by Caroline Lee
Normally, she’d be thrilled to listen to Mabel and Eunice relate every detail of the July Fourth celebration; hanging on each word and hoping against hope that they’d tell how they each managed to snag a husband with her gowns or her cooking. That had been Ella’s goal for so long, it was odd to realize that yesterday was the culmination of all of her work.
But today, it had been hard to listen to them go on and on about how wonderful the parade and picnic and dancing had been, inflating their experiences and preening in front of her, knowing that she could reveal that she’d been there. She’d sat on the hill and watched the dancing with Ian, and knew that while Eunice had danced every song with Ian’s friend Gaston, Mabel had pouted and sulked through a few partners, and then sat alone and fumed most of the time.
Yesterday had been magical, but had been far too public. With Papa’s threat hanging over her head, she knew that, if she wanted to see Ian again, it’d have to be in private. Could she spend the rest of her life sneaking away to see him? Or could she be strong enough to defy her stepfather’s edict, to risk his wrath, to be with Ian? Could they thwart him, together?
“She had the loveliest dress—far nicer than anything Ella could manage for us, that’s certain.” Mabel was being nasty, as usual. “Daddy, could you send away for some Paris magazines again? Maybe Ella could manage something half that nice, if she practiced some more.”
Papa was reading his newspaper, as usual, and gave a distracted “Yes, darling” before flipping the page. Mabel smirked, and the birds sitting on the bush outside the dining room window began to chirp and trill again. The oldest Miller daughter sent them a dark look, and Ella managed not to roll her eyes. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who found the birds’ attention annoying.
Eunice reached for the mashed potatoes, and Ella eyed her gown with a bit of worry, wondering if she was going to have to take out her sister’s dresses if she kept eating like this. “Well, her dress was lovely, but so was her suitor.”
“Oh, I know.” Mabel’s smitten sigh dragged Ella’s attention away from the mound of potatoes on Eunice’s plate. “That man might be a cripple, but did you see his arms?”
Eunice pretended to fan herself with her fork. “Be still, my heart. Freckles and red hair have suddenly become quite suitable. And those eyes? I never knew a pair of spectacles could be so manly, but the way he looked at her…” Both she and Mabel sighed in unison. “She must be quite the hussy, to have snagged him so quickly.”
Ella felt the meat turn to lead in her stomach, and she put her fork down beside her plate. Knowing that she couldn’t defend herself, defend him, was hard.
But to her surprise, salvation came from an unexpected source. “Well, Daddy and I watched the whole scene, and I thought that the kiss was incredibly romantic.” Ella looked across the table, and found Sibyl staring directly at her. “Mr. Crowne was obviously very much in love with her, and I think that she was in love with him, too.” The birdsong suddenly seemed much louder than a moment before.
Ella swallowed again, unable to answer the question in her younger stepsister’s eyes. She wanted to thank Sibyl—for seeing, for understanding—and maybe someday she’d find a way. Not today, though. Not at Papa’s table.
Speaking of whom… “What’s that?” Apparently his name had drawn him back into the conversation. “You’re talking about that Yankee in my house?”
Mabel was quick to dismiss his reaction. “We’re just saying how handsome he is, Daddy. Now that he’s joined society, and isn’t hiding away in that shop of his, we’ve realized what a fine catch he’d be.”
Slowly, deliberately, Papa creased his paper and placed it beside his plate. He folded his hands in front on him, leaned forward, and said, “Let me be clear.” He met each girls’ eyes in turn, including Ella’s, whom he held. “You will not admire him. He is nothing.” His voice rose in volume, but Ella refused to flinch. “He has found a hussy to keep him busy, and you will not mention his name again in this house. Am I clear?”
“I think that’s going to be a problem, sir.”
Ella had fainted in the face of her stepfather’s anger, and was dreaming. That was the only explanation for why she was hearing Ian’s voice here, in the dining room of the Miller Ranch. But she squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them again, and Papa was staring at the door like he’d seen a ghost. Unable to hope, Ella slowly turned in her chair.
He was real. He was here.
Ian took one of his hopping steps into the room, swinging himself on his crutch with the sheer strength of those massive shoulders, and Ella couldn’t do a thing except stare. Maybe she was dreaming. But no; he caught her eye, and smiled, and she remembered the taste of those lips and knew that this was no dream.
This was better than a dream.
“Mr. Crowne!” Mabel’s sickly-sweet voice cut through Ella’s daze. “We were just speaking of you. Do come join us for dinner.”
Without dropping Ella’s gaze, he shook his head slightly. “No thank you, Miss Miller. I’ll just be here a moment.”
“How did you get into my house?” Her stepfather’s croak sounded like he was just-barely containing his fury. “Where in the hell is Heyward?”
“Oh, he’s… too slow.”
Mr. Heyward chose that incredibly opportune moment to stagger through the doorway, slumping against the jamb. He had both hands clasped over his nose, and blood was dribbling from between his fingers. He met Papa’s gaze, and groaned, and Ella finally felt a moment’s pity for the man who followed her stepfather’s every order. He’d obviously tried to stand up to Ian, but underestimated her prince’s strength.
Ian winked at her, faintly, and Ella wondered if anyone else had seen it. But then he moved closer to the table, and looked her stepfather dead in the eye. “Mr. Heyward—who I recognize from hanging around outside my store, by the way—tried to stop me from entering. But I decided that I wasn’t going to accept that answer.”
“You decided?” Oh dear. Papa sounded like he was choking, and just as soon as Ella could make herself look away from the magnificent man standing beside the table, she’d check. “You think that it’s okay, to just let yourself into a man’s home?”
“I do, when that man is about to become my father-in-law.”
There was silence for a long moment, and then the room erupted. Papa’s incredulous roar mixed with Sibyl’s excited squeal and her sisters’ flattered clamorings.
Ian halted the racket without saying a word; he simply shifted slightly, and held up his other hand. There, dangling from the strong fingers she loved so well, were her boots, cleaned and oiled and gleaming. Her toes curled inside her new shoes, the ones that he’d gifted her, and knew that she’d be leaving with him today, somehow.
He spoke to them all, but it was Ella whose gaze he held. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—look away. “You see, Mr. Miller, I fell in love with one of your daughters a while ago. She’s kind, and generous, and far more caring than the rest of her family. She’s the type who’d defy you, just to save a puppy.” Ella pushed away from the table slightly when he moved towards her, and she saw Mabel and Eunice exchange confused looks out of the corner of her eye. But it didn’t matter—nothing mattered—because had he just announced his love for her? In front of her family? “I kissed her yesterday, for the first time, and knew that I couldn’t let her escape me again.”
Stopping beside her chair, he stared down at her in silence for a moment. No one spoke, and Ella fisted her hands in the lap, to keep from reaching for him. She had to hear this. Had to hear what he was going to say to her stepfather. “The woman I love left me her boots.” And then he dropped to his knee, steadying himself against the table leg. Their gazes were level, and she could see every freckle, every thought behind his glasses. She could see that he was holding his breath, the same as her.
And then, he lifted the boots. “I brought your boots back, Miss Ella.”
Nothing in the whole world—not Mabel’s nasty “Well, I n
ever” or her stepfather’s bluster of displeasure—could’ve stopped her from lifting the hem of her faded blue dress, and letting him slip the black shoes from her feet. When she sat there, stocking toes pressed hard against the wood floor, he moved the boots closer. Still holding his pale green gaze, she pushed her feet into her favorite old boots.
“They fit perfectly.”
Her whisper only set her family off again, but she didn’t care. Their anger didn’t matter. Nothing did, except the way his grin threatened to knock off his spectacles, and the love she saw in his eyes.
Bracing himself on the table, he lifted himself to his feet, and pulled her up as well. He wrapped his arms around her, and pressed their bodies together, and the birds sang stupidly, and Ella knew that this was where she belonged. She snaked her hands between his vest and his jacket, reveling in the strength she felt under the cotton. “I love you, Ian Crowne.” He smiled, and she had to confess why she’d withheld the truth for so long. “But my stepfather is a powerful man, and told me that he could ruin you, if I defied him.”
Ian’s grin faded, but not the love in his expression. After nearly a minute of staring down at her, he turned, pulling them both to face her stepfather. Edmund Miller was standing now, his hands braced on either side of his plate, his face red with fury. Slowly, he lifted one finger until it pointed directly at Ian’s chest. “You. You think you’re taking her away from here? You think to deprive me of her labor? I will end you, boy. I know how reclusive you are. I know that you don’t have nearly the standing that I do, in this town. I’ll make sure no one buys from you again. I’ll make sure that your business will fail and you’ll run back to the North where you belong.”
The hatred she heard in Papa’s voice was enough to make Ella blanch, but Ian just pulled her closer to him, as if to tell her that he’d keep her safe. He stared at her stepfather for a long moment, and then cocked his head to one side. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
His calm response confused Papa. He sucked in a breath, and began to cough. Ian’s expression was grim when he continued. “You see, I’m part of this town, now. I’ve heard about you from Max DeVille, and I think that the people of this town respect me just as much as I do them, now. I think that any power you had over me disappeared the moment I began to look towards my future here, among them. Max has supported me, and—as you say—his family is important in Everland. Everyone in town knows why I came out here today, and they support me. I’m marrying Ella, and taking her away from here. Away from you.”
It was probably the most wonderful thing that she’d ever heard, and as soon as she could find her voice, she’d tell him that. For now, though, she just squeezed him as hard as she could. He glanced back down at her, as if her stepfather’s sputtered threats—interspersed with coughing—meant nothing. “Yesterday, you didn’t ask me what I named the dog.”
“The…?” She’d almost forgotten about the reason she’d defied her stepfather to go to Ian two nights ago. “You’ve chosen a name?”
He nodded, his expression serious. “Future.” Future. “You told me to stop living in the past, Ella, so I did. I’ve made a place for myself, for us. You gave me hope for the future, and I’m going to share it with you.”
“It’s… it’s fitting.” His shoulders dropped slightly, like he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her answer. “I think that Future will be quite happy with you, and Shiloh and Manny and Vick.” And then she gave him the answer she knew he’d been waiting for. “And me.”
He kissed her. There, in her stepfather’s dining room, not caring about Papa’s bluster or her sisters’ squeals or Eunice’s “Wait, that was Ella at the picnic yesterday?”…he kissed her.
And Ella kissed him back, and never regretted anything less.
When they pulled apart, Ian grinned down at her, and no one else mattered. “I’ve got my wagon out front, sweetheart. Do you have anything here that you want to bring with you?”
She glanced down at the new shoes beside her chair. “Actually, I’d like to get my new dress.”
Had she thought he was grinning before? It was nothing compared to the joy in his expression now. “Good. Actually, I was hoping you’d say that. Because Hank and Rojita, and Mr. and Mrs. Spratt are meeting us at the church in an hour, and I’d rather hoped that you’d wear that gown again.”
The church? She swallowed, and he must’ve seen the question in her eyes, because his grin turned teasing. “That is, if you don’t mind marrying me immediately?”
The clamor began again, but Ella had eyes only for him. With no other way to show him the love, the joy in her heart, she reached her hands up around his neck, and pulled his head down to hers.
And there, in the ruins of her past, poised at the beginning of her future, she kissed her husband-to-be.
They were married that afternoon, and she spent her wedding night with him in their new home, and it was everything they’d dreamed it would be. The dogs made sure that they had little privacy, and things were a bit cramped, and she had some trouble adjusting to life as a mercantile-owner’s wife, but it didn’t matter, because they had each other.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next two Everland stories: Rojita and Hank’s run-in with the Big Bad Wolf, and Arabella’s taming of the Beast!
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Other works by Caroline Lee
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From Little Red:
Her back hurt. Why did her back hurt? Rojita cracked her eyelids just a bit, wincing at the way the winter sun’s full brightness lanced straight through to the back of her brain. Never mind, better to just keep them closed.
She was lying on the frozen ground; the sharp rock or stick or something under her rear end told her that. And just as soon as the dull ache in her back faded, she’d get around to shifting off of it. In the meantime… why did her back hurt at all?
She’d been riding hard, and then—oh yes, the horse had stopped suddenly. Had she been thrown? Wiggling her toes in her boots, and flexing her fingertips, Rojita gave a little sigh of relief. Nothing hurt worse than her back, which meant that nothing was broken, and at least she could walk. The mean-spirited animal—not doubt a trait inherited from its master—must’ve tossed her off in such a way that she’d landed almost-safely.
Where was the blasted animal? How long had it been since the accident? Had it wandered off, leaving her here in the Wyoming wilderness with no hope of rescue? Was El Lobo even now picking along her trail—having gotten another horse, of course—creeping ever closer to doing her unspeakable harm? Had this delay cost Abuela the orphanage?
Rojita groaned, and then winced at the sound. She couldn’t be that weak, could she? Abuela and the children were counting on her getting to Everland before Lobo, even if they didn’t know it. She had to stand up, to find that darned horse, and to start riding before he caught up with her.
“It’s about time you woke up, Red. I was getting worried.”
Too late. He’d found her. He was here.
She kept her eyes closed, wondering if she could fool him into thinking that she was still unconscious. Everything that she knew about the man said that he was ruthless, but surely he’d wait until she was awake to do any harm that he had plan
ned?
“I can see you wiggling over there. Anything broken?”
He had a deceptively nice voice. Warm and smooth; comforting like café con leche on a cold day. It was a shame, to waste such a voice on a gunslinger like El Lobo. He wasn’t warm or comforting or nice, but he sure sounded like it. That voice was probably his secret weapon; he could convince anyone that he was a kind-hearted, law-abiding citizen, and then he’d swoop in and defraud their widows of land that they’d purchased legally and rightfully.
But Rojita wasn’t going to be fooled. She knew him for what he really was, thanks to Abuelo’s warning, and she was going to figure out a way out of this. She’d been to school in a big city; surely she was smart enough to outthink a common bandito like Lobo. Just because he was at a complete advantage here didn’t mean that she couldn’t beat him to Everland after all.
“Come on, Red, wake up. I managed to run down your horse—you’re welcome, by the way. All we’re waiting on is you.”
Her horse? Her horse? She’d stolen it from him. Lobo would know that, and would be… angry, wouldn’t he? So why did he sound exasperated instead?
Unless… Her eyes snapped open, the bright Wyoming sky not bothering her nearly as much as it had a minute before. Unless this wasn’t El Lobo.
With a gasp, Rojita jerked herself up onto her elbows, twisting to find the source of the coffee-warm voice. She had just a glimpse of a small fire and a man hunched behind it, before the pain made everything go black again.
Find out how Rojita and Hank escape El Lobo in
Little Red: An Everland Ever After Tale
From Beauty:
Vincenzo sat in darkness.
He always sat in darkness. Or stood in darkness, or walked in darkness. Or occasionally—he grimaced and rubbed his shin—stumbled in darkness. He and Gordy had only been in the house for a few days, though, so he had to give himself a little credit; he was still getting used to the layout. True, he had designed the place, down to the placement of the furniture, and his agent had done a decent job of arranging it all. After they’d arrived, Gordy only had to do a little rearranging to make the place match the diagram Vincenzo had been memorizing for weeks now.
