The Brides of Chance Collection

by Kelly Eileen Hake,Cathy Marie Hake,Tracey V. Bateman

  “Supper is ready, gentlemen,” she announced.

  Gideon wanted to wallop his brothers. She hadn’t even finished the sentence, and they were falling all over each other to reach the table. He intentionally waited a minute before taking his customary place at the head of the table.

  Titus sprang up, pulled out a chair, and said, “Here you go, Miss Miriam.”

  “Thank you,” she said…or simpered. Gideon wasn’t sure whether she was genuine in her gratitude or trying to wrap Titus around her little finger.

  Miriam claimed Polly again. They folded their hands, and the brothers fell into a chagrined silence. They’d already started to dig in. Spoons froze halfway to mouths, then were lowered down to rest in the bowls as Polly’s uncles heard the little tyke singsong a prayer all by herself. Good sports that they were, they all chimed in on the “Amen.”

  Daniel kept hold of Ginny Mae, but he had his hands full, trying to keep her from sticking her fingers into his bowl. Miriam reached over, scooted his bowl farther to the right, and grabbed a small tin plate from the center of the table. That plate had tiny bites of chicken, vegetables, and little fingers of buttered bread on it. They were all the perfect size for Ginny Mae to pinch with her chubby baby fingers and eat all by herself. Miriam set the plate down in front of the baby, but she said nothing.

  “Well looky there,” Bryce said. “Hannah used to do that for Polly.”

  Daniel’s head swiveled sharply toward Bryce. His eyes burned like coals. Bryce stared at his brother for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “I do believe I need the butter for my bread.” He jabbed Titus in the ribs. “Gimme the butter.”

  Gideon wasn’t sure whom to kick under the table first: Daniel for being mean as a chained bear or Bryce for sticking his foot in his mouth yet again.

  The plate was a good idea. He hadn’t spied it because it was on the other side of a canning jar filled with wildflowers. The last time they’d had flowers in the house was when Hannah was still alive. She’d gotten a fistful of them and spoken wistfully about the big, fragrant blossoms back home. It hadn’t occurred to him that she was homesick; but as he thought back, that would have been about the time she’d written to invite Miriam to come. Besotted as Daniel was, all of them figured he kept Hannah happy. The fact that she’d been carrying a second child so quickly certainly reinforced the notion she felt every bit as contented about her life and marriage as Daniel was.

  Gideon paused, his spoon halfway up to his mouth. He’d not thought about Hannah for months. She’d been like a rainbow—pretty but fleeting. Insubstantial. Foul as Daniel’s mood had grown, if he knew his brothers were thinking of his wife, he’d have spoiled for a nasty fistfight.

  As for Miriam…well, Gideon vowed to be sure she and her trunks made it on the very next voyage back toward her parents. At the moment, her luggage occupied a chunk of the floor over by the window. She’d pulled her outfit today from the larger of the two trunks.

  An uncharitable thought arced across his mind. For being a pretty gal, Miss Miriam sure worked hard at looking homely. He’d held her. He knew her shape. It had plenty to recommend it to the opposite gender. Instead of fancying up that slate job with a lacy collar, fancy buttons, or doodads, she’d left it painfully plain. She’d proven she could wield a needle with great skill, so why did her gown bag a bit on her? Had she been ailing? Had she lost weight?

  He sent the bowl of the fancy salad her way after taking a generous second helping. “You’d best eat up, Miss Miriam. From the way your gown fits, I’d guess you had a bit of trouble keeping your meals down on the voyage here. We’ll need to fatten you up in the next few days ’til you leave.”

  “Leave!” Logan half-shouted.

  “You’re going? Say it isn’t so,” Bryce said. To Gideon’s disgust, his brother looked like a lovesick calf.

  “I—”

  “She has to go,” Gideon cut in before Miriam grabbed the chance to put in her two cents’ worth.

  Paul scowled. “She just got here.”

  “Yes, I did. Since this involves me, I—”

  “Ought to stay,” Titus finished for her as he set down his coffee mug with a decisive thump. “It’s downright cruel to stick her back aboard a vessel this quick. We’ve all heard how difficult a voyage is, and she’s not even rested up and recovered.”

  Daniel glared at her. “She can lie in her berth day and night if she’s all that worn out.”

  What little color Miriam’s face held seeped away. “I refuse to be locked in a cabin for weeks on end again!”

  “Locked in a cabin!” Logan and Paul bellowed in outrage together.

  “Now, Miss Miriam,” Gideon said through gritted teeth, “there’s no need to stretch the truth here.”

  “Oh, I’m not stretching it one bit. Two days out of port, Captain Raithly locked me into the first mate’s cabin. I didn’t see sky again until the day we docked.”

  “He didn’t do it unless you deserved to be punished,” Daniel snapped.

  Miriam recoiled as if his words packed a physical blow. Her eyes and voice radiated hurt. “Daniel, what did I ever do to deserve your judgment and condemnation?”

  Daniel glared at Gideon and slammed his fist down on the table. “I told you to get rid of her.”

  Polly climbed into her aunt’s lap. She managed to smear food across the slate bodice, and she clung to Miriam’s sleeve. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Please don’t go, Auntie Miri-Em.”

  Miriam kissed Polly’s forehead, then gave Gideon a pleading look.

  The sight of her cuddling Polly close, the way she naturally smoothed and fingered her niece’s little curls, the spill of dainty white ruffles on a child who had never owned anything frilly—they tugged at his heart. He and his brothers had somehow slipped up and not tended to some of the finer points of rearing a girl. But now that we know, we can do it.

  “Auntie Miri-Em, I need you!”

  “I’ll stay just as long as you need me,” she pledged.

  “You’re going,” Gideon asserted. How dare she invite herself, then announce she is going to move in and take over matters and make decisions? That proved the point: Miriam Hancock had to leave before she tried to change and rule their comfortable world. “I said we’d buy the stupid ticket!”

  “Gideon Chance, you’ll watch your attitude and language!”

  He glowered at her. “The last thing I need is some prissy, holier-than-thou, missionary girl telling me what to do at my own table.”

  Miriam let out a long sigh. “Very well. I’ll give you options to fulfill that requirement. Either I’ll take possession of the cottage and take my meals there—”

  “Don’t you step foot in my home again.” Daniel’s voice rivaled a thunderclap.

  She lifted her chin. Her eyes didn’t snap with temper, and her jaw didn’t jut forward with stubbornness, either. Gideon had to give her credit, because her eyes didn’t even well up with tears. For being a woman, she had remarkable self-control. “Since that choice does not suit, I’ll simply take the girls back on the ship with me.”

  Daniel lurched to his feet with a loud roar. “No!” He kept hold of Ginny Mae in one arm and whisked Polly out of Miriam’s hold with the other. “We don’t want you, and we don’t need you. Get out of here. Get out of our home and lives.”

  Bryce hopped up. “Don’t you talk that way to her! If you wasn’t holding the girls right now, I’d bust your chops.”

  Gideon had been on his feet and about to say something similar. He caught himself before he made a buffoon of himself. Here I am, about to be her champion, yet I want her gone. The sight of his smallest brother, a mere teen, standing up to a full-grown man angered him. “Enough of this. We’re not coming to blows or having a brawl. I made a decision. It stands.”

  Awkward silence filled the room. Ginny Mae smacked her little hand over Daniel’s chest. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

  Daniel’s expression qualified as purely malevolent as he spoke to Mir
iam. “She knows whom she belongs to, and it isn’t you.” He turned to Gideon. “Get rid of her. Today.”

  They watched Daniel as he stomped to the door, went out, and kicked it shut with a vengeance. Gideon managed not to wince.

  “Gideon,” Paul said.

  “What now?”

  Paul folded his arms across his chest. That move always warned Gideon his brother was about to render an unwanted opinion.

  “You’re not going to drain our savings to buy Miriam’s ticket on a ship. You have no right to make that kind of financial commitment without consulting us.”

  “Yeah,” Titus agreed. “We all do a fair share of the work. This is a voting issue.”

  “Excuse me, please. If you’ll allow me a moment, I should absent myself from the table until this is settled.” Miriam slipped from the table, took something from the oven, and set it on the table, then went out the door.

  Gideon looked at the table and groaned.

  Chapter 9

  Gingerbread. Miriam had made gingerbread. Gideon’s mouth watered as he said, “You’re Daniel’s brothers and owe him your support and allegiance. He loved the daylights out of Hannah. He doesn’t want to be saddled with her kid sister. It’s a big responsibility, and we’re all doing far too much already.”

  “She helps, Gideon,” Bryce said in a wheedling tone. “She cooks and cleans and watches the girls. She’s not a burden.”

  “The girls need a woman’s touch,” Paul said thoughtfully. “Dan’s not making any bones about how upset he is, but Dan is…Dan. He’ll get over it.”

  “You’re not sure of that at all,” Gideon countered. “He carries a grudge worse than a gypped cardsharp.”

  Logan shrugged. “Tough luck. You got a good gander at Polly. We love her and Ginny Mae to pieces, but Miriam’s already doin’ things for her we can’t. Seems to me, as time passes, it’s going to be more important to have a woman around to tend to femaletype matters.”

  “That’s years down the road,” Gideon countered. He tried like anything to ignore the aroma of the gingerbread. “By then, one of us will probably have married.”

  “And is Dan going to buck like a bronc then, too?” Bryce asked. “It’s been ten months since Hannah passed over. I’m not saying that’s all that long, but I do think he’d better learn he has to go on living. He’s not thinking of his girls—he’s thinking of hisself.”

  Titus cleared his throat. “You asked us to think of Daniel, Gideon. Well, I am. I think we have to save him from himself. All of us already stepped in and helped with those girls because he can’t do it all on his own. This is another one of those times when we’re going to have to intervene.”

  “Think this through. Where in the world does she sleep? What in thunder are we going to do with a single woman underfoot?” Gideon realized it sounded like he was weakening. He immediately tacked on, “No, it’s all wrong. She has to go.”

  “That’s your vote,” Titus said. “We all know where Daniel stands on this. I say she stays.”

  “She stays,” Bryce and Logan said in unison.

  Gideon turned to Paul. “Don’t vote until you think this through. I didn’t make a snap decision. I’ve been thinking it over from the very start.”

  Rare were the times things came up for a vote. Gideon usually made the decisions. Because he shouldered that responsibility, they’d agreed if a vote ever came to a tie, he’d make a final determination. If Paul voted for Miriam to go, it would be a tie, so Gideon’s decision would stand. If Paul sided with the others, they’d be saddled with a fussy little snip of a woman until she, too, sickened and died.

  Paul was the quiet brother. Thoughtful. Did more reading. His cautious nature had stood them in good stead more than once. He ambled to the windows—the windows Miriam had cleaned—and looked out. “Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if Mama died instead of Dad? We’d have kept the old ranch, but that old ranch house would have felt so empty. Mama made the house a home. Even here, rough as this was, she set out her quilts and stuck wildflowers on the table. Hannah did that, too, and it did us all good.”

  And Miriam’s already started nesting like a sparrow, too. Gideon glanced at the colorful bouquet on the table.

  Paul turned back around. “Polly and Ginny won’t remember their mama. There aren’t three decent women within a day’s ride. Someone’s got to teach them to pick posies, cook, and quilt.”

  “If we couldn’t keep Polly in drawers and a dress,” Logan said, “we sure won’t train her or Ginny Mae up so they’ll be good women.”

  Gideon groaned. This is a nightmare!

  “Gideon’s right,” Logan said. “There’s gonna be plenty of trouble, keeping her here. Dan’s likely to splavocate. Furthermore, we’re not gonna be able to shower in the rain or talk without censoring our words.”

  For a second, Gideon perked up. The tide might turn. Logan’s changing his mind.

  A breath later, Logan dashed his hopes by finishing his thought: “Then again, with the girls gettin’ older, those things would have to come about sooner or later, anyhow.”

  “Let me grab the bull by the horns,” Gideon said. “If you’re worried about the money—”

  “Yeah, money is another consideration,” Paul admitted. “We’ve got enough to see us through. We’ve already lost one ranch ’cause Dad borrowed on it. We know he paid back the money, but bankers are good about losing vital papers, and I don’t trust Pete Rovel over at the bank.”

  “Nuh-unh,” Titus chimed in. “Not any more than I’d trust a riled polecat not to spray. We empty out the account to buy a ticket and have even one disaster, and Pete’s going to own this ranch.”

  “You’re not saying anything I haven’t already thought.”

  “Let me give you one more thing to consider.” Paul looked back out the window. “Miriam doesn’t want to go back. I doubt it’s because life with her parents kept her miserable. Hannah constantly reminisced about how perfect everything was back on the islands.”

  He swung back around and stared at Gideon. “Miriam was locked in her cabin the whole voyage here. Think about how plum-outta-her-mind scared she was of us at first. How she fought and reminded us it was a sin. Locking her up was cruel as could be, but it was the only way the captain could protect her. She doesn’t realize just how lucky she was that he kept her imprisoned. It’s been years, but Dan still won’t say a word about what went on aboard the ship when he was shanghaied. It was a harsh life for him, and he’s a strapping man. What kind of men would we be to put her—a lone, pretty, tenderhearted woman—back aboard a ship full of the dregs of mankind?”

  Logan gloated, “The vote stands four to two. Miss Miriam’s stayin’ put.”

  Gideon accepted the vote. Though he didn’t want the responsibility of having a woman around, his brothers were more than right—the babies needed a woman’s touch, and sticking Miriam back on a ship would be a low-down move.

  He left the house but wasn’t sure where to look for her. The woman didn’t have a place to go. He craned his neck to see the graves, but she wasn’t there. Since he’d found her in the garden once before, he headed back there. Though the garden lay empty, Gideon spied her sitting on a corral fence. He strode over to her.

  Miriam didn’t bother to turn around. She hunched forward and had her arms wrapped around herself. The evening air felt a trifle chilly. Gideon scowled. “You left without your shawl.”

  She nodded in acknowledgment.

  “We’ll see how things work out, but for now, we’ll let you stay.”

  Slowly she turned to look over her shoulder at him. Even in the meager moonlight, he expected to see her gloating smile. Instead, she looked as somber as a priest. “I’ll do my best to help the girls and stay out of your way.”

  That was what he wanted her to say. Why didn’t it make him happy to hear it?

  “Could you please tell Daniel I’ll try hard to avoid him?”

  He nodded. “We’ll knock together a c
ottage for you. It’ll be about a week before we can get to it, though. Someone’s tacking blankets to make a space for you so you can sleep closer to the stove and be warm enough in the meantime.”

  “Gideon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry I chided you about your language in front of the others. In the future, if I have a problem, I’ll try to speak to you privately.”

  “Fine. It’s too chilly out here for you. Go on inside.”

  The next morning, Miriam hastily put her hair up into a respectable bun. After tying the blanket-curtain out of the way with a bit of twine, she set to work. She stoked the fire, had coffee going, and fried her own ham and egg. She’d finished her meal and had the rest of the eggs all scrambled and ready to cook before any of the men came out of the bedroom.

  They sat on the benches around the table and yanked on their boots. Miriam had already filled both pitchers with hot water.

  Logan started to take the pitcher back to the bedroom.

  “Logan,” Miriam called softly, “in the islands, the men almost never wear shirts. The bedroom is already crowded, else you wouldn’t have had the washstand out here. I’m not offended if you men shave here.”

  She turned her back on them and finished cooking breakfast. Two at a time, the brothers washed and shaved. Boot scuffle, razor scrape, a chuckle, a splash, and a mixture of Bryce’s silliness and Titus’s early morning grumpy responses filled the cabin.

  Miriam caught sight of Gideon’s black eye and gasped. The set of his jaw and the way he stared at her dared her to comment. She bit her lip and turned away. I came to help my sister, but I’m turning brother against brother. She swallowed hard, then took her lead from him. If he wanted to pretend nothing had happened, she could play that game…up to a point.

  Miriam set the meal on the table, then took the egg basket and left. She hoped Daniel and the girls would slip in during her absence. She also prayed the other brothers landed on Daniel so he’d behave. Bad enough he was nasty to her; he had no call to take his temper out on Gideon.