by Regina Scott
He had to hear the steel in her voice, but still Terry persisted. “With having to care for your sister and brother too?” he asked, cocking his head. “And I hear you’re involved with organizing this watch. I’ve had more than my share of irons in the fire, Miss O’Rourke. I know how difficult it can be to keep them all flourishing.”
“Funny thing about irons,” Michael put in. “The more you have in the fire, the more things you can make.” He glanced at Maddie and nodded, trusting her to respond in her own way.
Terry didn’t wait for her. He seemed to think her silence meant agreement. He rubbed his hands together briskly. “We’re prepared to take the burden off your shoulders. We’ll bake for the Wallin wedding. I’m sure that will be a relief.” He smiled as if he’d done her a great favor and stood ready for her to fall on her knees and kiss his hand in gratitude.
Michael knew he would have a long wait coming.
“Sure-n what a noble offer,” Maddie said, red flaring into her cheeks. “You’ll take the wedding that would establish my bakery as the best in Seattle and leave me the crumbs, all in the name of kindness, of course. I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t jump at the chance.”
A more experienced man would have escaped while he could. Terry just stood there, smile fading. “I don’t think you understand the effort involved.”
“Oh, I understand.” Maddie swept to the door and held it open for him. “I understand you’ll do anything to hinder my success, and I won’t be helping you do it. Our business is done, Mr. Terry. Good day.”
He clamped his mouth shut, clapped his hat on his head and strode from the shop. The moment Maddie closed the door behind him, Michael let out a laugh.
“Now, that was some fine talking, Miss Maddie O’Rourke,” he said, crossing to her side. “You told him what’s what.”
For a moment, she shared his grin, then turned away.
“That’s all well and good,” she said. “But we’ll have to keep an eye on him. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to damage the bakery again.”
“We’ll be on guard,” Michael promised her. “I won’t fail you, Maddie.”
He reached out and touched her check, marveling at the silk of her skin. She closed her eyes as if savoring his touch. Before he knew it, his lips had met hers, tender, sweet. This was what men fought and died for, what sent them across oceans and continents: the precious love of a fine woman.
He pulled back, stunned. Face turned up to his, cheeks as pink as her soft lips, she was the finest woman he’d ever met. And it was kiss her again and never let go, or leave while he still could.
He took a step toward the door. “I should go. I’ll be on watch tonight, but I’ll see you in the morning.” He turned and hurried out the door before she could chase after him and demand an explanation he couldn’t even give himself.
Chapter Twenty
A few hours later, a cough pierced Michael’s attention.
“Did you leave your brain at home with your other shirt?” Smitty demanded. The smith took the mangled iron out of Michael’s grip and threw it back into the forge, sending sizzling sparks flying up the chimney.
Michael grimaced. “Sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
His employer peered at him, craggy brows down over his short nose. “So are you deeper in debt than you thought or is it woman trouble?”
“Neither and both,” Michael said with a rueful laugh. “But I’ll try to focus for the rest of my shift.”
Muttering about the vagaries of youth, Smitty went back to his anvil on the other side of the forge.
Michael shook his head. He knew why he was woolgathering. He couldn’t get Maddie off his mind. All he wanted to do was hold her close, shelter her from all harm. Somewhere along the line, she’d become a part of him. That wasn’t what she wanted, but he didn’t know how to let go.
“It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before,” he confided in Patrick as they made their rounds that night. With the exception of some whooping and hollering from one of the establishments near the mill, Seattle slept quietly under a cloudy sky.
“I don’t know,” Patrick said, raising his lantern to peer into a darker corner of the boardwalk. “You were crazy over Katie O’Doul too, and look where that led you.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Michael said as they came around the corner. A few lights were still on upstairs at De Lin’s hotel, but the buildings around it were shut for the night, with no sign of any trespassers. “I think I wanted Katie because she was the prettiest girl in Irishtown.”
Patrick cast him a glance. “It seems to me the same could be said of Maddie O’Rourke. I don’t think there’s a bachelor in town who isn’t sweet on her. What makes you think she’s any different from Katie?”
“I didn’t at first,” Michael admitted as they headed west. At the end of Washington Street, he could just make out the swirling mass of gray that was Puget Sound. “Katie flirted with everyone. I convinced myself I was different, better. That she truly loved me and I loved her. But I wonder now if it was all a game. She was the best, and I thought I deserved only the best back then. What did I really know about her?”
“Not enough, my lad, or you’d have seen her for what she was sooner.” Patrick stopped at the top of the pier and nodded in obvious satisfaction at the empty planks. Michael could hear the waves lapping at the supports below them, the tart scent of sea spray hanging heavy in the air.
Michael turned toward the shops. “That’s just it, Pat. I feel like I know Maddie, for all we’ve been here less than three weeks. I’m with her so often. I see how hard she works. I hear her praying with Ciara and Aiden at night.” He chuckled. “I can tell you she doesn’t fuss over her hair in the morning, and she isn’t coherent before that first few sips of tea. But is that love?”
Patrick clapped him on the shoulder. “Love or indigestion, me lad. And given how well Maddie O’Rourke cooks, I’m guessing it’s not indigestion.”
Michael laughed at that. They ventured past the mill toward the boardinghouses along First Street. “I envy you,” Patrick told him. “You have a family, a job. Me? I’m more afraid of these troubles. Shouldn’t we be doing more, I wonder.”
Michael eyed him as they passed the last boardinghouse. “Such as?”
Patrick shrugged. “Start a police force, as I said. Charter a city government. Run for mayor.”
Michael laughed again. “Sounds like you have your future all planned.”
Patrick’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Indeed I do. What about you? Will you be pursuing Maddie O’Rourke?”
How was he to answer? He’d always believed the tales of love at first sight. Certainly that’s what he’d felt for Katie. What he felt for Maddie was softer, warmer. With Katie, he’d always been thinking of how good she looked on his arm, how her connections could help his career.
He wasn’t that man anymore, and though he’d once lamented that fact, he felt now as if only good had come from leaving New York. He’d found a profession where he could make things instead of just carrying other people’s things. He’d found friendship, encouragement, purpose in helping others here.
Had he found love as well?
He felt the answer inside him. Love was patient and kind; it did not envy or puff itself up. It rejoiced in the truth. That’s what he felt for Maddie.
“Yes, I will, Pat,” he said as they headed back toward the bakery. “I’ll ask her to marry me.”
Patrick gave a low whistle. “I’m thinking she won’t be easy to convince.”
“She won’t,” Michael agreed. “I’ll have to find the right time and place to even have the discussion.”
“The Occidental Hotel,” Patrick suggested. “Tomorrow night, before you lose your nerve. It’s the finest setting Seattle can provide for a proposal, me lad.�
�
Patrick was right. Just his one peek inside the hotel when he’d been looking for work had told Michael the place was the best Seattle had to offer. He couldn’t imagine anything finer than a quiet dinner there with Maddie, Ciara and Aiden.
Though with her siblings along, dinner might not be all that quiet.
Still, perhaps there in the hotel, he could give her another taste of what it could be like if they were really a family. But, given her feelings on love and marriage, would she ever say yes to his proposal?
* * *
Maddie was certain the easiest way to escape her feelings for Michael was to avoid him. Accordingly, she rose, dressed and slipped down the stairs early the next morning without waking him.
That didn’t stop him from bringing her tea a little later. She was scooping dried currants and apples from where she’d soaked them in tea overnight and preparing to mix them with the barmbrack dough when a movement caught her eye. Michael was standing in the doorway of the shop, cup in each hand, watching her work. The smile on his face warmed her more than the heat seeping out of her baking oven.
“Lots to do this morning?” he asked, crossing to the worktable and holding out a cup.
She nodded to him to set it on the table, glad for the excuse of her work to prevent her fingers from brushing his. “I’ll be starting to bake for the wedding today,” she told him.
“I have a few minutes before I have to go to the smithy,” he said, leaning against the worktable. “How can I help?”
By staying away from her. “No need,” she assured him, dropping the fragrant fruit into the dough. “Ciara will get herself and Aiden ready for school. I’ll check on them before they go. You can be on your way with no concerns.”
He nodded, straightening, and she let out a breath, thinking he was leaving. But he paused a moment. “Have I done something to offend you, Maddie?”
“Not in the slightest,” she assured him, whipping the mixture together with her wooden spoon. “You know me. I’d be telling you otherwise.”
“I do know you,” he said ducking his head to see up under her gaze. “You take your feelings out on your cooking. By the look of things, that dough doesn’t stand a chance. Who’s ruffled your feathers now?”
“No one,” she insisted, dumping the dough onto her floured worktable. “As I told you, I have a lot to do. Just leave me to it.”
He held up his hands as if in surrender. “All right. But don’t start dinner today. I’ll be back after work to take you and Ciara and Aiden to eat at the Occidental.”
The Occidental? She’d never been inside a fancy hotel eatery in New York, but she would have loved a look inside this one. Yet a dinner in public with Michael made a statement somehow. Her stomach dipped. “Perhaps that’s not a good idea.”
His look darkened. That expressive face showed his least emotions, and she knew she’d hurt him.
“Why?” he asked, tone polite. “I’ve heard the food is very good. Probably not as good as your cooking, but good enough.”
Maddie plunged her hands into the dough, working the soft mixture, gaze on the speckled mass. “You’ll be wanting a house soon, your own things about you. Sure-n but you shouldn’t be wasting money on me.”
She looked up to find him right next to her.
“Spending time with you is never a waste,” he said, gaze holding hers. “If you don’t want to go out to dinner with me, just say so.”
She could feel her jaw working, but no words came out. What was wrong with her? She’d never had the least trouble giving her opinion on any matter. Her friends and family had occasionally had cause to rue her frankness.
But this time she simply didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t admit her feelings when she had no intentions of acting on them. That wasn’t fair to him. And she couldn’t explain why she was keeping her distance without confessing her feelings!
She brushed past him. “I told you, I have a lot of work that needs doing. If I can spare the time, I’ll join you, but I’ll be making no promises.”
He caught her hand. “I’ll wait for you in the dining room. If you aren’t there by six, I’ll know you’re not coming.”
The tension in his face, the grip of his hand, told her there was more at stake here than a dinner. For some reason, he needed her beside him tonight.
That only made her all the more determined to stay away.
“Go about your business now, Mr. Haggerty,” she said.
Looking pensive, he left her alone at last.
Maddie sighed. She didn’t want to hurt him. He’d been kind, thoughtful, helpful since the day he’d arrived. He held her trust as gently as he held Ciara’s and Aiden’s. How could she not fall in love with a man like that?
But how could she believe he’d stand by her when the hard times came? For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, the wedding vows said. Yet no one she’d known had been able to live by those vows and keep their love alive. Her friends from the expedition were newly married, with the glow of a honeymoon still in their eyes. She doubted they’d be objective. They thought everyone would be as happy in marriage as they were at the moment. They hadn’t seen the struggles her father and stepmother had gone through.
A small voice inside her urged her to believe that what she and Michael felt was different, stronger. She wanted to believe it! But something held her back.
So, she thrust herself into her work. When the first customers arrived, she had loaves of bread, crusts crisp and insides still steaming; savory barmbrack with the fruit plump and juicy; iced lemon cookies; and tart gingersnaps laid out on the counter. All were gone within the hour.
She checked Ciara and Aiden, and sent them off to school with lunches, started the dough to rising for the afternoon sales, paid the man who came to replace the broken pane in the front window, tidied the upstairs, began soaking Aiden’s dirtied clothing in the washtub, inventoried her supplies and gave Amelia Batterby a good brushing.
The cat eyed Maddie over her shoulder as she stalked away, smiling as if she were more pleased with her role of comforter than mouse catcher.
But no matter how hard Maddie worked, she couldn’t erase Michael from her mind. She caught herself saving some sugar cookies for him from the afternoon batch and made herself put them out for sale instead. A pair of his socks made their way into Aiden’s laundry, and she dropped them like hot coals the moment she realized what they were. Even inventorying her supplies reminded her of the sacrifice he’d made to purchase them.
She obviously needed to work harder.
That afternoon, she did three tubs of laundry, thankful for the nice day to hang most of the clothes to dry in the yard. A few she strung on a line near the oven. She could not get the ropes as high as Michael did, of course, but she upended one of the tubs so she could stand taller. And wouldn’t he be pleased with her ingenuity.
Oh!
She launched herself into the baking for the wedding. Knowing the likely number of attendees, she’d calculated that she’d need hundreds of rolls and at least eighteen wedding cakes. The Wallins and Howards were providing the meat and vegetables. But anything baked was up to her.
Her rolls would keep well covered for a week, the cakes for only a few days. With the wedding four days away, she began with the rolls, mixing an extra batch in her trough. She was kneading the dough when Ciara and Aiden returned from school.
“Miss Reynolds says Seattle has only been here fifteen years,” Aiden declared, tossing his lunch pail up on the worktable with a clang.
“She’s obviously mistaken,” Ciara said, setting her pail down more carefully. “You can’t build a whole city that fast.”
“Cities can spring up in a few months, given the will and money,” Maddie told her. “Ask any miner about the boomtowns he’s seen.”
“Bo
omtown,” Aiden said, smacking his lips as if he liked the taste of the word. “I changed my mind. I want to be a miner and live in a boomtown. Boom! Boom! Boom!” He punctuated his statement with a jump on the kitchen floor that set Maddie’s bowl to rocking. Amelia Batterby dashed out from under the worktable and ran for the stairs.
Ciara rolled her eyes at her brother. “I’m not moving to a boomtown,” she said. “I’m going back to New York first chance I get. There’s nothing to do here.”
Maddie barked a laugh, thinking about her day. “Oh, there’s plenty to do here, me girl, if you look.” She eyed her sister, who was toying with a loose thread on the only dress Nora hadn’t fixed. Ciara had consistently complained about not having enough to do. Perhaps Maddie had been wrong not to oblige.
“Miss Underhill offered to teach you to sew,” Maddie said. “Would you like that?”
Ciara straightened, eyes brightening. “Oh, Maddie! That would be wonderful! Then I can sew pretty dresses.”
“If you help around the bakery like Aiden,” Maddie said, emboldened by her sister’s response, “I can pay you a bit so you can buy cloth.”
Her sister threw her arms about Maddie and hugged her tight. “Oh, yes! Thank you! You’re the best sister!”
Tears pressed against Maddie’s eyes, and she smiled at her sister as Ciara pulled away. “And you’re a dear girl for saying so. It’s a perfect time to be helping, you know. I’ll have much to do before this wedding.”
Ciara’s look turned dreamy, and she leaned against the worktable. “Oh, I love weddings. Pretty clothes, vowing undying devotion, dancing. It’s so romantic.”
Aiden made a face. “More kissing! I can’t wait for the food. I’m going to take a bite out of every cake.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Wallin might have something to say about that, me lad,” Maddie told him. “Now go on upstairs and clean yourself up for dinner.”
Aiden glanced around the kitchen. “What are we having?”
“Stew,” Maddie supplied, turning her dough.
“But I thought Michael was taking us to the Occidental,” Ciara protested.
