by Merry Farmer
“So what’s your plan?”
Woody shrugged. “Charlie said I could carve out a part of the mule barn for the time being. The loft is pretty nice all decked out, and what with the stove we keep running in there so the donkeys and mules don’t freeze, it can get pretty cozy.”
“There you go, then.” Hugh nodded. “You’re putting a solid roof over your bride’s head and giving her a warm place to call home.” He paused, then went on with, “That’s more than a lot of us can say right now. And besides, Noelle is growing all the time. I’m sure you’ll be able to build a house in no time.”
“Maybe this spring,” Woody said, though worry gnawed at him. Charlie paid him well, but it wasn’t enough to go buying or building a house. Maybe he shouldn’t have put his name in when Rev. Hammond first mentioned sending for brides.
He was pushed out of his thoughts by Hugh’s laughter.
“Looks like your lovely bride might have some competition,” Hugh said.
Woody looked around, assuming Hugh was talking about the cluster of French girls from La Maison des Chats…who, he’d heard, had been kicked out of their home the night before. In fact, some of Madame Bonheur’s girls were standing around outside The Golden Nugget saloon, but that wasn’t where Hugh was looking.
No, Hugh was looking behind them…to where Mimi, Gigi, and Fifi were waddling along over the snow after them.
“What are you three doing here?” Woody asked, turning and bending to address the hens. “Shouldn’t you all be back at the barn, where it’s warm?”
The hens cocked their heads to the side and blinked at him. Gigi fluttered her russet wings and hopped on, as if urging him to keep walking. Mimi and Fifi clucked and hopped from the snow onto the walk in front of the Dry Goods store.
“All right, all right,” Woody told them. “I don’t want your poor feet freezing. Come on, and we’ll get you warm at La Maison.”
Hugh laughed, stepping off the street and onto the shoveled walk, heading toward the store. “If you treat your wife as sweetly as you treat your animal friends, she’ll be the happiest lady in town.” He waved, then disappeared into the store.
“I sure hope so,” Woody said to himself, then continued on. “You ladies behave,” he called over his shoulder to the hens.
“Who are you telling to behave, Woody Burnside?” one of the whores, Boum Boum, called back from across the street.
Woody blushed hot and waved to her and the other girls, his grin turning sheepish. He hurried on, his gut swirled up in knots. He’d have to go express his condolences to Madame Bonheur’s girls later, and wish them a Merry Christmas.
Mimi, Gigi, and Fifi continued to follow him all the way down the street and around the corner to La Maison des Chats. When he reached the door, Woody paused, cleared his throat, and brushed his hands anxiously over his coat sleeves. Did he look presentable? Would Liu Meizhen turn up her nose at him? Would she laugh and think he was a fool? Would she demand to marry someone else?
Fifi hopped up behind him and pecked at the cuff of his trousers.
“All right, all right. I’ll stop second-guessing myself and go inside to meet her,” he said.
He cleared his throat one more time, then knocked on the door.
A few seconds later, a pleasant-looking young woman opened it. “Yes?” she asked.
“Uh, I’m Woody Burnside?” Woody said, swiping his hat from his head. “I’m here to meet my bride, Liu Meizhen?”
The woman’s smile widened. “Yes, Mr. Burnside. Come right in.” She stepped back, allowing Woody—and the chickens—to enter the house. The woman looked startled at the hens, but wasn’t quick enough to stop their progress. “Meizhen is in the sitting room.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Woody nodded to her, wondering if he should bow. He twirled his hat brim nervously.
“This way,” the woman said, extending her hand.
Woody knew full well where the sitting room was. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d visited La Maison des Chats a few times before. But he moved as if his feet were stuck in molasses. This was it. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, the moment he’d lain awake thinking about for weeks.
He rounded the corner into the sitting room, the hens clucking along around his feet. A few women were in the room, but his eyes went straight to her. She had hair as black and smooth as ink, a round face with delicate, kissable lips, and almond-shaped eyes that had his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest. She was dressed in the same sort of clothes that the rest of the ladies wore, but as she lifted her head from the window she was looking out and turned to him, she looked every bit like the magical, foreign princess he’d imagined her to be.
And then she smiled.
And Woody Burnside fell instantly in love.
Chapter 2
The first thing Meizhen noticed about Mr. Burnside was that he had kind, blue eyes. Relief flooded through her. A man with eyes like that couldn’t possibly be cruel or vindictive. She’d made the right decision in coming to Noelle to marry him.
The second thing she noticed, of course, were the three chickens that had followed him in and now pecked at the carpet or puffed themselves up. They were a beautiful shade of orange-brown and seemed very pleased with themselves. Meizhen smiled at them as much as she did at Mr. Burnside.
“I suppose introductions are in order,” Mrs. Walters said, nudging Mr. Burnside deeper into the room. She wasted no time in saying, “Meizhen, this is Mr. Woodrow Burnside.”
“Woody, please,” Mr. Burnside said.
“Woody,” Mrs. Walters corrected. “And this—” She swept across the parlor to Meizhen, gesturing for her to come away from the window to meet Woody. “—is Miss Liu Meizhen.”
“Meizhen. Liu is my family name.” Meizhen stepped carefully forward, her heart pounding against her ribs. “In China, we say our family name first, and then our given name.”
“Oh.” Woody moved toward her as slowly as she was inching toward him. “I wondered about that. I wondered if folks called you ‘Lou’ as a nickname.”
“No, just Meizhen.” Meizhen smiled, her steps taking her to within a few feet of Woody.
He was taller than her by several inches, but he didn’t carry himself like a man who liked to show off his size. His shoulders were slightly hunched, and he twirled his hat in his hands as if he were as nervous to be meeting her as she was to finally meet him. He studied her with a smile that was almost boyish, his blue eyes full of happiness. He had a tiny nick near his ear where he had cut himself shaving, but other than that, his face was handsome and well-formed.
The silence between them grew longer as the two of them stood there, grinning at each other. The urge to giggle tightened Meizhen’s throat, but she refused to let it bubble up. She wouldn’t disrespect this man who was making such a big leap of faith by agreeing to marry a foreign bride he’d never met.
Just when the awkwardness began to feel unbearable, one of the hens pecked at Woody’s trouser leg, tugging on it. Woody snapped out of his happy trance and looked down at the bird. “Yeah, I know, I know. Don’t get your feathers flustered.”
Meizhen couldn’t stop the giggle then. She covered her mouth with one hand as it escaped.
Woody peeked back up to her, then cleared his throat and straightened. He held out a hand. “It’s a mighty big pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Meizhen replied. She took his hand. It was rough with callouses from work, but at the same time, it was large and comforting.
Woody’s smile returned full-force. “You speak English real good.”
Her heart squeezed with fondness at his questionable grammar. “I studied for many years before coming to America. And I have been in this country for three years now. I have had much practice.”
“Well, good.” He nodded, smiling, then paused. “I like the way you talk.”
“Thank you.”
The silence returned, but Meizhen didn’t mind.
He still held her hand from their initial handshake, but she didn’t mind that either.
From her chair in the corner, Maybelle snorted in derision and muttered something under her breath. No doubt it was something terribly unkind. Meizhen found herself wanting to shield Woody from whatever it was, and from any other disparaging comments Maybelle, or anyone else, might make.
“Perhaps you could give me a tour of the town?” she suggested to Woody. “I only arrived last night, and it was snowing. I haven’t seen much more than I was able to observe from the window.”
“Sure. Of course.” Woody realized he was still holding her hand and let it go with a gasp, as if he had done something wrong. “Um, do you have a coat or something? It’s kinda cold out there.”
“I do. Let me just fetch it.”
Meizhen smiled at him one more time before sweeping past, into the hall and up the stairs. She retrieved her winter coat from the room she was sharing with some of the other brides as quickly as she could, then skipped back down the stairs, ready to learn more about the town she would now call home, and hopefully, even more about the charming man she would soon marry.
Woody and his hens were already outside when Meizhen rejoined them.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, glancing down at the hens. “They, uh, sorta follow me around sometimes. I expect it’s because I feed them.”
Meizhen watched the hens as she took Woody’s offered arm and began a slow walk away from the cathouse. The hens clucked and fussed, their heads twitching as they looked up at her with beady, knowing eyes. They were assessing her, she was sure, judging whether she was good enough to marry Woody.
“Do they have names?” she asked.
“Yep. That one’s Gigi,” he said, pointing to the fattest of the three. “That’s Mimi.” He pointed to one with a slightly darker brown head than the others. “And that’s Fifi.”
Meizhen noted that Fifi had white speckles around her neck. She hoped that she would be able to tell all three apart going forward. “They’re delightful,” she said. “Good morning, ladies. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The hens clucked and fluffed as they scurried to keep up with Meizhen and Woody’s steps. Woody’s smile had grown, and his eyes sparkled as he looked at her. She was relieved to have made a good impression.
“Have you lived in Noelle for long?” she asked when Woody did nothing but watch her.
Woody flinched, then answered, “Almost as long as Noelle’s been around. I came out here when Charlie—that’s Mr. Charles Hardt, who started the mine and built the town—when he sent word to me that he needed help looking for gold.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Woody nodded. “That over there is the sheriff’s office, and on that side is Nacho’s diner.” He pointed out two of the businesses as they headed down the road, then went back to his story. “Charlie’s pa has a ranch in Texas. I started working for him, oh, gosh, when I was about sixteen?”
“Was that a very long time ago?”
Woody waved to a Hispanic man as he stepped out the front door of the diner with a shovel to clear the snow. The man waved back as though Woody were a good friend. “Well, I’m thirty-three now, so I guess that means it was almost twenty years ago.”
“I see. And did you not like working on the ranch? Is that why you came to Colorado when Mr. Hardt asked you to?”
“Oh, I liked ranching all right,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, then nodding to another man who had just stepped out of a building with a sign indicating it was a dry goods store. “That’s Liam,” he quickly explained. “Liam Fulton. That’s his store. And across that way is the bank, and then the Golden Nugget Saloon. Which is also kinda our church at the moment too. You go to church?”
A flash of self-consciousness hit Meizhen. “I will go if you wish to. In China, we do not have churches like that.”
Woody hummed as though he thought that was interesting, but didn’t comment. Instead, he continued his story. “The thing I liked most about working on the ranch was caring for the horses and cattle. And the chickens,” he added over his shoulder for Mimi, Gigi, and Fifi, who were still following. He went on. “Folks tell me I have a knack for animals. So when Charlie mentioned that donkeys were used to pull carts in and out of the mine and to transport most things up this far in the mountains, and when he said he needed someone who could manage the drove—”
“The drove?” Meizhen blinked.
“That’s what you call a herd of donkeys,” he explained. “Of course, we’ve got more than donkeys up here. You need male donkeys and female horses to make more mules, and believe me, it’s a lot cheaper to breed your own than it is to go buying them all the time.”
“So you take care of the horses and mules too?” Meizhen was impressed at the amount of responsibility Woody had.
“Yep. Not just for Charlie either. Jack Peregrine, who’s a good friend of mine, has me take care of his mules from the Post & Freight cuz, well, it’s a long story.” He rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. “And I help out Culver Daniels, who owns the livery, whenever I can. I look out for all the other animals folks around here keep too. Storm Thornton’s got a horse ranch out that way.” He turned and pointed off past the town. “He needs help now and then. And some other folks nearby have sheep and goats. Oh yeah, and there’s the chickens.” He spoke to his entourage of hens again, grinning as he did. “Lots more than these three. Several people keep them for eggs and—” He lowered his voice. “—for meat. But don’t tell those three.”
Meizhen blinked in surprise. “You aren’t planning on—” She too lowered her voice. “—eating them someday, are you?”
Woody’s face pinched. “If they stop laying and if we need to….” But when he glanced down at them once more, there was far too much fondness in his expression for Meizhen to believe the hens would ever end up on a plate.
“How about you?” Woody went on. “What brings you all the way out to a place like Noelle? That’s the hardware store, where folks get mining supplies, and the land office,” he went on before she could answer, pointing to buildings farther down the street. “And right there is Dr. Deane’s office.”
Meizhen nodded at each of the buildings, but she was beginning to be overwhelmed by how much there was to see and absorb. “I came to America to be a bride,” she said, focusing on his question. “My brother, Chi-ming, came to America to build the railroad two years before. He wrote back that there were many Chinese men in California who wanted to marry women from our homeland. My twin sister, Meiying, and I were performing with a circus that had made its home in Canton, although we are from a small village in Kiangsu Province originally.”
“You were in a circus?” Woody’s brow shot up in a delighted expression. “You weren’t a clown, were you.”
“No,” Meizhen laughed. “Not that kind of circus. An acrobatic circus. Meiying and I trained as acrobats from before I can remember.”
“Huh.” Woody didn’t seem to know what else to say.
“Meiying and I sailed across the ocean. It was a long and difficult journey.” One filled with seasickness, rough treatment from the crew, and near starvation when half of the ship’s provisions were waterlogged in a storm, but she decided to spare him those details for the time being. “When we arrived in San Francisco, our brother was nowhere to be found.”
“That must have been awful,” Woody said with genuine sympathy. “Were you—”
“Woody!”
The story was interrupted as a man with black hair came jogging from the direction of the doctor’s office that they’d just passed.
“Oh, hey, Dr. Deane.” Woody waved to the man, then glanced to Meizhen with a proud smile. “Dr. Deane, I’d like you to meet Liu Meizhen, who’s gonna be my bride.”
The doctor smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“Likewise,” Meizhen replied, smiling at the man’s Irish accent.
“I don’t want to i
nterrupt you,” Dr. Deane went on, a knowing glint in his eyes. “I just wanted to let you know that Fay looks like she’s ready to give birth. It’ll be any day now.”
“Right.” Woody nodded. “I’ll be on my guard. Thanks for letting me know.”
“I hope we can chat more once things settle down,” Dr. Deane said, stepping away. “I’m about to be a married man myself.” He touched the brim of his hat, then dashed off, leaving Meizhen with wide, confused eyes.
“You mean, he isn’t married to Fay?” she asked.
Woody blinked, looking startled, then burst into a laugh. “Fay is one of his horses,” he explained. “Not his wife.”
“Oh!” She pressed a hand to her chest and laughed along with him. “I was worried for a moment.”
“Besides, Dr. Deane would do most of the delivering of human babies, I suppose, not me.” His face took on a sudden, pink flush, and he lowered his head slightly. “You, uh, think you might want to have babies?”
The deep-seated ache that had been growing bigger and bigger in her chest seemed to blossom. “Oh, yes,” she said with a sigh. “I should very much like to have a family.”
Woody blushed darker and looked even more bashful. “I’m glad to hear that. I’d like to have kids too. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters growing up, and—” He stopped, a frown replacing his sheepish look. “Wait a minute. You said you came over here with your sister in order to marry fellas in San Francisco, but I don’t see any sister, or any wedding rings.”
Meizhen’s burst of mirth flattened. She sighed. “As I said, when we arrived in San Francisco, our brother was nowhere to be found. We searched through the entire city for him. For the men who were to be our grooms too, though we had only their names. It took days until we found the old man who had rented a room to Chi-ming. He told us that our brother had been offered a job on the other side of the mountains and had left. He knew the men Chi-ming had arranged for us to marry as well. One had married another woman, and the other had left to find work as well and never came back.”
