by Lisa Plumley
Right now, Daisy wanted to envision what it would be like to see Owen look at her with devotion, the way Miss Reardon had looked at Thomas today. She still felt downright enraptured by their attraction to one another. It was inspiring to think that two people could find one another, even in such a remote place as Morrow Creek. Daisy hadn’t seen much of the town yet, but she intended to remedy that soon. She liked what she’d seen so far—even if the place was reportedly wildly permissive.
Out here in the West, we don’t stand much on ceremony.
That’s what Owen had told her today. As Daisy looked at him now, with his shaggy dark hair, hawklike nose and caring eyes, she blessed him for saying so. He’d obviously sought to set her mind at ease over her supposed pregnancy. Another person might have turned her away, but not Owen. Owen had, in what appeared to be typically taciturn fashion, tried to reassure her.
Tardily, he blurted, “Everything is very nice, Daisy!”
His voice boomed across the kitchen table, startling her. Daisy jumped, making cutlery clatter. Élodie grinned, obviously proud of her papa for having remembered her earlier decree.
“Well done, Papa! You minded your manners!”
“Don’t be sassy. It’s not the first time, you know.”
“I know.” With patent care, Élodie examined Daisy. She adjusted her grasp on her fork, mimicking Daisy’s hold. She sat up a little straighter. “But Daisy says encouragement helps us learn new things better. Daisy says everyone likes a kind word.”
Owen angled his head. He squinted, seeming to notice his daughter’s mimicry of Daisy for the first time. “That’s true.”
“Daisy is very clever. And talented. And beautiful!”
Discomfited by so much praise, Daisy stood. “I should get busy with washing up. If you’ll point me to the water pump—”
“I’ll get the water.” Brusquely, Owen stood. He eyed her recently vacated ladder-back chair, all but intimidating her back into it. “You should rest. You’ve done too much already.”
“I feel fine!” Undeterred, Daisy strode toward the potbellied stove. She’d spied a tin bucket earlier that would work wonderfully to haul in some wash water. Knowing she was probably still blushing from Élodie’s effusive praise, she grabbed the bucket. “I’ll just—”
“You’ll just let me do it.” Owen’s broad chest and wide shoulders filled her vision. How had he moved so quickly to intercept her? He was much too big to move so agilely. Yet he obviously had. Without a word, he seized the bucket handle.
Inadvertently, their hands met again. Owen’s hand felt warm and callused and capable. Daisy’s hand felt…in dire need of more contact. Suffused with a longing for exactly that, she gazed up. “I can do it. I’m perfectly capable,” she said.
But her voice trembled on the words. And her breath, oddly enough, seemed to run away before she could catch it. How had she not noticed until now, Daisy wondered, how velvety and intriguing Owen’s eyes were? How had she not noticed how soft his lips looked…how arrestingly stubbled his jaw appeared?
Owen’s gaze dipped, tellingly, to her midsection. “While you’re here,” he said staunchly, “I will pump water for you, haul firewood for you, carry anything heavy and make sure you don’t overexert yourself in any way. Is that understood?”
Daisy wanted to disagree. She didn’t want to be under the thumb of anyone, not when she’d finally freed herself with that first brave step off the train and into her future. But on the other hand, Owen was only trying to safeguard her well-being…
As though sensing her hesitation, Owen lowered his voice. He angled his head nearer to hers. “Please, Daisy.” Now his tone sounded intriguingly compelling…private. His fingers stroked hers atop the bucket handle. “I want to do it. Let me help you.”
How had he become so charismatic? So…persuasive? In the blink of an eye, Owen had gone from a stableman to a charmer. Fascinated by the change in him, Daisy nonetheless managed to hold her ground. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am, Owen.”
“I can see that.” His gaze lifted to her face. Remarkably, there seemed to be respect—and compassion—in his eyes. “But I’ve already done enough I regret. Consider this a favor.”
Lulled by his intimate tone, Daisy wavered. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned your dire past,” she said to buy herself time. “Exactly what have you done that’s so terrible?”
Owen frowned. His gaze never left hers. “I can hold out longer than you can.” He tightened his grasp on the bucket’s handle. “Agree to let me do all the strenuous work for you.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair, is it? I’m not even—”
Pregnant. It stood between them, scandalous and absurd.
Daisy couldn’t say it aloud. Not again. Maybe she’d already used up her quantity of self-deception and denial for the day.
“I don’t want to be a problem for you,” she said instead.
Owen scoffed. “You’re far from problematic. Except…”
“Except?” Daisy echoed, reminded of Conrad’s insulting assessment of her. You won’t be my problem to deal with anymore.
“Except when you bite your lip that way.” Owen seemed mesmerized by the unconscious motion she’d made. “It’s very…” Roughly, he cleared his throat. “I can’t help being distracted.”
Imprudently thrilled, Daisy perked up. “Really? By me?”
She still couldn’t believe Owen hadn’t reprimanded her—for not acceding to his wishes, for not tamping down her arguments…for being herself, with all her foibles and hopes.
His frown did deepen imposingly, though. His eyes gleamed. “This doesn’t mean I won’t insist on doing all the difficult work for you. Give in, Daisy. I’ll have my way eventually.”
She believed him. Owen seemed to be the kind of man who got what he wanted, most of the time. But now Daisy had a small sense of her own burgeoning power. Testing it, she shook her head. Then, for good measure, she bit her lower lip again.
Owen glowered…but then he sighed, tellingly, as well.
For a long moment, they stood at an impasse. Obstinacy and attraction flared between them with equal measure. They each gave the bucket an ineffectual, possessive tug. Then a huge, childish sigh burst out. Élodie shoved back her chair.
“Fine!” She flapped her arms with girlish indignation, the movement most likely a dead ringer for a similar gesture Owen made. “If you’re both going to argue, I’ll get the water!”
Élodie took a similar bucket from beside the door. She tromped downstairs to the stable, leaving both adults behind.
For a moment, Daisy wondered about the prudence of being left alone with Owen, especially after they’d shared…whatever had passed between them. She still felt breathless, owing to its galvanizing effects. Gazing up at Owen, she wondered if he felt the same way. She wondered if he knew how effective his charms had been against her, or if he even knew he’d used them at all.
If that’s what he’d meant by the bad things he’d done…
Well, she guessed bad was a matter of perspective.
A second later, Daisy realized she wouldn’t find out—at least not today.
“I’d better go help Élodie,” Owen told her, then he took the bucket from Daisy’s slackened grasp and headed downstairs.
Chapter Twelve
Eventually Daisy could delay no longer. With the dishes washed, the kitchen put to rights and Élodie safely tucked into bed, Daisy took her leave of Owen, then headed to bed herself.
Several minutes later, with Owen’s gruff “good night” still ringing in her head, she stood alone in his bedroom. The place was plain but spotless, unassuming but comfortable—a lot like Owen himself, in fact. And there, alone with no lessons or conversations or chores to distract her, Daisy finally allowed herself to contemplate the life-changing statement Owen had made earlier, when he’d seen her cradling her belly.
You’re going to have a baby.
Could it be true? In a way Daisy hadn�
�t dared to do until now, she glanced down speculatively at herself. With trembling hands, she smoothed her white, ruffled-hem nightgown—a garment generously lent to her by Miss Reardon—then took a careful look. Her belly was undeniably rounder, she saw. Not by much, but the change was noticeable. At least it was to her.
Evidently it had been noticeable to Conrad, too.
That blue dress makes you look a bit stout, he’d told her. At the time, she’d attributed his observation to the effects of minor overindulgence while on her speaking-engagements tour—and to the fact that such overindulgence had led her to loosen her corsets a tad to compensate. But now, after her encounter with Owen and his startling revelation, Daisy wondered.
She wondered…then retreated instantly from the thought. Granted, she had been feeling a bit…different lately. She’d been feeling tired, weepy, and anxious, by turns. But that was easily explained by the pressure she’d been under while traveling across the country on her tour. Wasn’t it?
She simply could not be having a baby. It wasn’t possible.
Or at least, Daisy allowed, it wasn’t probable. Still cradling her belly, she recalled that she had, regrettably, been intimate with Conrad. During those early, impressionable days when she’d been so bedazzled by Conrad and so eager to please him—so keen to retain her job and prove herself worthy of her publisher’s esteem—she’d given in to Conrad’s flattering attention and allowed him to be with her.
But Conrad had assured her that he knew how to “take care of things.” He’d promised her that their liaisons were pure hearted…and all but expected, too, while on her speaking tour. He’d sworn, with utmost sincerity, that he cared about her and wanted to help her “grow into womanhood.”
Well, Daisy thought with a sad quirk of her lips, it was possible now that she was growing an entirely new person.
Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t! Daisy had been innocent, but she hadn’t been gullible, she reminded herself. She’d kept her heart her own, as much as possible. And that had been a good thing too, since Conrad had hurtfully lost interest in her very quickly. Their last liaison had been weeks ago. Several weeks ago, in fact.
Surely, if she were actually pregnant, she would know it?
Owen must be wrong, no matter how certain he’d sounded today.
You’re going to have a baby, he’d said…but as much as Daisy wanted to have a family of her own someday, the thought of being pregnant now truly scared her. Already she felt alone in the world. She was miles from home, miles from her friends. She was without any ready means of financial support of her own—except for the money she’d cadged from her last speaking engagement, which still remained in the pocket of Conrad’s pilfered overcoat. To make matters worse, she was without even the most fundamental of personal items, too.
Thanks to her impulsive actions, she’d left her touring train without so much as her traveling trunk by her side. As of right now, Daisy possessed exactly one satchel, one dress and set of undergarments, one pair of shoes, one reticule and one copy of the New Book of Cookery and General Home Keeping: with Recipes and Formulas for All Occasions, Both Informal and Grand. The generous women of Morrow Creek had volunteered to lend her a wardrobe while she was in town visiting, but that didn’t change the fact that Daisy had behaved impetuously.
Certainly she could be forgiven for wanting to see her brother, for wanting to keep her promise to visit him in Morrow Creek. But if Thomas knew how recklessly she’d behaved—
Daisy stopped, coming to an even more alarming realization. When her brother learned about her…secret, he would be so disappointed in her. That was simply one more reason it could not be true. It could not be! In search of reassurance, Daisy glanced down at her belly again. Its undeniably rounded curve sent fresh apprehension coursing through her. Thomas was truly kindhearted, but he had his own life to enjoy. If he thought she was having a baby, he would feel compelled to help.
Daisy tried to envision herself breaking the news of her impending motherhood to her brother. The imagined sight of his disappointed face made her feel worse than ever. Thomas would say, quite rightly, that Daisy was in no position to be a mother. He would say she was unprepared to have a baby.
But oh…how she wanted one! For the space of a heartbeat, Daisy allowed herself to imagine how differently this situation might have unfolded, were her circumstances different. She pictured herself with a loving husband by her side, with a cooing infant in her arms, with a safe and secure home to enclose and comfort all of them.
That was what she wanted most of all. Having a home and family of her own was her very fondest dream. But now…
Now that dream was gone. No man would want an unwed mother for a wife, Daisy realized. No man would want to play father to another man’s child. And since Conrad would be her baby’s father… Well, that fact brought complications of its own.
Fretfully, Daisy paced Owen’s bedroom. With Conrad as her baby’s father, she couldn’t deny him the right to be with his child. No matter that she didn’t love Conrad. Perhaps she would learn to love him. Perhaps, given the bond of parenting, they would be able to transcend their differences: his distaste for her failings, his dismay at her ineptitude, his dissatisfaction with almost everything she said and did, at least lately—
Abruptly, nausea overwhelmed her. With a startled cry, Daisy bolted for the empty basin on the other side of the bedroom. Apparently, leaving the train hadn’t been sufficient to cure her traveling sickness.
Either that, or Owen was right: she was having a baby.
What in the world was she going to do?
Chapter Thirteen
In the early-morning brightness of his ramshackle kitchen, Owen grabbed a cloth. He wrapped it securely around the oven’s door handle, then opened the heavy cast-iron door. Heat blasted him, almost making his eyebrows curl. He scowled inside, damn near fiercely enough to coerce it into cooking more quickly.
It wouldn’t do, he’d decided in the restless hours before dawn, to appear too eager for Daisy’s approval. Yesterday, she’d all but led him around by the nose, with all her smiles and tender touches. Today, Owen was determined to be tougher.
“Is the toast ready yet, Papa?” Élodie asked.
“Almost, mon petit—” On the verge of completing that endearment, Owen felt himself flush. Or maybe it was only the heat from the oven with its rack of toasting bread inside that made him feel overwarm. Probably the fact that Daisy sat across the table from Élodie, close enough to scrutinize every move Owen made, had nothing to do with his reticence. “Chou,” he finished in a burst of defiant sappiness. “Almost ready.”
He hoped his pet name for Élodie would pass by unnoticed. He was instantly disappointed. His daughter turned to Daisy. “Mon petit chou is what Maman used to call me before she passed on,” Élodie confided eagerly. “Now Papa calls me that too, to make sure I don’t forget her.” His daughter wrinkled her nose in—it occurred to Owen—near-perfect imitation of Daisy. “I don’t remember Maman too well because I was so little then, but I do like hearing my papa speak French, ever so much!”
“Yes, it’s charming.” Daisy delivered him an amused look. “I guess a fluency in French is a good thing for a man to have in his arsenal. All the better to impress ladies with.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. Papa could speak gibberish, and the ladies would still swoon. Ladies hereabouts are awfully impressed with him!” Élodie kicked the leg of the nearest chair with typical restiveness. She smiled at Daisy. “Here in Morrow Creek, all the ladies go downright spoony when they see him!”
Now Daisy appeared skeptical, gallingly so for a woman who’d almost flirted with him yesterday. “Hmm. Is that right?”
“Yes! It is!” Élodie alleged with a vigorous nod. “Papa is quite a catch, they say! He’s the most marriageable man in Morrow Creek. At least that’s what I hear around town these days, when I’m on my way to school or accompanying Mrs. Archer.”
“Truly?” Wearing a dubious express
ion, Daisy put her chin in her hand. “Your father is considered marriageable? Even with those eyebrows? That long hair? Those scowling faces he makes?”
She was teasing him, Owen realized with a sense of astonishment. Daisy was teasing him the same way she’d done when she’d pretended to have adorned his stable with flowery bric-a-brac yesterday. Then, as now, he’d fallen for her ruse, too.
No one in town ever teased him, he realized. They all took Owen exactly as seriously as he did, as seriously as he’d needed them to do, to keep himself on the straight-and-narrow path.
Telling himself he didn’t care what Daisy Walsh thought, Owen scowled anew, fighting a ruinous urge to tug at his hair—his perfectly ordinary, shoulder-length dark hair. If Daisy thought she would play Delilah to his Samson, she’d better think again. But he almost had to tie his hands behind his back to avoid smoothing out his purportedly problematic eyebrows.
They were fine. Fine!
Unfortunately, his daughter disagreed.
Woefully, Élodie regarded him. She nodded. “Yes, even with all those problems, everyone still loves Papa. I reckon he’ll sweeten up even more, though, with a good lady nearby.”
Doubtfully, Daisy examined him. The woman was a downright prankster, it seemed, intent on bedeviling him at every turn.
“Well, if you say so…” she said, seemingly unconvinced.
Their girlish, gossipy tone got under his skin. That was enough, Owen decided. Perfect toast be damned. He needed to end this conversation before things got out of hand.
He opened the oven door again, pulled out the rack of toast, then slammed it on the stove top hard enough to make the burner covers rattle. “Who wants toast?” he demanded to know.
As he’d expected, his easily diverted daughter gleefully proclaimed her fondness for toast. Owen doled out a portion on her plate, then did the same for Daisy. He stood nearby them both, arms crossed, waiting for the breakfasting to commence.
