Megan

by Linda Lael Miller

  Skye’s expression was typically ingenuous. “Why ever not?” she asked.

  “Why indeed?” Bridget pressed, one eyebrow raised.

  Megan sat with both hands splayed atop the battered Bible, as though she might divine something more of the mystery that way. “Don’t you see?” she whispered, addressing all her sisters without raising her eyes to their faces. “We know nothing at all about our mothers and next to nothing about our father. That means we’re virtual strangers not only to each other but to ourselves.”

  Skye knitted her brow, and Bridget checked the pins holding her masses of blond hair in a loose bun at her nape. Christy interlocked her fingers with Megan’s. “We’re still the same people we’ve always been, Megan.”

  Megan nodded, but she was still troubled, still at sixes and sevens. In time, she supposed she would recover—and that was the main difference, she decided, between herself and her sisters. They had had some time to get used to an idea that was utterly new to her.

  “I’m going to take some air,” she said. Rising somewhat unsteadily from her seat at the table, she made for the door, and no one tried to stop her.

  The breeze was cool and fresh, and it braced Megan a little, as always, cleared her head. Stars draped the sky in a silvery net, as if flung there by some celestial fisherman, and crickets took up their distinct chorus in the deep grass. The older children were throwing stones into the creek, while the men stood nearby, their voices riding deep and quiet on the clean night air.

  Megan traveled in the other direction, following the moon-washed creek upstream, trying to make sense of things, sort through what she’d learned, decide where she was headed. She’d planned to stay at Primrose Creek, but now she had her doubts about the idea. It was difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to find honest work, especially in such a small community, and she wasn’t at all sure she could face a lifetime under someone else’s roof, even when that someone else was Christy.

  She sniffled, touched the back of one hand to her cheek. The stream whispered and burbled as it danced over the colorful stones worn smooth by years, perhaps even centuries, of its passing.

  “I don’t reckon you can cook the way your cousin does. Can you?” The voice was Webb Stratton’s; she knew that without turning around. While her first impulse was to tell him to go away, in no uncertain terms, she ignored it, because another, greater part of her was so glad of his company.

  She turned, arms folded, chin high. Her face was in shadow, and she was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to make out any trace of tears lingering on her face. Bridget is my sister, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. The knowledge was still too fresh, too raw to share. “Yes, I can cook as well as any woman in the family. Caney taught us all—save Christy, who hasn’t the proper bent for it—and she’s the very best there is.”

  Webb stood a few feet away, easy in his skin, sure of his path through a treacherous and confusing world. Megan had once felt that way, but she’d since learned that she’d been wrong to trust her own judgment. She was as lost as any other wandering soul. “I guess I didn’t figure an actress would be inclined toward domestic life,” Webb ventured.

  She stiffened a little, already on the defensive, even though she hadn’t perceived a threat. What was it about this man that made her feel like some many-legged creature trying to dance on ice? “I’m a complex person, Mr. Stratton,” she said, at some length. “Full of surprises.”

  “I believe you are,” he agreed. “Something’s been troubling you tonight. What is it?”

  It was a bold question, to say nothing of a blunt one, and to her chagrin she’d answered it before she thought better of the idea. “I’m wondering if I should have come back here,” she confided in low tones. “I had a place in this family once, but now I feel as though it might have closed while I was away. Maybe I don’t belong here anymore.”

  Webb was quiet for a long time, and when he spoke, his voice was solemn. “Could be you just need a little distance.”

  She nodded, though her heart was already breaking at the mere thought of leaving Primrose Creek and the people she loved.

  That was when Webb took her by surprise. “I could use a woman over at my place,” he said quietly.

  Megan was too startled to speak. Surely he hadn’t said what she thought he had—had he? What sort of person did he think she was?

  He laughed, thrust a hand through his sandy hair. “I didn’t mean that quite the way it rolled over my tongue,” he said. “Not that you aren’t real attractive that way.”

  Megan opened her mouth, closed it again. She wasn’t sure whether she should slap Mr. Stratton across the face and walk away or stay and hear him out. Being even this close to him produced a deliciously disturbing sensation, like falling, deep in her middle, made her want to catch hold of something—or someone—with both hands. Since he was the only one there, she kept her arms locked around her middle instead.

  “What I’m getting at,” he went on doggedly, “is that I’d like to hire somebody. To cook and look after the house and all like that. I mean to sign on as many men as I can, like I said at supper, so there’ll be a lot of plates to fill.”

  Megan’s lips felt dry; she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. “Are you asking me to come to work as your housekeeper, Mr. Stratton?”

  “Webb,” he said. “And yes, that’s pretty much what I had in mind.”

  She absorbed that for a moment. “Surely you realize that such an arrangement would arouse gossip.”

  “I suppose it would,” he agreed evenly. “On the other hand, a job is a job. I’ll pay you a good salary, and you’ll have the whole downstairs to yourself.” He paused. “Besides, I don’t figure you for the type to turn tail and run because of a few old biddies flapping their tongues.”

  She’d been right, Megan thought. He was utterly sure of himself. He spoke as though she’d already agreed to go home with him, keep his house, cook his meals. What would it be like, she asked herself, sleeping under the same roof as this man, in a home built on land that had been hers? Would still be hers, if she hadn’t been so stupid?

  “How do I know you’ll be a gentleman?” she inquired, mostly stalling. Webb Stratton was probably many things, but he was no fool. He had to know that if he ever forced his attentions upon her, Trace, Zachary, and Jake would hunt him down and kill him like an egg-sucking dog.

  He was holding his hat, and he turned the brim slowly in both hands. His grin flashed white in the darkness. “I’m no gentleman, ma’am,” he said, “but that needn’t concern you. I’ll confine my socializing to town.”

  Megan was not particularly reassured, for, in point of fact, his kindness made her feel vulnerable rather than safe. Besides, she hated the idea of his “socializing” in town.

  “I will not tolerate any sort of foolishness,” she warned, just in case he expected more than housekeeping.

  He had been about to walk away, back toward the house, probably, to offer his thanks and say his good-byes, but he went completely still when Megan spoke. “You mean you’ll take the job?” He sounded pleasantly surprised, as if he’d already resigned himself to being turned down.

  “I need work,” she said, “and yours is the only respectable opportunity likely to come my way.”

  He gave a low whistle of exclamation.

  “Did you expect me to refuse your offer, Mr. Stratton?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I did, deep down. Fact is, I wasn’t entirely sure you wouldn’t try to throw me in the creek.” He glanced downstream, toward the sound of male laughter and the determined frolicking of tired children, bent on holding off sleep for as long as possible. “I promise you, Miss McQuarry—you won’t be sorry you signed on with me. The work will be hard sometimes, when there are a lot of hungry cowboys looking for grub, but no harm will find you on my ranch.”

  She put out a hand. “Then I accept,” she said.

  He hesitated, took her hand in his, and shook it. A sweet jol
t went through her at his touch. He was strong, his flesh callused by hard work, and yet there was a gentleness in the way his fingers closed around hers that did indeed make her feel looked after, even cherished. “I’ll come for you tomorrow,” he said. “You’re still staying over at Zachary and Christy’s place?”

  She inclined her head in assent, wondering what her relations would say when she told them she was going to live with Webb Stratton as his housekeeper. No doubt they’d be pleased, not only to have her off their hands but because they’d think their plan was working, that she was going to marry the rancher and bring the lost six hundred and twenty-five acres back into the family circle once and for all.

  “I’ll be ready,” she said, and when he left her, she sighed and tilted her head back to look up at the broad spill of sky stretching from mountain top to mountain top, speckled with stars.

  She didn’t rest well that night in her old bed at Christy and Zachary’s house, but instead thrashed and fretted, caught in a hot tangle of dreams.

  *

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Christy said fitfully the next morning, when Megan announced that Webb would be coming by soon to fetch her. “You’re perfectly welcome right here.”

  Megan, standing at the stove, had already made breakfast for Zachary, just to get into practice. Caney either hadn’t come home the night before or was still lolling about in bed. “Christy,” Megan said gently, “I might have given up my share of the land, but I’ve still got the pride Granddaddy left us all. I need to make my own way, and I want time to sort things through.”

  Christy’s delicate complexion was flushed, and her gray eyes held sparks. “I declare, Megan McQuarry, your head is hard as tamarack. You belong with your family.”

  “I will be with my family. Just a few miles away, anyway.” She spoke softly, for, although she was exasperated with her sister, she loved her as fiercely as ever.

  Christy heaved a shuddery sigh. “There will be talk,” she warned. “In town, I mean.”

  The rattles, creaks, and neighs of a team and wagon sounded outside, and Megan felt a wild quickening, brief but shattering, deep in her pelvis. Webb had arrived to fetch her home. Home. But the ranch was his place, not hers, not anymore, and she mustn’t let herself forget that.

  “I’m sure the gossip has already begun,” she said, recalling the two townswomen who had sniffed and pulled aside their skirts when she arrived in Primrose Creek. She heard Webb call out to the horses, heard the squeal of brakes as he set the lever. “I need to do this, Christy. I need to make my own way.”

  Christy started to speak again, then stopped herself and merely nodded.

  Megan hurried over to Zachary’s shaving mirror, peered into it, and pinched her cheeks to bring some color into her face. Too late, she realized that Christy was watching her with a curious smile.

  Webb knocked politely at the door, even though it was wide open to the spring sunshine and wildflower-scented breeze, and Megan had to struggle to keep herself from hurrying across the room to greet him.

  Christy did the honors. “Come in, Webb,” Megan heard her sister say warmly. “I suspect Megan has already packed her things.”

  Megan needn’t have pinched her cheeks; she could feel a high blush climbing her neck, headed for her hairline.

  Webb stood just over the threshold, hat in hand, a cattleman in stance, substance, and manner. Megan wouldn’t have traded his company for that of a dozen San Francisco dandies, decked out in silk shirts and polished boots—not just then, anyhow.

  “Mornin’,” he said, and he ducked his head a little, actually sounded and looked shy.

  Megan wasn’t fooled. Mr. Stratton was about as reticent as a coiled rattler, and if she didn’t keep an eye on him, she was sure to be bitten. “Good morning,” she said, her tone cool and more than slightly remote. “I’m ready. If you wouldn’t mind fetching my trunk?”

  “Point me to it,” he said. Christy might not have been there at all, nor the children. It seemed to Megan that the whole world had shrunk away into a vapor, leaving only the two of them, herself and Webb Stratton, in all creation.

  She indicated the doorway of her room with a hand that trembled slightly, and after glancing at Christy in an unspoken bid for permission, he proceeded to collect Megan’s things from the private part of the house.

  “We’ll be here if you need us,” Christy told her younger sister. “Zachary and the children and I. Right here.”

  Megan felt her throat swell with all the things she couldn’t say. She nodded instead and embraced Christy, and Christy embraced her in return, holding on tightly and for a long time. The two women parted in embarrassment when they realized, simultaneously, that Webb had returned.

  Megan took a last look around the house, as though she were setting out on some long journey and might never see it again, then kissed Christy on the cheek and started for the door. Webb was right behind her, easily carrying the big trunk that held all her earthly and unremarkable belongings.

  He lowered the tailgate on his buckboard and placed the trunk on the wagon bed, pushing it forward toward the back of the seat. Megan stood waiting until he came to her side and helped her aboard, smooth as a gentleman escorting a lady home from a cotillion.

  She gazed straight ahead as he turned the team toward his own place, afraid to look back at Christy for fear her resolve would weaken. She swallowed hard to keep from turning around in the seat to look back.

  It never paid to look back. Hadn’t Granddaddy said that, more times than she could count?

  Webb seemed to know she didn’t want to talk, and he held his peace all the way to his ranch house.

  When Megan had last seen her section of the Primrose Creek tract, there had been only grass, trees, meadows, and water, with a frieze of mountains edging the blue ceiling of sky. Now the place boasted a house as fine as Bridget’s or Christy’s, a two-story log structure with glass windows, four chimneys, and a covered veranda out front. The barn was four times the size of the house, Megan noted, and the corral was spacious, fenced with whitewashed rails. Cattle and horses roamed the nearby pastures, grazing in the sweet grass.

  She drew in her breath.

  “Like it?” Webb asked. His voice was quiet, but there was a note of pride in it.

  She sighed. “It’s—very nice.”

  “You could plant a few flowers. Stitch up some curtains, maybe. If you have time, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Megan agreed. She caught hold of her runaway emotions, gathered up her skirts, and made to climb down from the wagon. Webb caught hold of her arm and held her fast in the seat.

  “Sit tight,” Webb said. “I’ll help you down.”

  She was unnerved by the idea of his hands on her waist, but she didn’t have the strength to resist. “Very well,” she murmured, and the next thing she knew, she was suspended between heaven and earth, Webb’s strong hands clasping her sides. It seemed that she hung there, a creature of neither ground nor sky, for an eternity, looking down into Webb’s eyes.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” he said, walking away, lowering the tailgate with a clatter, dragging the trunk across the wagon bed so he could lift it into his arms. “I reckon you’ll want to spend the rest of the day getting settled.”

  Megan merely nodded, at a loss for words. Then she heard a dog barking exuberantly and turned to see a great yellow hound bounding toward them from the direction of the barn.

  “That’s just Augustus,” Webb said, passing her with the trunk, headed toward the house. “He’s given to a variety of enthusiasms, but he won’t hurt you.”

  It had never entered Megan’s mind that the animal would do her injury. She loved anything with four feet and fur, and Augustus most certainly fit the bill.

  “Hullo,” she greeted him.

  He jumped up, resting his huge paws on her shoulders, and licked her face.

  Megan laughed.

  “Augustus,” Webb growled, without even looking back. �
��Get down.”

  Augustus ignored his master and laved Megan from chin to forehead, all over again, making a jubilant whimpering sound in his throat the whole while.

  Megan ruffled him behind the ears, and he dropped to all fours then, panting, to trot along at her side as she followed Webb toward the house.

  The inside was cool and clean, smelling of beeswax, lamp oil, and recent wood fires. A hooked rug lay on the floor in front of the kitchen fireplace, and Augustus plopped himself down on it with a long-suffering sigh, as though exhausted.

  Megan took in the fine big cookstove, the open shelves lined with canned goods, sundries, and neatly stacked blue dishes, the planed and polished floors. Although there was nothing feminine about the place, it was welcoming, in a rustic sort of way, and Megan began to think in terms of pictures on the walls, potted geraniums, and good things baking in the oven. It wasn’t a long leap from there to flocks of fair-haired children, some with their father’s periwinkle eyes, some with green.

  “You’ll be sleeping in here,” Webb said, his voice echoing from a room just off the kitchen.

  Megan gathered her wits and followed the sound. The room was small, but it had a high window and a little stove for cold high-country nights. The bed was narrow and looked as though it might have been hauled in from the bunkhouse, but there was a nice quilt for a coverlet, and the pillow looked soft.

  Under the window was a wash stand, again very plain, topped with a basin and pitcher, white enamel, lined at the rims with red and chipped black here and there. He’d set out a towel and a bar of store-bought soap, and Megan was oddly touched by the sight. Webb had taken pains to see that she felt at home, she could tell that much.

  “You can hang your clothes on these pegs,” he said, quite unnecessarily, gesturing toward a row of wooden dowels nailed to a long, rough-hewn board and attached to the wall.

  “Thank you,” Megan said. She was wearing the only presentable dress she possessed, having refused the garments Christy had wanted to give her, unable to bear being the recipient of charity, even from her sister. What would her new employer think when he entered the kitchen one morning soon and found his housekeeper dressed in taffeta and feathers or beaded and ruffled silk? She smiled to think of it.