My Darling Melissa

by Linda Lael Miller

Melissa retreated another step and nervously thrust her hand into the pocket of her skirt. When she did, she found the money that Mitch Williams had refused to take from her that morning.

  She reached underneath the mattress and brought out enough cash to make up for what she’d spent at the mercantile, then held it out to Quinn. “Here,” she said.

  Quinn was clearly baffled. “What—?”

  “This is yours,” she told him calmly. “When I tried to repay Mr. Williams this morning he told me that you had already taken care of the matter.”

  Quinn scowled at the money, making no move to accept it. His whim to make their marriage “proper” had evidently passed, for he looked furious again rather than amorous. “When and if you need money in the future, my dearest darling, I’ll thank you to approach me and not my friends!”

  Melissa stared at him. “Is that what Mr. Williams told you? That I walked up to him and asked for money?”

  When Quinn ignored the bills she was holding out, Melissa flung the money into the air.

  “He’s a liar!” she cried.

  Quinn gave her a scalding look that said it wasn’t Mitch Williams he suspected of dishonesty and walked out.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Melissa cried, following after him at such a quick pace that she had to hold her skirts in her hands. “You’re not going to walk out of here before this fight is over, Quinn Rafferty!”

  Quinn wouldn’t so much as look at her. He was placidly adjusting his collar as he went down the stairway, behaving just as though Melissa were invisible and mute. The maid, Helga, was standing at the bottom of the steps, all ears and eyes.

  “I’ll be right behind you no matter where you go!” Melissa insisted as Helga pressed herself against the wall like someone faced with a lighted stick of dynamite. “So you might as well stay here!”

  Quinn had reached the entryway and was just about to open the door when Melissa darted around in front of him and barred his way, her arms outspread.

  “I won’t be called a liar,” she said. “Not by you or anyone else.”

  Quinn sighed. “Melissa …”

  Melissa stood her ground.

  There was a gentling in Quinn’s manner, and he slowly lifted his hands to brush Melissa’s cheeks with the sides of his thumbs. “All right, I believe you. Now will you let me pass? I have some things to look into at the mill.”

  His touch had affected Melissa sorely, but she wasn’t about to let Quinn know that. It would only make him more arrogant and cocksure. “Will you be home for supper?” she asked, as any wife would have done.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Things haven’t been going well in the lumber camp lately. I might have to go back up the mountain.”

  The idea made Melissa feel strangely bereft. “You’d be gone all night?” she asked.

  “Maybe for several days.” Quinn grinned wickedly. “If I’m away that long, Mrs. Rafferty, will you miss me?”

  Melissa opened the door and held out one arm in a sweeping gesture of dismissal. The man had such brass!

  “Not for a moment, Mr. Rafferty,” she replied.

  Quinn laughed, shook his head, and left the house, his doting wife briskly shutting the door behind him.

  Melissa watched from a window until Quinn was out of sight and then went back upstairs.

  Although her mind was full of ideas for the new novel she meant to write, she felt too restive to sit down to her notes. Realizing that she had seen only one room on the entire second floor—Quinn’s—she decided to do a bit of exploring.

  There were three other bedrooms, Melissa discovered. One still held the scent of her mother’s perfume, though there was no other sign that anyone had slept there the night before, and Helga was putting fresh sheets on the bed in the next.

  The plain little maid gave Melissa a cautious look, as though she expected her to do something outrageous.

  Melissa smiled and let herself out.

  The next room brought her up short, for it was so obviously fitted out for a woman. The comforter on the bed was of pink satin, and there was a vanity table with a skirt that matched the bedspread.

  Chairs covered in rose chintz faced a small ivory fireplace, and a delicate pair of slippers rested on the hearth.

  Melissa knew that both Helga and Mrs. Wright slept downstairs in rooms behind the kitchen, and they were the only other people living in the house.

  An uneasy sensation stirred in the pit of Melissa’s stomach, but she was determined not to jump to conclusions. It seemed unlikely that the room had been Gillian’s; she would have shared Quinn’s quarters.

  Practically on tiptoe, Melissa crossed the room and opened a lovely, wide armoire of honey-colored oak. It was filled with luscious evening gowns, day dresses, and wrappers.

  Melissa stepped back, feeling as though she’d intruded on something very private. She carefully closed the doors of the armoire and crept out of the room. In the hallway her natural valor returned, and she went immediately in search of the housekeeper.

  Mrs. Wright was in the kitchen, paring turnips for a stew. She looked up with her usual expression of polite alarm when Melissa entered her territory.

  “That pink wrapper you lent me the other day—where did it come from?”

  The woman sighed. “I think you know where it came from, Mrs. Rafferty,” she hedged in a weary tone.

  Melissa nodded. “I’d like you to tell me who uses that room, please,” she said.

  Mrs. Wright finished paring the turnip and reached for another. “You’d best ask your husband, missus,” she replied, not unkindly.

  If she was going to succeed as a reporter and the editor and publisher of a bold, innovative newspaper, Melissa reasoned, she would have to learn to be dogged in pursuing a point. She’d need the instincts, persistence, and initiative of a Nellie Bly.

  She clasped her hands together behind her back and began to pace. Her gaze was intense, and it did seem to intimidate the housekeeper just a little.

  “My husband,” Melissa said, after this tense little interval had passed, “is away, possibly for several days. Who sleeps in that room, if you please?”

  Mrs. Wright sighed again, sounding forlorn. “Very well,” she answered, at length. “Mr. Rafferty’s sister Mary stays there when she’s home from school.”

  Melissa was intrigued. “I don’t see why I should have had to drag that out of you that way. It’s not as if he were keeping a mistress!”

  The older woman flushed with indignation, probably offended by the suggestion that the saintly Mr. Rafferty might stoop to keeping a paramour. “Miss Mary is real special, and her brother is choosy about how she’s treated.”

  “It’s odd that he didn’t mention her,” Melissa said speculatively. “Especially when you consider that I’ve told him more than he wanted to know about my brothers.”

  Mrs. Wright broke down and smiled at that. “It takes time, Mrs. Rafferty, for a man and woman to get to know each other well,” she said gently. “There’s a lot your husband hasn’t told you, and a lot you still need to say to him. You might be a lifetime getting around to all of it.”

  Melissa hoped that she would grow old with Quinn, but she had her doubts. If he kept on being as cussed as he had been, he probably wouldn’t live to see forty.

  She glanced at the pile of carrots that still needed scraping and felt yet another twinge of nostalgia. At home she’d often helped Maggie fix meals; she enjoyed cooking and was good at it.

  “Would you like some help?” she ventured to inquire.

  Mrs. Wright must have been a perceptive person. “Yes,” she said quite formally, “if you must know, my feet hurt, and I’d like to lie down for fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  Melissa was thrilled to step into the culinary breach. She waved the housekeeper aside and began scraping and chopping carrots.

  She wasn’t conscious of Quinn’s presence until he spoke to her from just the other side of the cutting board, startling her so badly that she nearl
y stabbed herself.

  “Do you do everything with the same fevered energy, Mrs. Rafferty?”

  Melissa smiled, wildly glad that her husband was home. “Why didn’t you tell me that you have a sister?” she inquired, ignoring his question because she knew he hadn’t expected an answer.

  “You didn’t ask,” Quinn said, helping himself to a slice of the peach pie Mrs. Wright had been saving for dessert. He sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat.

  Melissa was determined to be the docile wife, at least for the next few minutes. If she could manage brief intervals of conventional behavior, she might get better at it over a period of time. She found a mug in the china cupboard and went to the stove to fill it with coffee.

  Quinn looked at her in surprise when she set the cup down in front of him, smiling pleasantly.

  “Would you like sugar or cream?”

  He shook his head. “Sit down.” The words were delivered as an order, but there was no unkindness in them, so Melissa complied, folding her hands in her lap.

  “Tell me about Mary,” she said.

  Quinn’s gaze dropped to what remained of his pie, but he didn’t lift his fork again. “Mary is seventeen,” he told Melissa quietly, “and she attends a special school in Seattle.”

  “What kind of school?”

  A ragged sigh escaped Quinn. He was silent for a long time before he answered, “My sister is blind.”

  Melissa was stunned for a moment, but then she realized that Mary Rafferty must have adjusted rather well to her handicap if she possessed an armoire full of ball gowns. “When did she lose her sight?”

  Quinn’s answer was sobering. “Last year.”

  Melissa reached out tentatively to touch her husband’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she told him softly.

  He drew back. “I don’t need your pity, Melissa, and neither does Mary.”

  Melissa could scarcely have been more taken aback if he’d thrown his coffee in her face. “I didn’t mean—”

  Quinn pushed back his chair and stood up, and anything he might have said was forestalled by Mrs. Wright’s inopportune return from her nap.

  Mr. Rafferty left the room, and this time Melissa didn’t have the heart to go after him.

  She waited until she knew he was out of the house, then went upstairs to work on her notes.

  Instead of planning her new project, however, she ended up writing a long, heartfelt statement of her situation to her sister-in-law, Fancy. All three of her brothers’ wives were dear to her, but Jeff’s wife Fancy had an especially gentle nature, and Melissa found it easy to confide in her.

  When the dispatch was finished Melissa found an envelope, addressed it, and hurried off to locate the post office. If she was quick, she could mail the letter before closing time.

  Twilight was falling as she started home again. Spring was on its way, though, and the days were getting longer. She waved at Dana when she passed the mercantile and exchanged a pleasant greeting with the lamplighter.

  By the time she reached the train depot Melissa was in high spirits. Her energy was renewed, and she planned to scour the want ads in the Seattle Times for a used printing press as soon as supper was over.

  She glanced toward the railroad car, thinking of the happy days she would spend there writing her book. Even as she watched an ancient engine backed onto the spur and attached itself to Quinn’s car with a jarring clank.

  Quinn himself appeared on the platform, smoking a cheroot and looking worried, and although Melissa called out to him and waved, he either didn’t hear her or chose not to notice.

  She was unaccountably injured by this and stood watching in bewilderment and frustration as the two-car train steamed its way out of the depot. Melissa could hear the boiler, and occasionally the whistle, long after Quinn’s coach had disappeared from sight.

  Slowly she started toward the house she had come to regard as home, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her shoulders stooped.

  Darkness had fallen by the time Melissa let herself into the house by the kitchen door, and Mrs. Wright laid one hand to her elderly heart and drew her breath sharply at her appearance. It seemed Melissa was forever startling the poor woman.

  Mrs. Wright’s surprise at her entrance soon turned to gentle concern. “Why, what is it, child? You look downright sorrowful.”

  Melissa sighed. “I guess I’m just feeling lonesome,” she said.

  Mrs. Wright smiled, spooning fragrant stew into a china tureen. “He’ll be back, Mrs. Rafferty,” she said. “He’ll be back.”

  It was true, of course, but Melissa couldn’t seem to pull herself up by her bootstraps and get on with the evening. She missed Quinn with a keenness that intensified with every passing moment.

  “I don’t think I want any supper,” she announced, and then she went up the rear stairway to the second floor and made her way along the hall to the master bedroom.

  There was a fire burning on the hearth, and the lamps were lit, but the warmth and light couldn’t reach into Melissa’s heart.

  She went to the window, drew back a curtain, and stood staring down at the sidewalk, willing Quinn to walk through the front gate, whistling.

  A knock sounded at the door, and when Melissa turned around Helga was just entering, a tray in her hands. “Mrs. Wright says you’ve got to eat,” the maid said, bracing herself for an argument.

  Melissa only gestured for her to set down the tray and turned back to the window. Even though she knew that Quinn was far away, she still tried to conjure him up.

  Nine

  Frost made intricate curlicues on the windows of the railroad car, and the March air was so cold that Quinn stretched to reach the clothes he’d laid out the night before and pulled them on before getting out of bed.

  Even then he was shivering as he dashed across the car to throw more coal into the little potbellied stove in the corner.

  There was a rap at the door, and, never having been fond of mornings, he yelled, “Come in, damn it.”

  Since he’d expected the foreman of his timber crew, he was chagrined to be greeted by a good-looking and vaguely familiar blond woman carrying a steaming pot of fresh coffee. The scent of it restored Quinn’s faith in civilization.

  “Mornin’,” the woman chimed. “My name’s Becky Sever, and I’m here to help out the cook for a few days.”

  Quinn nodded and gratefully accepted the cup of coffee she poured for him before setting the blue enamel pot on the small stove to stay warm. Now that he’d had a chance to think about it, he recalled that Becky lived in a shack just a few miles away with a small child and a no-account husband. She came to help out in the cookhouse whenever Wong, the regular cook, wanted a day off or fell behind in his work.

  Quinn’s thoughts turned to the past and the hardships his mother had known, living on this same mountain, tied to a man who’d seemed to delight in making her life miserable. He wondered if things were the same for Becky.

  Becky answered the unspoken question by saying somewhat harriedly, at the door of the car, “I’m grateful for a chance to work, Mr. Rafferty. Jake can’t seem to find a job that suits him, and my little girl needs so many things.” She paused, looking shy as she drew her ragged woolen shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “The men’ll be comin’ in for breakfast in the next few minutes if you want to eat with them.”

  Quinn nodded and thanked Becky, and then she went out.

  He drank two more cups of coffee before pulling on his cork boots, gloves, and heavy woolen coat. Remembering that Becky had been wearing nothing more than a shawl over her skimpy dress, he shivered as he stepped out of the car into the biting chill of dawn.

  The scents of woodsmoke and fried pork filled the air as Quinn crossed the distance between the spur of track and the cookhouse. Here and there shreds of dirty snow lay on the ground, but the earth was reawakening, and spring was imminent.

  Despite rumors that all was not well on his timber crews, the men seemed happy to see Quin
n, and they included him in their boisterous conversations as they consumed heaping platefuls of meat, eggs, and toasted bread.

  Becky Sever hurried between the tables, refilling coffee cups. She smiled a great deal and endured the men’s good-natured teasing without taking offense. Her little girl, who looked to be about five, sat contentedly on the hearth, playing with a one-eyed rag doll.

  Quinn was once again reminded of the old days, and he longed for Melissa. When she was around she kept him so distracted that there was no time for looking back into the past.

  When breakfast was over the foreman lingered, as did a couple of representatives from the labor union. The men had voted in favor of the alliance months before, and there had been grumbling and threats of trouble ever since.

  Quinn sat watching them over the rim of his coffee cup, waiting. They’d demanded this meeting; they could make the first move.

  “The men ain’t makin’ enough money,” one of the strangers finally said. He was nothing more than a lad wearing a cheap suit and depending on bravado to see him through.

  Quinn sighed. “They’re making as much as any other crew in the state,” he replied truthfully. Before Melissa had entered his life, when he’d still been able to think straight, he’d made a thorough investigation of the matter.

  The foreman, a seasoned old bull of the woods named Eric Jergensen, gave Quinn a beleaguered look. “I try to tell them, Mr. Rafferty, but they don’t listen—”

  The union men broke in, both jawing at once, and so the parley went. No one paid any attention to anyone, and nothing was accomplished.

  After an hour had passed Quinn was so disgusted that he ordered everybody but Becky, her child, and Wong out of the cookhouse.

  “Do you think they’ll strike?” Becky asked as she gathered the enamel mugs that had been left on the rough-hewn trestle table.

  Quinn shrugged tiredly. He’d traveled all the way up that damned mountain and nearly frozen his backside off during the night, and for what? Things were worse than they had been before.

  Becky was walking away when he stopped her by asking, “Does it bother you—being the only woman in camp, I mean?”

  She smiled trustingly, her brown eyes alight. “I believe I have a few protectors among the loggers,” she answered evenly. “Besides, I reckon it’s safer here than it is over to our cabin right now.”