by Merry Farmer
And why was he heading back to the last place he’d seen Josephine anyhow? He’d fulfilled his obligations, helped her to reach her destination in one piece. Sure, they’d spent a mess of time together on the trail, but it was over. He should be headed down to the warehouses east of the city, where the Willamette River flowed, to collect his belongings from Ronny. His old buddy would get a laugh out of the moony way he was acting…like a green boy in short pants.
“Pete.”
Pete glanced up as Graham’s familiar voice called his name. Graham and Estelle and Tim headed toward him through the crowd of new arrivals. It put a smile on Pete’s face to see Graham moving so well on the wooden leg Gideon Faraday had constructed to replace the one Graham lost in the war.
“You’ll join us for supper at The Golden Eagle hotel tonight, won’t you?” Graham went on.
Pete searched for Josephine, and when he didn’t find her, shrugged. “Hadn’t much thought about it. I suppose I need to eat at some point.”
Estelle turned her knowing grin from Graham to Pete. “At a loss for what to do now that the journey’s done?”
“No.” Pete rolled his shoulders, pulled his hands out of his pocket, and stood with all the authority he’d borne on the trail. “I’ve got a buddy who’s been keeping an eye on my stuff. I’ll go pick that up, find a place to stay for the night. Then I guess I’ll see if I can find work and put down roots.”
Graham and Estelle exchanged a look…one that tipped up the corners of Estelle’s mouth in a way that made Pete nervous.
“And what is Josephine planning to do?” Graham asked.
“Not sure,” Pete snapped. “Not sure it’s any of my business.”
“Oh, I think it’s your business, all right,” Estelle said softly.
Pete cleared his throat and sniffed. He’d spent the last six weeks on the trail avoiding all thought about the decision he would need to make where Josephine was concerned—a decision about asking a certain question or letting her go. He wasn’t any closer to knowing what he should do now than he had been when the thought of giving up his bachelor status first occurred to him.
“Looks like she’s back at her wagon,” Graham went on. “She went around checking in on the rest of the orphans earlier.” He squinted as he looked up the hill to Josephine’s wagon. “Hmm. Looks like she’s picked up two more. You might see if she needs help.”
“Good idea.” Pete tipped his hat to his friends, then continued up the hill. His neck was hot. His back itched. It didn’t take a fool to see that both Graham and Estelle thought there was some sort of an understanding between him and Josephine, that they wanted there to be.
And why not, he argued with himself. Josephine was a fine, strong, smart woman. She kept calling herself old, but forty was the prime of life. He was looking to settle down, after all. A man could do worse than to settle down with a woman like—
He was fooling himself. He kicked a stone in passing on his way up to Josephine’s wagon. She had a life waiting for her with her niece in Denver City. Denver City was a damned sight too prim and proper for his liking. He was a rough man used to a rough life. It would never work outside of the trail.
And that wasn’t even taking the Chance kids into account.
“Oh, Pete, there you are.” The second he came within Josephine’s sight, she reached out to drag him into her concerns.
And dagnabbit, but a part of him felt so natural falling into her concerns that he smiled in spite of himself.
“Mr. Simms here would like to purchase my wagon,” she went on, presenting him to the young man who had approached her earlier.
“That’s grand.” Pete nodded to Teddy, smiled at Josephine, wondered what he was doing there.
Josephine blinked at him, lips forming an impatient line. “Well?”
Pete stared right back at her. “Well what?”
She huffed an impatient breath. “Well, how do I go about selling my wagon?”
He frowned. Months on the trail, and he would have figured Josephine could handle something as simple as selling a wagon. Why was she so determined to get him involved?
Unless it’s because she doesn’t want to say goodbye quite yet either, a voice whispered at the back of his head.
He shook his head to clear away the voice, crossed his arms, and said, “You tell the man how much you want to sell it for, he gives you money, and he drives the wagon away.”
She made another hissing, impatient sound and swatted his arm.
Lord, he’d miss her swatting.
“I know that.” She sighed. “But what’s the proper procedure? I have things in the wagon that I need to unload somewhere. Personal items.”
“Oh, I can help you unload all of that,” Teddy cut in. “I wouldn’t mind purchasing any extra supplies along with the wagon either. I’ve got a bit of a haul in front of me to make it to the logging camp.”
Pete nodded to Teddy. “See. He’s willing to help you unload and buy whatever’s left over.”
Josephine continued to cluck and fuss. “It can’t be that simple.” In fact, she looked worried that it might just be that simple. “Plus I have the children to get settled.”
Her statement was like an unexpected arrow in his heart. For some reason, he’d been fooling himself into thinking the Chance family and Josephine were one and the same now.
“We could stay with you,” Freddy suggested, wearing the same look a boy might wear if he’d said something brash and expected a swat.
Muriel perked up, eyes going round with hope. “Could we?”
The arrow in Pete’s heart twisted. Josephine looked as though she’d swallowed a sad, sad frog.
She was spared having to answer when Luke broke in with, “Miss Josephine’s going back to Denver City, dummy.”
Freddy looked crestfallen for a moment. Then he turned to Pete. “You could keep us.”
Again, Luke saved the day with, “Mr. Evans can’t take on a pack of kids by himself. He’s old.”
“Just over fifty,” Pete muttered. “Not sure that counts as old.”
“Besides,” Luke went on. He may have been young, but the sharpness in his eyes showed that he understood the situation better than the little kids. “Libby and I can take care of you. We’re old enough.”
“I—” Libby sent an anxious glance to Teddy. “Maybe.”
“Well, the only thing that needs to be settled right now is where we’ll all spend the night.” Josephine crossed back to the wagon and Teddy. “Patricia Raines said something about seeing a hotel in town. We’ll stay there tonight. Mr. Simms, could you come back tomorrow so that we can work out what we need to keep and what you can buy from me?”
“Oh, yes.” Libby perked up. “Please do come back tomorrow for a walk. I mean, a talk. I mean, so we can figure out what to do. About the wagon.”
Libby’s face was so red Pete could have sworn she’d fallen in a bucket of cherry syrup.
“I’d like that,” Teddy answered. Evidently, he’d fallen in the syrup too. “Talking, I mean. About the wagon.” He forced his glance over to Josephine, pretending to be serious. “Purchasing and all that.”
“Hmm.” Josephine crossed her arms. She glanced to Pete with the same conspiratorial spark he’d come to love…that is, that he’d come to respect from her on the trail.
All he could manage to say was, “Hotel.” After that, he stomped off to see to the oxen…and to hide his own dip in the cherry syrup.
“I’m sure the hotel has a livery where they house wagons and things,” Josephine went on, speaking to Teddy. “You can find us there after breakfast tomorrow.” She breathed out a happy sigh. “There. Now that that’s settled, come along, children.”
Whether it was the relief of finally reaching the trail’s end or exhaustion after a long journey, it took their group that much longer to get up, get all of their things together, and walk on. The kids went from being too tired to move to far too energetic for their own good. They shrieked and lea
pt and bounded as the wagon got moving again. The chaos of town only added to the mix, so that by the time they reached a hotel called The Golden Eagle and found space for the wagon in the livery, the children were practically bouncing off the wall.
“Hush up for just one minute,” Josephine begged them as their noisy parade made its way up the hotel’s front steps and into the lobby. “I can hardly hear myself thinking with you lot carrying on.”
“But we’re home,” Freddy declared, arms spread wide. “We’re finally home.”
“We’re going to have a home,” Muriel sang in harmony with him. “Miss Josephine and Mr. Evans are going to make a home with us.”
“They never said that,” Luke barked over top of their jubilation.
“Teddy Simms is coming back tomorrow.” Libby threw her own joy into the mix.
“Can we come live with you too?” Judith asked, tugging Herbert closer to her.
Pete clenched his jaw, his heart going out to Josephine. He didn’t envy her the task of breaking the news to the children that they couldn’t all live happily ever after. Children didn’t belong with rough old goats like him, and there was no chance Josephine could raise six kids on her own. The Chance kids were in for yet another disappointment.
But there were more immediate problems to deal with. The hotel staff had switched to high alert as soon as their noisy group entered the lobby.
“No, no, no, no.” The hotel manager—a short, squat man in a crisp suit—came out from behind the front desk, making shooing motions at them. “Get that rabble out of here. Go!”
Josephine ignored the man’s rudeness. “We need a room for the night. One that’s large enough for all six of the children and me.”
The manager looked at her as if she had told him she intended to house a circus under his roof. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” Pete growled, more offended than he figured he should have been.
The manager looked up at him. Or maybe it would have been better described at turned his nose up at him. “I have no room for this pack of demons.”
“We’re not demons,” Muriel said, pouting.
“Not a single room?” Josephine sighed, downright distraught.
“Not a single room, not a half room, not any room at all.” The manager curled his lip and straightened his back. “I’ll thank you to get out now.”
“Even if they pay?” Pete glared at the man.
The manager wasn’t fazed. “Even if they pay double. And that’s final. Tell the old woman to take those children and go find a shoe. For you lot, there is no room at the inn.”
With that, he turned his back on them and walked away.
Chapter Two
Several powerful emotions struck Josephine all at the same time—indignation that the hotel manager would turn helpless children away without so much as an argument, panic that she was now alone, homeless, and responsible for six young souls, and a slippery, wicked sort of relief that Pete wouldn’t be able to walk away from her now.
She cleared her throat to tamp down that last, uncomfortable emotion and the satisfied smile that wheedled its way onto her lips with it. She shouldn’t be so mercenary, but it was true. Pete couldn’t—and more importantly, wouldn’t—leave them stranded now. The dashing, silver-haired man whom she had grown to treasure would be by her side that much longer.
In spite of the fact that, if pressed, she really could have handled this set-back on her own, she turned to Pete and asked, “What do we do?”
It came as something of a surprise that Pete was wearing the same, vaguely relieved look that she had been tempted to put on. He removed his hat, combed his fingers through his hair, and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Well—”
“I told you to get those children out of here,” the hotel manager called from the front desk.
He had a point. Muriel and Judith were playing with the tasseled curtains on one side of the room, wrapping themselves up as if they were cloaks, Freddy and Herbert had formed their hands into guns and were shooting at each other from either side of a long sofa, Libby stood at one window, straining her neck as she looked out, and Luke… Good heavens, Luke had snuck to the side of the front desk and was peeking at its contents as though taking inventory, his fingers twitching.
“Children,” Josephine snapped. “Let’s head outside.”
“Luke, what are you doing?” Pete marched over to make sure Luke did as he was told.
“Nothin’.” He kept his eyes away from Pete’s as he scurried across the room and out onto the porch.
They made a racket as they poured out into the afternoon sunlight. Oregon City was nothing like Josephine’s home in Philadelphia, but people were people everywhere. More than a few stared at them as the younger boys tried to climb over the porch railings, the girls made a bee-line for the flowers planted along the edge of the road, and Libby rushed to the end of the porch, searching this way and that.
“What do we do now?” Josephine asked again.
And once again, Pete didn’t have a chance to answer it.
“Pete, Josephine, what’s going on here?” Charlie Garrett strode up to the hotel with Olivia on his arm.
“You’re joining us for supper later, aren’t you?” Olivia quickly added.
Josephine threw up her hands with a sigh. “Not if we’ve been banned from the hotel.”
“What?” Charlie and Olivia balked.
“The hotel manager refuses to house the children,” Josephine explained. “And I’m not simply going to turn them out into the street just to keep a dinner engagement.”
“Certainly not,” Olivia agreed. “But what can you do?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.” Josephine pivoted to face Pete. Her temper was on the rise and her patience was nearing its end. She wanted answers, and she wanted Pete to be the one to give them…as if he cared for the children and for her enough to come to their rescue.
She was in luck. Pete plunked his hat back on his head and said, “I know of a boarding house up the hill a ways. The owner, Myrtle Ridgeway, came out here at the same time as I did. She’s got a good heart…and a big house. We can leave the wagon in the hotel’s livery, at least for now.”
“We’ll make sure they take good care of it,” Charlie added.
Josephine smiled from ear to ear. “Then what are we waiting for? Kids.”
By some miracle, all six of the orphans left what they were doing and gathered at the bottom of the hotel’s stairs.
“Should we hold seats for you at supper?” Charlie asked. “Graham and Estelle and Tim are joining us.”
Josephine longed to have a real, refined, sit-down meal with her friends after so many haphazard meals on the trail, but the children were her first priority. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to. Not if the hotel refuses to serve my children.” A warm sort of buzz filled the air and the eyes of the younger children at her words. Josephine cleared her throat and went on. “That shouldn’t stop Pete from enjoying himself with you all.”
“We’ll see,” Pete mumbled. “We need to make sure you’re all settled first.”
Another warm, tender smile filled Josephine’s heart. Land sakes, if she wasn’t careful, she’d revert back into an impressionable, love-sick young girl, like Libby.
“Right,” she said with an extra helping of sternness to fight the feeling. “Let’s go.” She took Muriel’s and Judith’s hands and started off down the street.
“Uh, Josephine?”
She stopped and looked back at Pete’s call.
Pete thrust his thumb in the other direction. “Up the hill is this way.”
“Of course.” Josephine squared her shoulders and walked on, following Pete.
They made a mad-capped band as they headed deeper into the heart of Oregon City, up the gentle hill to a neighborhood of houses that looked like they’d weathered their fair share of winters. Oregon City was one of the oldest settlements on the West Coast. It had b
een there for decades, even if newcomers were still arriving by the wagon train-load daily. Many settlers spread out from Oregon City once they got their bearings, heading north to the new town of Seattle or ten miles up the Willamette River to the town of Portland. The West may have been new, but Oregon City wasn’t as new as all that. Still, it had a rough, anything goes feel to it.
So did the boarding house that Pete took them to. It was large by the standards of the buildings around it. Or perhaps sprawling was a better word. It was only two stories, but an expansion appeared to have been added off to one side that made it almost as big as the hotel. Josephine’s hopes rose at the sight of it.
“Look, a swing,” Freddy called out, pointing to a simple rope swing that hung from a huge pine in the boarding house’s yard.
That was all it took. Instantly, the four younger kids ran off to explore. Luke, meanwhile, slipped his hands into his pockets and set off to study the house. Libby continued to look over her shoulder, down the hill, and into the heart of the town.
“Is that Pete Evans I see?” A woman who must have been close to Pete’s age walked out onto the porch that wrapped around the expansive house. She wore a flour-covered apron, had her wiry, grey hair up in a bun, and wiped her hands on a towel as she marched down the steps to greet them. “I’ll be. I’m always surprised when you find your way back into town.”
“Myrtle.” Pete greeted her with a nod.
That wasn’t enough for Myrtle. She marched straight up to Pete and hugged him like a brother. Or at least Josephine hoped it was like a brother. She sucked in a breath, stood straighter, and prepared to do battle to win Pete away from this woman if she had to.
A second later, as Myrtle turned to her with a smile and an outstretched hand, tucking her towel under her arm in such a way that her left hand—complete with wedding band—was clearly visible, Josephine felt like a fool.
“Myrtle Ridgeway.” She introduced herself, then turned to Pete. “A pretty woman? A mess of kids? And here I thought you were too much of a shaggy old lone wolf to go and get yourself hitched.”