Accidental Family

by Lisa Bingham

  The woman’s eyes narrowed as she studied Willow intently. “You are happy, aren’t you?”

  “Happy?”

  “With Mr. Wanlass. You haven’t been forced into anything against your will, have you?”

  “No! I... Mr. Wanlass... Charles and I...” Willow didn’t know what to say to reassure her friend, so she offered weakly, “We’re in love.”

  The explanation tasted false on her tongue. Willow didn’t have the slightest idea what “love” even meant. When she’d agreed to marry Mr. Ferron and serve as his helpmate and the mother of his children, she’d known that love had nothing to do with it. The two of them had shared a business agreement, nothing more, nothing less. If she’d ever had any dreams of romance, Willow had pushed them aside and consoled herself with the fact that the marriage of convenience would offer her the one thing she wanted: a family. Or at least the closest thing to a family that she was likely to get.

  In that respect, the arrangement with Charles wasn’t much different. Willow was still playing at being a wife and mother. The principal characters had just changed for the time being.

  But Lydia was unaware of Willow’s turmoil. The woman grasped her hands, squeezing them.

  “I thought so, otherwise I wouldn’t have interfered. It was my idea to bring the dress, the veil.”

  Willow’s fingers slid from Lydia’s grip to the pink ribbon at her waist. “Oh, you’ll need your dress back. It will only take a minute to—”

  “Stop it. I don’t want it back. It’s a gift. The other dresses that you wore were...”

  “Awful,” Willow blurted out.

  Lydia laughed. “I honestly thought you were wearing them for religious reasons, or as penance or something.”

  “Lydia!”

  “Okay, I’m exaggerating. But now that I know you have no objections to colors, I’ve got a few more gowns you can have.”

  Willow stiffened.

  Lydia must have sensed her concern because she gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Please, don’t say no. My aunts insisted on an entirely new wardrobe for my speaking engagements. I headed for California with thirteen trunks—thirteen!” She grimaced. “Even Mr. Gault had something to say about such excess when the men finally managed to unearth the last of them. I refuse to continue my journey with more than three trunks—four at the most. Consider the new clothing a wedding gift. Most of them have never been worn—and it will take you a month of stitching to alter them to fit, so I’m inconveniently adding to your workload. But it would bring me such pleasure if I knew that they could be of use to you.”

  “I...”

  “Just say ‘thank you’ and I’ll consider this conversation finished.”

  Willow hesitated, but in the end, the temptation proved too much. The yellow dress she wore now was unlike anything she’d ever owned before, and she was discovering that the use of color and delicate fabrics made her feel...pretty.

  “Thank you, Lydia.”

  Lydia offered a squeak of pleasure and clapped her hands.

  “I’ll sort through things tonight and drop by tomorrow with a selection. You don’t have to take anything you don’t like, but I think you’ll have plenty to choose from.”

  She was reaching for the doorknob when Willow blurted, “I thought you disapproved of marriage, Lydia. Isn’t that what your speaking engagements are all about?”

  Again, Lydia waved a dismissing hand. “My speeches are about females gaining a voice in government, standing up for their own happiness and relieving themselves of the tyranny of male domination. It’s time women refused a subservient role and spoke out against inequality, abuse and the demonizing effects that an excess of hard spirits or gambling can have in any relationship. Just as importantly, men need to see that women are their partners, not their servants. There should be equal respect between the sexes, and an acknowledgment that some women are happiest as wives and mothers. But there are others, like Sumner, who have much to offer the world if they are allowed to pursue their dreams of a career.”

  “And what about you, Lydia?”

  Her friend grinned. “I am not the marrying kind. I would much rather spread the Female Cause than wear a ring on my finger.” She enfolded Willow in a quick embrace. “But even though I may never be a mother myself, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around children. So, I’ll give you a day or two to settle in with Charles, then I’ll be slipping away from the Pinkertons anytime I can for some cuddling of those twins, you hear?”

  Willow laughed. “I’ll be expecting you.”

  Then, with the squeak of the door and a rush of icy wind, Lydia disappeared.

  * * *

  It took Charles much longer than he’d thought to find Willoughby Smalls, then return to the long, narrow barn where some of the smaller animals were kept when the temperatures were low.

  Since Willoughby’s throat had been injured in an accident two years back, the man communicated by scrawling notes on whatever scraps of paper he managed to collect. Charles glanced down at a torn half of a weigh slip. According to Smalls’s notation, he was to take a goat from one of the last enclosures. It needed to have one brown ear and one white. Smalls had assured him that the animal was a good milker and would stay warm enough in the lean-to behind Charles’s house.

  “As a newly married man, shouldn’t you be with the little missus?”

  Charles grimaced when he saw Gideon Gault watching him from a pile of feed sacks.

  “You just about scared the life from me,” Charles groused. He’d been gone from Willow too long. All these interruptions to his original errand were taking up too much time. “What are you doing here?”

  “Lydia Tomlinson slipped out of the cook shack. And seeing that you’d left Willow alone, she headed over to your place.”

  Charles couldn’t account for the relief he felt, knowing that Willow hadn’t spent all this time by herself.

  “Shouldn’t you be hauling her back?” Charles grumbled, slipping the catch to the gate free and stepping into the goat enclosure. Immediately, the animals began shifting and bleating, clearly upset by the change in their routine.

  “Not just yet. I don’t want Lydia catching on to the fact that I’ve figured out how she’s been sneaking away from the other guards, now and again.”

  “Then shouldn’t you be watching her?” Charles offered.

  “Oh, I’ve been doing that, too. Through the knothole in that wall over there. There’s no sense freezing my fingers off just because she’s of a mind to play hooky. Besides, I had another man circle around to the side entrance of your place, just in case.”

  Charles stepped into the midst of the milling animals, trying to find a goat with one brown ear and one white one. He’d never realized how many shapes, sizes and colors were possible in goats. There were big ones and little ones, goats with long fur and with closely cropped fur. There were goats with curved horns and some with spikes. But none of them matched Smalls’s description.

  “What are you doing, Charles?” Gideon said with a bemused grin.

  “I’m looking for a goat. A milking goat.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s supposed to have one brown ear and one white.”

  Gideon searched the herd with his keen gaze and finally pointed to the far corner. “It’s over there. Judging by its udders, it won’t be long before it will need to be milked again.”

  “You see a rope anywhere?”

  Gideon disappeared for a moment, then returned with a length of heavy twine. “Will this do?”

  “Yeah.”

  Charles snagged the cord from the Pinkerton, then waded into the sea of goats, keeping his eyes pinned on his target.

  “Hey, Charles. You got a good look at that woman’s body, didn’t you?”

  Charles felt gooseflesh pebble his skin, but he didn’t pause in
his pursuit. “Yeah.”

  “Those wounds weren’t an accident.”

  He nearly stumbled. Gault hadn’t offered the words as a question.

  “No. I didn’t think so, either.”

  Chancing a glance at his friend, Charles turned to find Gideon staring at the far wall, his brow furrowed in thought.

  “Who would do that to a woman? It’s barbaric.”

  Charles gave up on his chase as a cold finger of foreboding trailed down his spine. “Yeah.”

  “A person’s got to have a whole lot of anger to do something like that.” Gideon’s thousand-yard stare shifted, and he pinned Charles with a gaze that had the power to burn right through him.

  “You take care of your little ones, you hear? And your wife. I’ve already doubled the guards around the brides until we know for sure what happened. But I can’t do a whole lot for you and Willow without attracting Batchwell’s attention. I’m counting on you to see to it that Willow stays indoors as much as possible. When I can, I’ll have some men watching from afar, but it would be best if you both kept close to home as much as you can.” Gault straightened. “You still got that rifle of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you shoot?”

  “Yes.”

  Charles didn’t like to advertise his marksmanship, since he preferred to stay as far away from violence as possible. But he’d trained himself to be an expert shot. A body didn’t come to the Territories with the naive idea that the rules of conduct peculiar to Bachelor Bottoms would extend to everyone. It was best for a man to be prepared.

  “You might want to take it out of the cupboard and dust it off.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Gideon opened his mouth to say something else, but he must have seen a flutter of movement through the knothole, because he suddenly backed away.

  “There she goes again. Good night to you, Charles.”

  “’Night, Gideon.”

  * * *

  As soon as Lydia left, Willow wasted no time. After throwing the bolt home, she hurried to the cupboard, which Charles had referred to as “the larder.”

  There weren’t many choices for their meal. She found a few staples—salt, pepper, sugar, flour—a bag of raisins, another of oats, and a crock of honey. Grasping a pot, she filled it halfway with water, then poured in a measure of oats, a pinch of salt and a handful of raisins. A bowl of porridge wasn’t exactly a gourmet delight, but it would be warm and filling and hearty. Just the thing for a cold winter night.

  Covering the pot with a plate, Willow made a mental note to send for her trunk as soon as she was able. Unlike most of the other mail-order brides, she hadn’t traveled west with crates full of domestic items to set up housekeeping once she’d married. But she hadn’t come to America completely empty-handed, either. She had a set of pots, some dishcloths, a few precious lengths of fabric and her mother’s Blue Willow china.

  How her mother had loved those dishes. There were times when Willow wondered if they were the reason for her own name. They’d been the one thing to survive the host of troubles that had besieged her family: her mother’s death, her father’s accident in the mills and their descent into poverty. When her father had been taken to debtors’ prison, the dishes were meant to be sold. But unbeknownst to Willow, her father had packed them in a trunk and hidden them in one of the caves near their home. It wasn’t until Willow had been sent away to the Good Shepherd Charity School that he’d written to inform her where he’d hidden the china. It was the last letter she’d received before he died. An unwitting dowry for Willow, who had seen becoming a mail-order bride to a widower with ten children as the only means to escape a life of destitution and menial labor. Granted, she would probably be exchanging one form of servitude for another, but at least it would be her choice.

  But now, in an impulsive need to help a friend, all of those plans had gone awry. And who knew what would happen once her lie was exposed?

  Once again, the spot between her shoulder blades seemed to burn with past punishments, but she pushed the sensation away. Since coming to America, she’d already faced obstacles that she might have once thought impossible. She’d learned to tamp down her fear and focus on the end goal—and things were no different now. She would concentrate on Jenny’s children.

  Since dinner was cooking and hot coffee waited in a pot on the stove, she returned to the tufted chair. She drew the basket close to her feet, where it would be warm enough to absorb the heat of the fireplace, but not so near that a stray spark might burn them. Pulling the blanket aside, she studied the two infants.

  They were so small, so new. Their faces were still squinched and wrinkled, their little legs drawn tight to their bodies. She would wager that they were only a day old, perhaps two. So fragile.

  So helpless.

  No. Not helpless. Willow was here to protect them. And so was Charles.

  One of the babies began to whimper, its fists balling up and flailing. Offering soft hushing noises, Willow reached to scoop it into her arms, only to discover that the baby was wet—which meant that now its clothes were wet and the blankets, as well. Thankfully, Willow had set the small stack of flannel nappies on a nearby table.

  The infant settled somewhat once she had removed its wet clothing and changed its diaper. Her diaper. The smaller baby was a girl. Willow would need to find some dry blankets or cloths. But first...

  When the second baby began to fret, Willow changed his diaper, as well.

  A boy and a girl.

  As she swaddled him beneath the woolen cape beside his sister, Willow blinked back tears. Jenny must have been so proud. How on earth had she managed to deliver them on her own and keep their arrival a secret? She must have been incredibly frightened to have taken such measures—and even more alarmed to have left them behind.

  Willow jumped when someone pounded on the door. But the noise was quickly followed by “Willow, it’s me. Charles.”

  She hurried to let him in, then closed the door amid a swirl of snow. The weather grew more frightful by the minute. The walls seemed to vibrate from the force of the wind. By the time she was able to set the latch, a skiff of white had coated the floor with icy crystals.

  Charles had gone out with one pail, but he’d returned with two.

  “I brought the milk and some water for washing.”

  She took the buckets and transferred them to the wood range for heating. Then she helped Charles to shrug out of his coat and hat and hang them on the pegs by the door.

  “It’s getting pretty fierce out there,” he said, brushing stray snowflakes from his shoulders and stamping his boots to rid them of a layer of ice.

  “Sit by the fire.”

  “No, I’ll help you with—”

  She pulled on his wrist. “Sit. I’ll bring you something to eat and drink, then we’ll worry about the rest.”

  The fact that he nodded and sank into the chair gave credence to the effort it must have taken to slog through the drifts.

  Willow hurried to scoop a mound of mush into his bowl. She filled a spoon with honey and set it atop the hot mixture. Then she poured coffee into a mug and carried them to Charles.

  “Thanks. You were able to find everything you needed?”

  “Yes.”

  When he didn’t immediately eat, she shifted uncertainly. Had she somehow offended him with the simple fare?

  When he spoke, it wasn’t a complaint. Instead, he asked, “Aren’t you going to eat with me?”

  The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. At school, she’d been forbidden to take her own meal until the rest of the adults had finished theirs. Oftentimes, there hadn’t been much left and she’d been forced to go hungry.

  “Go on. Get your food. I’ll wait,” he urged. “I suppose we could eat at the table, but the fire feels good. You can pull up that little crate th
ere, and we’ll use it to hold our cups.”

  Willow did as she was told, then collected her own food. By that time, Charles had drawn one of the kitchen chairs close to the fire.

  “Here, you take the comfortable seat,” he said.

  “No. I couldn’t possibly—”

  “I insist.”

  Reluctantly, she settled on the edge of the tufted chair. After all he’d done, Charles deserved the cushions, in her opinion. But he seemed oblivious to her consternation as he sat.

  “Shall I say grace?”

  “Please.”

  “Dear Lord of all...for these blessings and those that Thou sees fit to send to us, we are truly grateful. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  There was a beat of uncomfortable silence. Willow supposed that the pair of them were so accustomed to being alone, neither knew how to proceed.

  Thankfully, Charles broke the quiet by reaching for his bowl.

  “Oatmeal. One of my favorites.”

  Some of the stiffness left Willow’s frame and she started swirling the honey into the mush with her spoon.

  “With raisins, too,” he commented.

  She glanced up in sudden concern. Had she made herself too at home with his stores? Were the raisins reserved for some other purpose?

  But Charles didn’t look upset. Instead, he took a bite filled with the fruit, then made a soft humming sound and nodded. “It’s good. Really good.”

  Willow wilted in relief.

  “What? Were you thinking I wouldn’t like it?”

  “I—I didn’t know if you were expecting something...fancier.”

  He gave a short humph. “I’m well aware of the shortcomings of my larder. And what true Scotsman doesn’t like his oatmeal?” He offered a wink. “Especially with raisins.”

  Willow laughed, and the brittleness of the moment was broken.

  “How are the wee ones?”

  “Fine. I’ve no doubt they’ll rouse soon. Unfortunately, while you were gone, they wet themselves clear through their clothes and their blankets. There were spare diapers, but not much else.”