by Amelia Rose
“Perhaps we’d best all sit down now,” Pryor began, looking pointedly at Wyatt. “And discuss the events. Isn’t that a good idea, Mr. Flynn?”
Wyatt hesitated long enough for Pryor to think he was going to bolt for the door, but thenhe begrudgingly sat down. No sooner had hit britches hit the seat than Pryor jumped up.
“And now I’ll leave you two to talk, like rational adults, while I go check on our horses.” He turned and fled, but not before Wyatt reached out futilely for his shirt sleeve. He meant to grab Pryor and force him to stay, but he only ended up swiping at the empty air behind Pryor’s back. He fumed, then turned fiercely on Millie.
“What do you want to know?” he finally asked through clenched teeth.
Chapter Eight
“Why am I here, Mr. Flynn?” she began cautiously, her earlier bubbly personality replaced by the wary tone of a person staring into the face of a rabid dog. She wasn’t put off, though, and waited patiently for an answer without giving Wyatt room to squirm out of it.
“What do you mean? I already told you, I need a wife. It was in my letters.”
“But I’m afraid I’m going to need you to tell me why, seeing as how you already have a wife,” she replied, still staring him down without backing off. Millie wasn’t stupid, she knew in her heart why this peculiar, angry man had written to the agency, but she wasn’t about to take another step forward with a man who couldn’t face up to his own problems.
Wyatt looked away, still fuming, still hoping to work himself out of this situation. How had he ever let that fool MacAteer convince him this was a good idea? Just because Pryor had had a measure of luck in finding a bride—one who was soft-spoken and accommodating like Moira, and like Anna Mae had been, he had to admit—didn’t mean this loud-mouthed brazen creature was fit to be a homesteader’s wife.
“I’m still waiting, Mr. Flynn. I think I’m owed the courtesy of an answer,” she reminded him in a cold voice.
“Because… my wife died,” he finally said, realizing that it was one of only a few times he’d spoken those words aloud, to anyone, let alone a stranger.
“I know,” she answered, causing Wyatt to turn to look at her sharply. She shrugged and held up her hands. “I should have said, I guessed as much. No man who is so obviously in love with his wife would ever insult her by sending for a new one. I was afraid this was too good to be true. I’m sorry to have troubled you, and I hope your feelings weren’t hurt today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go find a room to rent until I can arrange passage back to Boston.” She stood up to go, but froze when she saw Wyatt’s expression.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” he demanded in a voice that was filled with some strong emotion that Millie couldn’t place. It wasn’t anger, but it was certainly unhappy.
“Don’t you think that’s for the best?” Millie asked, sitting back down and leaning closer so no one would overhear them.
“Well… well, I don’t know!” he barked. “You came all this way just to turn around and leave again?”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself worrying on my account, Mr. Flynn. I only went to the agency in the first place because I was ready for an adventure. I’ve lived my whole life in that city, crammed into two smelly rooms over an undertaker’s parlor with three sisters and two brothers and my ma and pa. I’ve worked in the yarn mill since I was old enough to write my name and do my sums. I thought coming out west, even if it was to marry a man I’d never laid eyes on, would be just the right adventure for someone like me.” She patted his hand reassuringly, causing him to wince and pull back from her touch. “I’ve lived the city life for so long, it’ll be just like going home again. I don’t know any different, at least not except what I could see from the window of the coach.”
She reached for her tapestry bag and smiled at Wyatt sadly. “But you take care of yourself, and your little ones, Mr. Flynn. You’re all they have now, and they’ll need you in ways you cannot possibly yet know. Goodbye.”
She got up and was out the door of the restaurant before Wyatt could even react. There was no need for Gretchen to eavesdrop to know exactly what had just transpired.
“Mr. Flynn! Get up from that table and go after her!” she cried after the door shut behind Millie. “The poor dear came all this way to do your bidding, and you’ve naw got the sense to even speak to her proper! If you can naw think of your household and yourself, think of your little ones!”
In his confusion, Wyatt only nodded dumbly. He knew she was right, of course, but there was no fight left in him. The loud woman didn’t belong here, she half said so herself. Instead of following after her, he stood up and walked to the door, then went out and started off in the opposite direction. Wyatt barely registered Gretchen’s actions as she flew past him, her long skirts brushing against his legs just outside cramped entrance to the diner, and headed out the door after Millie.
“Miss Carter! Miss Carter, wait!” Gretchen cried, running across the dirt road to catch up with her. She skidded to a stop beside the woman’s stacked trunks and threw her arms across them as if that could prevent Millie from leaving.
“Mrs. O’Conner? Are you all right?” Millie asked, putting her hands out to catch the woman, but Gretchen could only nod. She caught her breath and coughed delicately, then stood up taller, pressing a hand against her growing belly to reassure herself.
“I’m… fine… Miss Carter. ‘Tis just harder to run with the baby standing on my innards!” she answered with a smile. “But Miss Carter, won’t you please come inside with me?”
Millie smiled, but shook her head. “I don’t think that would be wise. Mr. Flynn clearly doesn’t want me here. I don’t know what possessed him to send off for a new wife, but I can tell you this much: he’s simply not ready to have someone else move into his home. It’d be too hard for him to accept another woman in his dear wife’s place. It’s best that I go.”
“You don’t understand, Miss Carter!” Gretchen cried. When she realized how loudly she’d protested, she looked over her shoulder once to see if Wyatt had heard her. “He needs you. He may not know it right now, but he does. He’s… he’s reached the point where he cannot even make himself care about the children, let alone care for them. And he’s not a bad man, not at all. His heart is just broken, ‘tis all, and he needs time and attention to mend it.”
“You may be right, but he won’t be able to mend it with someone like me standing in the way. This is a process he has to go through on his own. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“Oh, but you can! You can win him over, Miss Carter!” Gretchen exclaimed, smiling broadly as if her explanation made perfect sense.
“You can’t be serious! That man despises me! What am I supposed to do, follow him around reading him poetry? No, Mrs. O’Conner, that won’t work,” Millie lamented with a sad smile.
“Not soon, and no, I did naw mean with flowers or poetry. But he does need you all the same. Won’t you stay and help, at least for his children’s sakes? I heard you back inside, you know, I heard you say you wanted an adventure. Well, you’re not going to find a bigger adventure than this one!” she answered, throwing her arms out to indicate the whole of Montana.
Millie looked at her for a second with a mischievous look in her eye. “I do love an adventure, Mrs. O’Conner. But what are we to do? Where am I to live? I won’t stay with him unless I’m his wife, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Do you see the problem? Where would I stay to still be of use to him and even hope to have a chance at softening his heart someday?”
“Hmmm, that we’ll have to put some thought to, but I know we can come up with a suitable arrangement. Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll fix us some lunch, then we’ll set to plotting against him!”
“I beg your pardon! Plot against him?” Millie cried in disbelief. “I’ve never plotted against anyone in my life, and I’m not about to start now just because my alleged husband turned out to be more donkey than man!”
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“Perhaps plotting was a wee bit strong of a word then. How about merely planning?” Gretchen asked with a smile as she linked her arm through Millie’s and led her back in the direction of the diner.
Chapter Nine
“Well, here it is then,” Wyatt said in a grouchy voice, pointing half-heartedly to the small out building positioned about twenty yards from his cabin. Millie stepped toward the door tentatively while Pryor, Gretchen, and Kieran waited beside the wagon.
“This? This is my house?” she asked softly. Wyatt squared his shoulders, ready to argue with her for not liking it. It hadn’t even been his idea to build it, but somehow he got to be the one to buy the materials and take time away from his planting to construct it. Sure, Pryor and Nathaniel had helped, but the two of them had only made things worse by insisting on all matter of amenities. Wood floors and fireplace stoves made from rocks hauled from the creek didn’t build themselves, but somehow those two had insisted on them.
If truth be told, every single one of them was to blame, Wyatt recalled sourly. It had started with Kieran’s pronouncement only three weeks before, and he was sure it had more to do with wanting the young woman out of his house than anything else.
“I may be no judge and I did naw sit for the law back in Ireland, but I am the only lawman in these parts and I say you owe her a place on your property,” Kieran had declared shortly after Millie had come to stay with him and Gretchen. “You brought her here under false pretenses, and she paid a good portion of her passage out of her own pocket, so ‘tis only fitting then. Either you marry her now and bring into your household, or you build her a proper cabin on your land so she has a place to call her own. If you’ll naw do it, then I’d say she has a legal claim against you, and you’ll have to settle that at the fort in Barnett.”
Pryor, that traitorous do-gooder who’d stabbed him in the back with all this mess, had been no better help than Kieran.
“We’ll help you build the cabin,” he offered cheerfully. “And when you two are happily wed, it’ll make a fine smokehouse. You don’t have one at the moment, so you don’t have anywhere to cure and store up meat for the winter. So don’t think of it as losing out and having to build for no purpose, just think of it as putting her up until you finally come to your senses and decide to behave like an honest gentleman!” Pryor had sealed his opinion with a smug grin, one that Wyatt could have punched off his face if he hadn’t known that his oldest friend in the territory was only trying to help.
Before Wyatt could lash out at Millie’s ungratefulness upon seeing the tiny cabin, she clapped her hands and bounced excitedly on the balls of her small feet. She ran to the narrow door and threw it open, peering into the interior darkness before doubling back to him.
“Mr. Flynn, it’s amazing! I’ve never known anyone who could build an entire house with his bare hands! However did you manage it?” she demanded eagerly. Wyatt looked away, embarrassed at all the attention. Whenever Anna Mae had offered him praise, which she’d rarely done because she knew it mortified him to no end, it had been quiet and reserved, and certainly not in the presence of other people, the very people who’d worked just as hard as he had on the house.
“It wasn’t all my doing!” he answered brusquely, not meaning to rebuke her but not trying to claim all the responsibility for the hard work, either. He jerked his head in the direction of the others to indicate that they’d all had a hand in it, too.
“Oh, thank you, all of you! I cannot believe how cozy it is, and how much room it has!” Millie quickly turned and ducked inside, disappearing into the dark building that was truthfully no more than a shack. The others exchanged nervously happy glances, glad that she approved after all that Wyatt had complained about having to build it.
“Oh, and there’s furniture!” Millie’s voice called in a muffled echo from inside the walls. “However did you manage that, Mr. Flynn?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. The furniture hadn’t been difficult to make at all considering it only consisted of a narrow slat bed, a low stool, and a small table that would serve for eating and writing. Millie threw open the shutters on the side of the cabin and stuck her head out, beaming at all of them.
“Thank you, all of you, for helping bring my trunks here. I now have everything I could possibly need!” She disappeared back inside and began humming happily to herself, throwing open the latches on the trunks and setting to work.
“Well, she doesn’t waste any time, does she now?” Kieran asked Gretchen before coming to stand beside Wyatt and clapping him on the back. “You know, you could do far worse than a woman who’s content to live in a smokehouse in yer yard. That’s one grateful woman as she wouldn’t clobber you between the eyes with a fireplace poker for putting her up out here.”
“You know, I’m getting a little tired of everyone telling me what a fine woman she is,” Wyatt said quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “If she’s so wonderful, why isn’t she staying with you?”
“If you’ll recall, she’s been staying with me these three weeks! I’ve paid for her food and had her treading underfoot because you weren’t man enough to take her in. Besides, I already have a wife to look after my children and cook my meals,” Kieran said in a menacing voice, his face clouding over with fury at how thick-headed Wyatt could be. “You, my friend, do not. And if you expect all of you to survive come next winter, you’d best see to it that you make nice with Miss Carter. Right now, she’s the only thing standing between your little ones and starvation.” He turned back to Gretchen and Pryor with a false smile. “Let us see to the Flynn children, Mrs. O’Conner. I think it’s high time they met their new ma.”
Wyatt panicked at the thought. He turned to stop them, but Kieran and Gretchen were already on their way to the porch to go inside. He pleaded silently with Pryor to do something—anything, to prevent this.
“I’m sorry, Flynn, I know you’re still trying to get your feet under you, but you can’t keep putting this off. Miss Carter is here, and for some reason, she’s willing to stay despite the way you’ve acted. At least let the children meet her. Maybe once you see them with her and see how good she is with them, you’ll understand better.” He threw a brotherly arm around Wyatt’s shoulders and led him to the house, but they were met halfway by two rambunctious little boys. Gretchen followed with little Rose perched on her hip.
“Pa! Sheriff O’Conner said you have a surprise for us!” the older son, Micah, shouted as he jumped into his father’s arms. His brother, Luke, ran in wild circles around those assembled in the yard, yelping and flapping his arms like a wild bird.
“Oh, did he now?” Wyatt cast a sidelong glance at Kieran. His heart leapt a little at the excited smile on his oldest son’s face, a smile that had been long absent during the winter months since his mother’s death. It was the first thing that resembled hope that he’d seen in a long time. “Well, there may be a surprise or two on the place…”
“Look! You built another cabin!” Micah called out before taking off at a dead run across the yard. He flung the door open, then jumped back in fright as Millie appeared in the doorway, looming over him with her hands on her hips and a sly grin on her face.
“Boo!” she shouted, reaching down and tickling the boy’s ribs. The sight of her was so unexpected, though, that Micah screamed and ran away, not stopping until he’d ducked behind his father’s legs. He peered out every few seconds to make sure the scary woman had not followed him, but couldn’t be persuaded to go say hello even after Gretchen offered him a peppermint.
“Why, come on out, boy! I’m not so scary as all that. I’m only a little bit scary, I promise!” Millie said playfully, but it was no use. Following his older brother’s lead, Luke also refused to meet her, hanging back with his thumb in his mouth, a habit he’d never had while Anna Mae was alive but one that he’d taken to only days after her passing.
Hmm, it seems the children are as pleased as I am about this whole affair, Wyatt thought ruefully. He knew he had
no one but himself to blame, though, seeing as it was he who’d let Pryor talk him into it during a moment of weakness.
Rose was the one who betrayed them, though, by babbling the word “mama” happily and diving from Gretchen’s arms and onto the ample chest of the newcomer. She laid her head on Millie’s shoulder and giggled contentedly when the woman took her, bouncing her slightly as she swayed from side to side.
“My, but aren’t you a sweet beauty?” Millie gasped, letting her free hand wander to Rose’s silky baby curls that formed a halo around her head. She hummed a sweet melody in the baby’s ear while Micah watched the stranger furiously, not willing to let the woman out of his sight while she held his little sister.
Luke’s loyalties were torn. He wanted so badly to emulate his big brother’s angry, mistrustful expression, and his tiny little clenched fists stayed taut for as long as he could manage. But eventually, his stance relaxed as he watched his sister soak up the affection, a feeling that had been missing from Luke’s life for far too long. He slowly dragged his feet as he wandered in her direction, coming to stop a few feet away from her. Millie watched him carefully, careful not to spook him like a wild horse and send him running back to his brother. She looked away and held out her hand, leaving it hanging in the air for as long as it took for him to reach up and slide his grimy fingers in hers. She gave him a quick squeeze then released her grip altogether, letting it be Luke who decided to keep contact with her instead of the other way around.
“Luke! Get away from the lady! She’s a monster!” Micah cried, dashing forward and kicking Millie in the shin before grabbing his younger brother and pulling him away. Fortunately, it had been some time since Wyatt had made the children any shoes, so his bare toes merely scraped Millie’s stocking clad leg.
Millie winced, but had to cry out when Wyatt punished Micah, jerking him around to face him by the arm and turning him over his bent knee right then and there.