Chapter 5
From the time they opened at half past ten until they closed again at two, they were swamped with customers. Millie was in and out of the kitchen taking plates to people, but she never got an order wrong. She introduced herself sweetly to every person who walked in, and offered them all apple pie at the end of their meal. "I made it myself," she told them all, stretching the truth a little.
Most of the customers were ranchers or their hands coming into town to get something or someone from the train. Connor had been right about that. Several times she was asked if she had a husband, so she finally started introducing herself as Millie O'Reilly. The name sounded strange even to her. She wondered how long it would take for her to get used to the new name.
Just before they closed at two, she walked up to a table, taking her pencil from behind her ear where she'd tucked it. "Hi, I'm Millie O'Reilly. I'll be your waitress. What can I get you today?" She smiled, asking the question sweetly. She'd been surprised at the tips she was receiving from the customers.
The man looked her up and down as if she wore nothing, and she wanted to hide behind something. "You marry Connor?"
Millie nodded. "Just yesterday." She was pleased to be able to say she was married, because the man made her feel very uncomfortable. He obviously needed a wife, but it couldn't be her.
"You don't need him. Run away with me."
Millie couldn't believe he'd even suggested it. "I believe in the sanctity of marriage." She stared at him as if he were a rodent. "What can I get you today?" She refused to think about anything else.
He looked up at the chalk board where she had written the menu for the day. "I'll take the roast and a glass of iced tea."
"I'll get it for you." She walked into the kitchen and happily shut the door behind her. "There's a man out there, that's looking at me like he wants to eat me for lunch," she told Connor, shuddering.
Connor walked over to the door to the dining area, and looked out. "That's John Bennett. He's a rancher just outside of town; he's okay once you get to know him. For now anytime he comes in here, you let me know, and I'll serve him."
She nodded, thankful for his answer. "He wants the roast and iced tea."
"You plate it, and I'll take it out to him." He'd been working with her on the correct way to plate meals for the customers throughout the morning. At first, he'd done it for her, but gradually, he'd made her start doing it all herself.
She carefully put two pieces of meat, the amount of mashed potatoes he'd shown her, and a spoonful of carrots onto a plate, added two slices of the fresh bread, and poured a glass of iced tea. She handed both to Connor. "Thank you for taking care of him."
Connor kissed Millie over the food. "You don't have to deal with people who make you uncomfortable." He went out the swinging door and put the food down in front of the man, who was the only person left in the restaurant. "Here you go." He stood over the rancher after setting his food on the table in front of him, waiting for the other man to ask him about Millie.
"What happened to your pretty little wife? I thought she was going to bring me my food." John seemed annoyed that he'd been served by Connor instead of Millie.
"It's time for her lunch break." Connor walked back toward the kitchen. "You let me know if you want anything else," he called over his shoulder.
"I'd rather have the pretty girl serve me."
"You'll need to go somewhere else for that. I'm sure you can find a saloon somewhere. My wife is eating her lunch." He walked back into the kitchen. "Eat."
"But I was going to wait for you. I want to wash the dishes now so we can eat together." She hated the idea of eating without him.
"I told him you were taking your lunch break, so you need to eat."
She sighed. "I guess I'm eating lunch then." She looked at what was left, and served herself a huge bowl of the chicken and dumplings. She hadn't eaten since early that morning and was starving. She took two slices of bread and buttered them before walking to the table and sitting down.
She watched as Connor got a bowl of the chicken himself and added bread, walking to sit across from her. "I'm not going to let you eat alone," he told her with a smile.
As soon as they were finished, Connor went to check on John. "You want anything else?"
"What kind of pie you got today?"
"Apple."
"I'll take a piece and a cup of coffee."
Millie heard the conversation and had the pie and coffee ready for him when he came in. He nodded his thanks and took it back out to the other man. "I'll have your bill ready in a minute." He spent a minute on the bill and took it back out.
"Now when I leave my tip today, I want that pretty wife of yours to get it and to know it's from me."
Connor nodded. "I'll tell her." When he walked back into the kitchen she was on her feet in front of the sink washing the last of the lunch dishes. She'd done her best to keep up with them throughout the day. He couldn't have been more pleased with her. It was obvious she wasn't used to hard work, but she had jumped right in and done everything that needed to be done. How could he complain about that?
Together they cleaned the kitchen from the lunch crowd and started preparing the food for supper. "Supper's a bit harder," Connor explained. "At lunch we have three meals for them to choose from, and they pick one. It's that simple. At supper, we have those same three meals, but we add steak, which we cook to order, and baked chicken."
Millie listened eagerly, nodding. "So for supper, we'll do the chicken and dumplings, beef stew, and roast beef, but we'll also have steak and baked chicken. Got it." She would learn to do everything just the way he wanted it done so she could please him. Never in her life had she wanted to please anyone as much as she wanted to please Connor.
He smiled. "We do mashed potatoes as a side with both the chicken and the steak." He pointed to a small mountain of potatoes. "Have you ever peeled potatoes?" He'd done them that morning while having her do other tasks. She'd watched as much as she could, but she'd needed to concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing.
She shook her head, staring at the huge pile. "Is it much different from apples?"
"Not terribly. Peel them, cut them into small chunks, and throw them in a pot of water. Then we'll boil them." He explained the process as succinctly as he could, knowing she would follow his directions after working with her for half a day already.
"Do we serve the same things every day?" She hoped so, because she could learn to make the meals faster if they did.
He nodded. "I change up the dessert every day, but that's about it."
She walked to the sink and grabbed a potato. "Let's get started then." She was eager to do everything he needed her to do and do it right.
They re-opened for supper at five and closed at seven. She was amazed at how much work was involved in serving meals for only five and a half hours per day. The dinner crowd was much smaller than the lunch crowd had been, and Millie was thankful. Her feet hurt by the time they closed, and they still had a small mountain of dishes to do.
She went to the sink and washed them quickly, without a word, wanting to get done so she could go to sleep. Nothing had ever sounded as good as sleep did at that moment. She knew she'd eventually get used to the hard work, but just then, it didn't feel like it.
"You look exhausted," he said as he wrapped his arm around her to walk back up the stairs to their room a short while later.
She nodded. "I've never worked so hard in my life."
He smiled, squeezing her tightly. "Did you have a job at home?"
She shook her head. "I was a wastrel. I volunteered at the orphanage on occasion, but I just sat holding the babies. I didn't do any real work." She hated admitting it, but she wasn't about to lie to him after the way he'd reacted to her not being able to cook.
"How old are you?" He couldn't believe he didn't know how old his own wife was, but he had to ask.
"Twenty-two." She frowned, knowing it had sounded like she'd
wasted a lot of time doing nothing. "My parents didn't think women should work."
"Really?" He raised an eyebrow. "What does your father do?"
"He owns a restaurant and hotel. Just like you do."
"And he employed no women?"
Millie frowned. "He had a lot of female employees. I guess what he really meant is that he didn't think his daughters should work." She'd never thought about his double standards before, but it was clear to her then that she should have.
Connor laughed, shaking his head. "Did he know that you'd be working with me?"
"I left that out when I told him I was coming out here to marry you." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Oh, I almost forgot. I'm supposed to write three letters as soon as I arrive so everyone knows I'm all right." She hated that she hadn't done it the previous day. She didn't want the people she cared about worrying about her.
"Tomorrow. Tonight, you need to just get ready for bed. We'll have an early day again tomorrow." Watching her, he realized he may be asking too much from her. She wasn't used to working at all, and he was suddenly asking her to work fourteen hour days. He wasn't sure she was ready for it. Of course, once they were working together better, the amount of time it took to prepare would be cut way down.
They both undressed quickly and climbed into bed. He pulled her into his arms, and she put her head on his shoulder. She was too tired to make love, and he knew it. He sighed. They always had tomorrow. Maybe he'd need to start closing the restaurant one day a week to give her time to rest.
He watched her for a few minutes as she slept, wondering why he wasn't angrier with her for lying to him. He guessed he understood in some ways why she'd done it, but it had certainly ruined his plans for the bakery. Maybe that was a good thing though. He closed his eyes, curled around her. Today had been rough, but it could only get better from there. Right?
Chapter 6
When Connor woke her the following morning, she was certain she'd never be able to get out of bed and start working. She just didn't have it in her. Her feet hurt, and her back ached, and she felt like she'd never be able to move again. She took one look at his face, though, and knew she couldn't disappoint him again. She had no desire to let him down the way she already had. She needed to do everything she could to prove to him that she could make it work.
She crawled from the bed, feeling like death warmed over, but did her best to hide it from him. "I'm going to make breakfast this morning," she announced, "and I'm going to do it right!" She felt as grumpy as she always did first thing in the morning, but she did her best to hide it.
He grinned, kissing her softly. "That's my girl. I know you can!"
They went down the stairs and into the kitchen of the restaurant, and she immediately went into the cold room for the eggs and bacon while he started the fire in the stove and then started to mix up the dough for bread. She carefully heated the pan and then added the bacon, before she mixed the eggs. This time she managed to break the eggs without getting a single shell in them. She added the milk and mixed it, then turned the bacon.
She added the salt and pepper to the egg mixture and mixed it a little more before removing the bacon from the stove. She carefully poured the eggs into the frying pan and stirred them the same way she had the previous morning. They looked like they were right. She prayed they tasted good.
She plated both of their meals and poured out their coffee carrying it to the table. He prayed for them, and she watched as he took his first bite of eggs. He smiled and nodded at her. "These are delicious." He could tell she was anxious and was thrilled to be able to truthfully compliment her cooking.
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you!" She took a bite and smiled. He hadn't lied. She'd actually done it right. "I made a whole meal by myself." Yes, she knew it was a simple meal, because it was the first one that Berta tried to teach her to cook, but she didn't care. A meal was a meal, and she'd done it right.
"It's quite an accomplishment." He squeezed her hand in his. "I'm glad you were the one to come out here and marry me." He realized that was the truth. She had lied about something that he'd considered extremely important, but she was a hard worker and willing to learn, which was the most important thing.
"Me too. I appreciate the man you are. I don't know of any other who would have been all right with the lie that I told." She took a sip of her coffee. "Back in Beckham, the lie seemed like nothing. I thought, 'Oh, he won't mind. He's getting a wife after all.' Berta tried to teach me to cook before I left, but I only had one day to try to learn, and honestly? I didn't think you'd care that much." She looked down at her lap as she said the words, knowing they would bother him, but needing to tell him everything.
He frowned. "I care more about the lie than your inability to cook. I understand that you didn't feel it was important, and I'm not angry with you, but I do ask that you don't lie again." He watched her carefully, wondering how she'd respond.
She shook her head. "Having the lie come out the way it did was mortifying. I learned my lesson." She would never lie to him again. She couldn't keep hurting him that way.
He had been thinking hard about what they could do to change things, so that life wouldn't be so hard on her here, and he had an idea, but he wasn't going to bring it up just yet. When she got what she needed to do down, then they'd talk about it.
For Millie, all the days blended together. She worked from the time she woke in the morning until she went to bed at night, with little respite. The only day that was different was Sunday, and it was only different because they had to get up a little earlier to open the restaurant a little later. She felt like she was constantly cooking, but she learned, and she learned well. By her third Monday of marriage, she was able to do all the regular cooking on her own, while Connor did the baking.
She was so proud of herself for her accomplishments that she was all but dancing. She not only cooked all the meals that day, but she also served every single customer. Connor watched her carefully, nodding his encouragement.
At the end of the day, while they were eating their supper, he told her his idea. "I think we should start having the restaurant only open for the lunch rush." He knew she hated the long hours, and he expected her to be excited.
She stared at him in surprise. "But I finally learned that I can do it!" Did he think she couldn't handle the fast pace of running a restaurant?
He nodded. "You can do it. Here's my thinking on the matter, though. I didn't mind working fourteen hour days when I was a single man, but now that I'm married, I want more time with my wife, and I don't want to see my wife work herself into an early grave. I know many women work those hours, but I don't want you to have to." He thought about her father never allowing her to work, and how as soon as he married her, she was forced to do nothing but work.
She nodded, before asking, "But don't we need the money from the dinner hour?" How would they make it with the big loss of income? He was right and well over half of their income from the restaurant was made at lunch time, but surely they needed the supper income as well. Especially if they were going to get a house together someday.
He shook his head. "Not with my idea. One fourth of our income comes from the hotel. That will remain steady regardless. Three fourths of what's left of the income comes from our lunch rush. That's very little money that's coming in from supper time. I think we should close during supper, and instead, I will start baking and selling my baked goods. We'll work from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, instead of from six in the morning until eight or nine at night. We'll still put in a good day's work. The bakery should more than make up for the lost income from closing at supper time, and should even bring in more money."
She thought about his suggestion for a moment. "When would you want to start this?" She liked the idea of working shorter days. She would do what was necessary, but having more time with her husband would certainly be a welcome change.
"Well, I think one more week of this, but we'll post
on the door that the new hours will start on Monday of next week. We'll also post about the baked goods starting Monday. People are always asking to buy my pies, and we never have enough. That way I could do custom cakes as well." He grinned, liking the idea of being able to use his creativity on cakes.
"I like the idea. In fact, I love it." She took his hand across the small table. "My favorite part is getting to spend extra time with my husband." She wound her fingers through his, smiling at him as their eyes met.
He brought her hand to his lips. "I like that part too."
He wrote up a sign that they put on the front door, letting people know of the new hours and the bakery hours. Most people who talked to them were very excited about it, and they started making a list of the types of baked goods people in the town wanted.
Through it all, Millie constantly worried that Connor wished it had been Berta to come to him instead of her. Oh, she knew he enjoyed their time in bed together, but he'd have enjoyed time there with Berta as well. And Berta would have been a great deal better in the kitchen.
She knew she needed to do something to show him how good she was at helping people, and that she wasn't inferior to Berta. She wasn't even inferior to the perfect Berta who lived in his head.
It was while she was in the lobby of the hotel one evening that it came to her. Poor Widow Sanders had two small children, and her husband had been killed by someone trying to steal their land just a few months before. She sat one evening and talked to the widow for hours, working the details of her plan out in her mind. "Will you come to lunch at the restaurant tomorrow?" she asked. "Come around two, and I'll feed the children in the kitchen so you can have a nice quiet meal for a change."
Wild Western Women Spring Into Love: A Western Historical Romance Box Set Page 5