Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story)

by Rose, Amelia

  I glanced at the mantle clock, an ornate thing of black wood and pointless gold curlicues, and saw the day had not yet realized six a.m.

  "The men are going to the church early to change. Your mother is coming to help you prepare, though I don't know what she thinks you need help preparing. The cooks are finishing the wedding feast and you're not going to fit in that dress after eating all that, but you can't not eat it because they've worked so hard, and Mr. Barnett has brought the cake."

  She fluttered across the room, set a mug on the dresser by the mantle clock and a vase full of fresh flowers that rather stank.

  "Hutch is—" She colored. "Well, I drew him a bath and left him to it." She straightened the flowers, went to the chifferobe and checked on the dress, in case it had escaped during the night. I wouldn't have admitted it for the world, but the flash of white satin I saw as she opened and closed the door again reassured me.

  It didn't reassure her. She opened and closed the door a few more times. I don't know where she thought the dress was going to go.

  "I think you're more nervous than I am," I told her, but then, I was up and dressed in traveling clothes, washed and combed and had already, several times, checked my dress where it hung in the chifferobe, and there was the fact that it was there, in my room. I'd been far too nervous to leave it in Annie's shop the night before when, late in the evening, the group of us had affixed the final seed pearls, all of which we'd managed without bleeding on the dress at any time, despite numerous needle-struck fingers and most unladylike swearing.

  My dress was ready. Isabel, my maid of honor, had her dress and was staying in a room down the hall from me. Maggie, Annie, Sarah, and Kitty had sewn bridesmaid dresses as we worked on my dress. Matthew's best man was Hutch and his groomsmen, friends from the mine, John Overton and Marcus Millichap.

  "I brought you coffee," Maggie said. It was the first thing she'd said since entering and finding me awake that made sense. She turned then, from the window where she'd looked out over C Street, and came over and sat down next to me where I perched on the bed. "I'm happy for you. You're going to be happy. Matthew will be. He'll finally settle. And you'll be my sister."

  I smiled and felt a little of the panic the day was bringing to recede. "I think I already am," I said. For a minute, we sat, her arm around my shoulders, my head on her shoulder, both of us staring at the chifferobe.

  Then, in tandem, we stood, crossed the room and checked on the dress.

  At sundown, we assembled at the church. Matthew rode with his brother, I rode with Maggie and everyone else arrived there somehow. The wind had picked up, because Nevada is windy in the spring, but the skies were clear and the sunset a general apricot color over the Sierra in the distance.

  My father—The Honorable Mayor Anders, somber in a dark suit, his white hair combed for a change—met with me in a small anteroom.

  "Not too late to change your mind," he said and I bristled before my mother said, "Chloe, your father is making a joke."

  I wasn't so sure of that, but I responded, "I've sewn one million seed pearls onto this dress. The wedding happens."

  Annie, fussing with my train, said, "Don't exaggerate. I'm sure it was only half a million."

  Every church has an organist. A surprising number of churches have organists who can't truly play. Ours was no exception. When Mrs. O'Grady began pummeling the keys, my mother slipped away to allow Hutch to lead her to a front row pew, her parting words being, "The sooner you head up the aisle, the sooner she stops," which made all of us giggle so much that Mrs. O'Grady had considerably more time on the organ than she should have.

  It was my father who finally made me and my party of six behave and he did it simply: He kissed me on the cheek again, so seriously, like a man who feels he's losing his daughter. Then, he took my arm and settled it comfortably over his and nodded at Isabel to lead. With Maggie and Annie, Sarah, Kitty and Caroline following, we stepped into the church.

  At first glimpse, I almost bolted. The pews were filled, the invited friends and family standing and looking back to me. My knees went weak, my breath went away, my ears buzzed and I was sure I wouldn't even be able to remember my name.

  But Father led me, one slow, cadenced step at a time, and I looked up on the third step and saw Matthew, waiting, handsome and calm in a dark suit, his dark curls wild, his eyes only on me.

  He didn't look pale or scared, or as if he meant to run at any minute. He looked joyous and proud and as if he might, actually, run—to me.

  My father kept me moving slowly, gracefully and despite my knees, step by step, until we reached the group before the altar, where first Isabel stopped and then we did, and he gravely transferred my hand to Matthew's and retired to the pew to sit beside my mother.

  I looked into Matthew's eyes and couldn't look away. Reverend Shaw read the service and we took our vows and, at some point, I responded and heard Matthew respond to questions asked us and vows made and, all the while, there was Matthew, eyes bright, mouth turned up in a smile.

  He kissed me, and we were wed.

  The Faro Queen lobby was strung with lace and lit with candles. Always gleaming, it now glowed under Annie's ministrations. The cake Mr. Barnett had baked stood high and beautiful on the bar top and Hutch opened bottles of champagne.

  Fiddlers played on the small stage set on the side of the bar and Matthew, bowing with all appearances of sincerity, took my hand and led me to the floor. We danced until breathless, until my parents joined in, then Hutch and Maggie and Annie grabbed John Overton's hand and pulled him in. Soon, the lobby was full and swirling and the music loud and the laughter louder and no one noticed, or at least they pretended not to, when Matthew and I slid away.

  We slipped out through the back door, the one Elizabeth Seth had come through on that day in January when she set fire to the Queen and tried to kill me. There were still traces of snow in the lee of the foothill, in the places where shadows of buildings shaded the ground in the afternoons, but the air was warmer tonight. April in the high desert can bring sleet and freezes and snow that piles up on Mt. Davidson. It hadn't and I was grateful.

  We leaned on the porch rail to the right of the back door and watched as a few clouds moved across the moon. Somewhere in the night, a coyote howled, but just one, and none answered it. From a nearby building, an owl chortled softly and, from behind us, the music rose again as the dancers clapped and chanted and boots rang against the floor.

  Matthew put his arm around my shoulders and we stood, alone in the night, content, for the time being, to be silent. When I let my head fall against his chest, he tilted his head down, used one knuckle to tilt my head up and our lips met. The kiss was sweet, gentle and lingering, with the promise of so much more that tonight, finally, could happen. Tonight, Matthew wouldn't sleep on the couch in The Faro Queen's lobby and tonight, most likely, we wouldn't sleep in the house he'd bought from Hutch. It might only be a few miles away, but the room I usually took at the Queen was only a few flights of stairs away.

  He carried me through the door, over the threshold, our eyes never letting each other go. He kicked the door shut behind us with his foot and carried me to the bed where so many nights he'd said goodnight to me.

  The bed gave under his weight. He sat, pulling me down with him, cradling me in his arms. His mouth found mine again, in the half dark room lit only by the gas lights beyond the windows. His face was lines and shadows, hollows of cheekbones, dark of beard. His eyes seemed endlessly dark; in the shadows, I could make out the love in his eyes.

  I pressed myself against him, feeling his heartbeat quicken beneath his suit jacket. My arms stretched around his neck, my cheek against his chest. We pressed together, kissing as if we meant never to stop. His hands were gentle on the buttons of my dress, reverent, almost, as if he'd never before gone so far.

  The jacket of my dress finally fell open to the corset beneath and then he smiled, just a little, and whispered, "Can you breathe in that?"


  And I couldn't, not really, and I said so, feeling his fingers more sure than mine, even as he untied the stays and pulled the ribbons free. He slipped the arms of my dress off my shoulders, pulled them behind, gently, so my arms came free. Already, I was tugging at his tie, at the buttons on his shirt, shoving shirt and suit coat off together, tangling him in them and untangling him, at the same time my mouth explored his smooth chest, the hard muscle, the hot skin, the smell of him, the way Matthew still smelled of freshly cut wood and sage and Nevada dirt and the wind.

  When his arms were free, he continued the mysteries of the dress, fussing with bustle and buttons meant to tame the train when we danced, buttons that allowed him no closer to freeing me from the dress but confounded him and finally made him laugh, swearing softly, asking, "Did Annie make this to fox me?"

  "Wouldn't put it past her," I said, my words muffled by his throat, his curls, his skin. I pushed away from him, stood to get a better take on the dress, suddenly unable to remember how I'd gotten into it in the first place and, standing, felt it fall from me in a rush of satin, pooling around my knees, too much dress to go much farther but I was free, still booted, but the corset fell away. The under shift twisted easily over my head; the dress, I stepped clear of.

  The room was cold. We hadn't bothered with a fire, hadn't remembered to close the curtains earlier in the night. I didn't feel the cold. I felt Matthew's heat, felt his impatience as we struggled now with his trousers, a perfectly normal garment that to our fingers felt strange and ill-made. We laughed together, tugged, stopped when Matthew sat to kick off his boots, then stood again, working the buttons on the trousers until they, too, fell away, and there was just the two of us, standing together, pressing together so close we could be one person.

  The icy sheets welcomed us and warmed around us quickly.

  In the morning, I woke with sunlight pouring into the room through curtains we'd never remembered to close. My head was nestled in the hollow of Matthew's shoulder. His lips were in my hair, gently kissing me awake.

  When I shifted to smile up at him, he winked and said, "You never took your boots off, Mrs. Longren."

  I stilled, shifted my legs under the quilts and laughed. "My feet are warm, Mr. Longren. That oddity may never happen again."

  Which made Matthew laugh.

  He carried me over the second threshold after services that Sunday morning, back into Gold Hill, into the house that had been Hutch's, and only for a little while. We would leave on Tuesday morning to honeymoon in Reno.

  Chapter 9

  They called the railroad Very Crooked and Terribly Rough, though, in reality, it was meant to be the Virginia City, Truckee and Reno line. I agreed with the first name and resented the train's effect on Matthew, which was to make him find every conceivable way to lean out, look out and get out of it, examining from every angle as I tried not to clutch at his legs and worry he'd fall from it.

  He was smitten. I'd have preferred him to be smitten with his new wife. At the beginning of the journey, I worried. Then, I tried to match his interest. Failing that, completely, I pulled out one of Maggie's mystery stories and read.

  The rail trip wasn't long. In truth, we were there quite quickly, though it took somewhat longer to pry Matthew away from the train.

  I had not expected to be cast aside for another quite so soon.

  That afternoon, we strolled along the Truckee River, ate a hearty dinner in a restaurant along the river's edge and retired, at last, to our room.

  During that time, I heard about steam locomotives and railroads and trains, so much so, that when we sat in our room with the gentle evening air stirring the curtains and Virginia Street below us, I asked him why he owned a hotel and why, before that, he had owned a silver mine.

  Matthew's eyes lit up, as if the question sparked something I hadn't expected, or perhaps he was just happy to share his enthusiasm. He told me about the model train he'd had as a child, and about how he'd traveled from Alturas to Virginia City by train whenever and wherever possible. He told me how they worked, which made no sense to me, and how fast they could travel and how beautiful and sleek they were.

  "Almost," he added, his eyes losing their faraway stare, "as beautiful and sleek as my bride."

  There was no more talk of trains that night.

  My father had taken my mother and me to San Francisco once, when I was 14. He had work to do in the city and we took a train down and stayed as he did the work. The city was very different from Gold Hill, wild and rough and somehow cultured anyway. Everything there seemed bigger, not just the number of people because, of course, the city itself was larger, but the buildings, the concert halls, the hotels. The air hung thick, heavy and wet around us when we went out and, as it was spring, it was cool in the evenings but not still snowing as it had been at home.

  I had never given much thought to where I lived. Nevada was my home and I loved the vistas of rolling foothills and blue-distant mountains, loved the sprawl of sagebrush, the funny tall-eared jackrabbits, the crows and magpies and blue jays. The trip, though, shook me out of my daily life and, on my return, my desert home and daily existence felt drear, dun and dull.

  So, I questioned the feeling I had in Reno on our honeymoon. Surely this time out of life to become acquainted with my new husband as husband was, as to be expected, special. Everything was different. I was different and so was Matthew and there were no daily chores to be done. Meals were prepared for us, linens cleaned, we simply enjoyed each day, visiting shops we didn't know and walking alongside the river.

  The feeling that I didn't want to go back to Gold Hill could be nothing more than enjoying this special time with my new husband. I knew that.

  I just didn't believe it. Being in Reno felt different. Everyone we met was a stranger and—although that might grow exhausting, while I might, if we were to stay, miss my parents, Maggie, Hutch, Annie, Issy, everyone I knew and liked—there was also no chance of running into any of the Seths or Cynthia or Violet. There was no animosity from anyone who thought Matthew and I might have been closer before we were married than we ought to have been and no one judging my new sister for her midwifery skills.

  It was a new start.

  "Let's go for a walk," Matthew said, interrupting my thoughts.

  My thoughts turned to rather more indoor pursuits, but he held his hand out and I accepted. We followed the river some distance from the hotel, enjoying the peaceful, warm April afternoon. We stopped in a bakery and drank coffee and ate cake, then walked into the center of town, where the V&T Railroad arrived and departed.

  We were looking at trains again.

  Matthew walked along the train, noting parts of it that all looked the same to me—heavy, dark, and metal. But I listened and asked questions and would have had no idea had he simply made up the answers, but answering me made him happy.

  His answering me also attracted the interest of one of the engineers, who came over to nod deferentially to me and to invoke conversation with Matthew, which was peppered with phrases like air-cooled hot steam engines and pounds of torque and estimates of speed and sparks and wheels and comparisons to coal and so on. I wandered away to pet some horses standing patiently tethered and waiting for their masters. The day was bright and cool, with high clouds playing chase with the sun. Children walked with their mothers, or ran screaming around them. Gentlemen and cowboys mingled on the streets. I saw as many men with rolled up shirt sleeves, corded forearms, and side arms on their hips as I did men in suits and hats. The town was faster than Virginia City and, though I didn't know if it was larger, it was appealing to me with its different scents and unfamiliar faces.

  Matthew returned to me after some time, his expression light but distracted. We walked in silence for some time before returning to our room and changing for dinner.

  Over the years, I'd watched my mother with my father, who tends to be taciturn and thoughtful. Matthew was neither of those things but tonight he was, at least, distracted. Throughout
dinner, he looked out the restaurant window and, over coffee, he looked at the window and when he finally looked up at me, as if I'd just appeared out of nowhere, I probably startled him by laughing.

  "What's so funny?"

  I shook my head. "If I have to tell you, it won't be."

  The fact he let that stand was enough for me to expect what he had to say was serious.

  "I've been doing some thinking," he said, and though I could have laughed at the obviousness of that, I didn't. "Chloe, your home is Gold Hill. I know that."

  "My home is with you," I said.

  He smiled, but motioned for me to wait. "You say that and I appreciate it. But you have both your parents there and they don't have other children. You have your friends and Annie, and it seems you've been becoming pretty close to Maggie."

  I nodded. I wanted to rush into speech. I knew where he was going and I could have saved him a ton of worry. But, the fact that he had taken the time to think it out and to do the worrying, that deserved listening.

  The waiter brought us more coffee. Outside, the early spring night had gone dark. Two cowboys walked along the street, pistols on their belts, hats drawn low. Beyond them were the rails. We'd even eaten where we could see trains. I'd have had to be blind not to understand.

  I waited.

  "I followed Hutch out to Virginia City because the last thing I wanted was to go into cattle ranching like my Daddy. Nothing wrong with it, but…" He stopped, as if he hadn't thought through this part.

  "You don't like cows?" I hazarded. The coffee was thick and dark, like the night outside.

  "That's as good as any answer."

  There'd been no question.

  "The mines. I never liked the mines. The money, hell yeah. But going down in the earth?" He looked around the restaurant as if someone was going to come up behind him and shove him down into a basement, or into an actual mine. "You breathe a word of this to Hutch or Maggie and I'll sleep on the couch for a month, but, every time I went down there, I thought I was going to die."