He gave a grunt of incredulity. “I doubt he sees her that way.” His fingers caressed her and he whispered in her ear, “Dunmore worries about Jacques. Worries he’ll come back.” He held her as she stiffened in fear. “Dunmore’s a good man. He and Cormac will keep us informed if Jacques makes plans to return.”
Mary gripped his arms. “We have to protect her, Shay,” she whispered. “She’s too young to know such fear.”
“Aye,” Seamus said as he kissed her head. “We’ll protect her. And she’ll soon forget she ever knew a man named Jacques.”
After a long moment, where he listened to Eamon playing the fiddle and Declan singing a sweet song, he said, “I have to tell you something, a ghrá, and I don’t want you to be angry with me.”
She turned so she was still wrapped in his arms, but so she could also see his face. “What have you done, Seamus?” Her hazel eyes were lit with a delighted amusement at the thought of her husband involved in any shenanigans. She saw the answering delight in his gaze as he understood her trust in him had grown so that she did not doubt her place in his life or his love for her.
“I received a letter a few days ago from Bailey, another of the stagecoach drivers. Seems the passenger was insistent he deliver it to me personally.” He furrowed his brow. “She’s at Cow Island, waiting for a stage to deliver her here.” He took a deep breath and blurted out, “When I searched for a bride for Declan, I wrote to a few women, hoping to hear back from at least one of them. I never expected another would set out on her own without word from me.”
Mary sat upright, her eyes wide as she stared at her husband. “Another woman is traveling here? With the intention of marrying one of our sons?”
“Aye,” he said as he looked over his grown boys. “A Deirdre Finnegan. This time, I know she’ll be perfect for our Declan.”
Mary shook her head before settling again in her husband’s arms. “Remember, Shay, your plans went spectacularly awry the last time. There’s no guarantee this woman will adore the son you want her to.”
Seamus nodded, kissing her head again. “Aye, I know. All I can pray is she’ll favor one of our lads.”
In the small cabin, the candle on the table had sputtered out. Soft strains of a mournful fiddle song carried on the breeze, but for the most part, the festivities had quieted as the men moved to the saloons. A distant owl hooting sounded as the long grass rustled with the soft wind.
Kevin rested with his body spooned around Aileen. He breathed deeply in her ear as his heart rate slowed. He traced his fingers up and down her arm, smiling as he saw goose bumps form. “Are you well?” he whispered. He grunted as she nudged him in his stomach with her elbow as she rolled to face him. When they rested so their foreheads nearly touched and were eye-to-eye, he grinned at her.
She stared at him a long moment, her eyes wide and unguarded. “I’ve never seen that look in your eyes before.”
“What look?” he whispered as he kissed her nose, earning a giggle.
“You look completely at ease. As though there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.” She cupped his jaw, her fingers playing over his stubble. “As though you have no troubles.”
He kissed her for a long moment, earning a groan. “All you say is true. Always I’ve feared something would go wrong. But now, with you here in my arms, I finally understand the full meaning of faith. For I have to believe we will have a glorious life together. I’m incapable of imagining anything else.”
She pushed herself into his arms so no space separated them. “Nothing will go wrong. We’ll grow to be old, half senile great grandparents who sit on their front porch as they watch their family around them.”
“Yes,” he breathed. “As long as you are always in my arms.”
“Always,” she agreed as she kissed him, sealing her promise with a kiss.
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Fort Benton, Montana Territory; July 1865
CHAPTER ONE
Ardan O’Rourke walked down the boardwalk in Fort Benton, Montana Territory, his smooth gait hitching at the sight of a beautiful woman sitting alone at a window seat inside the café. Although he never ate the inedible food on offer at Buford Hunt’s establishment, today Ardan was tempted to skip the noontime family meal and meet this woman. He forced his gaze away from the café, glancing across the street at the sun shimmering off the Missouri River.
Most who arrived in the frontier town of Fort Benton ventured farther into the Territory to towns such as Helena or Virginia City, in search of gold or other riches. As his gaze returned to the attractive woman sitting next to Buford’s café window, he wondered if she would stay in town or soon leave Fort Benton. Curiosity won out, and he approached the café.
Hesitating at the entrance to the café, Ardan once again questioned his desire to meet the mysterious newcomer. He grimaced as the owner of the café, Buford Hunt, approached him, beaming and bellowing his hello.
“Ardan,” Buford said in his carrying voice. “How wonderful you’ve finally decided to sample the café’s delicious fare.” His hand clamped onto Ardan’s, pulling him toward the newcomers inside the café. After greeting a few of the newly arrived, Buford led him to the beautiful woman with red-gold hair and a cautious gaze.
“Hello, ma’am,” Ardan said in a deferential tone.
The small slip of a woman stared at Ardan as though he were an apparition, and he couldn’t determine if she wished for him to disappear or to remain. He rubbed at the back of his neck and gave her an encouraging nod, hoping she would speak. He couldn’t help from noticing the pretty flush on her cheeks or the warmth in her cognac-colored eyes. At least he hoped it was warmth and not dread he saw.
When she still didn’t reply to his polite greeting, Ardan flushed as Buford Hunt watched him with a speculative gleam in his eyes. The last thing Ardan needed was for the gossiping café owner to wander over to his family’s warehouse for a chat about how Ardan had appeared flummoxed by this unknown woman.
He took a step back and nodded at her again as Buford was called away by another patron. “I’m Ardan O’Rourke, and I hope you feel welcome in town,” he said, while doffing his hat this time.
“One of the famous O’Rourkes,” she said in a deep smoky voice, as she brushed at her gold-colored skirt, her voice filled with derision. “I should have recognized you,” she said, looking him up and down.
He stood tall, any warmth he had felt for her leeching away at her implied criticism of his family and especially his father. After all, Ardan was the spitting image of Seamus O’Rourke. Tall, with broad shoulders, black hair, and piercing blue eyes. “Da is a good man.” Like his father, his voice held a hint of the Ireland of his youth.
“If you deem him so, then you must be as deceitful as he is,” she said with a roll of her eyes, as she turned to stare out the window and ignore him.
He leaned forward, gently gripping her arm, preventing her from brushing him off as though he were a gnat. “Remember, ma’am,” he said in a low voice laced with warning. “You’re the newcomer here. My family is respected and admired in this town. Don’t make enemies where you don’t have to.” His gaze was filled with caution. “And don’t go spreadin’ your lies.”
“A successful business doesn’t make you respected, no matter what you believe.”
He stiffened beside her before releasing her arm. “Our business is successful, aye. And you will find we are not delusional, nor deceitful. And we are respectable.” He spoke in a clipped monotone, unwelcoming of her implied criticism of his family or their store. The O’Rourke and Sons General Store supplied needed goods to the year-round townsfolk, and the store also outfitted the thousands of transient men who traveled to the Territory in search of gold. As his father, Seamus, often said, the real riches came from tending to the dreamers. “Good day, ma’am.”
Ardan walked past
her and out of the café. He no longer wished to face Buford Hunt’s questions or the inquisitive stares of other patrons if he were to chance to eat there. Although he had thought a meal away from his family would soothe his restlessness, he reconciled with returning home for the midday meal. Kevin would be there, his closest brother and best friend. However, Kevin would be occupied with flirting with his new wife.
Ardan kicked at a piece of dried horse dung, battling impatience with himself. He would never begrudge Kevin his hard-won happiness. After all Kevin and Aileen had suffered in their struggle to finally marry, Ardan rejoiced in their triumph. However, as the eldest O’Rourke, Ardan had always shared his concerns, fears, and deepest thoughts with his brother Kevin. Now he felt out of sorts because Kevin had Aileen—although Ardan had no wish to intrude on their time together, especially not during their first month as newlyweds.
With a deepening respect for the third O’Rourke brother, Declan, Ardan turned for home. Declan had confessed last month that he had always felt alone among his large family. Ardan and Kevin were best friends. Eamon and Finn were so alike—in appearance, thought, and action—that they were referred to as the twins. Niall, Oran, and Bryan formed another close unit. Only Niamh and Declan had been the odd ones out. Now Ardan felt like one too.
He paused, staring at the cliffs standing like sentries over the Missouri River. Fort Benton was a burgeoning town on the banks of the large river and was the innermost port in the world, nearly 2,300 river miles from Saint Louis. Steamboats carried passengers and freight up the river in a two-month-long journey fraught with the constant peril of fire, Indian attack, or becoming stranded on a sandbar. Now that the river ran low, ships no longer made the journey all the way to Fort Benton and had to dock farther downriver, with stagecoaches and oxen carts ferrying passengers and freight to the town. No boats would arrive to town again until next summer.
Ardan recalled his recent journey up the river with his brother Kevin from Saint Louis. They had spent the winter in the large city, stockpiling supplies for their family store. Although he knew they would new supplies to be delivered next summer from Saint Louis, his mother had informed his father that she didn’t want her sons to be away for months at a time.
Thus, Ardan knew his father frantically worked on a list of all merchandise to be sent to them the following year by their employee and friend who worked in their warehouse there. Ardan shied away from thinking about his mother and her sudden reappearance in their lives after a nearly eighteen-year-long absence. Although he rejoiced at her return, he continued to fear her eventual abandonment again.
Instead he thought about the recent two-month trip up the Missouri River with his brother. He had thought he would spend the time telling tall tales with Kevin and getting to know some of the men traveling to the Territory in search of gold. However, Kevin’s world had been upended. Although the long journey had been tedious, Kevin had met Aileen O’Keefe on the steamboat, and Ardan knew he would always be thankful that Kevin found such happiness with such a wonderful woman. Ardan turned from studying the river, walking at a brisk pace toward home and a meal.
Ardan knew he’d missed the usual time for his family’s midday meal during his interaction with the frustrating woman at the café and his time spent ruminating by the river. However, his mother always kept food ready, if any of them arrived hungry and in search of something to eat.
His parents’ house was large, with a kitchen built on the back of it. Da said, in case of fire, it would better protect the house. Ardan believed it was because Da realized, after the house was in construction, that they needed more space and added it on. Ardan walked past the chicken coop, the small vegetable garden, and approached the back stoop with the entrance to the kitchen.
After cleaning his boots on a rug outside, he doffed his hat, hung it on a peg inside the back door to the kitchen, and entered the comfortable room—his favorite space in the house. A large table, barely big enough for all the O’Rourkes to eat together, hugged one wall when not in use. Along the wall with the doorway stood the stove, set on a brick platform with bricks lining the back wall. On the other wall, across from the table, was the sink and counter space area, with shelves over part of it and a window in the middle. A hutch with plates stood in the corner.
“Hello, Mum,” he murmured, as he nodded to his mother.
“Ardan,” she exclaimed, her hands in soapy water as she washed dishes. “I hadn’t thought you’d come home today. You’ve missed the family meal, but there’s always food.” She dried her hands and pulled out a bowl, ladled it full of stew, and set a few pieces of bread by him as he sat.
He stared at the bread a long moment and then glanced at his mother. “Brown bread,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said with a satisfied smile, as she swiped back her auburn hair with streaks of gray. “It’s taken me a while to find the proper mix of ingredients here, but I think it tastes quite good.” She waited with an expectant expression for him to taste it.
He stared from her to the bread and back again. “What are we celebratin’?” he asked, his voice thick with the Irish accent of his youth. Unconsciously he leaned forward, smelling it. He closed his eyes as a groan of appreciation leaked out at the scent. As a boy in Ireland, they only ever had bread for a celebration. A birthday, a holiday, or if the crop was a tremendous success.
“What’s the matter, Ardan?” Mary O’Rourke asked, her delight fading as she watched her eldest son with concern and confusion.
“It reminds me of home,” Ardan whispered, his eyes closed once more as he pictured the small stone cottage he had shared with his parents and five siblings near Limerick, Ireland, before they were evicted in 1847 during the potato famine. He saw the large room with the stone fireplace, a peat fire always burning, either to heat the room or to cook their simple meals. His mother, a bundle of purposeful energy as she cooked, knitted, and cared for them. His father, always with a ready smile and a tall tale to enliven their evenings before they went to bed. The sense of home that had been missing here until she had returned to them last month. He cleared his throat as he was perilously close to tears.
“Oh, my boy,” Mary said, as she took a step closer to him.
He opened the startling cobalt-blue eyes he’d inherited from his father and watched as his mother reached a hand out, as though to grip his shoulder. To comfort him in some way. Rather than touch him, her hand dropped to her side, and she stared at him with a soul-deep yearning. Instead of confronting the multitude of emotions battering him, Ardan reached for the crock of butter with a shaky hand and spread a liberal amount over the bread. His eyes closed again at the first bite. “Thank you, Mum,” he said in a near-reverent tone.
“I’m glad you like it,” she said, as she turned away to face the stove, her shoulders back and her head held high, as though marshaling her emotions. “Your brothers can’t remember a time when we had bread in Ireland.”
He swallowed his bite of bread and took a swig of black tea. “Eamon and Finn would have been too young,” he said. “Was Kevin not home for the midday meal?”
She looked over her shoulder with a tranquil expression, as though she had not experienced a great emotional maelstrom. “No, he returned to see Aileen for his midday break. As he should.” She smiled with satisfaction at her second-oldest son’s marriage. “’Tis a joy to know he’s so happy.”
“Aye,” Ardan said. “I’ve never seen him so content. Although I’ve never known him to miss a meal.” He flushed as his mother battled a wry expression. He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze, belatedly realizing another reason his brother was so eager for time alone with his wife. “I met a woman today who’s taken an instant dislike to us,” he said.
Mary poured herself a cup of tea and joined him at the table. “Oh, that seems unlikely.” Her hazel eyes shone with bewilderment. “How do you know you don’t like someone if you don’t know them?”
Ardan shrugged. “I don’t know, Mum, but I mus
t say that I didn’t like her much either. We won’t be missing that lass’s company at any family dinners.”
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Also by Ramona Flightner
The O’Rourke Family Montana Saga
Follow the O’Rourke Family as they settle in Fort Benton, Montana Territory in 1865. Coming in 2020!
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Pioneer Dream: The O’Rourke Family Montana Saga Page 23
