Megan

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I want to go to school,” he said.

  “I thought you wanted to be a deputy instead,” Christy replied. Margaret was waving her spoon back and forth over her head, and Christy reached out and gently stayed the small, plump hand. It touched Megan deeply, watching her sister with her children; Christy was a good mother, as Megan had always known she would be.

  “Changed my mind,” Joseph said seriously. “Deputies have to work outside all night, in the rain. Pa told me so this morning.” He might have been a miniature man, the way he spoke, instead of a child not yet three years old. If he was that smart at his tender age, Megan reflected, Christy and Zachary would have their hands full bringing him up.

  Christy patiently wiped Margaret’s hand clean with a checkered table napkin, then gave her back the spoon. Over the heads of her children, Christy met Megan’s gaze and smiled. Plainly, for all the uncertainties in her life, she was completely happy. Furthermore, she seemed to have every confidence that Megan would be, too.

  *

  The house Skye and Jake shared with their young family was much smaller than the mansion Jake had owned in town before the fire swept through and burned the place to the ground, but it was still impressive. The walls were white clapboard, and there were green shutters at the windows. Crimson roses grew on either side of the flagstone steps leading up onto the spacious veranda, and there were two gables on the second floor. The place’s resemblance to Granddaddy McQuarry’s Virginia farmhouse filled Megan with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia.

  She and Christy had walked the short distance from Christy’s, Megan carrying Margaret while Joseph and Augustus tagged along behind.

  Skye came out onto the porch, her brown hair swept up into a loose chignon, her smile bright with pleasure at the prospect of company. She was holding little Susannah in her arms. “Where’s Bridget?” she asked.

  “She’ll be along,” Christy said.

  “And Caney? Is she coming, too?”

  Christy and Megan exchanged a look. This was no time or place to tell their sister the bad news, they tacitly agreed. It was a special day, and there was no reason to spoil it.

  “She’s busy,” Joseph said. Fortunately, he didn’t add that Caney was going on a trip. Hank had come through the open doorway, behind Skye, grinning in welcome.

  “No school today?” Christy asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Skye smiled, somewhat mysteriously. “The latest schoolteacher ran off last week. Married a peddler.” Schoolmarms came and went like good weather in Primrose Creek. As soon as they got there, some man was sure to start courting them, there being a shortage of marriageable ladies, and it didn’t matter a whit whether they were pretty or homely as a bald chicken.

  “What are you going to do?” Christy asked, concerned.

  “Go fishing,” Hank replied happily, before Skye could answer, and all of them laughed.

  The inside of Skye’s house proved to be as appealing as the outside, its shiny wooden floors scattered with bright braided rugs, its furniture store-bought. The curtains were of pristine white lace, and a large, splendid oil portrait of Skye hung over the parlor fireplace. She looked like a member of high society, depicted in ropes of pearls and a gauzy rose-colored dress with lots of ruffles and lace.

  Following Megan’s gaze, Skye blushed prettily. “Jake commissioned that,” she said. “I told him it was a foolish extravagance, but he insisted. The last thing I have time to be doing is sitting around all gussied up while somebody paints my picture, but he brought a man all the way from San Francisco to do just that.”

  “Yes,” Christy said, taking off Margaret’s cloak and bonnet before attending to her own. “And that fellow stole our last schoolteacher.”

  “Maybe you ought to hire a man,” Megan suggested. Skye and Christy both laughed, though she’d been serious.

  Within the hour, Bridget arrived with her tribe of children, and soon the older cousins were chasing around outside in the high, fragrant grass, while the little ones played quietly on the floor near Skye’s grand dining room table. Megan was measured, fitted, and measured again, but over the course of the morning, the wedding dress began to come together, and, by midafternoon, it was finished except for the lace trim and the pearls. Bridget would add the former, taking the gown home with her that evening, and Christy the latter, after collecting it from Bridget in the morning.

  Megan and Christy walked back, Megan once again carrying Margaret, while Joseph pretended to be leading them all safely through the wilderness. When they arrived, the lanterns were lit, and Zachary was there. Plainly exhausted but freshly bathed and shaved, he was at the cookstove, stirring a huge skillet full of hash.

  “Supper’s about ready,” he said with one of his patented grins. “How’s the wedding dress coming along?”

  Megan glanced around, looking for Caney, knowing already that she wouldn’t find her. Christy had made the same deduction, judging by the look in her eyes, but, surely for the children’s sake, she made no mention of this noticeable absence.

  “Nicely,” Christy said, barely missing a beat. “Megan’s going to be the prettiest bride this side of Paris.”

  He’d set the table. He was an unusual man, Zachary was, but then, so were Trace and Jake. Although he nodded, the glow in his eyes was strictly for Christy, and a glance at her flushed sister convinced Megan that the message was getting through, whatever it was. She wondered if she and Webb would ever have a relationship half as deep and gratifying as the one these two shared.

  Megan wasn’t going to ask about Caney, at least not in front of her niece and nephew, but she had no such compunction where Webb was concerned. She opened her mouth to speak, and before she got the question out, he strolled in from a back room, where he’d evidently washed, shaved, and changed clothes. Although he looked weary, and even a bit gaunt, he had clearly come through the ordeal unscathed, at least physically.

  “Zachary invited me to stay for supper,” he said.

  Once again, Megan felt that humbling urge to run into his arms. It was getting familiar, that feeling, and so were some others that were much more difficult to define. “The cattle?”

  He sighed. “We lost twenty head,” he said.

  She remembered Jesse and felt guilty for not thinking of him first.

  Webb didn’t wait for her to ask; he’d seen her next question in her eyes. “Jesse’s running scared right now,” he said, “but I reckon he’ll be back one of these days. He’s not a bad kid.”

  Megan might not have understood Webb’s loyalty to his brother if she hadn’t had three sisters she would have loved no matter what. “You’re not going looking for him?”

  “No time,” Webb said with obvious regret. “I’ve got my hands full with only three ranch hands to ride herd.”

  “Not all the men were in league with the thieves, then,” Megan remarked.

  “No,” Webb agreed. “Not all.”

  They ate companionably, a family gathered for an ordinary meal, and afterward, when Webb rode home, Megan went with him, sharing his horse, sheltered in the curve of his strong arms, while Augustus ambled along beside them.

  Webb didn’t speak to her all during the ride home, but Megan wasn’t troubled by that, because she knew he was thinking about Jesse. When they arrived at the ranch, he sent her into the house while he went to the barn to groom the horse he’d been riding and saddle a fresh one. Without saying good-bye, he left again, headed for the canyon and what remained of his herd, and Megan watched from the doorway until he was out of sight.

  Chapter

  9

  Webb was chilled, bone-weary, and about halfway discouraged as he rode through the evening wind, headed for the piece of range land where what remained of his herd was grazing. The sky was starless, a great, dark void, but there was a crescent moon and the rain had moved on. God knew they needed all the moisture they could get, but he was glad for the respite all the same.

  His mind, meanwhile, kept straying back to t
he ranch house, back to Megan. He envisioned her moving from room to room, perhaps making tea at the stove, or searching the shelves for a book in the parlor, or maybe getting ready for bed. He found himself lingering on the last possibility; he couldn’t help remembering the night before, when she’d so innocently asked him to lie down beside her.

  He’d have given just about anything if he could have squared that with himself and accepted the invitation, but his sense of honor had gotten in the way. He’d developed a lot of self-control over the years, but not enough to stretch out on a mattress beside Megan McQuarry without touching her.

  He adjusted his hat and sighed. In a few days, they’d be married, he and Megan. He could wait that long. Couldn’t he? He was still debating that with himself when he broke through to a small clearing and a rider came out of the trees on the other side. Startled out of some very private thoughts, he automatically reached for the pistol he hadn’t carried in better than seven years.

  “Webb!” Jesse reined in that broken-down cow pony of his in a thin wash of moonlight, standing in his stirrups.

  Webb was at once overjoyed to see the kid and hot to wring his neck. Which only went to show that he hadn’t really changed, even though he’d long since hung up his gun. He rode to the middle of the clearing and waited without a word. Jesse had come looking for him, and it was Jesse’s place to speak first.

  The kid flashed a nervous smile, but he didn’t come any closer. Webb estimated the distance between them at fifty yards or so. “I guess you heard I was the one who told Megan them men was planning to steal your cattle,” he said. His voice had a shaky quality, though he was trying to sound as though he thought he deserved some credit.

  “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to tell me,” Webb observed.

  Jesse’s horse was fitful, but he kept the reins short. He didn’t retreat, but he didn’t come any closer, either. “I’m heading back up to Montana,” he said. His tone still had a bluff quality. “I stay around here, I’ll either be hanged or shot.”

  Webb understood his worries. Zachary hadn’t said what twists and turns the law might take in a case like this one, and even though six of the rustlers Webb had hired on his brother’s recommendation were in jail awaiting a military escort to Fort Grant, there were still three of them on the loose. One or all of them might come gunning for Jesse, just on general principle. “I reckon you should have thought of that before.”

  “Ain’t you going to ask why I did it?”

  Webb would have smiled under other circumstances. “No,” he answered, “I figure I already know. Things were hard for you after I left the Southern Star, weren’t they, Jesse? Without me there to take your part, Pa and Tom Jr. must have given you a pretty hard time.”

  Even at that distance, Webb saw Jesse’s face contort with emotion. The boy said nothing, but as Webb rode closer, he noticed that Jesse’s breathing was quick and shallow, and his eyes were overly bright.

  Soon, they were facing each other like jousting knights on the field of battle, their horses side by side. Webb reached out with his left arm and took the back of Jesse’s neck in an affectionate hold. “I shouldn’t have left you behind,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You thought you’d killed Tom Jr.,” Jesse said, and when Webb let go of him, he looked the other way for a few moments and sniffled.

  “Yeah,” Webb said. “I surely did. You want to know the worst thing of all? That’s exactly what I meant to do. When I went at him that day, I wanted to kill him.”

  “You aren’t the only one who ever felt that way,” Jesse allowed.

  “You sure you want to go back to him and Pa, after being out on your own?”

  Jesse thrust out a hard breath, sniffled again, and ran his shirtsleeve across his face. It softened Webb, that gesture; he’d seen his kid brother do that often, when he was a little fella, trying not to cry. “I got to go back,” he said with considerable resolution. “At least long enough to prove them wrong about me. I’ve got some things to prove to myself, too.”

  If he’d had the time and the leisure, Webb might have done the same thing. “Watch your back,” he said. “And send me a telegram when you get as far as Butte.”

  “You ain’t vexed with me?”

  Webb nearly smiled. “I didn’t say that,” he replied. “Given what I did to Tom Jr., I guess it makes sense that you’d want to step lightly around me. I’ve changed a little since those days, though, Jesse. I’ve had enough years to wonder what kind of man has that kind of violence in him.”

  Jesse put out his hand. “Anything you want me to tell Pa?”

  The brothers clasped hands for a moment. “Yeah,” Webb said. “You can tell the old coot that if I never see him again, it’ll be a week too soon. Same goes for Tom Jr.”

  “What about Ellie?”

  Webb grinned. “You tell her I’m happy,” he said, “and I wish her the same.”

  At long last, some light came into Jesse’s face. “That Megan, she’s going to make you a fine wife.”

  Webb nodded. “Good-bye, Jesse,” he said. “If you want to head back this way, when things have had time to cool down a little, there’s a place in the bunkhouse for you.”

  “Thanks,” Jesse said. Then he reined his horse around and rode off, disappearing into the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.

  Webb’s mind was on the long ago and far away as he rode on toward the herd, but only briefly. The past had no more meaning for him; he’d broken free of it a long while ago, without consciously realizing that, and now that Megan McQuarry was a part of his life, he was only interested in the present and the future.

  *

  Megan was wide awake before dawn and determined not to pass another night with chickens in her kitchen. After feeding herself, Augustus, and the chicks—all but three of which had survived—she carried the crate out into the barn and set it on a bale of hay while she fed the horses, taking time to visit a bit with each one of them, the way she would have done with a neighbor.

  When the sun was up, she inspected the chicken coop from the inside. The walls were up, and there was even a latch on the door, but only about a third of the roof boards had been nailed into place. Another spate of rainy weather like they’d just had, and the whole project would be ruined.

  Shaking her head, Megan found a ladder, a hammer, and some nails in the barn, beside the salvaged lumber Webb had set aside for the purpose. Far from new, the wood was silver-gray with wear from years of sun and wind, rain and snow. The lengths were uneven, too, but for the time being, Megan was only concerned with providing proper shelter for the chicks. If the coop looked too strange when she was finished, she would simply climb up again and saw off the ends.

  It was hot work, roofing a chicken coop, and far more difficult in skirts than it would have been in trousers. Nonetheless, Megan spent the morning clambering up and down the ladder, nailing boards in place, getting slivers in her knees. She was finished and sitting on the ridge of the roof, lamenting the gaps where the warped planks didn’t fit together, when she got to daydreaming about Webb Stratton and what it would be like to give herself to him, come their wedding night.

  As if she’d conjured him, Webb appeared, riding along the creek’s edge.

  Startled, as chagrined as if he could see into her mind and read her thoughts, she lost her balance and slid straight down one side of the roof on her backside. Unable to catch herself, she scooted right off into midair and fell to the ground with a plunk.

  Fortunately, she had not broken her tail bone. Unfortunately, her buttocks and the backs of her thighs were prickly with splinters.

  Webb reached the yard and, having seen the spectacle, dismounted and sprinted toward her. “Are you hurt?” he demanded. “Good God, you could have broken your neck—”

  Megan’s eyes filled with tears of humiliation and pain. “I’m hurt,” she said.

  Instantly, he crouched beside her. “Where? How?”

  She scraped her upper
lip with her teeth. She didn’t want to tell him, but she had to, because this was one problem she couldn’t solve by herself. “My—the place where I sit—slivers—”

  Although a smile lurked in his eyes, he kept a suitably serious expression. “Now, that,” he said, “is a shame.” Gently, he helped her to her feet. “Come on. I’d better start pulling.”

  Megan balked, even though she felt as though she’d sat herself down in an ants’ nest. “You could go for Skye, or Christy, or Bridget—”

  “And leave you with pieces of wood festering in your hide? Not likely.”

  Megan simply didn’t have the strength to protest further; the only thing greater than her embarrassment was the stinging in her flesh. Augustus accompanied them into the house, whining in sympathy all the while. Megan felt a little like whining herself, but she managed to refrain.

  “Let me have a look,” Webb said, closing the door.

  Megan’s face flamed. Try though she might, she could not think of a way out of this dilemma. “This is dreadful,” she said, sounding a little like Augustus.

  Webb, on the other hand, was all business. “Lift up your skirts,” he said.

  Utterly abashed, Megan did as she was told. Webb crouched behind her and very carefully lowered her drawers. His only comment on the state of her posterior was a low whistle.

  “Is it bad?” Megan dared to inquire. Surely this situation could not get worse.

  She was wrong, as it turned out. “Depends on your perspective,” he said. “Bend over the table, so I can see.”

  “I most certainly will not!”

  “Megan, you’ve got more splinters in your backside than I’ve got cattle. Some of them are in delicate places. Now, do as I tell you, and let’s get this over with.”

  Blushing quite literally from head to foot, Megan leaned over the table, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. In addition to the slivers, and a not inconsiderable breeze, she felt Webb’s gently probing fingers, and the sensations that produced would probably cause her to find religion.

  “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t tell anyone about this, would you?” Megan asked, flinching as Webb extracted a particularly stubborn bit of wood.