Megan

by Linda Lael Miller

  Dread rose within Megan, but she did a good job of hiding it. Or, at least, she thought she did. “There might come a time when I’m called upon to play a part or two,” she admitted, “but mostly I’ll just be helping to arrange the entertainments.”

  “I see,” Webb answered, and everything about him indicated just the opposite to be true.

  “Webb, I promised,” Megan said.

  He looked her up and down. “We’ve made a few promises to each other, you and I,” he said, “even if they were unspoken.”

  “And I’ll keep them.”

  He was quiet for a long time, tilting his head back, looking up at the blue summer sky. When he met Megan’s gaze again, he said the one thing that made it impossible for them to agree. “I guess you’ll have to make a choice or two before Saturday, won’t you?”

  Chapter

  10

  “ Don’t be bull-headed,” Christy said the following afternoon, when she and Bridget came by to give the wedding dress a final fitting. Megan was standing on a chair in the center of the kitchen, while Bridget knelt, pinning the hem into place, and Christy adjusted the seams. She had just explained her quandary concerning Lil and the new show house, describing her promise and Webb’s ultimatum.

  Bridget looked up. “Just tell Miss Colefield you made a mistake.”

  Megan’s conscience was giving her as much trouble as the slivers in her backside had done, maybe more, and she expected she’d be a lot longer in the healing if she made the wrong choice. She heaved a frustrated sigh.

  “Hold still,” Christy scolded, giving her a pinch on one side of her waist to make the point. Her gray eyes were direct and perhaps a little fierce. “What do you really want to do, Megan?”

  Megan bit her lower lip and willed the tears burning behind her eyes into full retreat. “I want to marry Webb,” she said. “I want to live in this house with him until I’m an old, old lady. I want a flock of babies. But a part of me wants what Lil’s offering, too.”

  Bridget tugged hard at the elegant, rustling skirts of the magnificent dress. Between her touches of lace and the dozens of tiny pearls Christy had stitched to the bodice and the cuffs of the full, billowing sleeves, that gown was as fine as any she could have bought in Richmond before the Great Strife. “All of us have to make choices sometimes,” she said. “Nobody can do everything.”

  “Do you have any idea how busy you’ll be, once you have children?” Christy argued. “Good heavens, Megan, you’re already responsible for cooking meals and cleaning the place, not to mention everything else that goes with being a wife. You purely won’t have the time to do a proper job in either place. And if I know you, you’d wear yourself to a nub trying, all the same.”

  “He’s never said he loved me,” Megan confided in a small voice.

  Bridget and Christy looked at each other before focusing their gazes on Megan’s face. “Have you ever told Webb you love him?” Christy asked.

  Megan swallowed. “No,” she said.

  “Why not?” Bridget wanted to know.

  Megan sniffled and barely caught herself from touching the back of one hand to her nose. “I’m not sure it would be honest.”

  They both stopped working. Bridget got to her feet, and Christy stepped back, frowning. “What?” Christy demanded.

  “What I mean is,” Megan began, wincing once and wringing her hands, “I feel all sorts of things for Webb Stratton, but I don’t know if it’s love. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before.”

  Again, a cryptic glance passed between the two elder sisters. “What, exactly, is it like?” Bridget asked.

  Megan felt much the way she had when she’d been bent over the kitchen table with her bare bottom in the air, but she needed Bridget and Christy’s help, so she bore it with as much grace as possible. Nonetheless, her face was hot, and there were grasshoppers springing about in her stomach. “Sometimes it’s like nothing and nobody else exists, except for Webb and me,” she said in a whisper, though the three of them were quite alone, except for Augustus, who was snoozing on the hearth. “I know I can live without him, but I also know it would be a darker, thinner, more hollow life. And when he kisses me—”

  Both Bridget and Christy leaned forward, the better to listen.

  “When he kisses me,” Megan went on, “I always feel as if I’m going to faint. My insides catch fire just like dry timber, and I ache to beat all.”

  A smile crept across Christy’s mouth. “You love him,” she said with quiet confidence.

  Bridget’s cornflower-blue eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes,” she agreed. “You most definitely do.”

  “What do I know?” Megan wailed. “I thought I loved Davy Trent!”

  Bridget raised one eyebrow and folded her arms. Obviously, she had no idea who Davy was and what had happened between him and Megan. Just as obviously, she had her suspicions. She didn’t ask, though. She just stood there with her usual authority, waiting to be enlightened.

  “Did he make you feel the same things Webb does?” Christy asked carefully. “This Davy person, I mean?”

  Megan felt as though Christy had just flung a bucket full of dirty mop water all over her, unprovoked. “Of course he didn’t!” she hissed.

  “There you have it,” Bridget said solemnly, addressing Christy rather than Megan. The pair had been embattled for much of their lives, and yet they shared an alliance that set them apart from the rest of the family in a subtle and unique way. “Webb is the one for her.”

  “Yes,” Christy agreed. “I think you’re right.”

  “Does it matter at all here what I think?” Megan cried softly, and Augustus whimpered and got to his feet, as though he thought she might need rescuing.

  “What do you think?” Christy reiterated.

  Megan burst into tears. “I won’t be able to bear it,” she sobbed, “if he calls off the wedding. It’s bad enough that Caney won’t be there!”

  “The dilemma seems simple enough to me,” Bridget said. Sometimes it made a body want to stick pins in her, the way she was always so damnably certain of everything. “Marry him, Megan. What does the Good Book say? ‘It’s better to marry than to burn’?” She paused for effect, and Megan remembered that she wasn’t the only one in the family with a sense of drama. “If you ask me, you’re about to go up in flames right now. As for Caney, she’ll come back when she’s ready. Just you wait and see.”

  “You really think so?” Skye asked softly.

  Bridget nodded. “We’re her family,” she said.

  Despite Bridget’s claim that the matter of Webb’s decree was settled, Megan felt like a hound who’s just chased a rabbit round and round the same bush for half an hour without catching it. She was as confused as ever; they hadn’t settled anything. Still, she was comforted by the prospect of Caney’s eventual return.

  Christy handed her a dish towel, that being the first thing that came to hand for the purpose. “Here. Dry your face and blow your nose before you ruin that dress,” she ordered.

  Megan wiped her eyes, but that was as far as she was willing to go. After all, she had to use that dish towel. “You two were absolutely no help at all,” she accused.

  Bridget smiled. “You don’t need our help anyhow,” she said. “You already know what you have to do.”

  Megan realized that indeed she did know. She was going to have to choose between love and honor, in this case, and she would follow her heart and choose love. She would tell Webb what she’d decided, as humbling as that would be, then go to town and make her apologies to Diamond Lil. No doubt the saloon mistress would want her four-poster pineapple bedstead back.

  She nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “Both of you. Jupiter and Zeus, I hate that.”

  Christy and Bridget laughed out loud, their voices as beautiful as distant bells on a Sunday morning, and returned to the task at hand.

  *

  He’d been unreasonable, Webb thought, saddle-sore and sick to death of looking at cows and cow
boys. Sure, it was unusual for a married woman to be in business, but Megan was no ordinary female. That was one of the many reasons he loved her.

  He sighed. Yep, he loved her. What he’d felt for Ellie had been mere infatuation; he’d known that for a long time. It was Megan he wanted to share his life with, Megan he wanted to bear his children, Megan he wanted to lie down beside, every night until he died. Still, he was a proud man, and it would be a bitter pill, having his wife go into business with the town madam. Sweet heaven, he’d be joshed damn near to death over that, and he might even have to take up fighting again.

  “Rider!” the lookout—one of Jake Vigil’s lumberjacks, borrowed until more men could be hired—shouted to Webb, pointing up the ravine.

  Webb lifted his gaze and knew immediately that the visitor was Megan. He spurred the gelding into a trot and headed straight uphill.

  He and Megan met midway.

  “Webb—” she began.

  “Megan—” he started.

  They laughed. “You go first,” Webb said. It was good just to look at her, just to hear her voice. A homecoming of sorts.

  “No,” she said. “You.”

  He sighed, the reins lying easy in his gloved hands, which rested on the pommel of his saddle. “I still hate the idea of your working in town,” he said. “It’s going to look like I can’t provide for my own wife, and God knows what the gossips will say. All the same, I had no right forcing you to choose.” He paused, searched the horizon for inspiration, and looked back at her. “What it comes down to is, I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

  She blushed prettily, and joy shone in her eyes. “Webb,” she said, in a tone so tender that it had the effect of a caress. Then she shook her head. “I won’t be working with Lil, not unless she runs into a real emergency,” she said. “Part of this ranch will be mine, and that will be more than enough to keep me busy, when you figure in a husband and babies.”

  Something leaped inside him. He almost said it then, almost said right out that he loved her. It didn’t seem like the proper place to make such a declaration, though, there in the middle of noplace, with cows and a few saddle bums for witnesses. His voice came out hoarse. “I’m for starting that first baby as soon as possible,” he said.

  She went even pinker, but the tears were gone, and her eyes were still shining. “That’s something we can agree on. Will you be home for supper tonight?”

  Webb knew he shouldn’t leave the herd. He was short-handed as it was, and the weather was still uncertain. If he lost any more cattle, he’d have a problem, and not a slight one. “I’ll be there,” he heard himself say.

  His reward was a smile, that sweet, sassy Megan McQuarry smile that always made his gizzard shimmy up into his windpipe. “I’ll be waiting,” she said.

  Lordy, he thought, and sat there in the saddle like a lump on a log, watching her ride away.

  When, resigned, he reined his horse around to go back to work, he saw Trace and Zachary coming toward him on horseback, with Jake Vigil and Malcolm Hicks close behind.

  When they got within shouting distance, he saw that Trace and Zachary were grinning from ear to ear. Damn pleased with themselves.

  “Figured you could use some more help with these dogies,” Zachary said, indicating the cattle with a toss of his head.

  Webb was at a loss for words. He’d been on his own a long time, even before he’d left the Southern Star, in many ways, and now he was going to have brothers, the kind a man could count on in good times and bad.

  “You do want some help, don’t you?” Trace inquired, still smiling.

  “God, yes,” Webb said at last.

  Jake rode forward, put out a hand. “I hope you appreciate this,” he said, his eyes bright with amusement. “Malcolm here got up out of his marriage bed to lend a hand.”

  Webb had never seen a black man blush, but he reckoned that was what Malcolm did just then. He sure did curse.

  “He and Caney got themselves hitched in secret,” Zachary said, standing in the stirrups to stretch his legs. “I’ll allow that I envy him her cooking.”

  Malcolm smiled at that. He did look happy, Webb thought. “My missus can spare me for a little while,” Hicks said. “But it don’t work the other way.”

  “What we need to do,” Webb said, his voice a little unsteady, “is drive these cattle closer to the house. Now that twenty or so of them are gone for good, the high meadow will serve as grazing land, at least for a few weeks.”

  “Makes sense,” Zachary agreed.

  Within half an hour, with four extra hands to help, Webb’s herd was on its way up out of the ravine, toward higher ground, and Webb himself was on his way home.

  *

  To say walking straight into Diamond Lil’s infamous saloon in broad daylight drew stares and whispers would be an understatement, but Megan did so with her shoulders squared and her head held high. She had something to say to the woman, and it had to be said face-to-face.

  Just past the swinging doors, Megan paused and waited, blinking, for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. She saw a long, narrow room with sawdust-covered floors and high, murky windows. The bar seemed as long as the railroad tracks between New York and Philadelphia, laid out straight as the crow flies, and the mirror behind it must have cost as much as the rest of the building. There were tables with green felt tops, and a few early customers were hunkered over glasses of whiskey, like freezing men trying to absorb the heat of a faltering bonfire. The infamous “girls” who worked upstairs were nowhere to be seen, somewhat to Megan’s disappointment.

  The bartender stopped wiping the glass in his hands, and his mouth dropped open. “I’ll be jiggered,” he said.

  “I’m looking for Lillian Colefield,” Megan said clearly, though her voice was shaking. The McQuarry women had a reputation for boldness, but this was new ground, even for them.

  “Well, here I am,” Lil said, appearing in a doorway at the back of the room. It looked like three miles, the distance between where Megan stood and that door. “Come on back to my office, and we’ll jaw awhile.” She took in the staring patrons of the bar. “You fellas just shove your eyeballs back in your heads and go on about your business. Haven’t you ever seen a decent woman before?”

  Megan might have been walking in knee-deep mud as she made her way through that saloon. If word ever got back to Caney, wherever she was, she’d get a lecture that would blister both her ears. On the other hand, what else could she have done? Stood in the street and yelled for Lil to come out?

  Lil’s office surprised Megan; she’d expected silk and satin, sumptuous cushions and fainting couches, perhaps, and velvet draperies with tassels. Instead, the place was utterly plain, with just a desk, a couple of chairs, and shelves full of books and ledgers. A little stove stood in the corner.

  “Sit down,” Lil said, taking her own seat behind the desk and folding her hands loosely. She wasn’t dressed like a madam, either, Megan noted. Her dress was brown bombazine, unadorned, and without cosmetics, her face reflected the hard life she’d led. A smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. “What brings you here, Miss McQuarry?”

  Not for the first time in her life, Megan wished she could be two women, one of them Webb’s wife and the mother of his children, the other helping to build the Primrose Creek Playhouse into something the community would be proud to claim. She sat up very straight and took the plunge. “I’m afraid I cannot be your partner after all. I’m sorry.”

  Lil arched one eyebrow. “Webb put his foot down, did he?”

  Megan’s face flared, and her backbone lengthened another notch, as if she’d grown an extra vertebra. “I made the decision myself,” she said firmly. It wasn’t entirely true, of course, but that was beside the point. “Thank you for the beautiful bed. I suppose you’ll be wanting it back now.”

  Lil laughed. “You keep the bed,” she said. “It’s my gift to the both of you.”

  Megan didn’t know what to say, now that she’d stated
her intentions regarding the partnership. She hadn’t had much experience conversing with brothel owners, her scandalous career as an actress notwithstanding. “Th-thank you,” she faltered, and then realized that she’d repeated herself.

  Lil took a cheroot out of a box on her desk and, before lighting up, offered one to Megan, who refused with a shake of her head. The older woman sat back in her chair and regarded her visitor through a haze of blue-gray smoke. “You’ve got a good mind and a lot of gumption. Not many women would walk right into Diamond Lil’s saloon in the middle of the afternoon.”

  Megan’s smile was rueful. “I was an actress. I’m accustomed to being talked about.”

  “Are you?” Lil countered quietly. “I never did get used to it, myself.”

  Megan wanted to ask Lillian Colefield how she’d become Diamond Lil, but it would have been prying, and, like the other McQuarrys, she did her best to confine snooping to members of her own family. She sighed. “It’s hard. I’d like to be like them—the ‘good women’ of Primrose Creek—but I can’t seem to get the knack of it.”

  Lil smiled. “Oh, they’ll come around in time, once you’re safely settled down. You won’t be such a threat to them then.”

  Megan frowned. “A threat?”

  “Yes,” Lil drawled, drawing on her cheroot with frank enjoyment and exhaling the smoke in a way that seemed almost elegant. “They look at you, pretty as a flower garden after a long winter, and smart to boot, and they see all the things they’ll never have or be. Once you’re married, they’ll be able to convince themselves that you’ll end up just like them, sooner or later. I don’t think that will happen, though.”

  Megan’s eyes were wide. “You don’t?” she asked in a hopeful voice.

  Lil smiled. “You’re different. Like the other women in your family. Challenges only make you stronger. Somebody breaks your heart, you’ll learn to love more, and better. Your grandfather would have been proud of you.”