Liz Ireland (3 page)

And then they turned and, arm-in-arm, headed toward
the wagon, already chattering together like intimate friends. Both seeming to have forgotten Roy completely. Behind them, he trudged along with the bags, biting his lip to hold back a scowl. There was no cause for the sharp stab of jealousy he felt in his chest, just as there was no reason at all for the gloominess that suddenly sank over him like a raincloud.

But reason had nothing to do with the lost, forlorn way he suddenly felt. He probably looked just like Parker had last winter when he’d been forsaken by fickle Clara Trilby. And for all the world, he felt like
moaning!

“You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Parker said. “He can be a little distant with people sometimes. Especially women.”

Ellie was puzzled as she watched Roy disappear into a feed store Parker had just stopped in front of.
Distant?
That word certainly didn’t describe the Roy McMillan who had met her at the station—although he had been a little quiet since they’d been in the wagon. “Is he shy?” she asked, remembering the difficulty he’d had finding his voice after she’d stepped off the train.

Parker considered. “Not shy so much as suspicious.”

Oh, dear. For the first time since reaching Paradise, she felt a prick of uneasiness.

So far her trip west had been nothing but pleasurable, despite having left the only city, the only life, she’d ever known, and despite an exhausting, bone-rattling train ride. She’d been filled with hope and full of plans. Some might have been intimidated by the less-than-deluxe conditions, or the sameness of the landscape, but as Ellie sat upright on her stiff seat last night, only fitfully sleepy, she’d felt her anxieties slipping
away just like all the material possessions she’d left behind. The open landscape, as flat in places as a tabletop, with its ocean of brown, gold, and amber waving grass punctuated with lonely towns and even lonelier farms, embraced her with its openness.

And Paradise was just the bustling little town Parker had described. It didn’t quite live up to its namesake, but there was a lot here for her to like. The low wood buildings that lined both sides of a deeply rutted dirt road gave off their own sense of majesty and importance. And after travelling so far from the previous stop on the train, and especially from Omaha—the only town of real size she’d seen in Nebraska—she could well imagine how essential each and every enterprise here was to the people who lived nearby. In fact, the area gave her the feeling that the skills of as many people as possible were needed to keep the hard soil tamed and carry on the miracle of civilization on an unforgiving prairie. Maybe now she would feel essential, too—not, as she was in New York, a maid to be used and tossed aside when she became inconvenient.

That last thought reminded her that she was coming to Nebraska—and accepting the McMillans’ hospitality—under false pretenses. She had a few secrets that would be best kept hidden for as long as possible if she intended to forge a new life for herself, and for her baby, here. There was no reason anyone should find out that her child was illegitimate. She wasn’t going to allow him or her to pay for her sin.

But if Roy McMillan was the suspicious type…

“Your brother seemed perfectly harmless to me,” she said with a cautious smile. “Besides, I cannot imagine why anyone would be suspicious of me. I’m…well, just what I seem.”

Parker grinned back at her. “Just a pretty young widow from Park Avenue?”

At that moment, a cold gust of wind dissolved her smile into a tooth-chattering grimace. Ellie shivered, both from the cold and from Parker’s description of her, which didn’t suit her at all, she was afraid. Perhaps, at twenty, she could still be called young, but pretty? Her swelling belly, which she took pains to hide beneath petticoats and wraps and her coat, made her feel about as appealing as Ahab’s white whale. And of course, she was no more a widow than she was Queen of England, and as for Park Avenue, the only reason she’d ever been tolerated there was for her ability to appear unobtrusively with food trays.

Parker stared at her, concerned. “You’re pale—would you like to go inside and get warm?”

She shuddered, thinking of the man’s suspicious brother, and how easily he would see through her if he looked in her eyes now. “Oh, no—I am p-perfectly fine.”

“Is that why your teeth are chattering? You must think I’m a barbarian for not insisting we go in earlier. Here,” he said, and before she knew what was what, he’d climbed off the wagon and was pulling her down, too.

They went into the store, Homolka’s Feed and Seed, and were immediately the object of all eyes. Three men in shapeless coveralls and coats hunched around a small stove, while Roy spoke to a man standing by a back door. The building itself, which seemed more cavernous on the inside with its high beam roof and stacks and stacks of filled sacks of seed, intimidated Ellie for some reason. Smelling the strange, musty odor of the place, she knew immediately that she was in foreign territory—and from the
way the men gaped openly at her,
she
was considered the foreigner.

Her feet were rooted to the floor until Parker gave her a gentle tug forward.

“Joe, Cal, Tom—this is Mrs. Fitzsimmons. She’s visiting us all the way from New York.”

Parker’s introduction caused the men’s eyes to bug even more, and they stared at her now as if she were something especially exotic.

“New York!” one of the exclaimed. “That’s a long way.”

Ellie smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is,” she began anxiously. “It’s been a long journey, but now that I’m finally here, I don’t feel a bit tired. It’s so interesting to see the place Mr. McMillan described to me so perfectly. It seems I know each building as well as…”

“Park Avenue?” Parker finished for her.

As she looked into his eyes, so kind and sincere, her smile broadened even as her conscience pricked her. Her descriptions of New York had been accurate…which was more than she could say for her descriptions of herself.

And yet Parker McMillan had been far too modest about his own appearance. He was tall and straight and proud, with a shock of blond hair atop his head that showed beneath the brim of his black hat. He had blue eyes that shone with kindness and intelligence. Though his frame was slighter, his eyes and hair lighter, he was almost the spitting image of his handsome brother…except that for some reason, Roy was the one who drew her eye.

And when she looked at Roy now, he was staring straight back at her with an intensity that made her fear he could see straight through her smiling enthusiasm down to the deceit that lay behind it. She shivered,
shuffled closer to the stove, and concentrated on warming her hands.

She would have to be careful around Roy McMillan. Very careful indeed.

A lot had changed in Paradise, Isabel Dotrice decided, and for the better. Though heaven knows it couldn’t have gotten worse from the last time she’d seen it! Back then there was a trading post and a feed store and a muddy trench that served as a street between the two. Now there were all sorts of establishments—a dentist, a drugstore, a lawyer’s office, a doctor and a mercantile. A church steeple and the cupola of a schoolhouse were the highest points in town and quite impressive in their modest way. A handsome brick edifice that proclaimed itself a hotel sat plop in the middle of this bustling community, and there were even a few buildings just built, standing idle, awaiting new commerce. She was most amazed to see a wire for a telephone stretched above Main Street.

All in all,
quite
different, and much improved.

Isabel took as much of the frigid air into her lungs as she could stand and let it out, smiling as her veil billowed away from her face. So far her journey had been very promising. Could things possibly work out as well as she dared to hope?

She strolled along the surprisingly clean wood-plank sidewalk and peered curiously into storefronts, drawing many stares. Nebraskans always were nosy about strangers, she remembered now. She smiled back at them and kept right on walking, and even tossed a wink at the dentist as he gaped at her while he was supposed to be extracting a man’s tooth. The look on his face made her giggle to herself—heaven knows she wouldn’t want to be the man’s patient!—
but she was stopped in midchuckle as she came upon just what she’d been hoping for.

It was a small two-story wood building with a particularly appealing front, whitewashed and with a cheery red door. Perfect. She did love red! Peering in the window, she saw that the first floor was divided into a front and back room, which would be absolutely suited to her purposes. To the right, a small staircase—little more than a ladder, really—led to the upstairs. Of course the interior was rather dark, and painfully plain, but what was she here for if not to bring a little sparkle? Goodness knows these poor people needed a little brightness in their drab lives as they tried to cling to their patch of civilization on the endless prairie.

She strolled over to the dry goods store and walked in, enjoying the bell as it jangled her arrival. She would have to get one of those. Oh, there was so much to be done!

A bespectacled man looked up from the counter where he was measuring out a bolt of cloth for a customer. “Help you?” he asked tersely. He eyed her closely and, because she was a stranger, a little distrustfully.

She smiled. “I hope so. I was wondering whom I should speak with to inquire about renting the empty building next door.”

The man’s scissors stopped in mid cut, and the three other people in the room, all women, turned to gape at her.

Isabel paid them no mind, only straightened a little taller and smiled more. She noticed the younger woman, a pretty blonde, eyeing her outfit with interest. Isabel’s cashmere coat was cut in the latest fashion, fitted to cover her wasp-waisted travelling dress. The Paris magazines apparently hadn’t reached Nebraska
for a few decades. From the looks of things she wouldn’t be a bit surprised to discover these women were still blundering around in crinolines beneath their full, bulky skirts.

“Well now,” the proprietor said in a drawl that seemed achingly slow. “I guess you’d mean Lew Offerman’s place.”

“The door is flaming red,” Isabel said.

“Yes, that’s Offerman’s, all right.”

She’d forgotten these country folk sometimes needed a mental nudge. “Where may I find Mr. Offerman at this time of day?”

“I saw him a little while ago going into the feed store.”

“Splendid! Thank you!”

She turned to leave, but couldn’t help stopping to view the hat display, though display was an overly complimentary term for the drab straw contraptions and poke bonnets which drowsed forgotten on a wooden rack in a corner. The sight made her mournful and determined all at once. Such a waste of material, such a lack of imagination, such a horror to think of one of them actually atop a human head. She’d arrived just in time, apparently!

At that moment, a wagon with two fine horses leading it passed the store, drawing all the attention away from her.

“Who’s
that?
” the pretty blond girl cried, running up to the picture window and nearly plastering herself against it most immodestly.

The two older women joined her at the window and watched as the threesome Isabel had observed at the depot with such interest trotted out of town.

“There’s a woman riding with the McMillan brothers!” the youngest brayed unhappily.

“I didn’t recognize her, did you, Cora?”

The other woman, who looked suspiciously like the blonde’s mother, pursed her lips at the disappearing wagon. “No, I didn’t. Now who do you think she is, and why would she be driving out toward the McMillan farm?” Her tone was disapproving, as if the McMillan brothers might be up to no good with this unknown woman. Or maybe they thought the woman would somehow be a corrupting influence on two grown men. “She didn’t look like kin to me.”

“Could she be a housekeeper?” the other woman asked.

The blond girl frowned. “Housekeeper! What would three bachelors want with one of those?”

The two older women exchanged a meaningful glance.

“It’s
very
peculiar—but those McMillan men never did hold with convention. I thought the younger ones would be different.”

“Hmph!” Cora exclaimed. “After the way Parker treated poor Clara? I should think not!”

Fussy cats! Isabel could maintain her silence no longer, even though she hadn’t the slightest idea what exactly had happened to poor Clara, or even who poor Clara was. This was a point of honor. “Excuse me, but I believe the young woman is a visitor from out of state who just came in on the train.”

Three pairs of eyes swivelled toward her; the people seemed startled that she would know anything about the stranger, being a stranger herself. Only the youngest was bold enough to ask, “Visiting who? Do you know?”

“Parker McMillan, I believe. Though she seemed quite friendly with both boys.” Although they could hardly be called boys anymore. Isabel suppressed a melancholy sigh. Where
did
the years scamper off to?

The poor young blond thing paled, then raised her
hands and buried her head in them in a stunningly theatrical manner. “Oh, Mama—did you hear? Parker!”

Cora, the blonde’s mother, didn’t seem so much surprised by her daughter’s untoward display as by Isabel’s knowledge of the men in question. “For a stranger here yourself, you sound as if you know the McMillan brothers quite well.”

Isabel laughed. “Well, naturally! They’re my sons.”

And then she turned and left the women standing in stunned silence as the merry jingle bell over the door jangled her departure.

“S
o, Mrs. Fitzsimmons,” Ike asked, “how handy are you with a butter churn?”

Roy’s fork clattered noisily to his plate. He picked it up with an embarrassed shrug as the others seated around the supper table stared at him, then he threw an annoyed glance at Ike. It was bad enough that a woman of Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s social echelon had to endure Ike’s leathery pot roast and boiled-beyond-recognition vegetables for dinner, not to mention the usual paean to his mama’s butter, did she also have to be interviewed as if she were a potential housekeeper?

“I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never made butter,” Eleanor admitted. Her sweet, cultured voice made the very words seem laughable. “I’m afraid I’m rather useless in the kitchen.”

Roy bristled at her apologetic tone. This was no way to treat a guest, especially one who was probably used to talking about books, art and whatever else rich people talked about. He glared at Ike. “Of course she’s useless—she’s a lady.”

Parker guffawed, and Eleanor raised her napkin to her lips to hide a grin. Roy’s face heated. “What I
meant was, I’m sure New York ladies have better things to do with their time than stoop over butter churns all day.” Though just exactly what those better things would be, he had no clue.

“Well…I do know quite a bit about
running
a household,” Eleanor said. “But the particulars of how each little thing is done often elude me.”

“There,” Roy said, a little triumphantly. “She’s used to having servants around her.”

Eleanor flushed modestly as her cheeks dimpled in a smile. “Indeed I am.”

“My mama had a hired girl to do the washing once,” Ike said, returning to his favorite subject—a field already overcultivated, in Roy’s opinion. “But the gal burnt a petticoat and that was the end of that. Mama was very particular. Only she and my sisters did things just the way she wanted.”

“Sometimes it’s best to do things oneself,” Eleanor agreed politely, the very soul of graciousness. “Your mother sounds like a very intelligent, capable woman.”

Ike beamed across the table at her. “I’ll say.”

Roy pursed his lips with impatience for the meal to be at an end and to be away from Ike’s ceaseless jabbering, which was getting on his nerves more than usual this evening. And why wasn’t Parker, who knew all about the highfalutin’ things Eleanor might find interesting, adding anything to the conversation? He and Eleanor had been walking outside all afternoon, chattering like magpies, but now that there were other people around, Parker was as tight-lipped as a clam. Anyone looking at them would think Roy was the only one at the table with any breeding.

Besides Mrs. Fitzsimmons, that is. She had quality stamped all over her.

“What is it you do exactly, Mrs. Fitzsimmons?”
Roy asked, trying to show the others how to engage a lady in polite conversation.

Her head tilted toward him, but she didn’t quite look him in the eye. “Oh, I have…little pursuits.”

“That sounds far too modest.”

She smiled guardedly. “I’m afraid I’m only a woman of modest accomplishments.” Quickly, she turned back to Ike. “Did you have many sisters, Mr. Gray?”

“Just two, ma’am. Both of them are married now.”

“How nice,” Eleanor trilled.

“My mama’s departed this earth, I’m sad to say.”

“But she lives on in your memory, obviously. And in the memory of her wonderful butter.”

Roy squirmed indignantly. She sounded as if she
wanted
to talk about Ike’s mother! Even though Roy had attempted to rescue her from that tiresome subject, she’d barely spared him a glance, or a smile. His resentful gaze lit on Ike, who was yawping and grinning as he lapped up the lady’s attention.

He frowned, considering. Maybe it was just that Ike was something unique to her—a rustic, she might call him. Or maybe she was just going out of her way not to appear snobbish. He admired her for that.

“What a wonderful dinner, Mr. Gray,” she said, placing her folded napkin next to her plate. Roy hurriedly did the same.

Roy jumped in. “I built up a real cozy fire in the other room for you, Mrs. Fitzsimmons. I’m sure you’d enjoy sitting there and relaxing after your dinner.”

She looked at him oddly. “Shouldn’t we clean up the dishes?”

Roy quickly put her straight on that score. “No, ma’am. We always take care of that ourselves.” Besides, he doubted a woman like herself knew a sink from a pie safe.

“Oh, but surely I could do
something.
”

He shook his head firmly. “You’re our guest.”

“But—”

“Being bachelors, we’re used to the work,” he assured her.

Ike jumped in. “We always draw after dinner to decide who does the chore, see.”

Parker produced the old worn deck and shuffled the cards, then shoved them toward Ike. Ike picked a card—the three of spades—then tossed in down on the table. “Dadburnit!”

Roy suppressed a grin, envisioning a pleasant evening ahead. True, he’d never cared so much for the company of women, but Eleanor was a sensible female, and very easy on the eye. And while at least one of the others was otherwise occupied, maybe he could get a word in edgewise with her.

Parker drew the five of clubs, lightening Roy’s heart even more.

Roy reached over to the deck—and drew the two of diamonds.

At first he couldn’t believe it.
He
was the low card? Tonight of all nights?

“That’s hard cheese, Roy-boy,” Ike taunted. “Think this might be the start of that bad streak you kept tellin’ me you were supposed to have?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Roy bit out.

“You want help?” Ike asked.

“No.”

Parker turned to Eleanor, sending her a pleasant smile and ignoring Roy altogether. “Shall we go sit by Roy’s fire? I believe we’ve got a nice bottle of brandy if you’d care to have any.”

She clapped her hands in delight and stood. “That sounds marvelous.”

The three of them practically skipped out of the kitchen in one happy cluster.

Roy stewed. Parker and Ike, sitting by his fire, drinking his brandy…

He almost added,
with his woman.

Good lord! He needed to get a grip on himself. Obviously, his hospitable urges were getting the best of him. What did he care about Eleanor Fitzsimmons and a stupid fire? They lit a fire every night. And he’d probably have ample opportunity to sit around with the woman, since she hadn’t so much as whispered a word about her departure date.

He harrumphed indignantly, stood and started clearing plates. Perhaps making a bit more clattering than was necessary, he threw himself into the chore, trying to lose himself in the tedious tasks of pumping water, heating it, then soaping down the dishes. There certainly were a lot of them—he
would
get stuck doing them when they had a guest!

Thinking of Eleanor this way—as an imposition—put him back in his normal frame of mind, and made him feel better. It also kept his mind from remembering eyes so green they took his breath away, hair like a fiery sunset, and a sweet voice that broke into laughter at the drop of a hat.

“I suspect you’ll be comfortable out here,” Ike told Roy. “And to tell you the truth, I’ll enjoy the company. Gets kinda lonely out here at times.”

The two men stood in the freezing cold little bunk-room in the barn, which was cramped for one person and a downright squeeze for two. There was barely room enough for the two bunks, Ike’s things, and the little washbasin stand in the corner. “It will be cozy,” Roy said without enthusiasm, shivering as he tested the hard straw mattress on the bunk. He looked over
at Ike, who was already stripped down to his union suit and settling into his bunk with no fuss at all, and felt a new respect for the man. Roy didn’t want to take his coat off, never mind his shirt.

Why didn’t Ike keep a stove out here?

“What’s the matter, Roy? Got the can’t-sleeps?”

Roy gathered his courage, braced himself for misery, and stripped off his shirt. The shock was like taking a dive into the Platte in January. He sucked in his breath and jumped into bed, feeling that it would be easier now than ever to see Mrs. Fitzsimmons less as a pretty face than an infernal nuisance. He thought longingly of his own bed, with its soft feather tick mattress and warm woolen blankets. He’d even gotten carried away and wrapped warmed bricks in towels and put them at the foot of her bed, an action that seemed the height of folly now.

In his own room in the house, he had layers of blankets and thick warm sheets. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night so hot he had to kick covers off his bed. His teeth chattered frantically at the memory of such luxury.

“Cold, ain’t it?” Ike asked, chuckling. “These early cold snaps always come as a shock.” But Ike’s teeth weren’t clackety-clacking like a runaway train, and with nothing more than a tattered quilt over him he looked as comfy as an old boot. “My mama always said a cold bedroom made for a strong constitution, though. Guess you’ve noticed I rarely come down sick myself.”

Oh lord, not Ike’s mama again! Not while he was trying to sleep….

Roy suppressed a groan, flopped onto his side, and tried to think about something else besides the cold and how smelly, hard, and lumpy the bed was. The
first thing that leapt to mind was Mrs. Fitzsimmons. Eleanor.
She
was probably cozy and warm in his bed.

In his bed…. He envisioned Eleanor there, probably in some kind of lacy nightgown imported from France, maybe, long hair brushed out and spread across his pillow like a river of mysterious red. Or maybe she braided her hair at night, like his mama used to.

Roy gulped. Heaven help him, one night in the barn and he was turning into Ike!

Not that Eleanor was a bit like what little he knew of his mother. Pampered lady or not, Eleanor seemed like a lady with a little gumption, and spirit. And yet there was a vulnerable quality about her. Something in the way she tilted her head sometimes, as if expecting a reprimand. Maybe that was left over from when she was a girl. He wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she’d been a kid with a mischievous streak—he could still detect it in the sparkle in those green eyes, or in her easy laugh, or the wry way she would answer one of their many questions. He bet she was a girl who found life full of fun and adventure.

A woman, he corrected silently. She might have eyes that sparkled with youth, but she had a woman’s face and a body that hinted at womanly curves beneath her modest attire. That was another thing he liked about her. She didn’t run around flaunting herself, like, say, that Clara Trilby. Good lord!
That
girl could take a few lessons in modesty from Eleanor. Maybe it was because she was a widow. Eleanor didn’t strike him as a schemer, like so many women her age. He bet there wasn’t an ounce of guile in her, though a woman that pretty could certainly use her looks to twist men around her little finger. And she wasn’t only beautiful in the conventional way Clara Trilby was, either. Eleanor had spice to her looks.

“What’d you say, Roy?”

Roy bolted up to his elbows and looked over at Ike. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Well never mind. I thought I heard you moaning or something.”

Roy grunted in displeasure. “Who wouldn’t moan when it’s so damn cold in here? How do we know we won’t be solid chunks of ice by morning?”

Ike laughed. “Listen to you—I haven’t heard you complain like this since the price of wheat went down. Why did you volunteer to give the woman your room if you didn’t want to be put out?”

Good question. Roy huddled unhappily on his bunk, trying to rationalize his foolishness. “Because it wouldn’t have been right for me to be sleeping alone in the house with that woman.”

Plus, after meeting her, he’d been eager to be the one to make the sacrifice for her. Showing off, he supposed. That’s what women did to a man—made him make all sorts of silly Sir Galahad gestures for her—and where did a fellow end up for his pains?

Left out in the cold, that’s where.

“How’s it any more proper for her to be alone in the house with Parker?”

Roy stiffened. He’d never thought of that. Not that Parker was a wolf or anything near it, but he’d been writing the woman an awfully long time. All this time, he had probably dreamed of her, longed for the opportunity to meet her, and built up a passion for her. Maybe even an uncontrollable passion!

Ike shook his head. “A man and a woman…a cozy house…a blustery night…” Ike chuckled. “Who knows?”

It was all Roy could do not to go tearing across the path to the kitchen door right that second.

Instead, he counted to five,
then
shot out of the bed.

Ike sat up, startled. “Where’re you going?”

“To get another blanket!” Roy shrugged on his coat over his underwear, not bothering with his shirt. “I’ll be back.”

He stomped through the barn, hopping over drying piles of corn shucks and trying to get a little circulation back in his feet, then scuttled across the pathway to the house, trepidation mounting as he ran against the icy wind. God only knows what he was going to find going on in there!

Eleanor sank into the soft warm bed and let out a breathy sigh. Luxury at last! After a week of enduring Mary’s cot, then the hard seats of the train, Roy McMillan’s bed was pure bliss. Especially since someone had been so thoughtful as to leave a bed warmer at the foot of the mattress for her. Who had done it, she wondered. Parker?

It couldn’t have been Roy. She shivered a little, then burrowed a little farther under the woolen blankets at the memory of the icy looks he had sent her throughout dinner, not to mention the hostile glances he’d shot Ike for talking to her. And it was certainly no coincidence that the man had very loudly volunteered to sleep out in the barn rather than spend a night under the same roof as her.

Parker had been right to warn her. Roy disliked women, and he seemed especially to dislike her.

Strange, though, how nice he’d seemed at the station! What could account for the difference? Had she said something to make him suspicious?

Despite the cold, her cheeks heated with the misery of a guilty conscience. The trouble was, Roy McMillan was so right to have his doubts about her! Here she was basking in McMillan hospitality, and not a word she’d told them about herself was true. She
wasn’t wealthy, or married. Worse still, she was a fallen woman, carrying a baby without a father. What would they say if they found out about that?