Montana Untamed (Bear Grass Springs, Book One): Bear Grass Springs, Book One

by Ramona Flightner

  The older woman laughed. “I’m certain the men of this town would be delighted to find two sisters at the Boudoir. I’ll remain hopeful you’ll soon come to see what a fine opportunity you have squandered. However, you must remain hopeful I’ll be as welcoming when you return, asking for my aid.”

  Annabelle sputtered as she spun and pushed out the door. The door thwacked behind her, and she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her roiling anger. She breathed in and out, relishing the stench of horse dung, the sweetness of fresh rain, and the hint of pine trees rather than the cloying scents from inside the bawdy house.

  She moved away from the door and sat on a bench halfway down the raised wooden boardwalk in the direction of the bank. Wagons moved up and down the street, and horses lazed in front of what she assumed was another saloon. Most of the wooden buildings had fake fronts, giving them the appearance of two stories, but the Grand Hotel, the Stumble-Out Saloon, and the livery were actually two stories tall. She jolted as a man stumbled out of the saloon, swearing at the occupants inside before he tripped and fell in a horse trough. When he sputtered and pushed himself from it, he caught her witnessing his ignominious display, and he glared in her direction.

  The slamming of the Boudoir’s door distracted her from the drenched man, and she turned, then frowned. The woman standing with a shawl around her shoulders, her chestnut hair in ringlets and eyes darkened by kohl, was a stranger. When she turned to meet Annabelle’s incredulous stare, she blanched a moment before glaring at her. “What’re ye starin’ at?”

  Annabelle frowned as she studied the woman. Her hair color was correct, as was the color of her eyes, a light blue. Annabelle rose and approached her, frowning at the tight cobalt-blue dress with a flash of pantaloons showing. “Fidelia?” she whispered.

  The woman’s gaze cooled to the temperature of a glacier. “My name’s Charity.”

  Annabelle shook her head and grasped the woman’s arm before she could storm inside, away from her. “No, you’re Fidelia. My sister,” she breathed. “What happened to you?”

  The woman wrenched away her arm, her glare filled with loathing and envy. “How dare you show up here! How dare you?” She tugged the shawl tighter about her, covering her bosom.

  “I haven’t seen you since I was twenty,” Annabelle said as she fought, and lost, her battle with tears. “I thought you were happy with Aaron.”

  At the mention of Fidelia’s old love, her sister froze. “He died.”

  “Why’d you write letters filled with lies instead of telling me the truth?”

  “Why are you here?” Fidelia asked, losing some of the rough cant she had picked up in the brothel. She raked a dismissive glance over her finely dressed sister, not a button or hair out of place.

  “Father died.” Annabelle watched her sister for some sign of sadness. When Fidelia’s deadened eyes failed to react, Annabelle frowned. “I was looking through his papers and found your last letter.”

  Fidelia rolled her eyes. “You always were the naive one.” She snorted. “You believed, after all this time, I’d be gettin’ married?”

  Frowning in confusion, Annabelle watched her sister. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re … you were respectable.”

  “A word to the wise, sister. If you want to remain out of such a place”—she nodded to the Boudoir—“I wouldn’t spend much time loiterin’ outside it or talkin’ to the whores.” She strode off and wrenched open the door and slammed it shut behind her.

  Annabelle followed, then collapsed on a stool beside the door, suddenly faint. After a moment, she recalled her sister’s words and rose, moving away from the Boudoir. She walked down the boardwalk, studiously ignoring Tobias’s curious gaze as he stood outside, sweeping the boardwalk in front of his store.

  She entered the town’s only hotel, a more elegant establishment than she expected in rural Montana. The wooden two-story building was well built with decorative wallpaper in every room, crown molding in all public rooms on the ground floor, and comfortable furniture. Inside the front door, a staircase led upstairs to the private bedrooms. On either side of the entranceway was a parlor and a smoking room. The short hallway led to a large dining room, with a kitchen behind it.

  The proprietor glanced up from a desk placed near the entrance of the dining room and beamed at her. “Miss Evans. I hope you enjoyed your walk around town. I’m certain you will discover this is a town you desire to settle in. There are many successful businesses, with numerous men interested in an accomplished wife.”

  She smiled impersonally. “Yes, well, I thank you, Mr. Atkins, for your kindness in suggesting I visit with the owner of the mercantile. He was most … forthcoming with the information I sought.”

  Mr. Atkins, a short beanpole of a man, stuck out his chest with pleasure. “I’m only too pleased I was able to aid you, Miss Evans. Please inquire if you are in need of any other assistance.” She accepted the key to her room from him and slipped up the polished pine steps of the hotel.

  After she shut herself inside her rented room, she removed her coat and hat, setting them on the chair in the corner of her small room. The sole window looked out over the neighboring rooftops, and she glared at her view of the Boudoir. She washed her face in the clean water from the ewer on the bureau and then collapsed on the comfortable bed.

  She swiped away a tear as she thought about the past few months. She remembered the hours she had spent, sitting beside her father on his deathbed, where he had admonished her to marry a good man and to remain in Maine. She shivered as she recalled his fervent prayer that she forget her sister. However, after her father’s death, she had found a letter from Fidelia, describing an exciting, fulfilling life in a place called Bear Grass Springs in Montana Territory. After settling for her father’s dreams her entire life, Annabelle had yearned for adventure and to reunite with her long-lost sister. Selling her family home and her own business before purchasing tickets to go west had filled her with purpose and exhilaration for the first time in her life.

  She recalled her initial views of this valley yesterday as the train had trundled through the high mountain valley, its track one of the few blemishes to the unspoiled, wild beauty of the place. To one side, the valley sloped upward into towering snowcapped mountain peaks, pieces of granite glinting in the late afternoon sun. To the other side were rolling hills with scattered cattle herds dotting the landscape covered in a light coating of snow, with thicker patches in gullies. The valley in early spring showed little promise of what was to come. A creek covered with a latticework of ice resembling lace ran through the valley.

  “What a fool I am,” she whispered as she recalled the derision in her sister’s eyes. Annabelle jumped as a gunshot sounded and then relaxed as she heard hoots of laughter from men outside on the street level. She pulled a pillow to her chest, hugging it to her as she attempted to banish her despair.

  Cailean MacKinnon sat at the dining room table in the house he shared with his three siblings. The two-story house was next to the livery he owned and ran with his brother, Alistair. On the main floor was a large kitchen with an eating area, and on the other side of the stairs was a comfortable parlor. Upstairs were four small bedrooms.

  He smiled appreciatively at Sorcha as she placed potatoes and a baked chicken in front of them, her shoulders back in defiance.

  Her light-blue eyes shone with frustration.

  “Not potatoes and chicken again,” Ewan, the youngest brother at twenty nine, complained. He bolted as though he had been kicked, which Cailean suspected he had been by the glare sent from the second eldest, Alistair.

  “Ye try cookin’ in that monstrous oven. Then tell me what ye can produce,” snapped Sorcha, their sister and the youngest of them all at twenty three. She slammed the butter onto the table along with a loaf of bread that appeared heavy enough to enter into a Highland Games competition.

  “What in God’s name did ye do to the bread?” Ewan asked. “Is it too much to ask to come home to an edible m
eal?”

  “Ewan,” Cailean said by way of warning, “until Sorcha arrived last month, we were taking it in turns. And, as I recall, your meals were only fit for the pigs.” He winked at his sister and reached for the bread. He frowned when he was unable to tear off a piece and rose to retrieve a knife. He hacked up the bread, giving each sibling a large slice and glaring his brothers into silence.

  “I hate this place. It’s loud, dirty, and filled with unfriendly people,” Sorcha complained. “I dinna understand why we canna go home.”

  Alistair sighed as he accepted his plate filled with potatoes and chicken. “There’s no home on Skye. Ye should ken it better than the rest of us. Ye’ve been there, watching them kick the Scots off the land.” He watched as his siblings frowned as they remembered the scenes of small family plots on Skye confiscated by wealthy English lords, their small subsistence farms replaced by hordes of sheep.

  “I never thought the Clearances would come to our glen,” Sorcha whispered. “I was glad ye three were spared seein’ us thrown off our land. That mother and father were already dead by the time they came for our bit of land.”

  “Bloody sheep,” Ewan muttered, earning a grunt of agreement from Cailean.

  “Speaking of animals, did I see you washing with the horses today?” Cailean asked his brother Ewan. “I was on my way to the General Store when I thought I saw you take a tumble into a trough.”

  “A man has a right to enjoy his day off.” Ewan, the second youngest sibling, flushed red. His blondish-red hair appeared redder as he shifted in discomfort on his chair, and his brown eyes were bashful rather than filled with mischief, as was more typical. He glared at his sister as she laughed. “Ye ken I only get one a month, other than Sundays.”

  “An odd way to spend yer time,” Sorcha said around a giggle. “We have a fine tub here for washin’ whenever ye want it.”

  Alistair rolled his eyes as he listened to his youngest siblings banter back and forth. “I saw ye talking to the new mystery woman who arrived in town,” Alistair said to Cailean. Alistair studied his eldest brother closely. “Hadn’t thought ye’d be eager to make her acquaintance.”

  “Why?” Sorcha asked. She grimaced as she took a bite of the bread but then continued to chew it when Ewan watched her.

  “Seems she’s familiar with those who reside in the Boudoir.” At his sister’s confused expression, he shrugged.

  “The bawdy house, Sorch,” Ewan muttered as he slathered butter onto his slab of bread. “She’s friends with a who—” He bolted in his seat as he was kicked again.

  “Those who are less fortunate than us,” Cailean said with a glare at his baby brother. “Aye, I met her.” He rested against the back of his chair and shared a chagrined look with his siblings. “She thought that her sister, who resides in the bawdy house, was to marry me.”

  Ewan choked on his piece of bread while Sorcha gasped. Her fork clinked on her plate as she dropped it. Alistair frowned at Cailean a second, then burst into laughter. Alistair threw his head back, his shoulders heaving, before he leaned forward and covered his face as he continued to chuckle. He ran his hands through his brown hair—on the verge of black—before he finally looked at his eldest brother again. “Oh, Cail, that’s a fine tale. Did ye spend all day comin’ up with that one?” Alistair asked, his Scottish accent thicker than usual with his amusement.

  Cailean met his brother’s amused gaze, and the levity faded in Alistair’s countenance when he realized Cailean was serious. “Ye’re jokin’,” he sputtered.

  “Not at all. Announced it in front of the likes of Tobias himself. Surprised the whole town hasn’t heard the news I’m betrothed to a … a … a …” He broke off with a look at his sister.

  “A lady of ill repute,” she murmured, her eyes wide. “What a horrible trick to play on a person. I’ll never like her.”

  He ran a hand over the tablecloth, flicking at crumbs and smoothing it down. “I believe there was no malice on her part.”

  Ewan, who had inhaled something down the wrong pipe, coughed continuously and finally gasped at his eldest brother’s words. “I thought tumbling into the horse trough made for an exciting day.”

  Alistair watched his eldest brother. “That’s why ye were fashed today when ye left the Merc without picking up the supplies we’d ordered.”

  Cailean nodded and then shrugged. “Mucking out stalls helped.”

  “What’s she like? This misinformed sister?” Ewan asked. He took a long sip of water, his breath still catching from his near-choking.

  “A little taller than Sorcha. Black hair, brown eyes.” He shook his head. “Brave.” He met his siblings’ curious stares. “She stood up to Tobias and me. Neither of us were kind.”

  “A woman on her own must be brave,” Sorcha whispered. “I canna imagine movin’ here by myself.” She frowned as she held up her fork and pointed it at her brothers. “Doesna mean I’m to like her.”

  “The last thing I want is for the women of this town to believe I’m eager to wed,” Cailean muttered.

  Alistair laughed and Ewan snickered. “Ye’ve treated them with such derision I doubt they’ll look on ye with much favor due to one of Tobias’s rumors.”

  Cailean inhaled and exhaled deeply. “I never meant to be rude.”

  “A blunt Scotsman is rude,” Ewan muttered. “Ye ken that as well as we do. And when ye tell a woman that she’d have a better chance marrying the Pope, ye had to know ye’d start rumors.”

  Cailean ran fingers through his hair. “I wanted them to leave me be.”

  Alistair snorted. “Aye, they do for a whole host of other reasons.” He laughed as Sorcha watched them, confused. “However, no matter how much ye wish they’d give up all hopes of ye, ye’re still a successful businessman, and some mothers will always dream. What daughters they have, they’ll want them to marry such men, rather than miners. An’, ye’re not getting’ any younger. In a few years, ye’ll be forty.”

  “Three,” Cailean said around clenched teeth. “An’ that doesna make me old and decrepit.”

  “Nae, but mothers want their daughters wed now, afore ye lose all yer faculties.” Ewan laughed as Cailean threw his napkin at him.

  Cailean groaned and stood, carrying his plate to the sink next to the hand pump for water. “Thank you for dinner, Sorch. It was delicious.” He glared at his brothers, daring them to contradict his verdict about her cooking. He smiled as they mumbled their agreement and rose to carry their plates to the sink.

  It was Alistair’s turn to help Sorcha clean up after dinner, so Cailean followed his brother Ewan to the parlor. Cailean stoked the small fire in the potbellied stove and added wood. He watched as his brother sat on one of the chairs, an unopened book beside him.

  “Whatever it is ye wish to say, I wish ye’d say it,” Ewan murmured as he closed his eyes and stretched his legs in front of him.

  “You already know what I’m to say.”

  Ewan grunted as he appeared to drift off to sleep in the warming room. When Cailean kicked his feet, Ewan glared at him. “Being the only experienced carpenter in this town is not easy work. I have every right to relax how I choose, Cail.”

  “You do. I don’t comment on your visits to the Boudoir, although I hope you don’t pick up a nasty disease.” He raised an eyebrow as Ewan snorted. “However, you know how I feel about gambling.”

  Ewan rolled his eyes at his brother before closing them again, his hands crossed over his belly. “Aah, yes. Thrift and moderation are to be pursued at all costs, even the rejection of a little enjoyment.” He shifted in the chair before looking at his brother again. “It’s my money.”

  “I’d think you’d want more from it than to lose it to some idiot playing poker while being overcharged for a glass of watered-down whiskey.” Cailean sat on the settee and studied his brother.

  “Just as I’d think ye’d want more from life than courtin’ ghosts and feedin’ memories that will never bring ye joy.” His eyes shot open to
see his eldest brother stiffen. “I’m sorry, Cail. I didna mean that.”

  “I think you did. And I can see how my life appears to someone like you. You, who is determined to forget the regrets that haunt you.” Cailean’s hazel eyes glowed with intensity as he beheld his youngest brother. “You know I would have spared you the heartache if I had been able to.”

  Ewan’s eyes flashed with momentary pain before he smiled his mischievous smile. “Life’s meant to be lived, Cail.” He watched as his eldest brother flinched at his words. “Ye must know by now that ye want more from life than this.” He waved his hand around. “Mucking out stalls and carin’ for others’ horses. Livin’ with yer siblings.”

  Cailean shook his head. “I will never have need for more again, Ewan. Nothing is worth the pain.”

  Ewan sighed. “I hope someone proves ye wrong.”

  Cailean rose, slipping out the parlor door, through the kitchen, and to the back porch. The cold early spring air acted as a tonic to the stifling warmth of the parlor and the overpowering emotions elicited during his conversation with Ewan. Cailean sighed as Alistair joined him and pulled out his pipe.

  “I’ll go to the front if ye’d rather.”

  Cailean waved away Alistair’s offer, and the sweet smell of pipe smoke soon enveloped them. Cailean leaned against the wood railing while Alistair sat on a block of wood set on end. Cailean watched the multitude of stars and felt the tension seep from his shoulders.

  “Seems as though yer discussion with Ewan didna go as planned,” Alistair said, his mouth clamped around his pipe. He pulled air into it as he lit it again.

  Cailean grunted. “He turned my concern about his gambling into a criticism of my life.” Cailean sighed and tilted his head to look at the brother who had traveled with him from Skye twelve years ago when Alistair had only been twenty one and Cailean had been desperate to escape his sorrows.