by Amelia Rose
“No, Mr. Flynn! Not on my account, and not on the day he first meets me!” Millie ordered sternly, reaching up and stopping Wyatt’s arm before he could deliver the first strike to Micah’s backside. The others stood looking on in consternation. Millie made an excellent point, of course, but a man had a right to deliver discipline to his children. Any man who would let his boy behave thus was just asking for trouble.
“Miss Carter, who do you think you are? You’ll not tell me how to discipline my son!” Wyatt spat, his anger at the entire situation bubbling to the surface.
“Oh really,” she asked quietly, a direct contradiction in her voice. “And what am I to do when they’re my children, too? Am I to stand by and let you do all the correcting because they’re not really my children? How do you think that’s going to work, Mr. Flynn?”
Wyatt and Millie stared each other down, neither of them willing to concede too quickly. Millie finally won, though, mostly because Micah managed to squirm out of his father’s grasp while their standoff took place. Millie turned to look at the little boy, a firm warning on her face.
“But I do expect an apology for your behavior, young man. You’ll not kick anyone in the shins, grown-up or otherwise, while I’m here to put a stop to it. What do you have to say for yourself now?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Micah grumbled begrudgingly. Millie would have laughed if the issue weren’t so dire, largely because Wyatt and Micah shared almost identical petulant scowls at that very moment.
“Thank you, young man. I appreciate your apology. You must be an excellent big brother to be such a good boy.” Millie smiled graciously, her tone light and warm, acting as though the entire incident was behind them. Micah looked up at her from beneath his lashes, grateful that she’d spared him a whipping but still irritated that she was there causing problems in the first place.
Luke decided it must be safe if this strange woman had saved his brother from a well-deserved spanking. He darted forward again and grasped her hand, smiling up at her with a mouth full of pearly baby teeth. He looked over at Micah, who frowned at his disloyalty, then stuck his tongue out at his brother.
“And we won’t be having any of that from you, either,” Millie said jokingly. “Brothers should get along, and be a help to their parents.”
“We don’t have parents,” Luke answered innocently. “Just our pa.”
“Luke!” Wyatt barked harshly, warning his son to be quiet. To Wyatt’s astonishment, Millie held up a hand to silence him and continued speaking to the little boy.
“You don’t have parents? Whatever do you mean?” she asked in a high voice.
“We had a ma, but I don’t know where she is now.” The boy looked at the ground in shame as his lower lip began to tremble of its own accord. It wasn’t long before the first tear slipped from the corner of his eye.
Millie nodded her head at Gretchen to ask her to take the baby, then dropped down to look the boy in the eye. She pulled him closer and let him sit on her bent knee, then said, “You do have a ma, and you always will. You might not be able to see her, but she can see you from where she sits with the angels. She loves you very much, and I can already tell that she’s very, very proud of you. But because she can’t be with you right now, she’s asked me to come stay here and help care for you. Would that be all right?”
Luke nodded silently, then pressed one small palm against Millie’s cheek and rested his head against the other cheek. Gretchen had to turn away lest the child see her emotional state, and even Pryor and Kieran looked away coughing and scuffed at the ground with their boot tips to avoid giving themselves away.
“And you?” Millie asked, holding her hand out to Micah. “Would it be all right if I cared for you, too, since I’ll be caring for your brother and sister?”
Micah paused for an eternity, then took a hesitant step toward Millie’s outstretched fingers. The sight of his little brother in her arms was enticing, as he, too, longed to be cradled in a motherly way. But at the last second, his loyalty got the best of him, and he turned around and ran back into his father’s house.
Millie struggled to smile good-naturedly. “We’ll give him a little more time, won’t we?” she said to Luke, still nestled in her arms. He nodded without lifting his head from where it rested on her shoulder. Millie looked to Wyatt, but his expression was entirely unreadable, torn between gladness that his children had someone who so obviously cared about them, and not wanting this upstart to try to dislodge Anna Mae’s place in their hearts.
Chapter Ten
Gretchen wasn’t so sure about leaving Millie in the tiny cabin surrounded by unruly and unwelcoming Flynns, but Kieran finally convinced her it was the only way they’d ever get used to each other. He left off without saying that he was actually a little more concerned for Wyatt with Millie around the place, and not the other way around.
The first day or so, each party kept to him and herself. Wyatt went about his chores without ever acknowledging the veritable intruder, and Millie busied herself with unpacking her belongings and passing the time out of doors in the crisp early spring sunshine. While so much about this endeavor had turned out to be one stunning disappointment after another, one thing was certain: the wilds of Montana were every bit as beautiful as she’d hoped, and every bit as exotic.
The only times their paths crossed for that first week were at mealtimes. No one spoke up, but Millie assumed she was to cook for the family and then wash up. She’d spied the children sitting unattended on the porch of the cabin while their father was at work on his land, and went outside to talk to them. No sooner had she stepped foot outside than Micah ushered his siblings back into the house and shut the door. It stung to be so ill-treated by ones so small, but Millie shrugged it off. It was an unpalatable situation that they all found themselves in, and children’s feelings could be skewered just as easily as adults’.
She’d straightened herself up to her full height and marched across the yard, climbed the steps, and knocked loudly on the door. No one opened it. She knocked again and waited, but still no one opened the door. Hoping that the little boy didn’t know how to work the leather latch string, she tried giving the handle a quick pull, but it was fastened tight. She sighed, then was struck by inspiration.
“Oh, no, the house is locked up tight,” she said in a loud stage voice. “And here I was coming to bake a cake today. Oh well. I guess I shall bake a cake in my own little cabin, and eat it all myself.”
No sooner had she finished her sentence than the door opened just a crack. A wide blue eye looked out at her, trying to judge her countenance to see if she was teasing them. Millie smiled and held out her hands in surrender.
“What’s it gonna be? Are you gonna let me in so I can get to baking, or should I go back to my cabin? You’re the man of the house when your pa isn’t home, so it’ll have to be your decision.”
Micah stared at her for a long time, warring with himself. He didn’t want this woman in their home, or in their life, for that matter. And if it had just been up to him, he could have done without strangers and cake altogether. But he knew his brother and sister hadn’t had anything tasty in a long time. They’d lost just as much as he had, but he at least remembered their mother cooking and baking sweets for them before she took ill.
He stepped back and opened the door without speaking.
“Thank you, Micah. I’d be pleased to come in and have a look around,” she said in a soft voice, keeping her tone polite.
“Gretchen calls me Master Flynn,” he said with a cross look on his face, twining his arms in front of his tiny chest.
“That’s Mrs. O’Conner to you, young man, and I’ll call you ‘master’ when you’ve earned yourself a title. In the meantime, Micah, how about we get busy whipping up something tasty for when your pa comes home?”
He paused, but nodded. Promises of cake were far more important than names anyway. He let her in and shut the door behind her, then stood to the side while she took in the
chaos of the little cabin.
To say that it lacked even basic home care was an understatement. While the house itself wasn’t actually hazardous, Millie was certain that no wife worth her salt would have ever let it fall into such disrepair. Dishes were stacked on a crate by the stove in two piles, presumably for clean ones and dirty ones. Cloths that she could only assume were to be used as diapers hung from various stretches of twine throughout the house, left to dry even over the beds. Clothes, such as they were, were heaped on a low stool near the children’s sleeping area, and from the looks of things, they hadn’t been folded in weeks.
“Well! I know how we’ll pass the time while the oven heats!” Millie said cheerfully, looking down at Micah. He backed away a few steps, certain that her look meant trouble and chores for the lot of them. “First things first, we’ll need eggs for the cake. Can you fetch them for me?”
“Yes’m,” he mumbled begrudgingly. Chores for the sake of doing what she told him to do weren’t in his plans, but eggs meant baking, which meant eventually eating cake.
“Good! I’ll have to run out to my cabin to get a few supplies that I’ve brought with me from back east, but we’ll be sure to let your pa know what we’ll need to keep on hand from now on, won’t we? You fetch those eggs, about six of them, if you please, and I’ll be right back!”
She returned with a basket of items from her own stores of supplies just as Micah climbed the steps with a basket of eggs. She took them and thanked him, then let him be. Idle talk didn’t seem to be the boy’s favorite pastime, and she didn’t want to press her luck when she’d made so much progress.
After whipping up a batter and pouring it into pans that she scrubbed with sand and water, Millie set about tidying the cabin. She found a washtub on the back porch and put all the clothes in it, clean or not, and washed them with a handful of the slimy lye soap that stood in a jar on the shelf. The rain barrel provided enough water to soak, wash, and then rinse, for which she was glad because she had no idea which direction the creek ran from there.
“Mmmmmm, children, do you smell that?” she asked without really expecting an answer. The three of them looked up at her expectantly, waiting for an explanation. “I’ll tell you a secret about my cakes… I use magic in them!”
“What’s magic?” Luke asked before he could remember that he’d promised Micah he wouldn’t talk to the new woman. Micah shot him a warning look, but he wanted to know the answer himself so he didn’t press the matter.
“Magic is my special power,” she explained patiently. “I have this secret power to make all the food I cook taste delicious! I use a magic bean in my cakes. Do you want to see it?”
They both nodded reluctantly, their curiosity overriding their pride. They followed her to the basket of supplies she’d left on the table, and watched in wonder as she held up a single glass vial with a withered black strand inside.
“That’s no bean!” Micah cried. “I helped Mama shell the beans. Beans are supposed to be green!”
“Ah, but as I told you already, this bean is magic. It came all the way from across the ocean—”
“What’s the ocean?” Luke asked, ignoring the jab in his ribs from his brother.
“Micah, hands to yourself please. Luke, the ocean is like a giant lake, but it’s impossible to swim across. This giant lake separates the different lands. So this bean came from a whole different land, far away from here. I got it from a merchant when I lived near the ocean. Here, smell.”
Millie took the cork off and held it out, but neither boy trusted it. She held it to her own nose and breathed in, then pantomimed the sensation of finding a delectable aroma. Finally, they agreed to try, and she watched with delight as their faces registered the new smell. She replaced the cork and tucked the vial back in her basket for safekeeping.
“See? And that magical bean is in the cake!” Their faces lit up as she pointed to the oven. “But first, before we can have any, we have to tidy up a little bit, then eat a good dinner. If you boys do that, then there’s cake for us all!”
They jumped to straightening the bed covers before Millie could stop them, and she surmised that must have been their chief chore when their mother was alive. She instructed them to bring all the bedclothes outside to the clothesline instead, and showed them how to beat the quilts with sticks to dust them off, knowing their little arms couldn’t swing hard enough to do any damage to the stitching.
After setting some actual beans to soak for dinnertime, she gathered the oversized cotton sacks that served as their mattresses and hauled them out of doors, dragging them to an open area beyond her cabin and removing their ticking. She called the boys over to help her tear up fresh handfuls of tall grass, and stuffed the mattresses with sweet grass. Together, the three of them wrestled the bulging mattresses back into the cabin and back onto the bedframe before setting fresh linens and the sun-freshened quilts back in place.
“Next, I’d say it’s time to sweep, but I’m not sure if you two are strong enough to do that. I’d better handle the broom myself,” she said, watching out of the corner of her eye to see how they reacted. Micah immediately looked indignant.
“I can too sweep! I swept for Ma all the time…” he began, but stopped as soon as he realized what he’d said. He looked afraid for a moment until Mille soothed him with a congenial smile.
“Micah, are you not supposed to talk about your mother?” she asked in the kindest voice she could muster. Micah shook his head.
“Pa doesn’t like it,” he whispered fearfully. “It makes him cry. I don’t want Pa to cry.”
“Why not? You miss your ma, it’s perfectly all right to cry a little,” she said, holding out her arm and letting him fall against her side. “Your ma seems like a pretty special person. Am I right?”
Micah nodded, sniffling and wiping at his nose. “I miss her. But Pa doesn’t like it when I tell him that.”
“That’s because your pa is still hurting, too. He misses your ma just as much as you do. Maybe even more, since he knew her longer. But when it’s just you and me, it’s okay to talk about her. I never got to meet your ma, and if you tell me about her, then it’ll be like I’m getting to meet her through you.”
Micah smiled gratefully and let Millie wipe his nose on her handkerchief. She smiled and ruffled his hair, then announced it was about time to take the cake out of the oven. The children, even the baby, watched in wonder as she slid the round pans out of the cast iron stove and set them to cool on the windowsill. She used a piece of sewing thread to cut the rounded top off the cakes, leveling them so they could be stacked atop a layer of sugar glaze. Millie handed each boy a small plate with the cake trimmings on top, saving some to feed the baby after sopping it in milk.
She watched with satisfaction as the boys devoured their small pieces of cake, and promised them a real slice after dinner. Then it was time to hand Micah the broom.
“Why don’t you show me what a good job you used to do on sweeping these floors? And Luke and I should get busy with these dishes, don’t you think?”
Both boys nodded in agreement. They laughed and dropped their tools when Millie suggested washing Rose first, but flinched when she hinted that their bath might be next. Micah and Luke stood by the washtub as she bathed their sister, laughing along with her as Rose slapped at the water with her little fists. They watched in awe as Millie rubbed the soap between her palm and her fingers then blew bubbles through her clenched fist, clapping when the rainbow-sheened bubbles rose into the air before popping against the bath water.
With Rose dried, dressed, fed, and napping, Millie and the boys got busy sweeping and washing. When the chores were done and the cabin was just about set to rights again, she turned to them and asked, “Should we make some lunch now? Will your pa be coming in from his work to eat?”
“No, he took a biscuit with him when he left this morning,” Micah answered quietly, mindful of the sleeping baby. “He doesn’t like to come here unless he has to.”
She led the boys outside, leaving the door open to listen for Rose to wake up. Together, they got to work on straightening and mucking out the animals’ pens, gathering the rest of the eggs, and letting the cow out into the yard inside the fence. They hung the pails on their hooks and lined up all the tools in proper order, filled all the water buckets with fresh water from the trough, then added a pile of new hay to the horses’ empty stalls for their return from the fields.
By the time the sun was dipping toward the horizon, Millie had assembled a small stack of firewood beside the hearth, all three children were bathed and groomed, dinner had been made, the laundry was brought inside and folded, and a cake covered in a thick sugar and milk glaze sat on the sideboard as a treat for after their meal. Together, they sat in front of the fire, the boys on the floor at Millie’s feet and the baby in her lap, where she rocked, reading from the Bible. The boys watched in complete silence as Millie read them the story of Noah and the Ark, of Jonah and the whale, of Daniel in the lions’ den. Their faces registered the sense of adventure and wonder that the stories still stirred inside her.
They were interrupted when the front door to the cabin flew open and Wyatt rushed in, looking for his children.
“Where were you boys?” he demanded, his worry at not finding them on the porch coloring his voice with anger. “I told you to wait there, but you disobeyed me!”
“Mr. Flynn, the children were obeying you, but I gave them chores to do today. See?” Millie gestured to the rest of the cabin, then met Wyatt’s eyes, daring him to reprimand his sons when another adult had bid them obey her.
“Oh. I see how the tables have turned then. So my boys get to ignore their father and do the bidding of anyone who happens to come along?” He crossed his arms and glared at her, not overlooking the fact that she was sitting in his wife’s rocking chair. The baby started to fuss at all the noise, but Millie shushed her with a kiss on top of her curls.