She looked out at the swirling snowdrifts in the center of what used to be the street, as if it might give her the answer she was looking for.
“Pardon me,” an all too familiar voice said behind her. “Would you mind some company on this beautiful night?”
Millie rolled her eyes and turned around to meet Clyde’s warm gaze. He was smiling at her and holding out a small plate of berry pie. “They recommended this flavor to me when I mentioned that some dessert might be just what you needed.”
“It was my idea,” she said, carefully taking the plate of pie from him. “The pie flavor, I mean. They were going to make one pumpkin pie and three apple pies. Can you imagine how boring that would have been?”
Clyde chuckled a bit. “It sounds like you know how to throw a party,” he said jocularly.
Millie was just relieved that he’d made no mention of their awkward conversation from earlier. She wasn’t about to bring it up now, either. “I actually haven’t ever thrown a proper party in my life before,” she admitted. “My mother and father used to throw lavish ones, but I was a child back then. It hardly counts.”
He tilted his head a bit as he looked at her. She noticed then that he had stayed mostly near the doorway, not venturing to move closer to her. Maybe he worried about her pushing him away or something. It was if he somehow understood that he had overstepped at least a few boundaries beforehand and had finally learned his lesson. “You never played party hostess with friends in New York?” he asked her. “I thought that all the young ladies liked to do that sort of thing. Isn’t that why men want wives so badly, so they have someone to be sociable for them?”
Millie had to smile a little at that. “I think that must be part of it, yes. But I didn’t really have that much of a social life once I grew up and moved out on my own. I was told that working in the shirtwaist factory was going to be the way to make so many friends and have so many wonderful, life-changing experiences. But in reality, I had only a few coworker friends and I quickly realized that I’m much too shy to really get that close to people.”
Clyde gave her a look of mock surprise. “No, really?”
She smiled at him and then neatly cut into her piece of berry pie. “I suppose that’s why finding James via the newspaper service was good for me. I was able to make a connection with him that I probably wouldn’t have if we had met in person right away. I’m not very talkative with strangers.”
“Well you could’ve fooled me,” he said to her, waving a slightly dismissive hand. “You were quite friendly towards me… when we first met, anyway. You told me all about where you’d come from, where you were headed. You stopped and looked at me first. Don’t forget. You called attention to yourself.”
Millie blushed. “I won’t forget,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself, though. I was surprised when I heard your hammer come down. Startled isn’t the same as attracting attention.”
“I see,” Clyde said. “I suppose it’s just how pretty you happened to be while you were startled, then.”
She ate her pie for a few moments in near-silence. The whirring wind around them made complete silence impossible. “You make it all seem like it’s just supposed to be easy,” she said finally. “Even if I wanted to stay here and spend my days with you, you infuriating man, the fact of the matter is, I made a promise.”
He finally moved slightly closer to her, still careful to keep his distance and remain entirely proper, even though his brown eyes had taken on a romantic, far off sort of look. “I think that the question of love came up,” he said. “I think that the promise you made to this Mr. O’Neill includes the promise of love. And that if you can’t give that to him, then you may as well have stolen the ticket that brought you here.”
Millie wanted to throw her pie at him, to strike him, anything to wipe that expression off of his face, but she was too flustered by his words to do anything. “I think you’re a lot of talk,” she said slowly and softly, looking down at her plate as if it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. “But it’s not as if you’ve really done anything to earn the things you want from me. You’ve made me feel like a fool and embarrassed me right out of that party. And why? I don’t understand what you hope to get out of treating me this way.”
“I thought that was obvious,” Clyde replied. “I want you to stay here in Ogden. It’s where you belong; it’s where you’ve made friends. I want you to stay here and marry me instead.”
Millie sat frozen, staring at him with widening eyes and a slowly gaping mouth. “Marry you after you’ve criticized me for marrying someone I never met in person? I hardly know you.”
“Ah, but you’ll get to know me,” Clyde replied. “We can start tonight, if you promise me that you’ll stop with the O’Neill fantasies and stay here with me.”
She furrowed her brows as she looked at him. “I don’t know why I took this pie from you,” she said. “I’m not hungry. In fact, I just feel sick. Every time we talk, I end up feeling sick.”
“Some might call that love…” He gave her a hopeful sort of look as he smiled at her. “Look. I’m not asking you to do anything that you haven’t already been doing. I just want you to stick to where you are and who you know here, instead of running off to live with someone who is a complete gamble.”
I’ve made a terrible mistake. Actually several. I never even saw his picture and I was going to give my life to him… Frowning, Millie handed the plate of pie back to Clyde. “But what happens to poor James? He would be brokenhearted if I write to him and tell him that I’m not coming to be with him. He spent so much money on me.”
Clyde appeared thoughtful. “Here,” he said at last. “I’ll make you a deal. If the storm clears out and you still want to continue on because you can’t bear to break poor James’s heart, I won’t stop you. But if the storm clears and you do want to stay here and marry me, I will pay poor James the amount he paid to get you westward. Is that fair?”
Millie bit her lip. That means several more weeks of spending time around him, she thought. Several more weeks of him trying to convince me to leave James. He really wants to ruin my honor, doesn’t me?
“Very well,” she replied. “Let’s say that I have until Christmas, though. I might be able to leave earlier than we think.”
Clyde held out his hand and they firmly shook on it.
Why do I feel like I’ve made another promise I shouldn’t have?
Chapter 10
Millie and Clyde returned to the party to find that it was time to clean up. Many of the inn’s guests had gone upstairs to their bedrooms, leaving Diana, Hattie and Mrs. Cooke to tend to the dishes and the laundry. “There’s plenty of leftovers if you were wanting something that you missed,” Diana informed Millie with a knowing smile.
“Maybe for lunch tomorrow, Mrs. Pratt,” Millie said. “Thank you. Let me help with that.” She rushed away from Clyde so she could work on cleaning some of the dirty plates and silverware. Clyde didn’t linger too long, leaving the ladies to finish up the housework for the night.
As soon as he was gone, Diana and Hattie moved closer to Millie so they could gossip with her. “What went on out there?” Hattie asked.
“I was about to send out a chaperone,” Diana said, mostly joking. “We didn’t know what you two might’ve been up to.”
Millie felt her face grow warm with a fresh blush. “It was nothing, really. Mr. Roberts asked me to stay in Ogden because he seems to believe that I don’t actually want to marry my beau in Coloma.” She kept her eyes and hands focused on her work, though she wondered if they could hear the pounding of her heart.
Hattie and Diana looked at each other. “Ooohh,” Hattie said, grinning.
Millie chuckled. “Oh hush,” she replied. “More than anything, I think Mr. Roberts fancies getting to know me better to see if I’m worth keeping around.”
Diana nodded a little. “That’s known as courting…”
“I suppose so,” Millie
replied, feigning surprise. “But it’s not quite as romantic as all that. He told me that I don’t love Mr. O’Neill so I might as well stay in Ogden where I knew people and could be happy. Not quite his words, but just about.”
“He wants to get to know you,” Diana said. “He’s trying to win your love. I think that’s plenty romantic!”
“Well, do you?” Hattie asked.
Millie looked up from the soapy glasses at her. “Do I what?”
“Do you love Mr. O’Neill?”
Sighing, Millie shook her head a bit. “I never said that I did. I thought that was just something that would come.”
“Oh, Millie,” Diana said, giving her a sympathetic look. “Sometimes it works out that way, but there’s no guarantee and it really should come more naturally. That’s the real way you know for sure if a fellow is the one for you. This is precisely why I could never get into this whole mail order business. It seems far too risky.”
Hattie was thoughtful. “I suppose that I could’ve enjoyed it,” she said. “But then, I love writing letters to people.”
Millie finished up the washing with the other ladies of the house, and then made her way upstairs to her bedroom to try and clear her mind. She caught herself wondering more than once which room Clyde was staying in. The number of bedrooms in this house was seemingly endless. She undressed, carefully hanging up her crushed velvet dress in the bureau and changing into her white cotton nightgown. She took her hair down and gently ran a comb through her shiny brown tresses. Looking at her reflection in the vanity, she tried to imagine herself as a bride. The white nightgown made it somewhat easy. But when she imagined her groom, all she could think about was Clyde Roberts.
He was staying in the inn as well now, which meant that he would have ample opportunities to see her and wind her up, depending on how he was feeling. She was grateful for a chance to try and learn more about him, but she wasn’t looking forward to the way he made her stomach feel whenever they met. She wanted him to help her uncover some answers for herself, rather than overwhelming her with questions!
Somehow, Millie managed to fall asleep. The following morning was much more relaxed. The crowd in the inn had died down quite a bit, and everyone was going about things at a more leisurely pace. When she came downstairs, dressed in a simple blue frock with little birds sewn into the fabric, she looked around at the change and couldn’t believe it. Does this mean the trains are running again? She thought hopefully.
“Where did everyone go?” she asked Hattie at the desk in the back entryway.
“Oh, some people decided to move to different lodgings in nearby towns, some took wagon trains west or east. People are always coming and going from here,” Hattie said. “But he’s still here, if you’re wondering.”
Millie was a bit frantic now. “And the trains?” she asked. “Are the trains running again?”
She had promised him that she would tell him her answer by the time the trains were up and running again. She hadn’t expected them to be ready so soon!
“No,” Hattie said, popping that bubble before Millie had a chance to worry herself into an early grave. “The trains are still not coming into Ogden. There may have been some melting going on, but not enough to run trains through. To tell you the truth, I feel bad for any horse that’s forced to walk through all of this ice, too.”
For some reason, Millie felt a wave of relief wash over her. She wasn’t ready to make a big decision. After all, she needed more time to get to know Mr. Roberts.
“You said that Mr. Roberts is still in here?” she asked Hattie awkwardly. “Do you happen to remember where you squeezed him in last night?”
Hattie chuckled. “We didn’t squeeze him in. He was quite happy to sleep in the cellar, provided we gave him enough pillows and blankets.”
Millie was amazed. “He slept in the cellar?”
“Sure,” Hattie replied. “He says that he’s used to sleeping in places like that. His home is the blacksmith shop, you know. I’ve never seen him go anywhere else, until you came into town.” She winked at Millie.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re just pulling my leg about that. There’s no way that the only place he ever goes is to his shop. I don’t think a man can live here without going to the grocers, the saloons, and everywhere else. Don’t be silly.” Millie smiled at the very idea that Clyde would have been a shut-in until now. “He certainly doesn’t talk like a man who stays in and works all day every day.”
Hattie shrugged a bit. “Well, you know him better than me.”
“Who knows who?” Clyde’s voice suddenly asked behind Millie. She made a show of being surprised to see him, which clearly tickled him a great deal. “Is this the gossip desk? I thought this was the reception desk.”
Hattie blushed and Millie just rolled her eyes at him. “Ignore him,” she said. “He’s just picking on us because we have things to keep us occupied here and he doesn’t.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked Millie. “And what do you have here to keep you occupied? A bunch of unsent letters to your beau?”
She glared at him a little. “That’s just mean. No mail is going out in this weather. You ought to know what.”
“I know,” he said. “I was just kidding. My, you sure are still sensitive about him.”
“You’d be sensitive, too, if you cared about other people’s feelings.”
For a moment, Millie thought that Hattie was embarrassed to be witness to their sniping at each other, but then Hattie smiled a conspiratorial smile at her.
“Be that as it may,” Clyde said, letting her words fall from him like water off a duck’s back. “Would you care to sit with me in the living room and pass the time over a lovely breakfast?”
Millie tittered at the way he’d phrased it. “Really, you can be so silly. Yes, I’ll eat with you. But if you mention James O’Neill again, I’ll put you out.”
They walked through the hall together, past the kitchen and into the spacious living room which was even more spacious now that several of the winter travelers were gone.
“On whose authority are you going to put me out?” he asked her with a wry smile. “You’re not the innkeeper here. Mrs. Pratt’s too nice to kick me out on nothing but your word.”
He held a chair out for her at one of the vacant tables and Millie graciously sat down. He sat in the chair opposite her, giving her space again. He really is learning his lesson, she thought. At least about personal space.
“So,” Millie began as soon as they were both situated at the table. “I have it on good authority that you don’t leave the confines of your blacksmithing very often.”
Clyde smirked at her. “Oh, who told you that? Little Miss Gossip back there?” he asked, gesturing a thumb towards the back door of the house. “Just cos some people never buy from me, they want to start rumors about me never going outside.” He tisked. “Well, you know. You saw me sitting outside my shop the day we met.”
“I think it’s a sign that people don’t know what you do with yourself outside of work, is all,” Millie said. “You said that you wanted us to get to know each other. What do you do when you’re not working?”
Clyde smiled at her. “A lot of things. I go for walks or rides. I like to make things for fun, too. It’s not doing work if it’s purely for the sake of enjoyment.”
“What do you like to make?” Millie asked him, leaning her chin against her hand as she looked across the table and right into his eyes.
He suddenly gave her a shy kind of look. She wasn’t expecting that response from him. “Musical instruments,” he told her, keeping his voice down as if he was afraid of getting made fun of for such a thing.
Millie gaped at him. “What?” she asked, incredulously. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Clyde said, still smiling embarrassedly. “Please, keep it down. Not everyone will find that so amazing. Besides, I never said I was any good at it.”
She had enough faith in him to believe that he was just being mo
dest. “I bet you are,” she said. “Why don’t you want anyone to know about this hobby of yours?”
“It’s more than a hobby, first of all,” he said. “And second of all… Because people don’t expect the hammer-wielding blacksmith to make and play the flute in his spare time.”
“Awwwww!” Millie cooed without being able to stop herself.
“And then there’s that reaction.” Clyde didn’t seem to be able to stop smiling at her. “So now that you know more about me. Why don’t you tell me an interesting fact or embarrassing anecdote about yourself?”
She was just so taken by the idea of him playing the flute that she could hardly think of anything else at the moment. “Umm, well I already told you about the no friends and no parties thing,” she said, thinking. “I was probably the only young woman in New York who didn’t relish being a single working woman there for the rest of my life.”
Clyde leaned forward in his chair a little bit. “Why’s that?” he asked. “Didn’t you like working in the factory making… What was it again?”
“Shirtwaists,” she answered readily. “I enjoyed the work well enough, but I didn’t exactly love the atmosphere. It was always so stuffy. The whole city was like that, really. Stifling. Smelly.”
“So, you wanted to move out West where there’s space and you can breathe again,” he said. It was a statement of understanding, not a question.
Millie smiled at him and nodded. “Precisely. Not a lot of gentlemen are understanding about that either. They figure, oh, I was a working girl and all I really need in my life is to get married and start making a family with someone. When that’s not really it at all.”
Annie: A Bride For The Farmhand - A Clean Historical Western Romance (Stewart House Brides Book 3) Page 25