The Bride of Willow Creek

by Maggie Osborne

  “We still have three months.”

  “There is no reason to prolong this. Since we will receive custody anyway, we would like to have the summer with our granddaughters. We’d like to spend time with them before they leave for school.”

  “Leave for school?” Angie frowned. “In the unlikely event that you receive custody, wouldn’t Lucy and Daisy attend school in Colorado Springs?”

  “We have enrolled both girls in Miss Washington’s School for Young Women. Miss Washington prefers that her young ladies board on premises. As the school is indeed in Colorado Springs, Lucy and Daisy would come home for holidays and selected weekends.”

  Angie threw up her hands. “Why do you want custody at all if you’re only going to send them off to live somewhere else?”

  “I assure you that Miss Washington’s School for Young Women is the best of its kind in the West. Miss Washington is extremely selective and accepts only young ladies from families of quality and standing. Attending Miss Washington’s is a fine opportunity for Lucy and Daisy.”

  Angie fell backward against the seat cushion. She wasn’t sure where to begin, but she had to try. “Mrs. Govenor, Lucy and Daisy are seven and five years old. Miss Washington’s school might be a wonderful opportunity when they’re older, but not now. Right now they need the stability and security of a home and family.”

  Winnie’s face tightened. “Clearly you have no appreciation for how difficult it will be for Mr. Govenor and myself to raise children at this time in our lives. But we’re willing, even eager to assume our duty. However, the situation will be easier on all concerned with the girls at Miss Washington’s during the school year.”

  “The girls don’t need more upheaval and change. They need to be with their father, not sent away.” Anger flashed in her eyes and she clenched her hands in the lap of her apron.

  “It grates to hear you continually refer to Mr. Holland as my granddaughters’ father. If the court wasn’t so blind, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.” Winnie raised a trembling hand to her forehead. “If Mr. Holland wants children, then he should have his own instead of stealing Laura’s! This is not right.”

  Angie’s gaze narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  Winnie made a sound of exasperation and annoyance. “You know perfectly well. Lucy and Daisy should be raised by blood relatives, not by Sam Holland. He can call himself their father until the cows come home, but that doesn’t make it true.”

  “Wait.” Angie raised a hand. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

  “You really don’t know?” Winnie said after studying Angie’s flushed face. She shook her head, then released a long low breath. “Laura eloped when she was seventeen. The man was unsuitable, of course. Laura chose unsuitable men.” Winnie twisted her hands together in her lap. “Mr. Payton owned a feed store on Myers Street, down near the stables. He had consumption when Laura married him, and that’s what finally killed him. We asked her to come live with us, but she said this was her home, where her friends were and where her children had been born. A year later she met Mr. Holland and you know the rest.”

  “Lucy and Daisy are not Sam’s children,” Angie whispered. Shock stopped her breath.

  “Of course they’re not,” Winnie said, her voice hardening again. “Adoption is just a piece of paper. Adoption doesn’t make Mr. Holland their real father. It doesn’t make him a blood relation.”

  “They aren’t Sam’s children.” He’d adopted them, but they weren’t his natural children. Angie shook her head, then stared.

  “That is exactly my point.”

  She would deal with the shock later. If she could. “Tell me something. If Sam was their true father, would you fight so hard to take the girls away from him?”

  “Why can’t you understand this? Mr. Holland has no blood tie to my granddaughters.”

  “I see.” Suddenly the Govenors’ position made a lot more sense. “Mrs. Govenor, do you really want to raise Lucy and Daisy, or is it that you don’t want Sam to raise them?”

  “We have a family obligation to our granddaughters. Mr. Holland does not. And it isn’t just him. We have to consider who he brings into their lives, what woman he takes up with next. Who do you think a skirt-crazy man like him would put first? My granddaughters or his next woman?”

  “He’d choose his daughters,” Angie said without hesitation. There was no doubt in her mind. “Sam loves his girls. He’ll never neglect them or put them second to anyone.”

  “What if he someday has a child of his own?”

  “That’s an insulting implication. Sam wouldn’t stop loving his daughters if he had another child. If he can love two children, I think he can love three or four, don’t you?”

  “You’re shockingly naive, Mrs. Holland. Either that, or you’re as besotted by that man as my daughter was.”

  Angie climbed out of the vis-à-vis and looked up at Winnie Govenor. “You’re trying to force something that no one wants, not even you, not really. I wish you’d stop thinking about obligation and ask yourself where the girls will be happiest and where they will flourish. It’s true that Sam can’t give them the material comforts that you and your husband can. But will those comforts make them feel less lonely and less abandoned at Miss Washington’s? Or would they be happier at home with a father who loves and wants them?” Angie’s gaze hardened. “I’m not naive, and I’m not besotted. I’m also not blind to what’s best for Daisy and Lucy.”

  Mrs. Govenor tossed her head and ordered her driver to drive on.

  Angie stood in the street, watching until the vis-à-vis turned downhill toward Bennet Street. Then she raised a shaking hand to her forehead.

  Lucy and Daisy didn’t resemble Sam because they weren’t his daughters. Angie’s arrival hadn’t exposed Lucy and Daisy as illegitimate because they weren’t born out of wedlock. And Sam hadn’t had five years to arrange Daisy’s operation, Daisy had been born before Sam met Laura. Sam hadn’t been with Laura for eight years as Angie had jealously assumed, hadn’t been present for the miracle of his daughters’ births as she had also assumed.

  Later, after the girls were finally tucked into bed, Angie followed Sam out to the back steps and sat in the darkness looking at the silhouette of his tent while he told her that he wouldn’t be building the school after all.

  “I’m sorry. I know building the school was important to you.” When he crawled into his tent at night, did he think of her? It was a silly thought that came out of nowhere, and she looked away from his tent. “I guess you’ll be looking for a new project.”

  “I won’t put any more clients at risk.” Sam related his theory as to why the Dryfus place had not burned. “Govenor isn’t totally lacking in principles, just almost. I don’t think the Dryfus fire was intended to burn down the place. I think it was a warning to me.”

  “But the fire could have burned down the parsonage.” The moonlight was bright enough that she saw him nod.

  “If it had happened that way, I suspect Govenor might have made an anonymous donation to Reverend Dryfus so the reverend could rebuild. The point is, it’s too risky to take on another client. Not until things are settled between Govenor and me.” Sam turned his face toward town. “Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there won’t be any more fires because time’s running out. Maybe Herb believes he’s already won.”

  Usually this was Angie’s favorite part of the day. When the chores were finished and the girls tucked into bed, then she and Sam came outside to sit on the steps together and talk.

  Sometimes they recalled growing up in Chicago and spoke of how the city had grown and changed. Occasionally they filled in bits and pieces of the years they had spent apart. Often they talked about the day just passed, the girls, their neighbors, and the latest town gossip.

  She felt so close to Sam sitting together listening to his voice in the darkness, sensing the solid warmth of him on the step above her. It was hard not to remember passionate kisses and the to
uch of his hands stroking her body. And his mouth. Oh heavens, his mouth teasing her breasts and exploring the inside of her thighs. Heat flooded her body at the memory.

  But tonight the conversation had turned in a direction that chased away passionate thoughts. Her chest tightened and her mouth suddenly went dry.

  “If you don’t work, how will we pay the bills?” Panic swirled beneath the question. There was enough money in the jars over the stove to carry them for a week or two, but after that . . .

  “I’m following a vein of sylvanite that looks like high grade. I’ll know more in a couple of days, after I get the assayer’s report. Selling small quantities of high grade won’t put us ahead, but it’ll pay the bills. If we’re careful.”

  “I thought you’d already had the ore assayed.” It seemed to Angie that she was continually shifting money around the jars to find enough funds for another assay.

  “I wish one assay were enough, but the gold content can increase or diminish within a few yards. The assays are an ongoing necessity.”

  “Sam? What if the high grade runs out?”

  He was silent for several minutes. “I won’t let us starve, Angie. You don’t know about ore and minerals and mining, so I won’t ask you to believe in my diggings. But I’m asking you to believe in me. This is the claim I’ve been waiting for ever since I came west. The gold is there.”

  Ten years ago she’d had a choice, and she hadn’t believed in him enough to follow him west. Now there was no choice. Whether she believed or not, their fate was tied to his claim. He wasn’t going to seek another building job.

  For a moment she watched the moonlight slide on her wedding ring, then she wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her raised knees. “Sam? Why didn’t you tell me about the girls?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “That you adopted them. I thought you were their real father.”

  “I am their real father.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m the man who tucks them in at night, and I’m the man who cooks their breakfast and walks them to school. I’m the man who puts a roof over their heads and shoes on their feet. It’s me who worries about their grades and what they eat and who they play with. It’s me who’s proud of Lucy and who hurts inside when I watch Daisy run. Me who’s teaching them not to lie and not to steal and not to be rude and to use their napkins. Someday I’m going to be the man who chases off boys who aren’t worthy of them. And someday I’ll walk them down the aisle and give their hands to men who are worthy of them.”

  It was the longest speech Angie had heard him make.

  “If that isn’t a father, I don’t know what the hell is.”

  “You don’t need to get angry. I’m on your side.”

  “Really?” She felt his stare through the darkness. “I ran into the postmaster on the way home tonight. Do you want to explain why we’re paying for two postal boxes?”

  Angie’s heart sank. “I’m paying for my box with my own money.” His silence told her that was not the root of his objection. “I’m corresponding with several friends in Chicago,” she said finally.

  “Including Peter De Groot?”

  “Yes.” She wouldn’t lie to him. “I won’t apologize, Sam. You took the last ten years, but I won’t let you take my future away.”

  “You still blame me for those ten years?”

  “Maybe I see your side better than I did before.” She hesitated. “Maybe we’re both to blame. The point is, nothing has changed.”

  That wasn’t true. Everything had changed the night they held each other in bed. Angie’s world had forever altered. She couldn’t look at Sam the way she had before, and couldn’t look at herself the same way either. And to her dismay, Peter’s face and features became more shadowy with every passing day.

  But it was her world that had changed. She saw no evidence that Sam’s world had altered.

  “I won’t throw away my future because a few letters scratch your pride.”

  She wanted Sam to tell her there was more than pride at stake. She wanted to hear that his world had changed, too. But he said nothing. In the silence Angie heard crickets strumming and the faint sounds of revelry drifting from town. A dog barked in the distance, and a nearby neighbor played a sad tune on a harmonica.

  Sam stood. “You write to anyone you damned well want to.” He strode past her down the steps and started toward his tent. “It doesn’t matter to me what you do.”

  “Good. Because I’m going to keep writing to Peter.”

  The problem was, she wished Sam did care.

  Tilting her head, she gazed up at the moon, blinking through a haze of tears. Everything had seemed so straightforward the day she arrived in Willow Creek. She’d known what she believed and what she wanted.

  Now she didn’t.

  Chapter 15

  Throughout the next ten days Sam left the house immediately after breakfast and didn’t return from Gold Hill until sunset. That gave him an hour to enjoy his daughters’ company before he tucked them into bed. During his time with his girls, Angie either went into her bedroom and shut the door, or she sat by the lamp at the kitchen table, sewing or writing letters. Ignoring him.

  He didn’t speak more than was necessary. If he’d sold a few bags of high grade, he put the money next to the sink before he headed back to town to have supper at one of the saloons. After he’d bypassed the pot on the stove for two nights in a row, Angie stopped leaving him anything. If she had asked, he would have told her there would be more money next week. This week he’d kept back a large percentage to buy lumber to shore up the drift he was digging. But she didn’t ask.

  He was behaving badly. And he knew it, damn it.

  Everything Angie had said was correct. They were married, yes, but they weren’t husband and wife. He had no right to tell her who she could write to and who she couldn’t. And he had no right to place obstacles in the path to her future.

  By now he also knew that she had wisely disobeyed him about buying material for the girls’ new dresses. He’d been angry about that, too, until he counted the money in the jars and realized that accommodating his pride meant doing without something else. Now she was cutting up more of her dresses to make Lucy and Daisy new school clothes for the fall.

  Angie was holding up her end of the bargain, keeping his house, paying his bills, saving him money, caring for his children. And she was getting damned little in return.

  Stepping back, Sam lowered his hammer and squinted at the braces he’d built to shore up the drift. His drift was discouragingly shallow, only about ten feet back from the main shaft. The digging progressed slowly when there was only one man working the pick and shovel, and then hauling the dirt up and out of the main shaft.

  But he knew his mine was rich. He knew it like he knew the sky was blue, like he knew the dimples beside Angie’s mouth. This was a fact.

  This time the vein wouldn’t peter out a few feet from his main shaft. This time the quality of the ore wouldn’t deteriorate. The L&D mine would be one of the richest digs on Gold Hill. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind.

  The only real question was how long he would keep digging, hoping to find a vug where he could pick gold off the walls and ceiling like picking golden apples from a money tree. If he found a vug, he’d never have to worry about money again.

  Daisy would get her operation. Angie would get her divorce.

  Sam thought for a minute, then he locked his hammer in the toolbox, climbed out of the shaft, and headed toward town.

  “I don’t like that. I hate green,” Lucy said, dismissing the pieces Angie was carefully cutting from a skirt she had taken apart. “I won’t wear it.”

  Angie put down the scissors and straightened up from the table. It was hot today and her back ached from bending over for so long. This morning the last of the ice had melted in the icebox and a puddle of water had leaked across the kitchen floor. She’d noticed a tear in her favorite apron. And L
ucy’s attitude had steadily worsened since school let out for the summer.

  “You picked this skirt. You said you liked dark green.” She took a sip of tea, hoping it would soothe her nerves. She’d read somewhere that a hot drink on a hot day was actually cooling. But so far the theory wasn’t working.

  Daisy nodded over the sampler she was stitching. “You said you liked green, I heard you.”

  “Just shut up. I’m sick of you always taking her side!”

  “Lucy, that’s enough.” Angie shoved back the heat-damp hair sticking to her forehead. “We don’t tell each other to shut up in this family. It isn’t nice.”

  Lucy’s chin rose and she thrust out her lower lip. “You’re not part of our family. I wish you’d go back where you came from!” Sudden tears glittered in her gray eyes. “Nobody wants you here.”

  Before Lucy’s dress was ready to wear, Angie would spend a dozen or more hours stitching seams, then doing the finish work and trim. And for what? A dress that Lucy wouldn’t wear? Because Lucy didn’t like her and wished she’d go away?

  Maybe it was the heat, maybe she was discouraged, or maybe she was just tired of trying, but something snapped.

  “I will not permit you to speak to me like that,” she said angrily. “Go to your room and stay there until you’re ready to apologize.”

  “I won’t!”

  This confrontation had been coming from the beginning. Angie realized she’d been a fool to think she could avoid it. And today she was in no mood for persuasion or diversion or any of the other ploys she’d used to evade escalating the friction between herself and Lucy. She was hot and tired and out of patience.

  Planting her fists on her hips, she drew herself up and made no effort to disguise her temper. “You will go to your room. If I have to drag you in there—I promise you, I will!”

  Neither of the girls had seen her really angry before, with the Italian side in full flare. Moreover, the incident that sparked her temper was a small one, as last straws often were.

  The girls stared at her flushed face and hard eyes, and Angie recognized the instant that Lucy understood she would make good on her threat. One way or another Lucy was going to her room. She could go under her own power or Angie could drag her, but she was going.