Megan

by Linda Lael Miller

  Webb went to the door, giving her a surprisingly wide berth as he passed, considering the fact that the room was hardly larger than a fruit crate. “If Augustus decides to come calling,” he said, “just show him the way out.”

  Megan nodded, oddly unable to speak.

  She was a wanderer, with no place of her own. So why did she feel, for the first time in her life, as though she’d finally come home?

  Chapter

  4

  Megan’s first housekeeping task was making breakfast for Webb, since he hadn’t eaten, and by the time he came in from the barn, she had biscuits ready, along with thick sausage gravy. She was amused and oddly touched to see that he filled a plate for Augustus and set it on a sunny spot in the middle of the kitchen floor before starting his own meal. Megan had had toasted bread and a poached egg at Christy’s, so she wasn’t hungry.

  She assessed the contents of the shelves while Webb and the dog ate with impressive appetite.

  “This is good,” Webb said between helpings. He sounded surprised. Again.

  Megan allowed herself a brief smile, though she tended to concentrate purely on the business at hand, whatever it might be, and at that moment, she was making a mental grocery list. “Thank you,” she said. “I can ride, too, and herd cattle, if you have need of that.” Hadn’t he and the other men bemoaned the lack of workers in and around Primrose Creek just the night before?

  She heard him lay down his fork. “That’s no work for a woman,” he said.

  Megan’s list blew out of her mind like feathers scattering in a brisk wind. She turned. “I beg your pardon?” she said. Augustus whimpered once, as though sensing the approach of something ominous.

  Webb’s eyes danced; plainly, her annoyance amused him, and that realization added fuel to a kindling fire. “What I meant was, I didn’t hire you to ride herd, brand, or check fence lines. There’s plenty right here to keep you busy.”

  Megan frowned. “But if you’re short-handed—”

  “Short-handed?” Webb echoed. “I’d have to hire three or four men before I could call myself short-handed. I reckon I’m going to have to ride down to Virginia City and see if I can scare up a few cowpunchers.” He paused. “Is there any more coffee?”

  She fetched the pot from the stovetop, carried it over to the table, and refilled his cup. He and the dog had left their plates clean, and that pleased her. Augustus probably would have eaten anything, it was true, but Webb had enjoyed her cooking, and that gave her the first real sense of accomplishment she’d had in a long time. Still, she was nettled by his assumption that she couldn’t manage range work.

  “Apparently, you don’t understand what it means to be a McQuarry,” she said.

  Webb nodded toward the chair across the table from his. “Sit down,” he told her quietly. Because the words had the tone of an invitation rather than a command, Megan complied.

  “What,” he asked when she was settled, “does it mean to be a McQuarry?”

  She was shaken by the tenderness of the question and by the genuine interest she saw in Webb’s eyes. He wasn’t just asking to be polite, he truly wanted to know. Or did he? She’d once thought the same thing about Davy, and look where that had gotten her. She bit her lower lip, stalling, and then sighed. “I’ve been able to ride since I could walk, Mr. Stratton. I can shoot, too, and I’ve rounded up my share of cattle, as it happens.”

  “Bringing the milk cows in from the pasture isn’t what I had in mind,” he said. “You won’t be called on to do any shooting at all, and if you find yourself with time on your hands, I could use some new shirts. You sew, don’t you?”

  She nodded. In truth, she’d never done more with a needle and thread than put up a hem or repair a torn seam, but she could do virtually anything she set her mind to, she was certain of that.

  “Good,” he said. “Maybe you could drive into town later. Pick out some yard goods and the like.”

  She’d have to face the townspeople eventually anyway, might as well get it over with and let them all know she wouldn’t be cowed by their disapproval. “All right,” she agreed, and she must have sounded a little uncertain, because she saw something like sympathy in Webb’s eyes.

  She hated sympathy; it was close kin to pity, and Megan could not tolerate that. Years before, when she and Christy had traveled to England with the woman they’d believed to be their mother, the two of them had been promptly shipped off to St. Martha’s, a venerable boarding school chosen by their English stepfather, where they had been viewed as uncouth colonials, hailing from a country where slavery was practiced. They’d been penniless into the bargain and frightfully homesick for Granddaddy and the farm, and those pupils who hadn’t scorned them had felt sorry for them. Some did both.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” Webb asked forthrightly.

  Once again, Megan felt compelled to raise her guard. She wasn’t about to share the memories that still bewildered her at times, still ached in the corners of her spirit like new bruises. She hadn’t told Skye about those hurts, or even Christy. “I was thinking that you need flour and sugar, not to mention lard,” she lied. “Are there chickens?”

  “Chickens?” he echoed, as though he’d never heard of the species.

  “You know,” she prompted cheerfully, “those creatures with beady eyes and feathers. They lay eggs and make a wonderful Sunday supper, fried and served with mashed potatoes.”

  Mirth lighted his eyes again. “Oh,” he said. “Those. Well, no. I don’t guess I’ve gotten around to that yet.”

  “We must have chickens,” Megan said.

  “I’ll put up a coop while you’re fetching what you need from town,” Webb replied. “You don’t mind going by yourself, do you?”

  She shook her head. She’d made the trip many times, of course, and she was used to doing things on her own.

  Twenty minutes later, Megan was driving toward Primrose Creek in her employer’s buckboard, a list in one pocket of her dress and a fair amount of Mr. Stratton’s money in the other. It occurred to her that she could just keep going, taking the funds, the team, and the wagon with her, but she never seriously considered the idea. She wasn’t a thief, and she wasn’t going to run away if she could help it. She’d made up her mind, during the long night just past, to set her heels, dig in, and stay put.

  Some of her resolve evaporated, however, when she drew stares just by driving down the main street of town. Determined, she stopped the wagon in front of old Gus’s general store and secured the team, watching out of the corner of her eye as a gaggle of women clad in calico and bombazine collected on the board sidewalk out front. She heard the whispers, and color flared in her face, but she managed a polite smile all the same. She had been an actress, after all, and a good one.

  “Your eyes do not deceive you, ladies,” she said, spreading her arms and executing a very grand curtsey. “Megan McQuarry has returned to Primrose Creek in all her glory.”

  The women muttered and looked to each other for assurance that, yes, they’d really seen this brazen creature, really heard her dare to speak to them in such an impudent fashion.

  “Humph,” said a plump, white-haired woman, barely taller than the metal jockeys that had served as hitching posts in front of the old McQuarry farmhouse. In her rustling black dress, she resembled a squat crow.

  When a feminine laugh came from somewhere nearby, Megan and all the ladies turned their heads to see Diamond Lil herself looking on, from just a little way down the sidewalk. She was a splendid creature, Lil was, tall and slender, with deep black hair and amber eyes. She wore the latest San Francisco fashion in pink and gold silk, and her lacy parasol was a work of art, all on its own.

  “Don’t mind the welcoming committee,” Lil said to Megan, as though the half-dozen townswomen were no more cognizant of her words than the street itself or the display of work boots in the window of Gus’s store. “They’ve got nothing better to do with their time, I reckon, than to keep track of you
r comings and goings.”

  Megan stared at Lil, fascinated. She’d never seen the woman up close, though she was an institution in Primrose Creek, owning several businesses besides her infamous saloon. Then she put out a hand. “Megan McQuarry,” she said.

  Lil took the offered hand, shook it graciously. “Lillian Colefield,” she replied. “Well, now,” she said, looking Megan over. “I heard tell you were an actress.”

  Gasps and mutters arose from the cluster of Primrose Creek’s version of high society.

  Megan swept them all up in a quelling glare before meeting Lil’s steady gaze again. “Yes,” she said clearly.

  “I’ve been thinking of opening a show house, next to my saloon. I might be looking to hire somebody like you.”

  The ladies clucked at this, like scalded hens, and Megan stifled a laugh. She’d taken a job with Webb Stratton, and she had no reason to leave, but it was nice to know she had another option. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Lil was studying the wagon and team. “That looks like Webb Stratton’s rig,” she said.

  Megan felt the words like a punch—it was none of her business, what Webb did when he came to town, she reminded herself—but hid her reaction by broadening her smile. “I’m his housekeeper,” she said in a voice meant to carry.

  More murmurs among the ladies. This was turning out to be a fruitful day for them, Megan reckoned.

  Lil obviously enjoyed the reactions to Megan’s announcement. “Well, now,” she said. “Lucky you.”

  Megan felt her color heighten, though she wasn’t precisely sure why that should have happened. It wasn’t as if there was anything going on between her and Mr. Stratton, after all. She was merely his housekeeper. “I guess I’d better get my marketing done,” she said, “while I’ve still got work.”

  “You come see me if you have a mind to perform in my theater,” Lil reiterated.

  “I will,” Megan promised. She had enjoyed acting, if not the attendant way of life, but she hoped she wouldn’t end up treading the boards again, out of choice or necessity. She wanted to soak in sunshine, not the faint glow of footlights, and she was all too aware that her sisters would suffer a great deal at the hands of the ladies of Primrose Creek if she took up with the likes of Diamond Lil Colefield. “Thank you,” she said once more.

  Inside the store, Gus greeted her with a jovial smile. Dear Gus. He hadn’t a pretentious bone in his big, bearlike body, and he’d been a good friend to the McQuarrys from the first. She well remembered the day, soon after she and her sister and Caney had arrived at Primrose Creek, that Christy had gone resolutely to town to sell their mother’s brooch for desperately needed funds. Gus had given Christy fifty dollars—a fortune—for the pin and held on to it, making it clear that Christy should come back for it when she had the means. Later, when he and Christy were married, Zachary had reclaimed the piece as a gift for his bride.

  “Hullo, Gus,” she said warmly.

  “Miss Megan,” he boomed, plainly delighted. “Welcome, welcome!”

  She smiled as she brought the shopping list out of her pocket. “I’ve come for supplies,” she said. Soon, she was happily examining sturdy cotton cloth for the shirts Webb wanted, while Gus gathered the items scribbled onto a piece of brown wrapping paper and placed them carefully in wooden crates.

  When she’d finished making her selections, and Gus’s sister, Bertha, had cut the lengths of fabric Megan had chosen, she paid the bill in full and couldn’t help noticing Gus’s gratitude and Bertha’s frank surprise. Times had been hard around Primrose Creek since the big forest fire two years before, when most of the town had burned, and a lot of people were probably letting their accounts go unpaid.

  Gus loaded the crates into the wagon, chattering in his broken English the whole while. He had some chicks ordered from the widow Baker’s farm, he said, and promised to bring out a batch as soon as they arrived. Like Lil, he had raised Megan’s spirits considerably, making her feel welcome, and she was in a cheerful state of mind as she headed back toward Webb’s ranch.

  Webb’s ranch. Best she remember that.

  Reaching the far western side of Bridget and Trace’s land, which bordered the acres she’d sold to Stratton, she stopped the team and wagon on a knoll and sat surveying all she had given up. A crushing wave of regret crashed over her, followed by fury, with herself and with Davy Trent. Resolutely, Megan brought down the reins smartly and got the rig moving again, jostling and jolting down the hillside toward the house Webb had built.

  He’d been sawing wood in the side yard, apparently for the chicken coop, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His suspenders dangled at his sides, and he was sweating. Megan willed herself to look away, but she found that she couldn’t.

  He grinned and shrugged into his shirt, leaving it to gape. His hands rested on his hips. “Looks like you laid in enough grub to last right through till next spring,” he observed. He seemed pleased.

  “It would be nice to have some beef and a side of pork,” she said in a businesslike fashion, feeling her flesh blaze with heat as he lifted her down from the wagon. What in the name of all that was holy was wrong with her, she wondered. Perhaps she was coming down with a fever. “Do you have a springhouse?”

  His hands lingered at the sides of her waist for the merest fraction of a moment, but it was long enough to send fire shooting through Megan’s most private regions. “An ice house,” he said. “I’ll show you, after I unload these crates.”

  She allowed him to help, not because she was lazy or because the work was too much for her, but because she felt hot and a bit dizzy. Sunstroke, she mused. Red-haired people had to be careful about getting too much sun.

  When all the crates were inside, Webb led the way to the ice house. It was a cave, dug into the side of a knoll and lined with straw. Blocks of ice, probably hauled down out of the mountains in the height of winter, cooled the dank air. A deer carcass hung from a hook in one of the beams holding up the sod roof.

  “Venison,” Megan said, already planning dinner.

  “Sounds good,” Webb replied. He was standing in the doorway, his arms folded, watching her. Because his face was in shadow, she could not read his expression, but his voice was warm and quiet, establishing an intimacy between them that should have unsettled Megan but didn’t. “How did things go in town?”

  Megan couldn’t resist telling him. Her smile was mischievous, though she figured he wouldn’t see it in the gloom. “Diamond Lil offered me a job, acting in her new show house. I guess you’d better be nice to me—it seems I’m quite sought after.”

  He laughed, one shoulder braced against the heavy framework of the door. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

  Megan was conscious of the things inside the house, needing to be put in their proper places, but Webb was blocking the way out. Though there was nothing threatening in his manner—indeed, Megan felt drawn to him, not repelled—she didn’t dare try to press past him.

  “I—I have work to do,” she said.

  His grin flashed. “Me, too,” he agreed. Then, to Megan’s enormous relief, he turned and walked away, leaving the passage clear.

  Megan dashed out as if the place had caught fire and flames were licking at her heels. Temporarily blinded by the bright sunlight, she crashed right into Webb’s back and would have fallen if he hadn’t turned around quickly and clasped her upper arms in both hands to steady her. She was as mortified as if she’d deliberately flung herself at him—not that she’d ever do such a thing.

  He stared down at her, still holding her. Then he laughed, low in his throat, and let her go. “Watch out,” he counseled. “You might just fall.”

  Indeed, she thought, she might fall. Maybe she already had.

  *

  Megan had been keeping house for Webb Stratton for a full three days before Skye and Caney came to pay a social call. They found her in the bunkhouse, sweeping the floor. It was a new building, never used by cowboys, alth
ough a few rats and other creatures had obviously made their nests inside. Webb had left for Virginia City that morning, hoping to hire a crew, and Megan had been working hard ever since, mostly to distract herself from the fact that she already missed him.

  Not that she had any right or reason to think about the man, one way or the other. It just seemed that she couldn’t help herself.

  Augustus, sleeping in a pool of sunlight just inside the bunkhouse door, roused himself to greet the company with friendly, speculative woofs and some hand-licking. Skye laughed and ruffled his ears. Caney surveyed the newly washed window, open to the breeze, and the thin mattresses rolled up on the metal cots lining both walls.

  “So you ain’t forgotten how to work,” the older woman observed.

  Skye elbowed her. “Stop your fussing,” she said, but there was long-standing affection in her tone. “You’ve no call to be so contrary.”

  Megan stood still, broom handle in hand, amazed to find herself with guests. “Come into the house,” she said. “I’ll brew some tea.”

  “I’d like to see where you sleep,” Caney announced.

  Megan and Skye exchanged looks, then avoided each other’s eyes lest they break into giggles, the way they’d done so often when they were girls.

  “I have the whole downstairs to myself,” Megan said, leading the way across the yard and in through the kitchen door. Augustus trotted along at her side, his great broom of a tail swaying from side to side.

  “I’ll have me a look just the same,” Caney said.

  Megan sighed. Inside the kitchen, she paused to wash her hands and splash her face at the basin. After using the damask towel on the rod above the small table, she showed them her room, with its narrow bed, its window, its row of pegs, where her dresses hung. She had eight, none of them really suited to life on the banks of Primrose Creek, but they were her own, and she took care of them.