A saloon girl does exactly what you said, but her wage is paid by the cowboys who take her upstairs and have sex with her. She is paid every time she allows some man to crawl between her legs and fornicate with her. She’s subjected to disease and pregnancy. Is that the kind of life you want?”
    “Ewww. No, that sounds dirty.”
    “Stay away from the saloon, Ruby. I know you’re an innocent, but those men would take advantage of a young girl like you,” Annabelle said quietly.
    “I will. So that leaves us with, waitress, cook, housekeeper, and dressmaker,” Ruby said, a frown on her beautiful face. “Like someone is going to hire us. We’re the trouble making McKenzie girls.”
    So they were known around town as being unique—Meg because she wore