Wildblossom (2 page)

Outside, a chickadee warbled
Phee-bee,
causing Shelby to glance down over the rollicking town where her parents had fallen in love a quarter-century before.

The first settlers pitched their tents in Deadwood in 1876, and it had been an eccentric town from the first, twisting its way through a narrow gulch crowned by white rock. Like most gold towns, it grew rapidly, populated by merchants, gamblers, miners, prostitutes, and speculators of every sort. Later that year, when the Lakota people signed away their rights to the Black Hills, Deadwood was there to stay.

In those early days, when Shelby's parents, Daniel "Fox" Matthews and Madeleine Avery, had fallen in love and married, they'd lived in a hand-built log house perched atop one of the sheer sides of Deadwood Gulch. Other family members resided next door, and Fox started a sawmill, promising that one day he would build his Philadelphia-bred bride a grand home with a stone tower, a music room, and a wide front porch overlooking the bawdy town they both loved.

Fox kept his vow. Their Queen Anne-style house was the jewel of Deadwood, proof that the town had some genuine class. It was big enough for everyone, including three-year-old Byron, newborn Shelby, Maddie's father Stephen, her Gramma Susan, and little brother Ben. Joining them was Fox's widowed mother, Annie Sunday, whom fate had brought together with Stephen Avery in a later-life marriage. The two decades since had only enriched the fabric of their family. Even periods of sadness, like Gramma Susan's passing at the age of ninety-six and Stephen's death at the turn of the century, strengthened the bonds of among them.

A voice called up the servants' staircase near Shelby's bedroom. "Darling, your breakfast is waiting—"

"Just a minute, Mama! I—I—found something else to pack!"

"Can't that wait until you've eaten?"

"I'm probably too excited to each much, but I promise to hurry. You and Daddy go ahead without me!"

Downstairs, Maddie sighed and returned to the dining room, with its splendid mahogany wainscoting, an opalescent Tiffany glass chandelier, and priceless Chinese Chippendale furniture acquired by her great-grandfather, a sea captain and a United States senator. Her chin trembled.

Flawless instincts prompted Fox to glance over the top of his newspaper. "Maddie—?"

"Sometimes I think I tried too hard to raise Shelby more freely than I was raised. I didn't want her to feel constrained by a lot of pretentious rules, especially since we lived in Deadwood rather than Philadelphia... but who could have guessed that she'd grow up to behave more like a son than a daughter?"

"You don't really mean that, sweet." His eyes caressed the elegant beauty of her face and her upswept marmalade-hued tresses. "You're sad because Shelby's going away and you'll miss her."

"It's more than that," she insisted. "It's her preoccupation with Cody and that ranch. Heaven knows I wanted Shelby to be free, but I did hope that her college years at Smith would bring out a bit more femininity in her..."

"You have to allow her, and Byron, the freedom to pursue their own courses in life."

Maddie sighed again. What mother didn't nurture dreams for her offspring, especially two as gifted as these? Byron was so like his father, and she had fully expected that he would join Fox at the family sawmills and marry Abigail Forrest, who Maddie
knew
would be a perfect wife for him. But after graduating from Yale, Byron announced that he wanted to be an artist and would live in Paris!

Shelby, meanwhile, had been strong-willed, strikingly intelligent, and profoundly courageous since birth. Maddie was as bowled over by her charm as the rest of Deadwood.

"You're brooding," Fox remarked now, interrupting his wife's reverie. "Why not think instead about the fun we'll have alone?"

Annie Sunday came in through the kitchen then, having entered the house through the garden door. "That's right, child. I'll be in my cottage out in back, putting up preserves and doing needlework. You'll have Daniel all to yourself!" Annie was old now, her chestnut hair gone white, but her gaze missed nothing.

But Maddie seemed not to have heard either of them. "How foolish of me to think that either age or college would transform Shelby into a lady. Instead, at twenty-one, she seems more stubborn than ever." She reached for Fox's hand. "How could you have agreed to let our little girl go away to such a place, with only a couple of old bachelors to look after her?"

"Now wait just a minute—" he protested.

"I have doubts myself," murmured Annie Sunday, nodding to the kitchen maid who brought her tea. "What's the name of this godforsaken town she's bound for? Hickokville?"

"Ma, you know it's Cody, Wyoming." Finishing his eggs and muffins, Fox wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and leaned back in his chair. "You women had dinner with Colonel Cody yourselves, in this very room, while we discussed the plan to buy a ranch near his new town. Maddie, you were all for it! Deadwood's getting civilized and towns like Cody are the real,
new
West. Our land is spectacular, and Titus and Ben have spent six months out there, supervising the construction of the house and outbuildings. I can't run the place, but Shelby is ideally suited to the task, whether you like it or not. She can ride and rope and shoot with the best of them, but more importantly, she has a mind for figures. Both of you know that Shelby will be happier away from Deadwood. She's just not cut out to be the daughter of the richest man in town."

Maddie nodded sadly. "Just like Byron wasn't suited to working with you in the sawmill."

"That's right!" He patted her cheek. "We've raised our children so well that they have minds and dreams of their own."

"At least Titus and Benjamin will be with Shelby," Annie Sunday allowed. "Not that either of them could rein her in if she took it into her head to misbehave."

As they continued to chat, Shelby stood at the top of the servants' stairs leading into the kitchen. Hearing her family's words of concern, she nearly decided against the entrance she had planned, but her wild sense of daring won out as always. Shelby's heart pounded as she clattered down the steep stairs, rushed through the hot, crowded kitchen, and burst into the dining room with a flourish.

"Good morning!" she cried, her cheeks hectic with color. "I'm ready to leave for Cody!"

Fox feared that his wife might faint. Across the table, Annie Sunday exclaimed, "Oh my stars!"

Shelby made a little pirouette. "Do you like it?" She was clad in pointed boots, leather gauntlets, the wild-looking curly angora chaps, a holster with a shiny revolver inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a bright yellow kerchief tied around her neck, and a five-gallon Stetson hat. Under its wide brim, Shelby's features appeared especially delicate.

"Maybe I should take a stroll down Main Street while we wait for Uncle Ben to quit lolling in that fancy bathtub and get me on my way to Cody—"

"Don't you dare leave this house looking like that!" her mother warned. Color returned to her cheeks as she tossed down her napkin. "I hope you have a logical explanation for this
costume,
young lady!"

Guileless as ever, Shelby embraced her mother's stiff form and kissed her cheek. "Where is your sense of humor? I only did this as a lark. Don't worry, Mama—I won't embarrass you." She stood back, holding her mother's hands, and smiled her magical smile. It was as if a door had opened, letting an ocean of radiant sunshine into the room. "Well, I'll
try
not to embarrass you. Not on purpose, anyway—"

Maddie was caught up in the spell her daughter cast so effortlessly. Shelby's outlandish costume seemed fitting, given her rascally nature. And she resembled Maddie in many ways, from her bright hair that was just a shade darker red to her luminous skin. Other features were wholly her own. Shelby's eyes were teal-blue, starry-lashed, and set off by dramatic winged brows. Her nose and cheekbones were finely sculpted, and her mouth was wide and luscious, lighting her entire being when she laughed.

"It's no use making promises you can't keep," Annie Sunday remarked, patting her granddaughter's trim hip. "You've been a naughty girl all your life."

Maddie drew her daughter back into her arms and held her closely. "You are truly certain that this is what you want?"

"I'm very excited, Mama, happy and excited to be embarking on a grand adventure. And if it doesn't work out, I won't be too proud to come home."

"I never envisioned this sort of life for you..."

"I've tried other things. The East doesn't suit my nature, and neither do the pretentious men. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing whenever one of them launched into a speech about his parents' money and his important friends!" Rolling her eyes, Shelby staggered backward, drew out her pistol, and mimed shooting herself with it.

"For heaven's sake, put that horrid thing away!" cried Maddie.

"Oh, I don't have any bullets for it. Uncle Ben took them all out before he let me borrow it."

As if on cue, a loud
whooshing
sound in the upstairs pipes signaled the end of Ben Avery's long soak in his favorite gilt-trimmed marble bathtub.

"I'd better go take off this get-up and change into some proper travelling clothes and lock my trunk!"

She was already accelerating toward the back stairway when Fox caught her hand and she tumbled onto his lap. His brown fingers reached up, pushing back the great brim of the Stetson so that Shelby's wisps of elfin bangs were revealed. In some ways, Fox had felt closer to Shelby than to Byron. He understood her craving for adventure and independence in a way her mother could not, and as much as he secretly resisted the idea of turning her loose in Wyoming without him there to guard her, he loved her enough to cheer her departure.

"Give me a hug, Daddy," she commanded in sunny tones, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Then you have to let
go
!"

A moment later, she was scrambling up and dashing through the kitchen door, a comical whirlwind of energy in her Annie Oakley gear. She might be a tomboy, Fox reflected with a fond smile, but she was all woman and a match for any man.

He turned his attention to Maddie then, rising and going to gather her into his arms. Across the table, Annie Sunday opened the
Lead Daily Call
in front of her face to give them some privacy.

"Perhaps you won't miss Shelby as much as you fear," Fox whispered to his wife. "I have some plans for the two of us."

"You do?"

"Surprises, you might say."

Maddie smiled, pressing her cheek to his. "I realize that I must let Shelby fly off on her own."

There was a little sniff from Annie Sunday then. "Surely you don't imagine that you had any choice? If you hadn't let her go gracefully, the little hellion would have climbed down the trellis in the middle of the night, stolen a horse, and barreled off to find work as a cowhand!"

Fox and Maddie exchanged bemused glances, and then began to laugh.

PART 1

What do you seek so pensive and silent?

What do you need camerado?

Dear son do you think it is love?

~Walt Whitman

Chapter 1

London, England