 
Silver Heart

Longren Family Series:  
Book 1

Amelia Rose

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Amelia Rose

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

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Dedication

To YOU, The reader.  
Thank you for your support.  
Thank you for your emails.  
Thank you for your reviews.  
Thank you for reading and joining me on this road.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

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#  Chapter 1

Mr. Longren lost control of the wagon minutes after we left Virginia City behind. Lightning and thunder split the desert sky and a cloudburst opened up on the unpaved roads. The horses were moving fast under the whip. Mr. Longren had thought to get us to his homestead before the storm started in earnest.

The switchback road washed to a sheen of mud in minutes and the horses began to run, then to slip. I clutched the sides of the wagon with both hands, my hat flying off my head, lost somewhere in the sage. I couldn't help screaming.

Beside me, Mr. Longren played the reins, tugging first to one side and then the other for control until the wagon began to cant. He never stopped talking to the horses, but he didn't shout. Nothing worked—the animals were wild, not afraid so much of the storm, it seemed, but of their own speed. They'd startled each other and couldn't stop.

Sage and fern-like trees whipped by on either side. Rocks clattered up under the floorboards of the wagon, which swayed wildly from side to side. We rounded a hairpin turn, careening, and suddenly, all of creation seemed spread out below us, the drop as severe as any the train had skirted bringing me from the valleys up the foothills into the desert.

Lightning split the late afternoon sky, bright against dark clouds. Thunder followed close on its heels, a low rumble dragged out through the valleys. Despite the rain, the ground still smelled summer hot and the sage smelled strong. The wagon jolted and slid in the mud again as the horses plunged.

Mr. Longren didn't waste any more time with words. His teeth were clenched, the muscles in his jaw standing out; his dark hair uncovered and soaked with rain. Still, he held the reins loosely, now pulling gently on both, not yanking the horses back but exerting steady pressure.

I could hear him, then, in the break between the rolls of thunder. As the animals finally started to slow, he was speaking again. His voice soothed, in opposition to the terrible speed, the pounding rain and the slick mud track.

My knuckles were white against the boards of the wagon. The conveyance was very small and open, nothing like a carriage or the street cars in Boston. I'd been afraid I'd fall out of it before the storm started and the horses bolted. Mr. Longren looked like the most stable thing in the wagon; I longed to grab hold of him, but I'd known him for only an hour.

After only one hour, his voice didn't soothe _me_.

This wasn't how I'd anticipated coming to my new home.

One of the wagon wheels caught on a rock and sent us veering to one side. I screamed hard, although I tried not to, afraid of terrifying the horses further. Hutch Longren didn't speak but, somehow, the crack of the breaking wheel stopped the horses. The wagon began to drag, the forward momentum slowed by the sheer weight they were now trying to pull. And through it all, my future husband spoke slowly, calmly.

I could hear him better then. His words were a mixture of gibberish, just sounds meant to be soothing, and the horses' names and the sort of things people say when being reassuring during an emergency.

"It's all right, Sophie, Scamp. It's all right, it's just a storm, you're not hurt."

I thought he could have addressed the same remarks to me. I'd likely have not believed them any better than the horses had minutes before but now, at last, they were slowing, tiring, dragging the damaged wagon and plowing to a stop in the mud.

And then we were still, the rain coming down on the roof of the wagon, a wayward wind blowing it into our faces and inside the small covering. My heart pounded so hard it took my breath, and my hands refused to relinquish their hold on the boards of the wagon.

For just an instant, we both sat still and then Hutch Longren began to laugh. I turned and stared at him and that made him laugh harder, the wind stirring his soaked hair, brushing it back from the clean lines of his cheeks. His blue eyes flashed and I thought he was laughing at me and began to become angry, until he stopped, wiped his mouth on the back of one hand, and nodded at me.

"Welcome to Virginia City, Maggie Lucas."

The rain let off not long after we'd stopped. I tried to effect repairs, tucking wisps of straw colored hair up into pins, but my hat was long gone and my hair so wet I couldn't imagine I was doing any good.

My new traveling dress, with the shirt-waist jacket trimmed in velvet, and the close-fitting skirt my sister Elizabeth had said would be more comfortable for the journey were wet and clinging and now the rain had stopped, the air around us was heating up again.

Hutch Longren had seen to the horses the minute he'd ascertained I was alright. Sliding on the mud, he made his way up to them, speaking calmly, rubbing their necks and checking both were unharmed before he made his way back to the wheel. He dragged tools out of the back of the wagon and commenced working on it.

I had no idea what he was doing and there was no way I could help. My father was the only man in our household and he neither mended wagon wheels nor welcomed a woman's help in most of the tasks he considered better left to men. So, I slid from the seat of the wagon into the mud, slipping a little before I found the right way to squelch through it, and then I started up the road with no more plan than seeing what was near me.

There wasn't much to see. The road we were on led from Virginia City to Mr. Longren's home in Gold Hill. It wound through sage brush and rock, through scrub and foothill, and one turn looked much the same as the next. On top of the mountains in front of us, I could see derricks, wooden structures and mining detritus, but every bend in the road simply showed another bend in the road, more sage, more foothills.

I felt utterly lost.

The idea had been for me to come from Boston to Nevada to meet Mr. Hutch Longren, childhood friend of my Uncle Roy's and someone my Mother had kept track of through the years. She'd been 12 years older than Hutch Longren, a sort of second mother to him when he and my uncle ran wild in the Boston streets. Eventually, they'd all grown up and gone their separate ways but they'd stayed in touch by letter, if not by visit.

Which was how it was my mother came to know when Mr. Hutchinson Longren's wife of many years died in 1874 of the cholera, leaving him alone with no offspring and a mine rapidly playing out.

Ellie and Hutch had married for love; we would be married for convenience. I tried to remember that as I watched him work, his shoulder muscles flexing under his soaked shirt. He wore a simple blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the denim trousers the miners were reported to wear. I thought of the men I'd seen on the streets in Boston. The men who courted my sisters and I came dressed in suits, ties and hats, their sleeves long and cuffed, and their shoes shined. I had anticipated the West would be different, but I had not expected to be so hot.

I fanned myself with my hand, wishing I still had possession of my hat. If I were to be honest with myself, Mr. Longren looked quite handsome and capable as he worked the wheel, tanned forearms rippling with strength. If this was the custom in this part of the world, I didn't find myself overly offended by it.

But I was here as helpmate, caretaker of his house. I would remember.

I'd been trying to remember ever since we left the train station.

Five years my senior, at 30, I'd picked Hutch Longren out of the crowd at the railway station quite easily once the steam engine thundered into Virginia City.

Everything this day was magical. My week-long journey across the country was coming to an end and I was sorry. I'd come across territories and new states, through the country still recovering from the recent war. I'd seen Indians and a cattle drive, seen the cities dwindle, becoming smaller and newer. I'd felt my old life become lost.

Even the railway was new. Only in recent years had the railway begun to carry passengers. Built to carry supplies to the miners and shopkeeps along the towns of the Comstock Lode, it still operated primarily to haul goods rather than people. The one passenger car was packed, with two spinster sisters who glared at me every time I observed them because I had the temerity to put down my window and sit turned, watching as the land unfolded around me, from low pines to vistas of sage. My Great Aunt Agnes, who accompanied me as far as Reno, stopped me from sitting twisted and staring out the window. Once she left the train, I was on my own for one or two short, wonderful hours.

I sat with my knees under me, kneeling up and staring out, my gloved hands on the window frame. I wanted to see where the train was taking me. This was to be my home. I was 23 years old and traveling—for the first time and for only a short distance—without a chaperone. It was an unexpected pleasure, such freedom, and I meant to savor every instant.

There was, after all, no telling what awaited me at the end of the steam engine's line. Hutch Longren was my mother's brother's childhood friend. He was a stranger to me.

But finding him was easy. He stood head and shoulders around the men nearest him and his shoulders eclipsed much of the wall behind him. I hoped to have a moment to observe without being observed. My new life had begun across the country one week past. Hutch Longren represented the future. I wanted to know what that future was.

But he'd spotted me moments after I spotted him. Not so difficult, perhaps, as the only other passengers left in the train car by then were the pair of glaring spinsters and an exhausted woman with three small boys who'd worn me out as well. Surely Mr. Longren wouldn't expect me to travel with my own brood of children. I was traveling to meet him for the purpose of marriage, as Mr. Longren had need of a wife and I had need of a position of sorts. Father was growing older, more silent and more tired, and had too many daughters at home whose situations needed sorting out. My two older sisters, Victoria and Elizabeth, had already married, leaving me, Emma and Virginia.

The flutter in my heart wasn't fear. Since losing my mother, I'd felt adrift. Her care had principally fallen to me, the daughter she'd trained as a midwife with her own nursing knowledge and, without her, I'd lost one of my best friends and confidantes, though I'd had little enough to confide.

One look at Hutch Longren and I hoped that last had come to an end. Even across the station, I could see his blue eyes and a scar on one cheek that didn't detract from his looks. It was then, in the station, the minute our eyes locked, that I began to remind myself of my place here. No daydreams of romance. I'd lived 23 years and watched my friends marry at 17 and 18, as I remained in my family home.

Daydreams were for my younger sisters. I was practical. The fact that Mr. Longren was comely was a pleasant enough fact but of no substance.

So I reminded myself, standing in the rain, watching his shoulders and arms as the rain soaked through his shirt.

Mr. Longren fixed the wagon wheel, the rain stopped, the sun came out and the horses were calm. Everything was right in the world, except for me.

I'd spent a week traveling by steam engine in the company of my great aunt, who sniffed her disapproval at my unwedded state, my soon-to-be wedded state, at the loss of my mother, the choice of my husband-to-be, the state of the world in general, the steam engine in particular and every pot of tea delivered at every stop in every city. When she fell ill in Reno and chose to remain there with distant (and not overly pleased) relatives, I was less concerned about the propriety of traveling alone and the fear that, somehow, without ever getting off the train, I'd get lost, and more that she would effect a recovery before I'd be free of the city and on my way.

She hadn't, though the glowering spinsters in the passenger car had taken her place. I'd almost have welcomed their return, if it meant I was going home. The sky above me, with the clouds blown away, was deep, rich blue and spread so far and wide that staring up at it made me dizzy. The scents of sage and dirt were unfamiliar as my own streets of Boston might have been to Hutch Longren after so many years in the Nevada desert. At home, there were theaters and markets, restaurants and streetcars, and here—

There was Hutch Longren, the man I'd come to marry.

"Miss Lucas? You'd best get back into the wagon." He stood, holding his hand out to me, this stranger I'd come to marry, and my heart raced and my breath went thin. But his eyes were soft, his hand held out with patience, and I had watched him calm the horses, never swearing, never shouting.

I took his hand and stepped back into the wagon.

Gold Hill was only a few miles outside of Virginia City through the sage and canyons. If not for the storm, we'd likely have seen other people who would soon be my neighbors. The road was well traveled, as Virginia City itself was rowdy, loud and home to the miners, shopkeeps and tavern owners. Gold Hill, tucked under the mines, was home to some 8,000 people.

Gold Hill had its own mining concerns, like Virginia City, which was better known across the nation, even as far as Boston. But the mines were playing out as the years advanced and the end of the War Between the States had seen a drop in silver prices. I knew I shouldn't expect the neat brickwork of my family home.

Neither of us spoke much on that ride. The horses, now calmed, were exhausted, shuffling in the traces as they dragged the wagon. After my initial excitement of arrival and after the events of the afternoon, I felt much the same and the further we drove together, the less I could think to say to the stranger beside me.

I'd almost fallen into reverie—or more honestly, sadness and homesickness—when he said, softly, from beside me, "Look up, Miss Lucas. We are almost home."

He'd done well during the silver strike. I knew that, of course, as I knew that most of the money was gone, first to Ellie Longren's illness and then to daily life as the mine he'd owned with his brother produced less and less.

The house, though, was neat and clean, whitewashed and surrounded by a low picket fence that twined with bright blue flowers and sunny sweet pea.

There was a great deal of land, several acres to my untrained eye, and a garden behind the house, because I could see the tops of corn showing their heads. As we approached from one side, I could see the barn out back and the neatly tended and rock-lined dirt path that led back up to the house. More horses stood in the pasture, which was shaded by apple trees.

The day was now hot and windless. The storm had been a brief squall and blown over after blowing us from Virginia City to Gold Hill, an inauspicious welcome if I was looking for a quiet life.

In truth, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. My father would never have pressed this marriage on me, although he wanted his daughters set for life (and possibly out from underfoot). My father's fortunes hadn't favored him since my mother passed. I needed somewhere to go.

I had come without notions of romance, as befit a woman verging on old maid, unmarried at 23 and coming to an untamed land with no dowry. This was to be a marriage of convenience.

I was not willing to admit to myself that upon first sight of Mr. Longren, I'd begun to harbor secret hopes. I wasn't even going to admit it to myself.

He was waiting for me to say something. We still sat on the wagon seat, the reins loose in his hands. His dark hair had dried into a mess of curls and I wanted to reach over and straighten them out, but the thought itself reminded me he was a stranger.

"You haven't spoken," he said. This was unfair; neither had he.

"It's bigger than I expected," I said and then thought that paltry praise. I hadn't come seeking a fortune. "It's beautiful."

My voice came out softer than I expected and I glanced at Mr. Longren and saw a softening in his eyes. I'd pleased him, which pleased me.

#  Chapter 2

We stepped out of the brilliant day into the sitting room, which looked as if no one used it and likely hadn't since Mr. Longren's wife had passed. It was elegant and though covered in Nevada dust, otherwise starkly clean. His wife's taste had included delicate crystal vases and lace table covers. One delicate china tea pot was displayed on a sofa table. The room unnerved me. I had come into another woman's house to be wife to another woman's husband and could not fathom how I would compare with her memory.

Mr. Longren disappeared down a narrow hallway, my trunk on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Briefly, I remembered his muscles outlined by the soaking, clinging shirt as he worked the wagon wheel back on the road between Virginia City and Gold Hill and I shivered, then coughed to cover it and forced myself to step completely into the house, swinging the door shut behind me.

I had no idea what to expect. My life for the last four weeks had revolved around getting to this place and meeting this man who I was to marry. I had sometimes wondered what my life would become once I'd arrived but, with very little to base conjecture on, had mostly considered the journey.

He came back down the hallway. "I thought you would follow me."

I blushed. I was acting like a foolish child, but I had spent little time alone with a man. In Boston, propriety meant there were chaperones. Things were different in the West.

I followed him to the room he'd prepared or, more likely, a neighbor had seen to. It was clean and neat, and clearly not his. The dresser gleamed, neatly waxed, and the bed was covered in a lacy spread with pillows heaped high. Canary yellow curtains moved in the afternoon breeze.

It was my room and clearly mine alone in this clean, unknown house. I had no idea how to broach the question of how long it would be mine and only mine, or even when we would wed. I stood at the threshold, thinking only now that he had not carried me into the house, but he had, in fact, preceded me, giving me view of his shoulders and strong back but little in the way of a husband greeting a wife.

I swallowed hard, burying the thought. It wouldn't do to forget my place.

He was watching me, a curious half smile that made me stumble into speech, thanking him and admiring the room. Sure I was nearly out of words when we heard horses racing up to the house, followed by hard, loud voices calling and footsteps across the wooden porch. Someone banged hard on the door, calling "Hutch? You there?"

The screen door rattled and the inside door banged too. I tried to step back into the hall or farther into the room, either way, just to get out of his way, and Mr. Longren brushed past me in my indecision. One hand brushed my arm as he passed and I shivered, then turned to follow him.

Two men stood just inside the sitting room, filling it to nearly overflowing with their size, with broad shoulders, tan shirts rolled to mid-arm, their shirts wet with sweat. They were dusty and hot and they wore their hats until I entered behind Mr. Longren.

"Ma'am," one said, but the other merely passed his eyes over me and said, "Hutch, you need to come." He was already turning, hat going to head, hand out to catch the door and shove it open.

"John," my husband said. "I've just come from retrieving Miss Lucas from the railway. I'd prefer—"

"—It's bad, Hutch," the other man said. Pale eyes, graying hair, he wore wire rimmed spectacles and still held his hat against his chest.

Mr. Longren looked past the man he'd called John, his tanned face suddenly going pale. "Where's Matthew?"

"At the mine," John said. The screen door banged behind him as he headed for his horse.

Mr. Longren turned his attention to the man he'd called John. Muscles moved in his jaw.

"He's alive, Mr. Longren. Shot. You need to come."

Hutch swore, reached for his hat, and he was already in motion when he called back to me, "Make yourself at home. Look around. I have to—"

I reached for him. Matthew was his little brother, younger by several years, who'd followed Hutch Longren out to the silver strike. My mother had read me letters from Mr. Longren about Matthew, about his temper, his humors and his hard drinking and hard living.

Hutch Longren loved his brother.

"I'm coming," I said, fumbling for the hat that had been lost on the road, realizing I needed nothing else and had nothing else. My kit wouldn't arrive for another week at least, sent from Boston to follow me up. I had no instruments but myself and whatever may be at the mine.

"That's no place for a lady, ma'am," John said from the porch.

"Stay here, Margaret," Hutch said, using my name for the first time and following hard on John's heels, "Is the doc there?"

"Accident at the Chollar mine. He'll come when he can, we need to move Matthew, get him back here or to his house, we..."

The screen door slammed behind me. Hutch looked over his shoulder even as he moved fast for the spare horse the two men had brought with them. "Go inside. I'll be back."

"I'm coming with you," I said and, for a minute, couldn't think how. There were three horses in the front of the house and three men mounting them. I'd ridden, of course, but in Boston, with the modern streetcars and carriages, it wasn't often. I didn't know how to saddle a horse, where to find a saddle, or even how to ride the way they rode out here. And the horses in the corral were strangers as much as Mr. Longren.

"Stay. Here." He sounded angry, was already astride a huge, red beast and wheeling away from me to ride. The other men dug their heels into the horses' sides.

I raised my voice, shouting to be heard. He couldn't leave me here. "I'm a midwife," I shouted. "I can help." I didn't know Matthew, but Mr. Longren's letters had brought him alive... young, impetuous... important, to Hutch.

Just the slightest pause. I saw his shoulders sink from their high defensive hold. He didn't want to take me, but this was for Matthew.

Later, I'd wonder if Hutch Longren had been as nervous as I had been at our initial meeting, nervous enough to almost welcome any excuse to get some time away. Later, I'd wonder how wise I'd been to insist on following and what would have happened if I couldn't have helped Matthew.

But that was later. All I knew was someone was hurt and I had to help.

Longren stopped the horse, turned back to me and held his hand out. It would be the fastest way and I wouldn't have to try to ride. I ran to him, silently cursing the tight skirt that bound my legs. Easier by far, Virginia, for railway and wagon riding, but the horse was another matter.

He pulled me up across his lap and didn't wait any longer. We followed the other two horses, riding hard.

The three men rode hard, galloping out of Gold Hill, heading northeast away from both Gold Hill and Virginia City, toward the mountains and the silver. Wind tangled my hair, covering my face and eyes, getting into my dry mouth. The heat of the day wrapped around me like Mr. Longren's arms. My back brushed against his chest with every jolt of the horse over the rocky ground.

My heart pounded. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to help, afraid of what that would mean for Matthew Longren, and what it would mean for the man I was meant to marry. I'd attended a gunshot only once before, in Boston, when a banker cleaning his pistol had discharged it in an elegant home on Charles Street and the doctors were busy with a breech birth and the hospital was too far away. I'd succeeded then. I had to succeed now.

Despite the situation, I was aware of the strong arms circling me, one hand holding me against him, the other holding the reins. A delicious sense of inappropriate pleasure coursed through me. I tried to deny it, and failed.

We passed a clutch of people on the street. Little girls skipping rope stopped and stared. A woman wearing a bonnet looked up, frankly disapproving. She pulled her parcels closer and stepped off the road. I was making an impression I hadn't intended. I bit my lip and went back to worrying about Matthew Longren.

It took only minutes to ride to the mine—nothing but a rough, wood entrance, the name painted above it: Silver Sky.

The sight of it made me tense. The sky above, anything but silver, was vast blue and open, seeming to go on forever. The land led up to it, wide and rocky, dotted with sage. The pinion pines covered the slopes above the mine. But the mine entrance itself was a midnight black hole, an opening into nothing.

I regretted my impetuous move in joining the men. I wasn't certain I had the courage to go into that black maw, even if I was needed. I didn't want to think about Mr. Longren going daily into that Stygian blackness.

And maybe there was no need for me to descend. Outside the mine, in a small clearing dotted with equipment, machines, wagons and horses, stood a crowd of men, some shirtless, some with rolled up sleeves. They were rough looking and filthy, few with hats. They circled a figure on the ground and looked back over their shoulders as we drew near.

I had a moment's relief—I would not have to go into that dark to tend the charge I'd made my own—and a moment's revulsion at my cowardice.

Then the horses stopped and I slid down before Mr. Longren could assist me. Tucking my skirts out of the way with both hands, I ran across the ground between us without waiting.

Several of the men detached from the crowd, putting up hands to ward me off.

"Whoa, miss, you don't want to see this."

"Lady, wait."

"Stay back!"

The last man reached for me, his hands finding purchase on my arms. I batted him away and heard him swear. His fingers tightened for an instant before I heard Hutch Longren shout, "Ben, let her go!" He released me instantly and I shouldered through the others, no thought of propriety.

Matthew Longren lay in the circle of men, his face stark white with pain, his teeth gritted. He was propped up against what looked like a bedroll and that against a small wood fence, both hands clenched around his thigh, where filthy rags made a tourniquet. His trousers were soaked through and stained dark with blood but the wound had stopped pumping blood.

He was lucky, if anyone having been shot could be called lucky and, given what I'd heard, in letters, of his temper and his tendency to bully the worst choices, I thought lucky was apt. The bullet had caught him in the fleshy part of his thigh, missing bone as far as I could see, and missing the arteries that ran there.

I knelt in the dirt without thinking, without introducing myself or even speaking. I wanted to see the wound, wanted to get my hands on something to clean it with, as my mother had taught me.

"I need a knife," I said to the men around me and they shifted and made querulous sounds. Men are never good at suddenly taking orders from a woman. When no knife was forthcoming, I looked up at the roughest of them, an enormous dark haired man with a mustache of absurd size, and said, "Sir, your knife." I held out my hand.

On the ground, my patient scrambled backward a bit. "Who are you?" And then, more to the point, "What are you going to do with that knife?"

I met his eyes then, about the time a much too large knife slapped into my hand, and I smiled as reassuringly as I could, which likely wasn't very. "I'm your sister-in-law," I said and watched bright blue eyes go wide, and I felt something, even in that instant, that I couldn't afford to feel, a twist of the heart I was determined to ignore.

Same hair, same generous mouth as his brother, same dark skin, and strangely similar blue eyes. But younger, closer to my age, and just now, he needed me.

I blinked and looked away from him, forcing myself to my work, which made him scramble again, his leg starting to bleed anew from injudicious movement. The men behind him stopped his retreat

"The knife? You're—Maggie? Margaret? What's the knife for?"

An absurd need to laugh arose, the response to fear, and to the absurdity of the introductions. "Hush," I said, "and stop moving. I need to cut the trousers only. I need to see the wound." I looked up the nearest pair of male legs to find that Hutch Longren now stood there. I nodded at him, as if certain he would understand, and he did, leaning down to put his hands on his brother's shoulders.

"Easy, Matthew, let her work. She's a trained midwife."

That got a harsh, nervous laugh from the men who still ringed us and, on the wave of the laughter, I used the enormous knife to cut away the cloth surrounding the bloody hole on Matthew's leg, cutting as far as I could and ripping the rest, then nodding to Hutch so he could help me move his brother and I could see the back of his leg. Moving Matthew made him cry out. I worked as fast as I could, wanting to provoke as little pain as possible.

The bullet had gone straight through and the hole was relatively small on both sides. Someone had tied the rags above the wound and the blood had stopped. What was left, then, was to get him something for the pain and to clean the wound. The first he'd like, but the second, not so much, and both could be accomplished at the same time.

"Which of you has whisky?" I asked and the men around us had the sense not to worry that Mr. Longren was their boss, but simply offered me their flasks.

"Drink this," I said, handing one flask to Matthew. His hand brushed mine as he took it. I felt the same shock I had when Hutch had brushed against me in the house and refused to acknowledge it.

The second flask I used to wash out the wound, which made Matthew draw in his breath and then shout. The sound echoed from the maw of the mine. I did not look at the mine, did not meet Matthew's eyes, just waited until the echoes and the patient had stilled, then, still kneeling, looked up to Hutch Longren.

"That needs to mend, uncovered, and probably needs to be cleaned another time or two. Does he have someone to care for him at home?"

Mr. Longren shook his head. "But he lives not a mile away." He sounded grim as he crouched now beside his brother. To his brother, he said, "We will discuss this when the bleeding has stopped," in a voice that made me glad I was not Matthew Longren.

I thought Matthew's response, "The bleeding has already stopped, brother", was unwise, and my hands tightened just enough on his knee to suggest to him that perhaps discretion was the better part of valor at present.

The bleeding _had_ stopped and, though I might not be the traditional doctor these men were used to, there was a general loosening of tension. The knot of them loosened as well, men stepping back and away, pinches of tobacco being shared, voices rising. I no longer minded being in a circle of strong smelling strangers, or having the room to think what needed to be done next and someone to consider options with.

Hutch remained with me and his brother and the two men who had ridden with us.

"We need the wagon to take him back to his home," I said and saw the slighter of the men, the one with the eyeglasses, blink owlishly at me, as if surprised I would continue to give orders or make suggestions now that the emergency was over. I met his eyes and refused to look away until he did. Once he looked back to Matthew, I looked at the man Mr. Longren had called John and then at my intended. "Or is there something here we can use?" I did not want to be left waiting as Mr. Longren went back for the wagon we had used.

"How about the steam donkey?" one of the clutch of men called and laughter followed that, though it seemed good natured.

I turned to stare at Hutch Longren and found him grinning. "You'd best ignore that lot," he said. "Steam donkey's for hauling within the mine."

"Very funny," Matthew said. "I can ride."

"No, you can't," Mr. Longren said, at the same time I said, "You certainly cannot." Our eyes met and he nodded slightly. "There's a wagon 'round here somewhere. John'll round it up," he said, nodding, and John started away. "Wait a minute," Mr. Longren stopped him and, when he turned back, nodded to me. "John Overton, this is Margaret Lucas, my betrothed. Miss Lucas, Mr. Overton manages and oversees Silver Sky mine for me and tries to keep Matthew out of trouble."

"Failed at that," John Overton said, as he nodded to me, hat lifted slightly.

Matthew started to protest, caught his brother's no-longer-smiling glance, and subsided.

In due course, the pale man with spectacles, Marcus Millichap, also a mine foreman, as it turned out, went off with John Overton and the two returned with a wagon they'd collected blankets and branches for, trying to soften the bare boards of it. Matthew was loaded into the wagon and, though he turned quite pale, he remained stoic throughout. Two horses were hitched and Mr. Longren offered me a hand to climb up. I shook my head.

"I'd rather walk," I said and, as he started to protest, "I can keep a better eye on the patient here—" which made Matthew sputter indignantly. I could use the time to clear my head, as well, for seated so close to Matthew, I doubted my head would remain even as clear as it was.

Hutch Longren gave me a considering look, one that, if I didn't imagine it, seemed not only appraising but impressed, then turned and clicked at the horses and began to lead us back to the house.

I walked beside the wagon, just slightly behind Matthew so I didn't have to meet his eyes or Hutch Longren's. My head didn't clear at all and, through the few miles we covered, I found myself looking from Hutch's strong, broad shoulders to Matthew's dusty curve of neck, and my heart refused to slow its frantic pace.

#  Chapter 3

Twilight on my first day in Gold Hill found me heating foods the neighbors had brought by when they heard about the accident. I didn't manage to meet anyone. They came like brownies are supposed to do in the night, cleaning up and leaving food and going away again, because that's what neighbors do when there's an accident.

"Accident my... eye," Mr. Longren amended, seeing a note left under a Dutch oven that contained chicken and potatoes.

Together, we had brought Matthew in, his arms around our shoulders, and I had studiously not thought about what I was doing, trying to jar him as little as possible but, of course, our heights were wildly different and Matthew listed to my side, which was, at least, the uninjured leg.

"I should go home," Matthew said as we installed him on the davenport, his leg extended and propped up. "Miss Lucas, I surely didn't mean..."

His earnest face made me laugh before he even finished. "...to get shot on my first day"

He looked mortified, and more so when Hutch said, somewhat lightly, "Thought she might as well know what she's in for, did you?"

But following that was an uncomfortable silence. If I hadn't known my place or what was expected of me before, I certainly couldn't know it now. But as the sun was going down, and as I was hungry, I assumed both men were as well, and cooking would be familiar, even if all I was doing tonight was building a fire and heating foods the neighbors had brought. I took my leave of them both, glancing back as I went into the large, well-scrubbed kitchen. They were eyeing each other warily and though I thought Matthew had the most to fear, Hutch looked equally ill at ease.

I didn't try to eavesdrop and I made certain to move as came naturally in the kitchen which, given it was a kitchen I didn't know, was loud. I dropped things, bumped into things, and, once, swore audibly when my elbow came in contact with the iron cook stove. Maybe because I didn't try to be silent, or maybe because Mr. Longren was unused to having anyone else in his house, they spoke in normal voices and once I found I could overhear, I made a point of doing so.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting up. I need to get back to my house. It's no good, me being here. You have a new bride—"

"—She's not my bride yet, and you'll not get out of it that easy. Sit down, damn it, Matthew. You're going to make it bleed again. Do you ever think or do you only act?"

"You don't know what happened." He sounded grumbly, in pain, and I'd need to find a chemist or the doctor everyone had spoken of. He needed something for the pain.

"I intend to," said his brother grimly. "Was it Joseph Gibbons?"

Matthew's voice sounded surprised when he answered. "No. Why would Joseph shoot me?"

There came a sound like Hutch had punched one hand into the other. "Why wouldn't he? I've heard you've been courting his daughter."

A faint sound of amusement in Matthew's voice could be heard. "This is news to me. Are we enjoying ourselves?"

"You were shot today, Matthew. Is that a laughing matter?"

I thought that his being able to laugh at all was a good thing, but that, before much longer, I needed to go in and tell—or perhaps ask—Mr. Longren to go and fetch the doctor.

"I'm not seeing Mr. Gibbons' daughter. I'm fairly certain I'd know."

I caught a round of cheese I'd just knocked off the bench, put it back up and looked around for a knife. I'd lost all track of what I was preparing to go with the plentiful chicken and potatoes. My attention was fully on the drama going on in the sitting room.

"Matthew, I'm not joking. What... happened?"

I pumped water, added it to a pitcher, moved to put the pitcher on the big, well-used, spotless table. I needed to find a tray—Matthew couldn't be sitting up at the table—but was loathe to interrupt the conversation going on in the other room.

It suddenly turned, then, far more serious, as befit a gunshot wound, but I was sorry to hear Matthew's voice so grim.

"Jason Seth, Hutch."

After that came silence. My heart raced, because his voice was grim and because his pronouncement was followed by silence. Hutch said nothing, though I waited, straining to hear. I had no idea who Mr. Seth was, or what this had meant, and I was moving toward the door to the kitchen, the one I'd left only pushed to, when something alerted me, the smallest sound, and I whirled back around, going back to the cabinets, searching for plates, for utensils.

"We're just about ready," I said as Mr. Longren came through the door, and turned to see his face was drawn and ashen. He looked my father's age, and ill. "Are you alright?" My hands went out to him. Without thinking, I reached for him, putting both hands on his forearm.

He didn't seem to notice, though I was well aware of warm skin and the corded muscle beneath.

"Is it Matthew?" I asked when he didn't reply, and he looked up, bewildered, before his eyes cleared.

"Matthew is fine. Empty headed, but his leg isn't bleeding. The doctor will be here soon." His expression didn't change. Without admitting I'd been listening, there was nothing more I could ask.

"Shall I bring a tray for Matthew?" The kitchen was hot, stuffy from the stove and end of day as it faced west.

"Yes, of course, thank you."

I waited a beat, and when he said nothing else, said, "Could you tell me where to find a tray?"

"Hmm?" His eyes cleared then and he looked right at me. "I'm sorry, Miss Lucas. What an introduction to Gold Hill. I appreciate what you did for my brother today, and don't mean to worry you with..." He stumbled over his words. "With anything else." He crossed to the pantry and, after a few minutes of more noise than I had produced, came out holding a silver tray, which he handed to me. "Could you bring my supper out as well?"

I swallowed, thinking of eating alone in the kitchen, but truly I could use the time to think... or not think. I was tired and the conversation I had been overhearing was more worrisome than informative. I made up the tray with plates of chicken and potatoes, with biscuits, cheese, and freshly sliced apples, with glasses of water and mugs of coffee and took it into the sitting room.

Hutch Longren stood at the window, looking out toward the street, one arm up against the wall, his shoulders strong and broad. Matthew lay with his eyes closed, a curl of dark hair over his forehead, his lips parted.

I got out of there as soon as I could and, this time, I closed the kitchen door firmly behind myself.

The doctor arrived as I finished cleaning up the kitchen. He came with a buckboard and left his horse tethered to the porch rail, as if either the horse or the doctor meant to leave in some great hurry.

"Matthew Longren," he called from beyond the screened door. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"

I hoped for an answer to be forthcoming but when none was, I let myself out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. If I learned nothing else, I could at least learn what I'd done right or wrong for Matthew's wound.

The doctor nodded to me when I entered but didn't stop what he was doing, which mostly concerned looking at the wound, gently pressing around the edges, and making "mmm" sounds. At last, he stood and I was able to see Matthew's face again. He was covered with a sheen of perspiration, looking gray and exhausted, and I was grateful when the doctor opened his black bag and removed a needle and syringe.

"Morphine will get you through the night," he said, and to Hutch, "I assume he'll be staying here."

Hutch nodded. His own face was gray and exhausted. Worry for his brother, no doubt. I hadn't heard them talking much before the doctor came and I was no more enlightened as to who Jason Seth was than I had been before.

"The sheriff will be visiting, no doubt, but with the morning," the doctor said, and administered the shot to Matthew, who had closed his eyes and kept them closed. "Now," he said, straightening, "I'd like to talk to the nurse."

I blushed, cursing my fair skin, and stepped forward. Before I could say anything, Hutch stepped forward and said, "This is Miss Margaret Lucas, Doctor Horton, my bride-to-be. She only arrived this afternoon on the train."

The doctor tipped his head back to look at me through his spectacles, which had slipped down his nose. He was a young man, red haired and earnest, and he studied me for a moment before saying, "Quite the introduction to our town, then. I'd like to commend you, Miss Lucas. Are you a trained nurse?"

"I did very little," I said, feeling nerves flutter in my stomach. Despite how little there'd been for me to do, I'd had hours of worrying I'd done something wrong.

"What you did, you did well—cleaning the wound, which not everyone knows to do, and tying it off." He still studied me, absently polishing his glasses now on his vest.

"My mother was a nurse in Boston," I said. "During the war." When this didn't make him look away, I added, "I'm trained as a midwife."

And that, finally, made him look down at the glasses he held, his mouth tightening just a bit. _Yes,_ I thought, _there's the reaction, and maybe what he had been looking for._ Was I competition? No, sir, I wasn't. I had no need to be confronted with another bullet wound, or with snakebite or illness or anything outside the realm of births but, often, my admission of my training left men uncomfortable, and now my first day was closing with the local doctor suspicious and local matrons glaring as I galloped past on my not-yet husband's lap.

So be it. I'd done what I needed to do, and wasn't one for letting propriety keep me from doing what was right.

In that minute, Dr. Horton relented. "It was in the family and it was done well, no harm and no concern."

I wasn't sure what that meant, so I merely nodded.

"He should sleep now and I will take my leave," he said. "I will see him tomorrow, and you, I presume?"

I nodded again and the doctor left. Matthew didn't open his eyes and his breathing had evened out and, when Mr. Longren touched my arm, I accompanied him back into the kitchen.

He sat at the table, strong, long-fingered hands clasped together. "I wonder if you'd make me a cup of coffee and join me?"

There were roasted coffee beans and someone had beaten the sugar and broken it out, and the stove was hot. I set about making the coffee, watching him as the last of the sun went down. He sat with his back to the kitchen window, his dark curls gleamed in the remaining light and his face was shadowed.

When the coffee was ready, I served it then took a seat beside him at the table. Once seated, I could see his features again, his bright blue eyes.

"What should I tell you about today?" he asked, his hands wrapped around the mug, despite the heat in the kitchen.

"All of it, if I'm to be your helpmate," I said, my attention focused on his hands. They were strong and rough where they wrapped around the mug.

He took a long look at me and nodded.

I didn't expect him to begin where he began. His face was serious and, from the sitting room, we could hear Matthew's breathing, heavy and pained despite his sleep.

Still, the first thing Hutch Longren said was, "This morning, I woke up knowing I'd meet the future Mrs. Longren."

I caught my breath but managed not to move. He wasn't looking at me, but rather past me at something I couldn't see. For a horrible instant, I thought he'd start with what a disappointment the meeting had been. No reason to suspect that, we didn't know each other yet, it had been a day full of incident neither of us could be blamed for.

Unless he blamed me for my actions. But I'd only been trying to help, even the doctor had said what I had done had made a difference.

Unaware of my turmoil, Mr. Longren continued. "I wanted to bring you back to the house, to show you your room." He paused, looked at me briefly, then smiled. "You've barely even seen it yet."

With a start, I realized he was right. I'd gotten one glimpse and then the riders had come. I wanted to say, _There were other matters to attend to_ , but kept my mouth closed.

"Then, the storm. The horses. No sooner did we get here than my idiot brother..." He didn't finish that thought. "And you, just gotten here, no doubt tired."

I nodded along with him. I didn't agree with a word. He hadn't mentioned a single thing that mattered to me and, far from being tired, I felt energized and alive despite my worry.

"Now this trouble," he said, without telling me what _this trouble_ was. He met my eyes and I got lost a little in the clear blue. "I'd understand if you wanted to get right back on that train and return to Boston."

I had. At the train station, when I first saw him, I'd felt afraid. Such a handsome man, and so much more real than my plans and daydreams had made him. I hadn't joined my friends in Boston in wondering and giggling between chores or after school. I'd attended the theater on the arm of a suitor or two, but always in the company of my sisters or we'd visited in my parents' parlor.

And I hadn't yearned for more. Learning midwifery, embroidery, reading novels, and walking through parks had been enough for me. The idea of being married, and married to a man who had previously had a wife, loved a woman, found comfort in her arms—that scared me. Starting life somewhere new, making new friends, learning whether my skills would be accepted or feared and scorned, all of it took more courage than I thought I had, and all of it without Virginia, my best friend, sister, and confidante.

So when the horses bolted and the wagon wheel broke, when the darkness of the mine yawned and the desert seemed so huge and Matthew so small and hurt, when I overheard the brothers talking of things I didn't understand but that still frightened me with their promise of unrest and mystery, I'd wanted to go home. Despite the attraction I'd felt the minute I saw him, I'd wanted to return to Boston and plead with my father to let me be the daughter who remained unwed, who cared for him and kept his house and Virginia could stay with me, my best friend and confidante.

Confidante of no confidences.

His eyes searched mine, eyes very like his brother's, and that was a concern as well. I hadn't known either of the Longrens before today but I was promised to one and needed to tread with care near the other.

"Are you sending me away?" I asked very softly.

"No," Hutch Longren said, equally quiet. "I'm asking you to stay."

#  Chapter 4

The kitchen was deep in shadows before either of us spoke again. We'd need to rise soon, light a candle or a lamp, although Mr. Longren doubtless knew his kitchen. I, however, had walked into walls and cabinets and the stove when it was full light. If he didn't rise and provide light, I'd be obliged to spend the night at the table.

At last, when the light had failed sufficiently to obscure his face, Mr. Longren said, "Did your mother share much of my letters?"

For some reason, that made my face heat again. There was no way he could have known the fairytales I created around a man I'd never met. That had been safe, innocent. Like having an imaginary friend or being borne off to marry a prince, and just about as likely.

"She did. You were always close to my uncle, and to my mother, I suppose."

He laughed. "She was like my mother, mine and Roy's, constantly calling us out for misdeeds, which only made us behave worse. We both had mothers. We didn't need Katherine."

I missed her, and so I asked. "What was she like?"

A moment of reflection, hidden by the shadows. "Like you, I think. She was strong and fast and funny, she didn't behave as—" He stopped abruptly, as if worried he was about to insult either my mother's memory or myself.

"As she should?" I asked. "I have heard tales, Mr. Longren. And not just of _her_ behavior."

I couldn't see if he had the grace to blush. I continued, teasing. "Water snakes in her sewing kit; hay in her hair; nothing she ever reached for where she expected it and the Halloween pranks, alone... It's a wonder she loved you both so."

He laughed, warm and comfortable, and said, " _Now_ is when I should ask if you're willing to stay."

"Now is when I should ask if you've overcome the need to tuck reptiles into the mending," I countered, and for that moment, we were at ease.

When he spoke again, it was as he rose to fetch a match and light the lamps on the kitchen walls, making the rose-patterned wallpaper glow and bringing himself back to into reality. "This wasn't the way I had hoped to welcome you. Much of today must have been a mystery to you. What do you want to know?"

My mind spun. I wanted to know how anyone could ever have the courage to step inside a mine and descend into the earth. I wanted to know if there were other midwives in Gold Hill or Virginia City or even as far away as Dayton or Reno, and what the townsfolk thought of them. I wanted to know...

"Who is Jason Seth?" I asked.

It took a few minutes for him to answer. The lamplight played over his face, highlighting the straight lines. He looked grave, but not angry.

At last, he said, "I thought you might have overheard us."

"In part."

He grimaced. "Enough to build an unsavory portrait, perhaps?"

I shook my head. "Enough only to build curiosity." That sounded frank, but I didn't soften it. "If I am to be your wife—" I let the sentence hang.

"Fair enough. Jason Seth filed the claim of the mine next to Silver Sky. At the start, it looked as though he had found a better vein of ore than we had. This strike is to the Nevada territory as the gold in California was there. There's enough. When a claim runs dry, file another.

"Jason Seth wasn't of the persuasion to give in. It's possible he should have." He paused, looked toward the door to the sitting room, as if he had heard something or was listening to be certain we weren't overhead. "His mines played out fast. Where claims around his produced, his gave up nothing but dirt and minerals. The harder he tried, the worse his results."

"I don't understand," I said. "Why, if the mines around his were flourishing?"

Hutch made a motion with one hand, as if brushing away a fly or moving past the question. "The man holds his pennies dear. He didn't pay for anything he strictly didn't have to pay for and it showed. His workers were angry and disinterested. His mines were dangerous and not the best claims that could have been made. He shored up the walls cheaply and suffered cave-ins or rather, his miners did."

"Could he have prevented the cave-ins?" The man seemed victim of a streak of bad luck as all around him others were finding luck in streaks of silver.

"Not completely. But to a much greater extent. Latticing of beams holds back the earth when you dig under it. Filling the lattice with cast-off rock helps support the structure. Mines need fans for air and, in many mines here, there needs to be a drainage system to pump out the water."

"And Jason Seth?"

"Didn't, for the most part. He cut corners. He skimped. He lost miners and, after a while, the only men who would work for him were those no better than he is."

Which didn't answer the main question. "Then why would he shoot Ma—Mr. Longren?"

He gave me a look I couldn't interpret and said, "The mines are playing out now. Ore is becoming harder to find and the market for it is thinning. We're going deeper into the ground, finding more ways to use machinery and steam power to extract the silver. Mrs. Eilley Bowers went bankrupt some four years ago, and she was the richest woman in the world."

I waited, my fingers laced tightly together in an effort to stop myself reaching out to him.

He looked awkward, as if unsure how to proceed, which made me wonder if there was yet a reason for Mr. Seth to have shot the younger Mr. Longren, although, in truth, the former sounded unpleasant enough to shoot someone simply to shoot him.

My future husband cleared his throat. "Miss Lucas, it might have been unfair of me to ask you to come out here and to marry me. Our mine is playing out fast and there's little enough money left. My—"

He stopped, cleared his throat and took a breath, and I knew where he was going to go. "Mrs. Longren's health was fragile for a year before she passed. There were ... expenses. It has not been easy, and I did not have the right to ask you—"

"—Please," I said. I couldn't think of anything to say about his wife. The subject was upsetting him. "Perhaps—"

He took a breath, not listening to me. "My wife's health wasn't good. There were many medical expenses, and then, when we thought there'd be a child..." He didn't finish that sentence. "Jason Seth doesn't understand that all the mines are playing out, and no amount of talk will convince him that Silver Sky is drying up. He believes we still have ore, and that we stole the claim from him."

I knew better. I'd heard the stories of buying the mine in letters, and of Matthew deciding to join Hutch and their sister, Annie, following them both to Gold Hill from California. "And Matthew?"

"Was seeing Mr. Seth's sister, Bess, until late when an argument between them ended the courtship. Miss Seth was of the opinion that we should sell her brother, Jason, a stake in our claim. She believed she would then marry Matthew and join our families."

I remembered sitting near the fire on a Boston winter's night as my Mother read a letter from Mr. Longren, in which he described his brother's fights in saloons and the women who came to call, the number he was courting and the ribbons and dresses they wore just for him, the fights they hissed between themselves over which of them he'd choose. Matthew settling down seemed unlikely. Matthew settling down with someone like Mr. Seth's sister not only seemed unlikely, but incendiary.

"You're smiling," Mr. Longren said.

"Just a little," I returned. "The younger Mr. Longren's... _escapades_... are not unknown in Boston." And at that, I forced myself to brush aside a small ember of jealousy that had no right to exist.

His mouth twitched, just a little, but what he said was, "We shall have to marry fast, so that you can call him Matthew and perhaps, learn to call me Hutch. Calling a reprobate like my brother Mr. Longren is farfetched."

I laughed at that, then asked, "His engagement?"

His eyebrows went up. "Such a strong word."

"The courtship, then. It broke off recently?"

"Most recently," he agreed. "But not so recently that we haven't had time to see which way the wind blows. Jason Seth wants revenge. He feels his sister's honor is sullied and that she can no longer hold her head high in Virginia City and its surrounds, or so he says. He feels that he is owed a stake in our claim and, denied that, he is out for whatever he can get, in whatever way he can get it."

I contemplated the best way to phrase my next question. Hutch watched me, head tilted. Finally, I said, "Was this, err, an isolated incident?"

That made him actually laugh, though he sounded rueful. "Matthew has been seeing the daughters, sisters and cousins of many local gentlemen, none of whom ever shot him before—not even the Mayor, whose daughter was quite convinced she had extracted a promise."

I stood and paced to the window, pulling shut the bright yellow curtains another woman's hand had hung. The night seemed too vast, as if curious eyes stared in. "But, surely Jason Seth has no legal claim." I stopped, because that was stupid.

"And so he took other action," he said. "He was drunk and angry and he doesn't have the sense God gave a goat." He cleared his throat, ran a hand over his face. "If he'd waited. Or if Matthew hadn't seen fit to court Miss Elizabeth Seth, then Jason would have known the truth. He soon will anyway—that we are mining more dirt than silver—and he will know the precarious financial grounds upon which we stand, and then I fear he will seek other means to avenge himself upon us. And you have thrown in your lot with this family, but you did not have this information before. Much has changed in the week you traveled from Boston and I promise you, I did not misspeak on purpose. I will make the best life for you that I can, but I will understand if you wish to return to Boston."

He looked at me then, and I wished those strong hands would follow his eyes. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I did not want to be sent away. Not anymore. The fears of the afternoon had fled.

"Are you asking me to leave?" I asked for the second time.

"I'm asking you to stay," he returned again. "But with more disclosure." His eyes were serious. He didn't smile and I felt a shiver build, despite the heat of the night and the closeness of the room.

"I would like to stay, Mr. Longren. I would like to marry you soon and learn this place and understand about your household and help you as I may. Surely there are women having children here, and the doctor didn't outright challenge me."

"Close enough," he said, but he was smiling.

I didn't smile back. "Maybe I can help. In Boston, there was so little need for my skills."

"So I am to be your project?"

I think he meant it lightly, but his voice carried something deeper that made my hands clench. "You are to be my husband," I said.

Our eyes met. Nothing outside the kitchen existed; not heat or desert or silver ore or gun fights, not Matthew on the davenport or the howl of coyotes coming through the clear air of night.

"I should show you to your room," he said, and stood at once, knocking his chair back as if something had suddenly made him anxious. He held out a hand to me.

I took his hand. Mine was damp and I wanted to laugh at that, but my fingers trembled and my legs were very tired. He stopped at the edge of the kitchen to light a lantern from the oil lamps and then I let him lead me through the kitchen door and down an ill-lit hall, where shadows flickered.

He'd put my trunk in the room he'd prepared for me, the room some neighbor had probably scrubbed and oiled and waxed until it gleamed in the lantern light. He lit the lamps there for me, and stepped back so I could enter.

A four poster bed heaped with pillows stood before me. Light curtains hung in the windows but, in the uncertain light, they no longer seemed a cheerful yellow. There was a sampler above the bed, something embroidered I didn't take the time to read, and a pitcher and bowl upon the dresser.

I turned to thank him and found him standing close. I did not step back. My breath caught.

"Take tonight," he said, and I thought he meant something quite different until he added, "If, tomorrow, you're still of a mind to stay, we shall marry."

_I'm already sure_ , I thought, and pushed away the stray thoughts of other blue eyes and dark curls.

Hutch reached to give me the lantern and our hands touched, fumbled at each other, and then the lantern had been put down on the floor and his hand was over mine.

My skin caught fire. My hand burned like I held on to nettles. I didn't think, only turned my hand upright within his so our palms touched. His breath came faster. My free hand fumbled, found its way to his chest. Under the coarse work shirt, I could feel hard muscle and the pounding of his heart.

He slid his other arm around my waist and pulled me to him. Our hands still held to each other, burning hotly. My mouth opened. I looked up slowly, met his gaze, and couldn't look away. He searched my eyes, looking for an answer. I didn't look away, didn't close my eyes, until he moved, so slightly, then lowered his head toward mine.

My chin tipped up. My mouth met his. My eyes closed and the tension inside me all at once let go so I could sink against him and, at the same time, coiled up so that inside, I felt like a storm about to break.

His lips were chapped, roughened by the heat and dry of the desert. His hands were hot, burning against my skin. Our hearts pounded together.

He didn't stop. I'd been kissed, a time or two, polite goodnights from Boston boys, who would call again but eventually faded away.

This was nothing like that. Hutch Longren was older, taller, stronger and bigger, pressed against me with heat and the scent of the sage and the dust of this place. His mouth moved over mine, his teeth found my bottom lip, his tongue darted out to taste my lips. Before I had been kissed; on this night, in this strange new place, I kissed in return. I tasted him, the coffee he'd drank, the sweetness of sugar he'd added to the last cup. His heat was like the desert night.

There was nothing to stop us. We would be wed soon. Fear crept up. I'd never anticipated this, never joined in the talk of friends. I felt young and foolish and, at the same time, too old for such feelings and afraid he'd find me naive.

I was afraid he wouldn't stop and that I wouldn't stop him and, at the same time, I never wanted it to end.

He let go of me abruptly. From the sitting room had come a harsh cry. Matthew was awake, had moved, perhaps in his sleep, his injury forgotten until the stab of pain woke him. He didn't make another sound but Hutch Longren pulled away from me until only our hands remained linked. Hands and eyes.

But he was clearly thinking now, worrying about his brother, and I collected myself enough to nod in that direction. "Make sure he's alright," I said and tried to reclaim my hand.

He smiled and drew my hand to his lips before he released it. "Sleep well," he said, and was gone before I could think of anything to say.

Heart pounding, I stepped into the room he had prepared for me and shut the door.

#  Chapter 5

I did not sleep well.

Coyotes called at all hours of the night. In the East, we thought the coyotes a fiction of the wild, legendary West and, further, that they bayed at the full moon. Whether the moon was full or not, I didn't know. I hadn't paid any attention but somehow doubted that it was. The coyotes were simply alive within the night and their lonesome cries sometimes sounded like laughter, and always at my expense.

At first, I fell into bed, anxious and awake and in a tumult of confusion when first Mr. Longren left me and then, the moment my head hit the pillows, I discovered I was drained. I couldn't read any of my Bible, couldn't read any of the novel I had brought and ignored all the way across the country as Great Aunt Agnes talked and many newly formed states rolled by. I couldn't keep my eyes open and I blew out the lamp, laying back in the intense darkness, which gradually dissolved to starlight outside the bedroom window.

When I slept, I dreamed... I dreamed of Jason Seth, stalking about like a monster, coming not after Matthew Longren but his brother, looking to take the mine, the house and any monies that returned and, maybe, to the victor go the spoils—me.

I dreamed of Joseph Gibbons, interchangeable with Jason Seth because I had heard their names together and knew neither man. Both of them became the doctor, wagging a warning finger at me, letting me know that this was his territory, these men were his to treat—or to lose, if an accident at another mine kept him too long from the gunshot wound.

And then, at last, naturally, I dreamed my confusion and fear and feelings, seeing first Hutch and then Matthew, the two of them changing places, each of them walking with me through gardens that couldn't bloom in this arid land and kissing me, as wonderfully and fully as my husband-to-be had kissed me the night before.

I woke, tangled in the sheets, at dawn, exhausted and cross and half wishing I was back in Boston. But the land smelled fresh and wet at that hour and the moon was just setting; I could see the glow to the west. The coyotes had retired for the night and half a dozen rabbits ran across the garden when I stood and moved to the window. They seemed not in the least intimidated by the scarecrow someone had hung out there.

My room was in a wing built out from the house, probably directly under Mr. Longren's, as I'd heard his boots the night before. My room looked out into the garden to the west as another window looked to the north. If I stood to the edge of that window, I could almost see into the kitchen. Instead, I stood looking at the garden, at the tops of corn I'd seen the day before, and the small orchard beyond that, a collection of fruit trees. Someone had been caring for the garden and I doubted it was Mr. Longren. That duty would fall to me, I supposed, and bit my lip. I had nine green thumbs when it came to midwifery. Babies I birthed usually thrived unless there was a problem in the womb, before birth or with the mother. Plants, on the other hand, suffered at my touch, withering and all but dying to quit my tender ministrations.

Well, I'd learn.

Through my sleep, I'd heard Mr. Longren in the room above mine, his boots on the hardwood floor as he moved about, and I assumed he was long gone, out to the mines, perhaps leaving me to cope with the Sheriff, who was due to visit the incorrigible younger Mr. Longren and another visit from the doctor.

That wasn't such a bad thing. Seeing him again this morning, I figured, might be awkward. The previous night we had been tired, had talked so long and about so much, had seen through two emergencies together—what had transpired between us seemed natural.

By morning light, it might not.

I went down the hall, my ankle boots clicking on the hardwood, admiring the shining, polished, wood floors. Whoever had kept house for Mr. Longren before my arrival could teach me a thing or two about keeping Nevada dust from the wood surfaces.

At the end of the hall, I veered to the right, checking in the sitting room. Matthew Longren still slept on the davenport and, this morning, his color wasn't good. He looked gray and washed out, like bed sheets laundered too many times, and his face shined with heat. It would be good if the doctor came again, though maybe Mr. Longren had simply spent a restless, pained night and now, perhaps, he was simply hot.

I could understand. The day's heat was already starting as the sun came up and burned away the cool, fresh smell, replacing it with a dusty smell of earth and the heady scent of sage. Still, I wanted to brush the curls from his face and pat down the shine of moisture on his forehead. I wanted him to open his eyes and see me there and I wanted to touch his hand again, to make certain that spark didn't happen this time.

_Only_ to make certain that spark didn't happen again.

I forced myself away, shielding my thoughts from myself, and continued through the sitting room, heading left through the connecting door into the kitchen.

And found myself face to face with Hutch Longren.

It hadn't been the lateness of the hour or the quiet kitchen or the endless stars in the nighttime sky. My breath caught and my mind went empty. I couldn't speak.

He didn't speak either, just crossed the kitchen to me as if he thought I might fall. I didn't feel faint. I simply wanted to be caught.

Standing in the circle of his arms, I thought of him saying we must marry soon. Then even that thought was lost.

His mouth on mine was hot as the day dawning beyond the kitchen. His hands burned through my dress. I pressed against him and opened my mouth to his, letting my hands move over the muscles in his back. He was lean and hard and very real, not the apparitions I had dreamed. He was proof of his own existence when I doubted he was anything beyond daydream because, in the back of my mind, a voice of reason said, "Nothing happens like this." A marriage of convenience, of logic and reason, doesn't result in these feelings; such feelings would have to be to grown into and probably unearthed at quite a price. I wasn't a silly girl, believing in fairy tales.

He pushed me up against the kitchen wall, and something on a shelf smacked against my shoulder and tumbled, falling to the floor with a metallic clatter. Hutch's body pressed against mine and my mind flashed to thoughts I'd seldom entertained.

We were to be married. Surely, it was—

A sudden sound from the sitting room... Matthew was waking, startling himself with pain and calling out. "Hutch? A hand?"

We sprang apart like illicit lovers, staring at each other, each too flushed to go to the call and smiling slightly, sheepish and pleased.

"I should," he said, and gestured.

"You should," I agreed, and didn't move.

"Hutch? I can _hear_ you," Matthew called from beyond the door.

I put a hand over my mouth, stifling an unladylike giggle. Hutch kissed the hand in place of my mouth and whispered, "Don't go anywhere."

"Where would I go?" I asked and slid away from him, curving around his body and moving to the stove, looking for logs and matches and keeping my elbows clear of the metal rod used to pick up the burners, the one that had caught my arm the night before.

There would be bacon in the cold storage, and bread possibly, though probably I'd need to bake soon or find the baker in Gold Hill or Virginia City.

The dizzying conversation from the night before came back to me. There was no money here, no more than there had been at my father's house in Boston. Maybe I wouldn't be able to stay here. Maybe he'd only asked me if I wanted to be set free of him and this place because he needed to, wanted out of the contract himself.

So I'd need to bake and start thinking about dinner and find ways to economize. I could do the washing and, if the good neighbor who had been keeping house had been paid for her services, I could take over those services, learning somehow to keep a cleaner house than I'd ever even lived in. I would do whatever necessary, if he'd let me stay, and I was thinking of dark hair and blue eyes.

Hutch, of course. I ran my hands up and down my arms, cold despite the heat.

Through the unlatched door, I heard Matthew's voice. "Ask her."

I was startled into motion, moving to start preparations for breakfast, when Hutch came back into the kitchen. "Miss—" He stopped himself. "Margaret, the trouble is awake. May I impose on you—"

"—Maggie," I said, laughing. "The trouble. It's a grand name. Give me enough time to find my way 'round this kitchen and you'll both have breakfast."

The Sheriff came not long after we'd eaten. I was scowling at the remains of the eggs and potatoes when he arrived, thinking that economizing with two such appetites in the house would require my own extended fast. Concerned with what stores there were, I didn't hear his horse come up the drive and jumped when footsteps crossed the porch.

He knocked then called through the door and I heard voices raised, the doors opening and closing, men's footsteps, and a hearty gale of laughter. Matthew must be looking better, or else the laughter was cold hearted.

I moved to the kitchen door and stood, holding a plate and drying it, waiting for more.

"He's in the jail, Longren. Will be there until this is sorted out."

"What's to sort out? He shot my brother, in plain sight of the men at the mine."

"Who are loyal to you," the Sheriff's voice said.

"What's that supposed to mean? That they'd lie for me? A dying mine only buys limited loyalty. Jason Seth shot Matthew."

Matthew himself was adding bits and pieces to the story, not particularly coherently.

I moved so I could see through a crack in the door, in time to see the Sheriff raise both hands to shoulder level, palms out. "I know what Seth has said and I know what young Mr. Longren says and I'm inclined to believe the latter. Given both are hotheads, still, Matthew has never shot anyone."

"And Jason Seth has," Matthew said, angrily.

"Peace, boy. He's already in custody and I'm here for you to swear out a complaint. Then it's up to the judge, when he comes through the circuit, t'marry your brother and his wife, and decide for or against you in this matter."

I could only see Matthew's profile but he didn't look mollified. Still, what more did he want?

"There are other Seths," Matthew said. "How do we know another won't—"

"—Because the others don't have a bone to pick with the Longrens, that's how," the Sheriff said. He was a big man, easily over six feet tall, with a barrel chest, thick arms and a hat he hadn't removed. His hands looked strong and capable and the gun on his belt, deadly.

I remained where I was, out of sight.

"I've talked with Jason's brothers. They want no part of this, nor his sons, neither. But there's a slight matter of breach of contract, and that I need to know about."

Again, that pang of jealousy, misplaced and inappropriate. I bit the inside of my cheek.

"There was no promise and, therefore, no breach," Matthew said and he sounded weary, pained and sulking. "Bess is a nice girl; we went once to the theater and another time to a picnic. Not alone," he added quickly. "There were other couples and if I saw her other than that, it was in the market or on the street. I went to school with her, Sheriff. She's a nice girl but I don't want to marry her."

_Or anyone else, just yet_ , the sentence seemed to finish itself.

"She know that?" the Sheriff asked.

"Damned if I know," Matthew said angrily and was shushed by Hutch. "Well, I don't. We never even talked about it to that extent."

The Sheriff pounced. "To what extent?"

Matthew, het up, waved his arms, then grabbed his leg. "To _any_ extent."

"Alright, alright," again, with the hands up, peacefully. "Look, he'll be out in a couple of days. For all we say, once he calms down, it's probably going to be before that because being behind bars isn't doing much for his temper. Can you just steer clear until this blows over?"

"Who says it's going to blow over?" Matthew said, as Hutch said, "Yes, he can. He can't even walk. Shouldn't be too hard to hobble him to the bedpost."

What I could see of Matthew's face scowled.

"Also," the Sheriff said, as if justice had been dispensed with the curtailing of the victim's freedom, "Heard your new wife came into town yesterday." This was to Hutch. "Patched up your brother here."

"Bride-to-be," Hutch corrected. "She's a midwife."

"Fine by me. Just don't let her get on the wrong side of Doc Horton, see? We need him here to patch up those not having babies."

I let the kitchen door slide shut. I had no intention of going to the mines and advertising my services for every incident but when the doctor was unavailable, I needed to be able to help. Being a midwife meant I had medical training, nursing primarily, but I could still help when needed and, what's more, midwifery paid.

I'd come from a home without money into a home without money. If I didn't want to go away again, using my skills was a good start—if it didn't get me thrown in the jail next to Jason Seth.

Hutch went up to the mine once the Sheriff had gone. It was barely seven, already hot, and people in the West kept early hours. I cleaned the breakfast dishes, finishing them as the doctor came along. I heard him calling from the porch, leaving his buckboard as before, letting himself in to check on Matthew. Their voices became background and I didn't pay attention to them. As I finished in the kitchen, the doctor let himself through the door from the sitting room.

"Morning, Missus," he said, and I didn't correct him. Everyone was convinced Hutch and I were magically already married.

"Doctor Horton. May I offer you coffee?"

"Shouldn't think so," he said, but sat down at the table nonetheless. He looked ill at ease, but determined to have his say. Might as well let him and figure out what I had to contend with. I took a chair across from him, drying my hands on a flour sack that doubled in Hutch's kitchen as a dish towel. I wondered what his wife's dish towels had looked like and what had happened to them then wondered, not for the first time, what his wife looked like and what had happened to her.

"Young Mr. Longren's leg looks good, Miss Lucas. You did a good job and I'm sorry if I came off hard yesterday."

I nodded. "You had no way of knowing what I could do." Then, taking a chance, I added, "Neither did I."

He laughed at that. "Not a lot of shootings in Boston? Too civilized?"

I raised my brows. "Plenty of civilized shootings in Boston. They just don't need a midwife to interfere." And when he'd smiled at that, I went on. "How about in Gold Hill or Virginia City? Any room for midwifery?"

He seemed to ponder the question longer than necessary, staring past me into the kitchen as if judging its potential as a surgery. At last, he looked me square in the eye and said, "Yes, miss, we could use a midwife here. There's a doc or two over in Virginia City and we cross paths back and forth between here and there and Dayton and Lousetown but there's not always someone available when there's a child being born because the men have no more sense than to get into a fight or fall down a mine shaft."

I didn't say anything. He was tacitly allowing me my trade, admitting I'd done a good job with my first gunshot wound, but what he was saying wasn't what he'd been preparing to say. My father sometimes did the same thing, talking around a subject too sore to press. I waited.

"I suppose you know what happened to the former Mrs. Longren?" he asked at length.

So close to my thoughts, I was surprised. "I don't, in fact," I said. Under the table, out of sight, my hands wrung together.

"She was expecting," he said. "Their first and probably a son, given the way she was carrying."

I blinked and swallowed hard. "What happened?"

His attention had wandered. He looked directly at me again with my question and said, simply, "Baby came early. Midwife came late." He thought for a minute, then knocked one knuckle against the table. "Might be something you'd best keep in mind. I'll see myself out. Good day."

I murmured something, my eyes glazed with thoughts and tears I wouldn't shed. No one had ever told me just what had happened to Ellie Longren. Had I hurt him? By talking about what I did? By not knowing? Should I have known? He'd asked if my mother had shared his letters, but surely he wouldn't have sent such information to her.

The doctor hadn't left the room. He stood just inside the door that led to the sitting room and I blinked away the confusion and hurt, looked up at him, and tried to smile. "Was there... something else?"

"Mrs. Barnett, she lives over the other side of town, past the baker. Anyone can tell you the way?" It sounded like a question. I had no idea what he was getting at.

"Yes?"

"She's expecting her third, any day now. She's had an easy time of it in the past, can't say as I'm expecting anything different this time around. She's still on her feet, strong and healthy, but wouldn't hurt if you were to drop round in the next day or two. Get your bearings but maybe make an introduction."

My head spun, thoughts flew. Everything at once, the chance to help out, the fear of hurting Hutch, the challenge I'd thought I'd seen from the doctor coupled with the chance he was giving me.

He was waiting for an answer. "Thank you," I stammered. "I'll go 'round today... or... or tomorrow." I hadn't unpacked. I didn't know if Hutch would come back for midday meal. There was Matthew to see to.

And I was petrified.

He saw that and smiled, but it wasn't cruel. Just knowing. "Good day," he said again and was gone before I managed a reply.

Hutch did come home midday, to check in with me, to eat lightly and without interest and to refuse to reply to any conversational sally I made, until I gave up and contented myself with making a tray for his brother and busying myself in the kitchen.

When he got ready to go back to the mine, still silent and halfway out the door without comment, I hazarded a question. He wasn't used to having someone here. That I could understand. But had I done something?

"No," he said and his eyes cleared for an instant. "I don't want to trouble you. You've only just arrived." He looked back over his shoulder into the house. "Have you even unpacked yet?" As if, had I unpacked, the nature of the house would have changed completely.

I smiled. "Not yet, but I brought little. Books, mostly."

He nodded.

"Hutch. Trouble me."

That made him look at me again, with a faint smile. "Just a line of ore. I thought we had found a vein, something that might put the Silver Sky back on its feet. But it petered out in a very short distance. I'm going to be losing men, can't afford their pay, and that hurts them, hurts everybody. It might have been better—" And he stopped and folded his lips over what he might have said, which I had no doubt was along the lines of, "Perhaps you should have stayed in Boston."

I took a breath. He was already troubled. Could what I had to ask trouble him that much more? And he needed my help.

"Doctor Horton said Matthew is doing well," I started. He knew this, having talked with his brother already. He simply nodded and waited. "He suggested," deep breath, "he suggested I call on Mrs. Barnett," I said, and waited to see if he'd put the pieces of that together himself. He did, and in short order.

"I see."

I rushed in, anxious. "Do you mind, Mr.—Hutch? I'd like to help." That brought color to his face. Quickly, I said, "She may have had easy births, but it never hurts to have the help of someone trained nearby."

He relented, his lips losing the tight line of pride. "If you were a teacher, I wouldn't expect you not to teach," he said which, before Dr. Horton's visit, would have not made sense to me. He met my gaze. "You must do what you feel best. I will be home at sundown. Will you have supper waiting?"

I would. And I'd unpack, in the hopes that would make him stop offering me the chance to escape.

And I'd have gone into Gold Hill and met with Mrs. Barnett.

Kitchen first, then on to unpacking, because it made me nervous, having an escape so conveniently at hand. Being upstairs kept me distant from Matthew, who was growing bored and talkative. I'd left him whittling, a fine mess I'd need to clean later.

Once the kitchen was put away, and supper decided—string beans, potatoes, a roast someone had brought after the word of Matthew's accident had gone 'round— I went out to the garden.

It was well tended, offering up corn I could harvest for supper, or possibly cut down into a corn pudding or corn and buttermilk pie. There were apples that would be ready come fall and peaches that needed picking now. I could can some of them, maybe give some away. I'd have to ask Hutch what he'd been doing. Perhaps he traded the garden bounty for cleaning services. Greens grew in profusion, onions, peppers, carrots. A few berry bushes looked less than amused with the desert climate and I pumped extra water for them.

Mid-afternoon, I quit the garden and took myself inside, avoiding the sitting room until I'd had a chance to check my appearance, tame my hair and wash the dirt from my face. Then I gathered a few of the ripe peaches in a basket, found one of my hats that hadn't flown off in a wild wagon ride, and went in to tell Matthew where I was going.

"How's your—" _leg_ , I started to say, but it sounded forward and I changed it to _wound_.

"Aches a bit," he said, but there was color in his cheeks again and his blue eyes were awake and clear. "My night wasn't so good, but doc"—he stumbled a little—"drained it and pain's going."

The pain would be going if he'd gotten a shot, as well, but I didn't think he had and couldn't think of any good reason to discourage him. I handed him two of the peaches, fetched some water, and announced my intentions.

At that, Matthew's face clouded. "Maggie," he said, easily using my familiar name. "You know about Ellie, don't you?"

I liked him for that. "I do. And Hutch knew what I am before I came out and knows my intentions now."

His expression didn't soften. I added, "I can help, Matthew. It will be alright."

I hadn't even made it as far as the street, armed with a basket of peaches and directions from Matthew to head south, when I was hailed and turned to find a beautiful woman, about Hutch's age, bearing down on me, waving, her dark hair sleekly pulled back, her blue eyes bright.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Hello!" She came through the gate as if we'd been friends forever and as if she came and went through that gate on a daily basis. "Maggie?"

"Annie?" Had to be. She had the same coloring as her brothers and the same smile.

"I'm so glad to finally meet you!" She took my hands, which were wrapped around the basket handle, and squeezed them warmly. "You're the talk of the town; everyone is interested in the bride coming all the way from Boston!"

She meant nothing by it, but my cheeks flamed to be the center of gossip and to feel like a mail order bride.

But she was warm and welcoming and we'd exchanged a letter or two before I had left the East. I'd been anticipating meeting Annie and her daughters, Kitty and Sarah, both nearly grown, and her son, Jacob, off at the University of Nevada in Reno, studying mining engineering.

She swept me along in her wake, apparently uninterested in her wounded brother back inside the house. Instead of going in, she guided me a mile to the north, talking along the way and offering me everything from pie to bread to cold chicken to tea. I was hungry enough just from the conversation to sit without question when we reached her snug house. Her kitchen was cleaner than Hutch's house even was, with shining wood and copper kettles and a huge wood stove that spoke of the days before her husband had been killed in a robbery.

Annie and her husband had left Alturas after Hutch, made it big briefly in silver and hated mining enough to open a grocery store in Virginia City. But when times turned hard, a robbery had left Annie's Clifford mortally wounded and Annie, a widow, taking in sewing and raising their three children.

The Longren family had endured their share of bad luck.

It didn't show on Annie. She cheerfully made tea, talking nonstop about the families that made Virginia City and Gold Hill, the silver families of Mackay and Bowers and Bradleigh. She talked about the Sheriff, who she rather thought couldn't find his own nose if someone told him it had gone missing, and who, she intimated, might not be adverse to claiming he couldn't find such nose if he were paid enough. She talked about Dr. Horton, who she thought fairly skilled, and Dr. Young, who had moved on a year early, which had benefited several of his patients but not the tills in the local saloons. She talked about Matthew and Hutch and her son and daughters, about her parents in Alturas and the two younger brothers still back home in California. She talked about their parents, who ran a cattle ranch, which I knew as Hutch's letters had been replete with the desire never to find himself on a ranch. _Cows_ , he'd written, _are the dumbest creatures in creation. They have even less sense than Matthew_ , which wasn't too cruel, given that, at the time, Matthew was seeing something like half a dozen girls with his usual lack of subtlety.

Listening to Annie talk about family, names slipped into place and the strange I'd been immersed in for the last day began to become familiar. When I asked her about Mrs. Barnett, she offered that the Barnetts had very little money but were kind, giving, and loving and that Mrs. Barnett was, indeed, close to her time.

"I'll give you a loaf to take with the peaches and some eggs. Those children need eggs and it wouldn't hurt her any, either," she said, bustling up to do so right then. It didn't seem strange to her that I would offer my services as midwife and so I didn't ask.

I thought I should go then, the day was passing and I wanted to go to the Barnetts' and I shouldn't impose overly on my new sister, if only because her company was so comforting I already knew I would hate to lose it, but she started then to ask me about Boston, about street cars and theaters and fashion and news, and the more I talked, the smaller the lump in my throat became, the familiar embracing me even in this strange place. And so I stayed, telling her about adventures there, about Harvard, which I'd visited once but which my father had attended.

It was later in the day when I set off for the Barnetts and I had an additional mile to walk, but I went smiling and more at ease than I had been since I had come to Nevada and I owed that to Annie.

#  Chapter 6

Mrs. Barnett lived in a small house off the main street in Gold Hill, close enough I was able to walk to it, even after my visit with Annie. Suddenly feeling like a peddler, I hesitated on the front walk. What was I planning to do, walk in and announce my fees? Demand she place herself in my care, for her good and my own, and then tell everyone about the miraculous midwife come to town?

I stood looking at the house, small and painted white, with neat blue shutters and hollyhocks growing up before the windows. There wasn't much money here. Times were growing hard throughout the silver region, but it was more evident in this house than in Mr. Longren's, which had been built when the mines were producing and was scrupulously kept up.

Mr. Barnett worked in a bakery and, from what Annie had told me, a great deal of his paycheck ended up in the saloons. But that was gossip and I would learn for myself, and it was no reflection on Mrs. Barnett either way.

I had peaches, which weren't charity but a gift, and eggs and a loaf from Annie she said to claim was being repaid. I also had skills Mrs. Barnett might need and I would offer them if it seemed appropriate. Surely it wasn't too unusual for a midwife new to town to seek out those who might need her services.

Fortified, I let myself in through the gate, wound between the lavender and sweet pea that edged the walk, and went to the door.

Mrs. Barnett was small, with skin like porcelain and eyes as blue as those of the Longren brothers. A tumble of small children billowed out the door when she opened it and began chasing each other through the flowers.

"Mind the sweet pea," she called, then smiled at me. "May I help you?"

I blushed again, feeling foolish. "I'm Maggie Lucas, Margaret Lucas. I just arrived in Gold Hill and I don't know anyone yet and I wanted to meet some of my neighbors." _And I chose you because you're expecting but please don't ask why I chose you, because it sounds so dreadful._

She didn't. Instead, she smiled widely and said, "You're a midwife! I heard! Everyone is talking. People come here every day, but far more menfolk than women and I'm so glad to make your acquaintance. Please, come in, I can't move easily just now." She laughed and moved back into the house and I could see her clearly then, and understood her inability to move. She was days from childbirth. "Would you like to leave the basket? The children won't bother it."

"It's for you," I said, and then, "Well, the peaches are, and the rest of the contents," and with her smile I felt at ease, stepped through the wooden door and followed Gloria Barnett into her kitchen.

By the time I left Gloria Barnett's home, I'd met her children, a handful of cats and chickens, and been promised baking and eggs in return for anything I could do when her time came. I'd also made a friend. Gloria Barnett was open, friendly and happy and, despite wanting to take nothing away with me, I left with a loaf of fresh bread and a bunch of spinach I didn't think she could afford to give away.

In Boston, I might not have had many women to see through their time, but at least those I attended were strangers. Asking for money from friends would be difficult or impossible.

Sunshine woke me my third morning in Gold Hill. I'd gone to bed late the night before after starting pie dough and canning peaches after returning from Gloria Barnett's house. The tasks hadn't seemed so fearsome when I started but, by the time Hutch had gone off to his bed, leaving Matthew, much improved but still on the davenport, the kitchen looked like someone had slaughtered a peach tree in it. Every surface, including most of the surfaces attached to me, were covered in peach juice and sugar and, though I tried to convince myself that Hutch was right and everything would still be there come morning, I'd been unable to leave the formerly pristine kitchen in that state and had stayed up even later, cleaning by lamplight. As the morning sun heated up the bedroom, I realized I was sore from walking to the Barnett's house and back and from riding to the mine. My arms were sore from cutting peaches and canning and cleaning for half the night.

My heart was sore with confusion, for an easy conversation had sprung up with Matthew as I canned before Hutch got home. Too easy, perhaps; more so because I couldn't see Matthew, but only called to him from the kitchen where I worked. I was attracted to him, and although I thought what I was already feeling for Hutch in light of all the letters (and maybe because he was to be my husband) was more emotional, what I felt for Matthew was more exciting, breathtaking and definitely trouble.

Sitting up and stretching, I realized that Hutch would be long gone by now, off at the mine without breakfast and, if I remembered the dying sounds of the grandfather clock that had woken me, he'd be back for midday meal before I could get anything hot fixed.

The thought was enough to send me reeling out of bed, which I made in a hurry. I splashed my face clean, promising myself a bath that evening because I was still sticky in places from peach juice. I brushed my hair and cleaned my teeth and stared into the tiny mirror on the wall, wishing it would show me all of my face at once. I'd have Virginia send me the mirror from my room at home. I needed to write to her, and I needed to send her the recipe Gloria Barnett had shared with me but, first, I needed to get together a meal and make up for lost time.

I whirled out of the room and down the hallway, my boots creating a racket that couldn't have been missed, came fast around the staircase, using the newel post to spin myself through the door into the sitting room, where I fetched up hard against Matthew, leaving him rocking on his feet.

I caught him before he fell back, providing just enough support to stop him hitting the wall behind him or tripping on the piano no one here played. My hands caught his biceps, sending heat rushing through me. His hands came up around my forearms, keeping him upright, steadying himself—and me.

"Are you alright?"

We asked it at the same time, each looking closely at the other for signs of injury, and then we both laughed at about the same time, relieved and embarrassed.

"Where's the fire, Miss Maggie?" His good humor restored, and also, apparently, mobility.

"It needs to be in the kitchen," I said. "I'm late!"

I would have started for the kitchen but he still held my wrists, his hands warm and strong, easily circling my arms. I looked down at them, knowing I should protest, knowing he should have let go by now. Knowing he knew to let go. Knowing that he would realize I hadn't protested.

I met his eyes again and tried to speak.

Outside on the road, a carriage passed and the spell broke. Matthew took two steps back, releasing my wrists. He didn't look directly at me but said, "My leg is much improved. Probably I should be home again tomorrow at the latest."

I nodded, biting one lip. "I'm glad you're recovered," I said. And then, "Will you join us for midday meal?"

I thought he'd decline. I thought it might be awkward. I was afraid he'd felt what I felt or, at the very least, that he knew what I'd experienced even if he didn't share it.

But this was Matthew Longren, whose exploits my mother had probably censored as she read his brother's letters aloud.

"I've smelled peaches since last night. There's pie crust in the cold storage. You'd have to send me away, Miss Maggie."

_I'm not inclined to do that_ , a traitorous voice in my mind said. "I think we can stand your company another day or two," I said, smiling. "Excuse me, I need to get to the kitchen."

He moved from my path, but slowly. But, of course, he was injured.

That's what I told myself.

Hutch was quiet at lunch, eating cold chicken and hot biscuits, and the pie, golden and juicy, drew no comment from him. He ate, responded to anything said to him in single syllables, and excused himself directly after eating, although he didn't leave again for the mine right away.

Matthew joined us, apparently used to his brother's moods. He made enough conversation for all of us, praising the pie and the shining bottles of canned peaches I had yet to transfer to storage. During the meal, I asked him questions I'd like to have asked Hutch, like who had been taking care of the house and how that person or those people were paid (I would, after all, be the mistress of the house after the wedding and needed to have my own accounts in order and take care of the house myself). I asked about household expenses, what grocer our pantry stores came from, if they bought or baked bread (that one caused Matthew to look at me with vast patience and ask if either of them looked capable of baking). I asked about horses and doctors, and childbirths and received no answers there because none of those things were of interest to Matthew.

Several times during the meal, Hutch looked up, his gaze sharpening as if he meant to reveal what was preying on his mind but, every time, he subsided, cocking his head, pretending to listen to the two of us, who, left to our own devices again, returned to our conversation.

Finally, as the meal ended with the pie I'd prepared, finding myself still wondering what to do with the number of ripening peaches I couldn't possibly keep up with, I asked about the garden and who cared for it.

"I do," Matthew said, surprised. "Though I haven't for a few days." He gestured at his leg as if I might have forgotten. "I have no room to garden. I just have a couple rooms in a boarding house—and I'm good at it. If you'd like to take it over, I understand."

That one I laughed at and explained I'd be more than happy to have him care for the garden as soon as his injury allowed for it.

"Because she has a wedding to plan," Hutch said, abruptly rejoining us from his blue study and then he stood, kissed me chastely on the cheek, nodded to his brother in a vague, already-returning-to-distant-thoughts manner, and headed back to the mine.

"I'll be back there tomorrow," Matthew said, watching Hutch go. He sounded bored and anxious.

"You'll be back there next week," I said, standing to clear the table. "No, sit. Let the leg heal."

It must have pained him because he gave in easily, producing a sketch book and charcoal and working images of the garden as I cleared and cleaned. We didn't talk but, sometimes, when I glanced at him, I sensed he had been watching me.

No matter. I had a wedding to prepare for. Once my place was established and a routine existed in all our lives, surely this sparkling feeling would pass.

I finished the dishes, leaving them to drain, covered the pie, put away the chicken and looked back toward the table.

Matthew had put down the sketch pad and was staring moodily into the yard to the west. I stood behind him, out of his sight, and from where I stood I could see the page open in his sketch book.

The page was covered with studies of me.

I finished the kitchen quickly, keeping my eyes averted from Matthew and his sketches. Once the dishes were clean and the food put away, I left him drawing and went upstairs to finish unpacking. One of the novels I'd been reading before I left Boston tumbled onto the floor and picking it up to find my place, I sank down on the edge of the bed and lost half an hour to _The Mystery of Marie Roget_. When I surfaced, as if waking from a dream, it was to abandon the book and hurry back down the hall. I needed to go out into the garden and forage for supper, then probably cook again and do some washing while Hutch still had clean shirts. Eventually, my days would fall into a routine but, in the meantime, there was catching up to do.

Taking care as I left the hall and rounded the staircase, I managed not to run into anyone and hurried to the kitchen for shears and a basket, decided to forgo a hat and spun out the kitchen door into the garden.

Only to run directly into Matthew Longren again.

This time, there was no piano to keep him from falling and no wall to steady him if he kept going. He grabbed for my arms and I grabbed for him and we tumbled together down to the hard Nevada dirt.

My first concern was the healing wound on his leg. Falling could have jarred it open, causing him to lose blood again. My second was that he wasn't breathing. I'd landed on him, I thought, and knocked the breath out of him. Trying frantically to remember what to do, I started to force my arms under him, to raise up the small of his back and allow his lungs to relax.

But no sooner had I circled him than I realized he was laughing, so hard he couldn't even attempt to stand, and I pulled back, staring at the madman, a half smile on my own lips... which was quickly lost... because when he met my eyes, his laughter died away.

He looked longingly at me, as if memorizing my face before a journey, then he reached up with one hand, gentling the hair from my cheeks until his fingers wrapped behind my neck and pulled my face down to his.

His lips were sweet. He'd been eating a peach; it had rolled away when we went flying.

The kiss wasn't sweet. It was hard, frightening and full of our need. It was a first and last kiss, there would never be another and I think we both knew it. Something had happened, some connection had been made when we met, some spark kindled, and we were driving it out, sending it away before it could do damage. We were making it possible to be friends, paving the way to my marriage to Hutch.

Just for that moment, we lingered. Matthew on his back between the rows of corn, I still stretched across his chest, my hands on his shoulders, strong and more lean than his brother's shoulders. His hands still cupped my face.

We had just pulled apart, staring at each other, each probably sure what the other was thinking— _never again, I'm sorry, you'll be my friend, but he's the man I love/but he's my brother—_ when Hutch's shadow fell over us.

#  Chapter 7

There was no point in it but I scrambled backward into the corn, freeing myself of Matthew's embrace, as if I could change what had happened. Cursing my skirts, I swiveled to my knees, forced myself upright, even as Hutch leaned down and grabbed Matthew by his shirt front, dragging him to his feet.

I stifled the instinct to cry out. Matthew had been hurt; Hutch needed to—be careful? Let go? Nothing I could say to that effect could possibly improve the situation. I tried to step forward and tripped over something in the garden, still reaching for Hutch's arm, when his fist flashed forward and caught Matthew on the jaw, knocking him back to the ground.

He turned, then, without looking at me, said in a hard voice, without turning back, "I want you out of here before sundown. When you are healed, return to the mines. Don't come back here."

"Hutch, wait," I said and tried to run after him. His long stride took him through the front gate and out to his horse before I could cover half the distance. I called to him, tripped again, swore, and finally stopped, standing stupidly with one hand out, tears threatening behind my eyes, hair loose and blowing in an afternoon wind.

"Let him go, Maggie," Matthew said from behind me and I whirled on him, furious, only to find his expression as miserable as I felt. He stood, although awkwardly, keeping the weight off his injured right leg, and he didn't approach me or hold his arms out, only shook his head. "You can't make anything better right now. I'll go. He'll blame me."

"That's not fair," I said, and I meant all of it, everything, from meeting Matthew at the wrong time to falling in love with Hutch without telling him, to confusion and the newness of everything and being afraid and in a strange place. I meant Hutch leaving and having come back when he had and Matthew being shot.

"He's my brother," Matthew said, which didn't explain anything. "It will be alright." He moved through the corn and stopped beside me, a respectful distance away. "For what it's worth, there would have been nothing else. Ever again."

It wasn't worth anything. I didn't say anything, just watched him as he limped to the house to collect his few belongings and find a way back to his boarding house.

Only when the kitchen door closed behind him did I allow myself to whisper, "I know," and let the tears begin to fall.

He didn't talk. Hutch went, as far as I knew, back to the mines that afternoon, leaving me standing in the dusty garden. The corn rustled in the hot afternoon breeze, reminding me of the sounds it had made when Matthew and I had fallen into the neat, orderly rows.

I didn't cry for long. So much had happened in the last six months, some sort of black cloud had hovered over me. As the year turned to 1880, my mother had died and my father gone silent. He'd taken to drinking more than working and an accountant whose numbers don't add up any better than his clients' do soon loses those clients. With no sons and only one of his five daughters married, he started looking for solutions. Long before my mother had died, there'd been talk of me marrying Hutch Longren. It seemed a good match. He was looking for someone to share his life, someone to help around his house and to keep his accounts, maybe to start a family with. News from the West was slow. Though we knew the silver market was down as the War ended, we didn't know the silver itself was running out. My father, he wasn't cruel, he was simply mourning and unable to care for our family as he once had, didn't know he was sending me from frying pan to fire.

Six months later, I'd come to rest somewhere I could have been happy. Somewhere I could have built a life. Instead, I'd jumped directly into a fire.

I cried for shame. I cried because I was afraid of Hutch's anger. I cried for the rift between the brothers and for having found Matthew beautiful to begin with. But mostly, I cried because I had hurt the man I was going to marry. He'd been nothing but kind to me since I arrived, a stranger opening his home and his heart. I had repaid him like this?

It would have been the only time. Because I hadn't been marrying for love. Because there had been a spark, something there.

Because I knew, from Hutch's letters, from what Annie had said, I knew that Matthew wasn't constant and wouldn't be mine.

Because I wanted to marry Hutch, was falling in love with him, wanted to build a life with him.

There was no way I could tell him that, and no reason for him to believe me. And he hadn't given me the chance.

I stayed out in the garden for the short course of tears. Then I weeded and picked corn for a dinner I couldn't imagine cooking, or Hutch eating. I picked more peaches from the trees that didn't seem inclined to stop producing them. I watered the kitchen garden, the fruit trees and the ornamental border of bright flowers that blurred in my distracted gaze. More than anything, I wanted to talk to my mother, who had known Hutch Longren all his life, who had known, although not as well, Matthew and Annie. And if not my mother, then I wanted to talk to Virginia but even though there were telephones in Boston and a telephone in our house, there were no telephones in Virginia City or Gold Hill and a telegram wouldn't convey what I needed and would take too long, besides.

I wasn't looking to be absolved of what I'd done. I was looking to see if there was a way to recover from what I'd done. Tension wound tighter and tighter inside me, swirling like the dust storms I'd seen as I crossed the West to come here. I thought, eventually, I'd fly apart like some of those storms did, rather than settling, all the detritus dropping out of the funnel. Through the garden I moved faster and faster, ripping up weeds as if I could rip out the shame, until I stopped, a handful of plundered carrots in my grasp, and thought of Annie.

Just that fast, I ran for the house, leaving corn and carrots on the bench, fetching a basket to carry more of the endless peaches and finding a hat. I could have taken one of the horses, if I'd known how to saddle or had the patience to learn, but my heart beat frantically and I took to my heels and ran the distance to Annie's house.

"Maggie! What's the matter?"

Annie stepped back and let me enter without hesitation. Somewhere during my flight along the mile separating our houses, I'd started and left off crying again and I could feel my face was streaked with dust and tears. Annie took the basket from my arm, put her other arm around me, and led me into the kitchen, where she put the tea kettle onto the stove and loaded the peaches into the deep sink, giving me time to catch my breath and my wits.

She made tea and slid it onto the table in front of me along with fresh cookies I couldn't look at. Her girls weren't home and her son was in college. It was just the two of us and she chattered inconsequentially as she made the tea, telling me about the hens that wouldn't lay and the lizard that kept sunning himself on her kitchen floor.

"Now," she said when she joined me at the table with her own tea, and a tray with the cream and lemon and sugar, "tell me what's happened." Her warm blue eyes, so much like both Hutch's and Matthew's, met mine.

How? How could I tell her? But it left me in a rush.

"I've been confused since I came here, out of place, lost, I love it here, but it isn't Boston, I miss my home, I miss my sister, and I was determined, going to make a home here, and Hutch is the most handsome man, truly, I saw him in the train station and should have been afraid to speak to him if it weren't I had no choice. Marriage of convenience, I mean, it was all arranged and it's not that either of us didn't know that but he's confided in me, told me things he didn't necessarily have to even if a husband should tell a wife and let her share the burdens, I'm not a wife yet, he's not my husband, I thought it was respect and I thought I was starting to care, we'd talked about when to have the wedding, probably just the justice of the peace unless we have to wait for a circuit judge, and it was all going according to plan, I mean, more so, you know?"

She couldn't have, but she nodded.

"I thought I was falling in love with him, that wasn't something I expected or anything I had to have, I thought how many marriages are and how many would work better if that came later and I thought it might but it might come later and then, well, that would be part of it."

She was watching me, very quiet, maybe the way she'd watch a potentially dangerous animal, maybe only giving me space to start making sense in.

I didn't know if I could do that. "And then I met Matthew," I barreled on. And stopped. Because I'd seen in her face she'd just caught up to everything I had said.

"Matthew," she said. "Of course, it's Matthew."

I closed my mouth slowly. There was no judgment in her face. That almost made me feel worse. Surely, I deserved some.

"I understand," she said and covered my hand where it lay on the table with hers.

"No, you don't. You can't. I mean, I didn't want. I didn't mean to. It was—there was something there. I needed to know I could get past it. I needed to know what I'd be walking away from and that I could walk away from it."

She waited as if to see if I had finished. I hadn't, quite.

"I'm falling in love with Hutch. I wanted to be certain there was nothing there with Matthew."

"I understand," she said with complete conviction. And this time, I believed her.

Shadows gathered in the kitchen as we worked together, canning the peaches I'd brought. Annie didn't need them; her own trees were groaning under the weight of fat, pink fruit, but we needed to do something with the bounty and keeping our hands busy made it easier to talk.

"I knew your mother," she said, looking contemplatively across the kitchen at nothing. One hand hovered over a peach, clutching a sharp knife. "She wasn't much older than me, though we didn't do much together. Aren't girls silly? We think a few years means you need a different set of friends."

I quartered another peach and discarded the pit. "I thought she spent a lot of her time with her own brother and with Hutch." Saying his name provoked a shiver in my stomach.

Her gaze sharpened onto me. "There was that, too. Whatever they tell you about her being another mother to them, she was another playmate." She curled off another piece of skin from the peach she held.

Surprised, I nicked myself with the knife. "My mother?"

She nodded, set the peach down without paying attention to it, both hands on the sticky, juice-covered counter. "A regular tomboy, always keeping up with the others." She glanced at me. I could feel the uncertain smile on my face. "I wish I could tell you stories, but she spent more time with them than with me." She shoved the bowl of cut peaches out of the way, began moving aside the skins, dumped the pie crusts onto the board and began rolling them out. "Now, my brothers. Them, I know."

I swallowed, stilled, wished I had more peaches to cut, and waited.

"Matthew is closer to your age than Hutch. He's young, old enough to take a wife but hard to imagine him doing so. We both followed Hutch out here, me with John, who thought a grocers would be a good choice and it was until..." She stopped, didn't look at me, said, "Well. But we had many good years together, and I love this place. And not long after John was lost, Hutch's Ellie took ill. I couldn't leave then."

I hadn't realized it had been so many years since she'd lost her husband and she'd remained for her brother or, more likely, both of them.

How can you be so kind to me? I wanted to shout. I've hurt both of those men you love. But in the next instant, as she removed the bottom crust from the oven and began filling it with slices of peaches, she told me.

"Matthew's the youngest. Back home in Alturas, when all of us were growing up, he was the special one, the baby of the family, and my parents spoiled him. We all thought when he came to work the mines with Hutch that he was growing up." She made a fist with one hand, lightly tapped the edge of it on the counter, and turned so she could meet my eyes. "He's not a bad boy. Man, I guess. He's 24. He's just wild. And not the wild that shoots off its guns on a Saturday night or gallops through town for the pure fun of covering everyone's clean hanging laundry with dust."

She didn't say anything for a few minutes, and I quietly picked up a dish cloth and began sweeping the peels into a pile she could rake into the soil of her own garden. I hoped she'd go on. There had to be more. Something that would not absolve me but would quell the fear that spun inside me, help me find a way through the guilt.

What she said surprised me more than anything else.

"He met Ellie first. Did you know that? No, I can see you didn't, and I'm not sure there's any reason either of them would have told you. But maybe you should know. She was closer to his age than to Hutch's, not that I think that makes a difference. Hutch came out when he was 20 and Matthew followed along when he turned 17. There was so much silver coming out of the mines then and, when Matthew came, John and I followed not long after. Good years and none of us really thought it would end."

I looked around her house. It was small, comfortable, scrupulously clean, but it showed the signs that Hutch's did, evidence of pennies stretched and money scarce.

"Did Matthew buy into the Silver Sky with Hutch?" I asked. Hutch had said he'd see Matthew at the mine. I wanted there to be some reason Hutch couldn't simply fire him and send him away there, too.

She nodded, distracted as she placed the top crust on the pie, crimped the edges and cut vents. "First, they talked about a casino; would have called it The Faro Queen. But Hutch wanted silver and he bought the mine and, Matthew, he saved up for a while. Didn't take him long. He's a hard worker when he wants something, just every so often he thinks he's found a way around something. Tries to go the easy way." She was staring off into space again. Abruptly, she turned and looked directly at me, then took my sticky hand in her floury one and led me to the table.

"Matthew met Ellie first year here. She was a tiny little thing, with big brown eyes and long brown hair. She wasn't anything like either of them, she was quiet and you never knew what amused her unless you watched close. Then you might see a tiny smile on her lips. She watched life like it was a play, really. She never jumped in."

I leaned forward, interrupting her thoughts because she was falling inward. "Did you like her?"

"Ellie? Yes, very much so. She was kind and quiet and where I'd actually have expected Hutch to marry someone more like—" She hesitated, then said, "Well, your mother, someone with spirit, someone who could ride and climb and hike with him and maybe catch tadpoles better than him. He fell in love with her."

She released my hands and slapped hers onto her apron with a _There!_ gesture and started to rise.

I put out a hand and stopped her and she sank back down to her chair as if she'd known that wouldn't satisfy me. "He fell in love with her. But Matthew did first?"

Annie closed her eyes briefly, and took a breath. "Matthew did first. Which is not to say our Matthew doesn't fall in love indiscriminately, by which I mean no slight, but he's very free with his favors. And Ellie—Ellie loved them both. She loved me and John and our children. She loved her family and she loved being outside. And she loved children."

She sighed and stood and I let her this time, because I didn't think she was going to stop talking. She focused on me again.

"Not much more to tell. She loved them both. She loved Hutch more. I think she fell in love with Matthew first, but he hadn't settled, was still seeing other girls, and by the time he had fallen hard enough to seriously court her, she'd fallen in love with Hutch."

She went back to the bench, now starting to peel potatoes, and it was time for me to return to, if not home, to Mr. Longren's house and start my own preparations. I stood and gathered the basket along with a few early apples she'd given me. Two questions now circled in my mind, one I could ask, the other I could not.

"Did Hutch know?" I asked. She had her back to me and I saw her stiffen, then slump a little.

"He found out. But by the time he found out, Matthew was himself again, seeing this girl this week, this girl the next, avoiding ever promising himself so he had no contracts to breach. After that, Ellie and Hutch were married and very much together. We all just ... went on."

I crossed the kitchen to give her a quick hug, the basket with the new apples bumping between us. "Thank you," I said.

Annie smiled. "They're just apples. The pies will be done soon; will you stay and take one back?"

It was quite a bit more than apples but I appreciated her discretion. "I can't wait. I have my own supper to see to."

Out on the street again, this time not running but probably still disheveled, I walked through the early evening with the basket on one arm and my thoughts in a storm.

I had asked Annie if Hutch knew and she had answered that he had, too late.

I had not asked her if Matthew, then, had wanted nothing more from me than to be used as a weapon against his brother.

Hutch didn't talk at dinner, except to thank me for preparing it. I tried to leave him be. I could wait it out. If he still meant to marry me, we would have to talk.

Wouldn't we?

I had nothing to look forward to, for now. A long summer's night waited after the kitchen was cleaned and the dishes washed, and the summer sun was not yet down. I had my books, the mystery novel that had so caught my attention before I headed West. I had embroidering I could do and, likely, shirts of Hutch's I could patch. There was always laundry in every household and economizing meant not sending it out. I could weed the garden more, or walk through the town. I could write a letter to my sisters, or to my new family in California, who had sent me a letter greeting me and who likely knew nothing of what had occurred here in Nevada. I could find ways to entertain myself.

What I wanted to do was to sit with Hutch as the sun went down, as we had that first night, and talk about our lives. I wanted to find commonalities and differences, shared joys and those things that made us both shudder. I wanted to plan for the future and sew a wedding dress and I could do none of those things. Likely I had myself to blame, but the question now lodged in my mind: Had Matthew sought my company only to hurt his brother?

Hutch made an offer of assisting with the kitchen cleanup, which I refused. He'd worked a solid day in the mines, worked quite late following the events of the afternoon. When I had returned from Annie's, the few belongings Matthew had had with him were gone. I could clean the sitting room until there was no trace he'd ever stayed there. I could weed the garden and uproot every stalk of corn. It would change nothing.

The light was going from the day as I sat at the kitchen table, my embroidery before me, untouched, when I heard footsteps running into the yard, panicked hard steps across the porch. I was on my feet and in flight before Hutch came from his den to answer it. I knew that panicked cadence, and anticipated what he'd find as he answered the door.

Mr. Barnett stood on the porch, terrified as a first time father, which, from what I'd seen, he was far from. "Mr. Longren, is Miss Lucas in? It's my wife, sir, the baby's coming."

Hutch turned back and looked at me. I was already wrapping my shawl around me, had already gathered the basket I carried in lieu of a doctor's black bag.

I wanted to ask him if he minded, but I couldn't. I couldn't leave this poor scared man or his wife alone and, if they'd come for me, then where was Dr. Horton? I wouldn't ask permission. Hutch Longren was not yet my husband.

I paused at the door and couldn't think of anything to say to him. Mr. Barnett was already at the edge of the porch, looking ready to spring from it and run again. A buckboard was tied at the gate, one horse looking downcast and resigned.

Hutch Longren was not yet my husband. He might never be my husband. This was my calling. I did not need to ask his leave. Nor could I tell him when I'd return. That was in the hands of fate and in the will of the unborn child.

I searched his eyes for a moment but they revealed nothing. At last, I simply nodded, murmured, "I'm sorry," and meant it far more than he knew, and followed Mr. Barnett out into the long light of evening.

Mr. Barnett didn't talk either. He urged the horse to trot, forcing it to carry us as quickly as possible to the far end of Gold Hill. Around us, the Nevada night was harsh, all sharp black shadows and gold reaching light as the sun set behind us. The sage gave up strong scent and, as we turned from the main roads into the neighborhoods of Gold Hill, sage grouse and quail flew up like dust clouds, tsk-ing discontent. Cotton tail rabbits ran across the rutted dirt track and magpies dove for carrion along the road. From somewhere in the foothills that surrounded us, some bird repeated a sharp, clarion call.

The night was still hot; the wind died down. I would have liked to have such a night to stroll along the hotels in Virginia City, to meet new neighbors, to walk on my intended husband's arm.

Mr. Barnett stopped us shortly before their gate. The children clustered, wide eyed, in the yard, looking as if they expected an Indian uprising or for coyotes to run down out of the hills and set upon them, rather than the arrival of a little sister or brother. There were an indeterminate amount of them, all blond as their parents, with big eyes and dirty faces. For all that she had such a number of children, I was willing to bet Mrs. Barnett had already been laboring for most of a day and had not been up to attending the children for days before that. Mr. Barnett was rumored to spend quite a bit of time (and funds) at the hotels or, more likely, their saloons. Probably they'd hoped not to have need of my skills or the doctor's.

"Where is Dr. Horton?" I asked.

"Haven't been able to find him." He was already at the door, but I stopped and opened my basket. The children watched me suspiciously until I pulled out wrapped hard candies and passed them around. Times like these it never hurt to bribe the older children to keep out from underfoot, at the same time reassuring them they weren't forgotten.

From inside, I heard Mrs. Barnett call. "Henry!"

Time to go. "Will you come in?" I asked him.

He nodded though it looked more like he meant _No_. "For a little while."

I smiled. It was easier when the husbands knew they couldn't stay the course. They were always heavier and much more awkward to move than their wives.

He stepped to the bedroom door with me, made a sort of general _hello_ gesture to his wife, said, gruffly, "I've brought the midwife," and vanished so quickly, only familiarity would convince Mrs. Barnett that had been her husband.

I smiled after him and started into the room to find her sweating and tired but smiling also. "He's better off out there with them," she said.

"I've no doubt. When did the pains start?"

As I had supposed, they had started at dawn. She had labored for most of the day, convinced the child was coming, until she began to falter and still no baby.

And there was nothing now but to see to Mrs. Barnett and her child, to distract her from anything I needed to do, which was to touch and look and move her about, to locate the child's head, which was where it belonged, and convince her to let me make her a cup of tea to "ease the passage".

Surely there are such things, but mine was no more than tea. My mother had taught me from the beginning that the woman herself was the best and worst coach, could do the most for herself and make her own path hardest. The tea was tea; the idea behind the tea was important. If that didn't work, I had midwifery skills to fall back upon, but far better to let nature take its course.

I gave her the tea and sat next to her on what looked to be a milking stool. We talked about how long the family had been in Gold Hill, how many other children she had, how Mr. Barnett's job at the bakery was going and that I had not, in fact, known that was where he worked and did she recommend their bread? Oh, she did, indeed, though there was another baker in Virginia City, which she dared to say might be a bit better, and then, too, why spend money to buy bread when she had a recipe she'd be happy to share with me and – and – Miss Lucas, I think the baby is coming.

It was, and it did and, within an hour of my arrival, I called Mr. Barnett to visit his wife and new son, then stayed long enough to ensure her health and convince the father away from his new arrival long enough to see me back to Mr. Longren's house.

It was full dark when we set off.

Mr. Barnett obviously didn't want to be away from his wife but he was cheerful and talkative, telling me about his other children, whose names and ages I couldn't remember and wasn't, in fact, completely sure he remembered; they seemed to change. He told me about meeting Mrs. Barnett and about moving to Gold Hill and about just about everything.

I was happy to let him talk. His gregarious good cheer allowed me to rest on the hard seat of the buckboard, my basket wedged between my feet, my mind wandering. It had been a long and terrible day, with a good ending. Mrs. Barnett was healthy and happy, her new son lively and squalling. A happy ending for them.

They'd insisted on paying me and, though I wanted to charge for my services, to be able to help out the household I still seemed to be becoming part of, they had so little I had to convince myself to take the payment. Sometimes pride is more important than the actual ability to pay. So, I had silver dollars in my basket and a bit of oat cake Mrs. Barnett had made earlier in the day—which amazed me. She'd probably been laboring even then and she'd done her baking and put dinner on the table, no doubt. I was tired just having attended to her during the birth of her child.

And from the rest of the day, as well.

Hutch had left a lantern on the kitchen bench, and gone off to bed already. The grandfather clock struck ten as I entered the house, waving Mr. Barnett back to his family. All at once, the exhaustion set in and my bones seemed to weigh too much and my spirit wasn't up to moving, not any further.

There was old coffee in the pot on a back burner, faintly warm. I poured a cup and sat down in the chair I'd used my first day when Hutch and I had talked so long and I'd had so much hope for the future. When Matthew had slept on the davenport in the sitting room. When everything had been new, and possible.

Outside, the stars were bright, harder and more defined than they were on the streets of Boston. I could hear the wind blowing and somewhere again coyotes, though they were farther away tonight.

There was a way to fix what had happened. There had to be. I couldn't have ruined everything, not so soon after finding that I actually wanted everything. I wanted to make a life for us.

I finished the coffee and shoved the mug away, letting my arms stretch out across the table. Matthew had loved Ellie before she and Hutch had fallen in love. It was possible Matthew had only meant to hurt Hutch, but I didn't think so. Maybe that was my pride, as important to me as Mr. Barnett's pride that made him pay what he couldn't afford, but I didn't think that either. Matthew's glances had been as shy as mine and I didn't think I'd misread them.

It would have been the only time. We were trying to move past it.

There had to be a way to fix it.

I yawned and lowered my head, resting it on the inside of my arm where it stretched across the table. In the morning, I'd give Hutch the money I'd made tonight. If he thought we should keep it, I'd ask him to bank it however he cared to.

In the morning, I'd make him breakfast, convince him to eat before he went to the mines, and I'd sit with him.

In the morning, I'd put this day behind me.

#  Chapter 8

In the morning, Hutch woke me with a gentle touch on the shoulder. I woke with a jolt, confused to find myself sitting upright, my arms aching and sore. I looked around wildly and found Hutch standing beside me.

"Did you stay the night right here? Are you alright? Can you move?"

My arms were pins and needles, cold to the touch but already the blood was flowing back into them. I didn't try standing just yet. "I fell asleep," I said, surprised.

It was only the ghost of a smile, but it hovered around his mouth. "Appears so, Miss Maggie. How did you fare at the Barnett's house?"

I blinked. I had wanted to be up, cooking, my appearance put together. Oh, well. "She had a son," I said, and as Hutch said _good, good_. I remembered. "They paid me. I didn't want them to." I started digging in the basket.

"You don't want to be paid for your services?"

"No, I do want to be paid," I said, unearthing the coins, which I handed to him. I met his eyes and found them impassive. Better than what they could have been. "I fear they can't afford it though. Should I have taken it?"

And that, of all things, made him smile at me. "Mr. Barnett drinks. He spends too much of the too little he makes in saloons in town. But the man has pride and that means something. You did the right thing, taking it." He paused. "And all went well?"

Excitement washed through me, in part because of the successful birth, in part because he was speaking and asking me for more than to pass the salt. "Yes! She'd been laboring a while. It didn't take too long and everyone is healthy."

He nodded, still with that small almost-smile. "Then, I dare say you'll have wives in this town coming to you now. I need to get to the mine but I'll be home for midday."

He'd already turned away. I stood, wanting to put my arms around him and give him a kiss. Instead, I said, "Hutch? Do you have time for breakfast? I could cook you eggs and Mrs. Barnett sent home some baking."

He tilted his head at that, as if considering whether the woman had stood from childbed and made something for us, then shook his head. "I don't have time. But I'll join you midday."

My morning was energized. I moved fast, bathing and dressing and trying not to think what my hair had looked like when he found me slumped over the table as if in my cups. I put his bedroom to rights and dusted as best I could, though I found it a skill I was not at all proficient in as yet. I tidied my own room and made certain the sitting room still looked as unused as it had at all times but when Matthew had taken up residence in it. I cleaned the kitchen and used the new apples to make a pie and wondered if I meant to make my husband fat before he was in truth my husband. I made a stew we could have for both lunch and dinner and discovered Mrs. Barnett's baking was a sizeable piece of very good oat cake that would serve for more than one meal as well.

In the garden, I moved gingerly around the corn as if it were to blame for everything that had happened, pulled tomatoes, and checked how the potatoes were coming along. They seemed crabbed and stubborn in the hard Nevada earth but I'd had some of the previous year's Nevada potatoes and they were sweet.

Before I really expected it, Hutch was riding up to the front door and calling through the house. I hurried in, breathing in the scent of stew and, past that, the scent of man and dirt and horse and sage. It was already a welcome smell.

"I don't have a lot of time. We may have found another vein," he said, and then stopped talking long enough to pump water into the sink and dunk his head under it. He came up sputtering a bit, his wild dark curls standing out. He saw me looking, biting a lip, and said with mock severity, "What, laugh will you? It's dusty work today."

"Yes, sir," I said with equally mock timidity but he left off joking and said only, "Stew?"

I sat with him, idly eating a piece of bread and a peach. I had very little appetite and couldn't see wasting food. He didn't talk at first but, as he finished his second bowl of stew, said, "We're going deep into the mine today."

That statement chilled me. There was nothing to be said for it. They needed to dig to find the ore and they couldn't do that in shallow mines anymore. Telling him to be careful would be foolish if not unkind; of course he was careful. Unlike the Yellow Jacket mine, there'd never been a fire at the Silver Sky and unlike the Chollar, there'd never been a cave-in. I'd asked Annie.

I said only, "Will you be late home?" and waited, fearing he'd challenge the word home.

"By dark," he said, and stood. "I'll have more of this if you have it."

I did have some more; through with his conversation and willingness to sit with me, my own appetite was returning.

"I'll see you at dark, then," I said, more to say something than for any other reason. "I may go by Annie's today before then," again, just talking, because it felt good to speak aloud around him.

He made an exasperated sound. "I saw her this morning. I forgot. She was heading for the train, fast. She's gone to Alturas, family matters, she said, apparently got a telegraph from my mother."

He sounded unconcerned.

"Aren't you worried?"

He relented. "A little. But, I don't have much time. If there had been illness, she'd have said, but she only said she'd be back in a few days, and apologized for not coming to see you before going."

I nodded. "That was kind. Should I see to her garden?"

That pleased him also. "I was going to ask you to. Her daughters forget, as I forget ours." An uncomfortable moment. "Matthew." He cleared his throat. "Matthew was taking care of mine. I can ask him, if you think you won't have time."

"I have time," I said. "Let Matthew concentrate on the mines." _And not come near me_ , I thought, hoping he'd understand. They'd gotten through whatever had happened with Ellie. I hoped they'd get through what had happened with me. For the time being, I wished that Matthew was headed to California and that Annie was staying in Gold Hill.

I needed a friend to talk to.

Throughout the afternoon, I tried to compose letters to my father and my sisters, and most especially to Virginia, but though they each started well— _So much has happened! – Mr. Longren is so kind! – The desert is so different, but already I find it beautiful!—_ they soon ran aground on the truth and were discarded. At last, I chose not to waste more paper and ink and saw to my own garden and then walked the distance to Annie's house and saw to her garden. On my walk back to the house, I passed a good many people out on the streets but, though people wished me a good day and a pleasant afternoon, I saw no one I had yet been introduced to and lingered with no one.

There was one gentleman I passed who watched me through slitted eyes. He was small and redheaded, his squinting eyes staring directly at me and his regard made me uncomfortable. I hurried around a corner onto a street I didn't need to take and waited there to make certain he didn't follow me. When I at last looked back, he had moved on. I hurried home and began preparing supper.

There was still light in the sky when Hutch returned home. He asked if there was anything cooking that couldn't wait and I admitted there wasn't, so he went upstairs and slept for an hour, coming down again when the clock had struck 9:30. It was late for supper, but his hours were long. He was clearly tired, his steps dragging, his head down. I wondered if something had gone wrong and hastened to serve our supper.

Still, "Did you see to Annie's garden?" he asked as we sat.

Glad of the conversation, I answered. "I watered it, pulled a few weeds. I brought back some corn that's ripe."

"You can cook it tomorrow." He reached for bread.

"I don't suppose it will keep," I said, finding it odd to eat his sister's food.

He just nodded. "When she gets back, give her something from your garden if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Fair enough," I said, and then, because he had asked me this morning, I ventured, "Are you alright?"

He stopped eating then, though he didn't push his plate away. "Vein we found isn't worth a damn. Ended in a couple feet. There's nothing there."

In the following silence, I couldn't think of anything to say. How was I supposed to be helpmate when everything was new and everything could have been ruined?

"Dammit!" He threw down his napkin, pushed back from the table. "We just need a chance. Just to get caught up. Pay off some debts. Get payroll caught up." He paced, staring at the floor, one hand running through his hair.

I had brought nothing except my skills. I had nothing to offer here, either. I wanted to say I was sorry, but I had done nothing to cause these problems and I could do nothing to solve them. I could listen.

"I keep thinking there's some other way. Find another mine. Buy in on credit. But the house is liened to the Silver Sky. That was fine when it was producing. Then Ellie..." He choked on that and stopped talking and I felt a hard little moment of confused jealousy that he still missed her that much, that I could never take her place, that he had put everything on the line for her.

But, he still wasn't moving. He'd stopped pacing, stopped moving his hand through his hair, and it had come down to cover his face. I could see only his mouth and it wasn't set, wasn't hard. He was hurt, and lost.

I stood and went over to where he stood. No further doubts crossed my mind. I had fallen in love with this man, not with his brother, that had been—what? Fear and infatuation. Excitement, maybe, to find someone here in this new place who found me desirable.

And it didn't matter. It didn't matter that I hadn't been able to tell Hutch it didn't matter and it didn't matter that it had happened, or that it never would again. What mattered was Hutch.

What mattered was love.

I reached up and took the hand that covered his face and held it in both of mine. He kept his eyes downcast, staring at the floor, still thinking, maybe, of finding a way out.

When he didn't move away from me, I released his hand and moved, very gently, into his arms, my own arms going around his ribs, my head lowering to his chest as if it had always meant to rest there.

For a startled instant, he froze and then his arms came around me, pulling me close against him. His cheek came down against my hair. His heart beat under my ear.

I didn't say I was sorry. I had nothing to be sorry for with the mine or the house. I didn't ask to be forgiven for what had happened in the garden. That would take time.

I spoke of the future and looked for possibilities. I suggested that I could sew, and so perhaps could find a position in a milliner's shop or a dressmaker's or in shops that made the denim trousers miners wore. Or I could teach, find a job with the Fourth Ward School. There were so many children, surely there was a need and I was the recipient of a classical education.

He had pulled away from me, though kept me in the circle of his arms, and he studied my face. He looked bemused.

"Or, I could work in a bakery," I said, wondering if all bakery workers were men, "or I could work in people's gardens," though, of course, people kept their own gardens and ours was a wonder for not having died yet under my ministrations. "I could—"

He interrupted me, his voice full of wonder. "You truly want to stay? Given everything you know? Given everything that's happened?"

"I want to stay," I said, and found I was on the verge of crying. "I want to marry you, if you'll have me, and I want a life with you and a family with you." _And I want you to forgive Matthew, because I think he's important to your life_ , but it was too soon by far to fight for Matthew and maybe not my place.

He still watched me, amazed. "I thought..." He didn't finish.

"That I'd want to go? Because of money? Because of—what?"

"I don't know," he said. He stared down into my eyes. "Seems I know very little lately." He moved his head to look at me from another angle. "Well. I know this." Gently, he tipped my chin up with his knuckle and his mouth came down over mine, hot, sweet and chapped from the wind, the sun and the desert.

I returned the kiss, my tongue reaching for his, my teeth grazing his bottom lip. My hands moved up his chest, feeling the muscle there, the heat and the heartbeat, before looping up behind his neck. I went up on my toes, trying to reach him, laughing a little at the need to touch him.

His hands tangled in my hair, scattering pins, letting down the lengths of it and then making fists inside it as if he didn't want to ever let go.

When at last we pulled apart, it was only to move out the kitchen door into the garden, to the polished wood and iron bench that sat against the house. Under all the hard desert stars, we sat pressed together, his hands on my shoulders, our mouths meeting again. I touched his chest, his throat, his face, glorying in the feel of his skin so hot under my hands. He tangled his hands in my hair, pulled my face hard to his, kissed me harder and deeper and whispered my name.

Slowly, his hands strayed, seeking my neck, my ears, moving down along my sides. I gasped, nipped at his lower lip, let my head fall back as his mouth traveled down the length of my throat, down into the unbuttoned top of my dress. His hands came up under my breasts, thumbs moving higher to stroke across them. I sighed, moved so I could kiss him again and trail kisses from his mouth to his jaw, from jaw to ear, my tongue moving and teasing, my breath soft against his flesh.

There came a moment when the tension coiled between us caused us to choose: Continue or wait until our union was legal, proper, and sanctioned, if not sanctified. We didn't speak of it. Instead, we slowed, both of us, kisses lasting longer, hands stroking less feverishly until we sat still, pressed against one another. Hutch's arm lay close around my shoulder. My head rested against his chest. Overhead, the stars shined down, impassive.

We stayed out for another hour, together on the bench, staring into the dark. There was nothing to see. The nearest house was far on the other side of a stand of poplar trees. The garden was so dark, we couldn't see across it. Nonetheless, we faced west, toward the edge of the property, not looking at each other, just together.

During that time, we talked in random bursts, about my mother and his, my father and his. We talked about Annie and Virginia and about my other sisters, and about his family in Alturas and the cattle ranch there. I brought up more schemes for making money and helping out and he laughed at them as they became more farfetched. He didn't believe I could forge my way into European royalty and claim a throne and a fortune with it. He did believe I could teach, but none of the schools were looking for teachers who didn't hold a degree. Midwifery, he said, might not be an appropriate subject for elementary school children.

He talked about the mine, about what he had hoped for and what had actually occurred. When the ore had been plentiful and fortunes being made, he hadn't saved. For the first time in his life, he was able to afford what luxuries he wanted. He could send money to his parents, enough for the ranch they now owned, where before they had been caretakers. He treated his wife to new dresses and increased her collection of tea pots.

"Tea pots?" I asked. On my first day, I had noticed one in the sitting room, delicate china with a pattern of roses, but it was the only one. Since then, I'd used the sturdy, everyday Brown Betty in the kitchen if I made tea.

"She collected them," he said and his voice was easy, without a catch. "I was terrified of breaking the damn things and they were everywhere."

I didn't ask where they had gone. He would tell me some day. Or I'd discover them unexpectedly and, hopefully, without breakage.

We talked about the mine, and the lien against it, and the house and mortgage and lien there, too.

We talked about the future. About Nevada. About us. We talked about having a family. We talked about having a future.

And then, we just watched the stars for a while.

The house was overheated and stuffy when we went back in. The night was warm and gentle, the breeze moving in the corn. I no longer feared or loathed the garden. We'd passed a test and come through a fire. There was a future if we wanted to pursue it.

#  Chapter 9

I slept in my room that night and woke far more comfortable than I had at the table. I woke just before dawn, having heard the rattle of a wagon passing by or some creature making noise. For a few minutes, I lay warm and comfortable in the bed, watching the day gradually brightening outside the window. The room was becoming familiar to me now. I knew where to anticipate I would stub my bare toes on a chest of drawers and had unpacked my trunk, storing it to the side of the chifferobe, where my clothes hung. I knew the steps to the hall, the hall to the sitting room, the sitting room letting into the comfortable, wide kitchen.

I wanted this to be home and the night before had convinced me that, although there might be a battle to keep the house, there was the possibility that we would fight for it together.

When a meadow lark set up an unholy racket outside my window and a scrub jay took up the challenge of making the most noise in the new day, I rose and washed and managed much more of my hair than I had the day before. I hadn't heard Hutch's steps on the stairs, so hoped he was still in his room, to waken soon but not having left yet for the mine. If I hurried, I could have breakfast ready for him before he came downstairs. _No excuse not to eat it if it is ready,_ I thought, a safeguard against my fears that our night before on the back porch had changed nothing.

In fact, I had time to prepare coffee and sweet rolls, to heat up the stove and clean up the last of the night's dishes, before I heard his step on the stairs. I was moving to intercept him, bacon on the pan ready to go to stove top, coffee hot, when I heard the sound of hooves pounding into the yard, and Hutch, just coming off the stairs, moving rapidly to the front door and swearing.

I froze, confused. It could be another birth and I was unwilling to refuse to go, which meant leaving him to cook his own bacon; surely he'd done that a time or two in recent years but I'd looked forward to having this time together.

I wiped my hands on my apron, started out of the kitchen at the same time someone knocked hard on the front door, banging it in its frame, and Hutch, still swearing, crossed the rest of the way across the sitting room and yanked the door open.

"Hutchinson Longren?" demanded a voice.

"You know damn well it's me, Sheriff," Hutch said, his voice raspy with morning. "You were here not five days ago."

"Take it easy, Hutch. I have protocol has to be respected."

"Not by me."

Standing at the edge of the kitchen, I could see the sheriff, his barrel chest, the gun on his hip. Hutch seemed unsurprised by the visit, which made me wonder if there was something he hadn't told me the night before. Which cast some doubt on our hour beneath the stars.

Behind the Sheriff came another man, pushing into the house, though Hutch stepped forward, imposing, as if to stop him. I took a step forward myself. The man with the Sheriff was the little man I'd seen on the street, the one with red hair and a squinting gaze, who had seemed to watch me so closely.

"I want that man out of my house," Hutch said in a level voice. He didn't stir, didn't nod, didn't point. Didn't need to.

"Too bad," the man said, laconically. Then he saw me and grinned.

"Sheriff," Hutch started and the lawman held up his hands.

"Give me a second, Longren. This isn't easy. I have a document for you and you have to take it."

Something in my stomach shivered.

"Why are you doing this, Bill? I'm not the only one who has fetched up against some bad luck. Just need some time."

Time, and to be heir to a European throne, or marrying a dumpy dowager with a fortune, or a Fourth Ward School-approved teacher, any one of the things we'd discussed the night before, and I had a sudden, terrible idea I knew what the blue-backed document the Sheriff was holding out was.

"Doesn't matter if you take it or not, Longren, the effect's the same; you've been served. Thirty days." He slapped the papers against Hutch's chest, prepared to drop them if they weren't taken but Hutch reached for them, taking them and bending them sharply in both hands, letting his hands fall back to his sides.

"Why is he here?" Hutch didn't address the small, sallow man.

The Sheriff breathed out through his nose, loud enough to hear clearly in the mostly silent house. He turned his head, shook it a little and closed his eyes, as if he hated to deliver the news. "He bought the lien, Longren. Not a surprise, is it? But you've got 30 days."

The little red haired man had begun to smile, slow at first but, by now, he was grinning. Hands in his pockets, he walked through the sitting room as if he owned it, his head tilted to one side like a bird's as he examined everything he clearly thought of as his.

Which it could be, I realized. With a sudden flash that had nothing to do with logic, I realized who the little man probably was. In less than a week since I'd arrived in Gold Hill, he'd shot my soon-to-be brother-in-law, setting off a chain of events I was still trying to get beyond, and now he was here, trying to shoot another of the Longren brothers, though in a different way.

The little man had to be Jason Seth and, in 30 days, he could be the owner of both Silver Sky Mine and Hutch Longren's house.

Hutch crossed the sitting room in three strides, cornering Jason Seth against the davenport where Matthew had slept. I caught some of what he was saying before I moved to the Sheriff, took his arm, and more or less dragged him into the kitchen. The Sheriff looked less than amused to be strong-armed by someone's fiancé.

"Why did you bring him here?" I demanded when we stood inside the kitchen.

The Sheriff was staring around as if assessing the kitchen himself and I barely restrained myself from thumping his chest with the back of my hand to get his attention. I contented myself with following up with, "Well?"

His gaze turned back to me. "Mrs. Longren. No, wait, it _isn't_ Mrs. Longren, is it?"

No doubt about the contempt. This was someone I didn't even know, a man I'd only seen on a few occasions and most of those versed with trouble. He hadn't even been at the mine when Matthew was shot. He'd come sometime later, following up. How very nice that today he'd been found so easily, and in time to hand-deliver the foreclosure documents himself and to bring the potential new owner with him. Now he was treating me as if I were a soiled woman, somehow less than worthy in his view.

"There is nothing untoward going on in this house, Sheriff," I said. "I have my own room and Mr. Longren and I are soon to wed."

His gaze flicked over me again, dismissive and frankly unbelieving.

"Though if it will please you and your community—" I tried to give community the sardonic twist it deserved, but it came out wrong: I quite liked most of the people I'd met so far in Gold Hill. It was the Sheriff—and Jason Seth, if that's who it was Hutch was about to accost in the sitting room—I didn't like.

So, I said instead, "No, I mean, should it please you and your _ilk_ ," which gained me a dirty look, which meant I had it right, "I will be happy to stay in the home of my future sister-in-law, Missus Annie Collins until such time as Mr. Longren and I can wed."

His expression was lazy now, indicating he owed me no courtesy. "Inasmuch as there's no one at Missus Collins's home at present, I'm sure such an offer would not overly convince _my ilk_ and not overly inconvenience either of you."

It had been some time since I'd actually seen red, but I was coming close. "If you have an accusation to make, Sheriff, perhaps you'd best make it. Otherwise, you've delivered your message and brought a viper into our home and I'll thank you and the man I presume is Jason Seth to leave at once. We have 30 days."

I heard the door open, saw a figure from the corner of my eye, but didn't know if it was Hutch or Jason entering. My attention and fury were fixed on the Sheriff.

"I'll be on my way, Miss Lucas, you don't need to fear. And Mr. Seth will accompany me, though he may pass by occasionally in the next month to check on his investment. I'm sure you'll understand. In the meantime—"

"—There's no meantime, Bill," Hutch said. "You've delivered your news. I'd like you to leave."

The Sheriff waited for Hutch to finish, not bothering to turn and look at him, but focusing somewhere in the vicinity of my left ear, as if looking at either of us was now too much of a bother.

The red fury boiled a little higher. My hands clenched into fists.

"In the meantime," the Sheriff said. "There's talk in this town. You should know that, Miss Lucas. People talk. You are not the first Mrs. Longren and you are not the present Mrs. Longren. Please take care you understand that your presence in this house may be an offense to the kin of the first Mrs. Longren."

Breathing had become difficult. Coming into our home, throwing Hutch's pain in his face, threatening us with foreclosure and to such a creature as Jason Seth, and then, to add to that, using Ellie Longren as a weapon.

"Get out," I said. My teeth were clenched. I didn't raise a hand. I couldn't imagine what would become of me if I so much as suggested I might threaten Sheriff Townsend.

He took his time taking his measure of me, then nodded and raised the hat he still insolently wore in what I now considered _my_ kitchen. "Good day, Miss Lucas. I'll take my leave."

_You can take your leave all the way to Hell_. But I managed not to say a word.

Jason Seth had already gone out. From the front kitchen window, I could see him climbing off the porch and heading for his horse. I kept my back to the kitchen as the Sheriff walked past Hutch, who accompanied him through the sitting room, to the front door, which he shut firmly behind the Sheriff and locked.

I watched them climb onto their horses, Jason Seth laughing, but the Sheriff didn't laugh. He looked once up into the window and nodded at me. My fingers tightened around the edge of the bench there.

I heard Hutch come back into the kitchen as the two neared the end of the drive. I didn't turn but stood watching them, gripping the bench, until behind me Hutch said, "Maggie."

My shoulders stiffened and then I kicked the bench as hard as I could, making pans inside the cabinets jump. Spinning, I faced him.

"Jason Seth was Ellie's brother?"

He grimaced. "Cousin."

My gaze flew around the kitchen. I was looking for something that made sense. Or something to throw. "It never occurred to you to tell me that? You told me I had full disclosure from you, when I chose to stay. The man who shot your brother was related to you by marriage and you didn't tell me that? Is he still upset over her? Over the marriage? Over her loss?"

Hutch sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. "Jason Seth is a small man, Maggie. He has big dreams but he wants them all to come easy."

I huffed out a breath. "That's what you said before."

He looked up from his seat at the table. "Would it have helped you to know he was Ellie's kin? How?"

I threw my hands into the air, slapped them against my apron. "He followed me, Hutch. The other day on the street."

His expression hardened. "What? Where?"

I gestured outside, too mad to explain, acting as if he didn't know where the street was. "He followed me on my way back from Annie's and I had no idea who he was. If there's talk in this town, he's starting it because I've met very few people and no one has treated me the way the Sheriff and that... that _rat_ have."

Hutch dry washed his face with both hands. "Maggie, I'm sorry. I should have told you. Did he approach you? Did he say anything?" He dropped his hands from his face and watched me.

I shook my head. "No. Just watched me. When I went around a corner and then came back, he'd gone."

He stood and paced. "If there's talk, he's behind it."

"I haven't heard any."

He glanced at me. "It's a small town. I want you to be happy here." He stopped pacing, stood staring around the kitchen as if his plans were resting somewhere, rising like bread dough. "We'll marry. We'll find someone to marry us and do it soon. This week. Tomorrow! How fast can you sew a wedding dress? But I'd like Annie to be back because she'll want to attend, and her daughters—you've met them?"

"In passing." They were a blur of brunettes and giggles with the ice blue Longren eyes. "But don't you think—"

"—Never, if possible," and he kept talking even as I laughed. "How long will it take you to sew a wedding dress and what else do you need? Did you want your sister to come out and stand for you?"

"From _Boston?_ " My voice squeaked.

"Or your Aunt," he continued, as if seeing Great Aunt Agnes was something I desired ever, let alone for my wedding.

"Perhaps the two spinsters from the train," I said, throwing illogic and absurdity into the mix.

"Of course," he said, waving a hand as if he meant it. Clearly, he'd gone mad or he wasn't listening properly, or both. "I should tell Matthew, if I can find him. And you'll need—"

The world went still for me. I stopped listening to his plans and said quietly, "What do you mean, if you can find him?"

"Hmm?" He'd crossed to the table, found a sheet of the stationery I had used when trying to write my sisters, and was making a note.

"Hutch? What do you mean if you can find Matthew?"

"He didn't come into the mine yesterday."

My eyebrows rose. "Is that normal? Has he done that before? Just not showed up?"

"No." He was still making a list.

"Aren't you worried?"

He had been. He looked up and nodded. "I'll go out. Ask around. But the wedding—"

Exasperated, I snapped, "Is important, yes, but not to stop people from talking. Folk will always talk. If not about this, they'll find something else. You need to find your brother. And then we can find a way to save the mine and save your house."

He met my eyes. "Our house."

"Fine!" My hands slapping against my legs again. "Our house. And all the more reason then."

Within the hour, he'd gone, first to the mine, he said, to see if Matthew was there and to ask around among the workers if he was not. Then to the saloons Matthew sometimes frequented, though I got the idea "sometimes" was a polite fiction. Then to the homes of one or two of the girls he might have been courting and, to Hutch's credit, his voice didn't betray any emotion with that other than finding his brother.

And me, I wasn't staying behind. There were a few staples I needed and I meant to head to the grocers and I could ask around there, couldn't I? Would people talk if I said that Mr. Hutch Longren was looking for his brother Mr. Matthew Longren?

"People talk about Matthew anyway," Hutch said with a moment of grim humor that made my mouth twitch.

He'd offered to hitch the wagon for me, but I was impatient and anxious and didn't want to take the time. Besides, I hadn't learned to drive it yet and didn't think having Sophie and Scamp run away with me through Gold Hill was the best way to either stifle talk or find Matthew. I went on foot.

#  Chapter 10

The town was bustling. Ladies shopped. Unemployed gentlemen came and went from saloons. Shopkeeps and bartenders plied their wares. I nodded to a few familiar faces and kept a cautious ear for whispers or gossip. There was none.

Instead, there was the grocer, a florid man with a round, dumpling wife, who said his youngest daughter, married now to a cowboy and looking forward to her first, would surely love a visit from the resident midwife. Then he thanked me for my care of Mrs. Barnett and added some extra bacon to my packages.

"Thank you for your kindness," I said, shifting the bundles and aware of the people pressing around me in the store. "I'm afraid I'm also looking for some information. Mr. Hutch Longren is looking for his brother, who's gone missing from his employment these last few days."

There was a crash from the back of the store and a red-faced young woman stepped forward, blonde hair in disarray. She was already apologizing, clutching a bottle of whisky and reeking of it. The grocer's wife murmured yes, that was fine, of course she could pay for it over a few weeks and had she cut herself? She bustled to tend the girl, whose wide eyes found me.

"Matthew Longren?" she said. "Matthew's missing?"

I would have reached for her, trying to calm her, but the packages got in the way, so I ended up saying "Shh, shh, he's just not showing up, hasn't been at work but no call to fear something has happened to him."

Though from the gleam in her eye, I got the idea the young woman meant for quite a few things to happen to Matthew, but I didn't take the time to ask her how she knew him—I could, of course, guess. She was young and beautiful. The store filled up before I had a chance to say anything else to her.

I continued through town and my search remained the same. There was talk, indeed, and a great many people I'd never met I was now meeting; they all seemed to know me. But the talk was kind—grateful for what I'd done for the Barnetts—and welcoming.

That was the good news. The bad news was that no one had seen Matthew.

I almost went to the mine after getting back to the house. I was prevented by the distance I'd have to go, by the desire not to saddle a horse or make the wagon work for me, by not wanting to go all that distance just to hear the same thing from Hutch: No one had seen him for two days.

Instead, I put away my purchases, weeded and gathered in the garden, then walked the mile to Annie's house and did the same things in her garden. Then I walked back and fixed midday meal and waited for Hutch to come back with news.

Before midday, someone else came to the door. As before, running footsteps announced the visitor and, when I looked out, a carriage stood in the road. It was covered and fancy and driven by two horses, and my heart beat faster with a sense of panic, having no idea who had come or why.

"Mrs. Longren?"

It was just easier to say yes than to explain.

The man on our porch looked like a servant, the house manager type I might have seen in Boston. He had obviously come from one of the mansions where the Mackays or another rich family lived and he wore a morning coat despite the heat of the day, which had beaded sweat on his forehead.

"How can I help you?" I asked. I still held a peeling knife in one hand and a potato in the other. My hat was off, my jacket removed, I was in shirt sleeves, rolled up, and not ready to receive visitors or attend anyone.

"You're needed," he said. He looked half inclined to turn and bolt back to the carriage right then, sure that I'd follow. "My employers, Mr. and Mrs. Bradleigh. She's in terrible straits. She's expecting and it's been hard and now she's—something is wrong." He looked at me then, serious, frightened and overheated.

"I'll get my bag," I said and didn't ask him in, but didn't close the door.

I ran through the house to the back porch off the garden, where I had left my basket when I returned from seeing to Mrs. Barnett. As I ran I reviewed, I had whisky to clean mother and child and any equipment I might use. I had bandages and gauze, I had everything I could imagine needing.

The stove wasn't yet lit, which was good, the food not yet cooked, which was not. I left a hasty note for Hutch that there was bread and peaches and cold chicken in the cold storage. I left word of where I was going and the time and that I'd be back.

And then, I ran.

The Bradleighs did live in one of the mansions that wound up the hill and overlooked the town. Here, there was a small river snaking down into the desert and poplars and cottonwood gathered round. The family owned considerable acres, all of it fenced and whitewashed and dotted with carefully tended flowers and shade trees. The garden in the back would be fantastic; I could see the tops of the corn over the fencing.

The carriage stayed in the drive, abandoned, the horses stolid and unmoving. I followed the black-coated servant fast through the yard, up the wide front steps and into the shady, cool house.

I could hear her the minute we entered. From upstairs in the house, a woman was screaming.

"I need clean water," I said to the black-coated man, who was trying to precede me up the stairs. "I can find her myself. Go, get me water."

I'd want to clean myself before and the mother and child after, in more than simply whisky. The servant gave me a single uncertain glance before he headed away, presumably to heat water, and I ran up the stairs, my skirts hampering me, my breath catching.

It was bad. She was in the room atop the stairs, a huge room, brutally sunny in the early afternoon and far too hot for her comfort. Her face was red and contorted; her black hair damp and sticking to her skin. She'd bunched bedclothes into both hands, her knuckles white, and she sat up against the headboard, screaming.

There was already blood in the bed, already evidence of trouble beyond her wounded screams. I went promptly to her, bent over her on the bed, moving aside two frightened looking women who might be anyone—friends, sisters, neighbors.

"How long has she been laboring?"

No one answered me at first. I put my hand on the woman's head, letting her know I was there, trying not to shock her. Her eyes opened and she stared at me, panting. I reached to feel her pulse, which raced, and said again, "How long?"

"No more than an hour," one said.

Good. That was good. "Where's the doctor? Are there any nurses in this town? Another midwife?" Anyone who could help me; fear was hammering my own heart now. I'd only attended one troubled birth and it had ended well but my mother had been with me.

Now, I was alone.

"The doctor has been sent for," one of the women said. I hadn't looked closely at either. They were young and pale and had only been in the way. "He's over in Virginia City today."

I muttered a curse. "How long ago did someone go?" I was surprised when the laboring woman answered.

"My husband left here not quite an hour ago. He's looking for Doctor Horton. He will be back within the hour."

Likely he would, but much could happen in that time and if there'd been another midwife nearby, someone would have said so.

"I'm Maggie Lucas," I said. "I'm a midwife."

"I've... heard... of... you."

I nodded, already working. Already shooing away the women, taking the water from the servant to wash, filling the room with the unpleasant reek of spirits and reaching for the woman.

She was bleeding again, her head thrown back in pain. From what I could tell, the birth was breech, and the afterbirth was coming first. I bit my lip and started to work.

She fought. She accommodated every direction. She managed not to cry out. At the end, she said her husband's name and laid back on the bed, still.

The room smelled of hot salt and whisky, sweat and grief. The child was a boy. I washed him and bundled him into soft blankets, covered his face and laid him on the foot of the bed to attend to her.

The bleeding stopped not too long after. Apparently, the baby had pressed against something that forced the blood faster and harder from her. I bundled squares of cloth and watched her, but the blood had slowed and now had stopped.

When the horses tore into the yard, she was breathing harshly, a raspy sound, and was half conscious. I wasn't certain I'd done her any good, stopping the bleeding. There was a chance she'd spend several days in pain and die anyway.

But now, the doctor was come, footsteps on the porch and on the stairs and the men coming into the room, her husband, tall, pale and handsome, going to her side at once, taking her hand. I couldn't hear them from where I stood in the hall, but I could see his shoulders slump with the news and then I saw him gather himself, reaching for her, holding her even as the doctor pushed past me to start his own work.

I went downstairs and accepted a glass of sherry and a plate of apples and cheese from the cook, a round, motherly woman who bustled at me and said I had no doubt done everything I could, that sometimes things like this were meant to be, that she had a good life, Mrs. Bradleigh did, and other children, and would I like more to eat?

She was kind, but I was frightened and I just wanted to go home. It was farther than I wanted to walk and later in the day than I'd anticipated. I asked if the servant who had brought me would take me home and I took my leave.

The rest of the day passed like a dream. Nightmare slow, the hours spun out, full of bright sunlight. There was nothing I could concentrate on, not letters, not sewing, not my wedding dress or my wedding. I wanted my sisters, Virginia especially. I missed my mother fiercely. Her wise counsel would have been most welcome. Even my father, taciturn as he'd become, would have had some words for me. I walked to Annie's house and went through her garden but there was nothing that needed doing. I walked back home and paced, Hutch's mannerisms rubbing off on me.

I'd left Mrs. Bradleigh in the care of Dr. Horton, who surely knew more than I. I'd done everything I could for her, but the child had never once breathed. My mother had told me there were births that couldn't be salvaged. Children died. Mothers died. I could only use what I knew to try and save them, get help when there were doctors available.

"I did all that," I said aloud. So why did I feel so wretched?

Late in the afternoon, I started supper, laying out greens and choosing the meat, firing up the stove in the already over-hot house and putting in a roast. My head ached and my back hurt and my spirit was low. With nothing else to do, I finally took myself down the hall to the hot room that faced west, where the yellow curtains hung still; no breeze to stir the sage-scented air. I took off my boots and my outer dress and lay atop the bedclothes, watching a fly move around the room and telling myself I'd just rest until my head ached less, until my eyes didn't burn so.

I woke when Hutch leaned over the bed and kissed me gently. I started up, heart racing, then clutched my clothes close around my shoulders. This seemed too sudden and strange, having him here. The movement sent the headache raging and I lay back again, staring up at him, remembering the nightmare hours of the day and the nightmare-filled sleep I'd had.

"Are you sick?" he asked.

"No. I'm... I've... I'll get up and fetch supper. You must be hungry." The light had faded beyond my windows.

"Don't be silly. I'm not asking you to fetch my supper; I'm asking if you're ill. Do you have a headache?" He made motions for me to move over on the bed. Confused and still uncomfortable, I ignored them, so he walked around the bottom of the bed and approached from the other side, sitting gently so as not to disturb me.

He stretched out on the bed, gathering me to him so my head was cradled on his shoulder and chest, then awkwardly brought up the arm I was partially lying on and began to dig his fingers into my neck and shoulders.

The pain ebbed almost instantly and was followed by intense pleasure. Just being held made the tension slide from me and his hands, warm and strong, kneaded the muscles I'd held rigid from fear and anguish all afternoon.

"I heard what happened this afternoon," he said softly, and kissed my hair before pulling back and continuing to gently knead.

I made a small sound and didn't say anything, but shifted against him so I could look up into his face. He hadn't said anything and the shuttered expression on his face prevented me from asking. At length, he said, "I'm sorry you experienced that."

"Sorry?" I sat up, forgetting I was half undressed, forgetting the pain in my head, which instantly tried to spring back. Fear, my constant companion since returning home, woke promptly.

Hutch stared at me.

"Those people—Hutch, they're rich. I've heard their name before today, Annie told me about the people in this town, the people who own things, the people who can _do_ things. The Sheriff is one of them, he isn't moral, Hutch," though his expression said this was hardly news. "And there's the Mackays and the Bowers and the Bradleighs, there's people who—"

"—Who are every bit as human as you and I and who must obey the laws of nature, and whose children sometimes die in childbed." He tried to pull me back down beside him but I resisted.

"Hutch, the mine... the house... the people talking... and now this? The Sheriff said people are talking and, today, before this happened, when I was in town..." I stumbled, suddenly remembering part of the reason I had gone. "Did you find—?"

He lowered his eyelids, a long slow blink that managed to look irritated. "Very last place I asked. At the railroad."

"The railroad!"

He motioned me to relax again. "He went with Annie to the family ranch."

"Without mentioning it to anyone?"

"He mentioned. Just to one of the men who's drunk more often than not and didn't manage to pass the message on."

So that was one thing, at least. Matthew was safe, not murdered by Jason Seth and dumped in the desert and not hurt somewhere and missing.

"Will he return with her, do you think?" He was, after all, Hutch's partner in the mine, and, besides, I wanted them to reconcile. Once the water was under the bridge, I had hopes and daydreams of family dinners with Hutch's sister and brother and nieces and nephews who were in Gold Hill.

"I try very hard never to guess what Matthew will or will not do. And if your headache is very much improved, I would actually like my supper now." He shifted as if he'd rise from the bed and propriety said I should rise and dress and fetch my husband-to-be his dinner. But propriety said a Sheriff shouldn't be bought and shouldn't work for the highest bidder, that a bank shouldn't sell the lien on a man's house to the highest bidder and certainly not if the highest bidder is a mortal enemy. Propriety said many things that were disregarded every day.

And so, when he shifted, I shifted as well, nestling farther into his arms and moving my face up to his.

"My headache is much improved," I said, laughing a little. "May I show you how much?"

He started to answer, then glanced down at my face. His expression changed from slight confusion to one of pleasure and he dipped his head toward mine, taking my mouth with his.

His kisses were sweet, hot in the still hot room. His hands burned through my underdress as they moved along my ribs, circled my waist.

I moved, propping myself on one elbow, one hand spreading out over his chest, starting to unbutton his shirt. He paused, considered, leaned up and covered my mouth with his again, his top hand sliding down from my waist to my hip, then onto the back of my leg. My body tingled at his touch, burning with pleasure. I pressed my body against his, one foot running up his calf, held apart by his denim trousers.

Hutch left off kissing my mouth, moved to my temples, my ears, licked gently at my neck, trailed kisses down my collarbone, his hands still making magic on my hips, my legs. I ran my hands over his chest, across his flat stomach, linked my arms around his back and whispered his name.

His shirt fell open. His chest was broad, not as tan as his arms, neck and face, but gently furred, the hair on his chest as dark as his dark curls. I ran my hands over him, looking at what I'd only seen in paintings and on statues, followed my hands with my mouth, my tongue, tasting the day he'd had, the sun and dust and sage, the inside of mines.

His hands caressed my arms, my neck, my face. He pulled me tight against him, fumbled briefly at my underdress then abruptly set me back from him, sitting up on the bed.

I lay back, staring up at the ceiling, watching the same fly I'd seen earlier.

"You are to be my wife," he said. He sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. "I would not presume."

I sat up, draped one arm over his shoulder and pressed against his back. "I give you leave to presume but am grateful for your restraint. It's been such a long day. Still, I wish that we were already wed."

That caused him to turn and look back at me, smiling. With a sudden movement, he wrapped one arm around me and pulled me to the edge of the bed, onto my back, captive in his arms. Ducking his head, he kissed me.

"Soon enough," he said. "And now, was I promised supper?"

My headache having subsided, I moved through the kitchen, finishing supper preparations, mixing the dough for biscuits. Reaching for the salt, I saw the shaker was nearly empty and went searching for a bag of salt I'd noticed before. When I couldn't find it, the stupidity of the search became an obsession topping off a bad day. I went through cupboard after cupboard until I came at last to a small under-bench cabinet I didn't think I'd ever opened. It was in a corner, inconvenient and stuck tight. The idea that I'd seen salt in it before was absurd—I'd likely never seen anything in it, having never gotten it open or found time to care that I couldn't. But tonight, frustrated, I took a butter knife to it and leveraged it open.

And found myself staring at a collection of delicate porcelain tea pots.

#  Chapter 11

Hutch left for the mine at sunrise. I was barely awake, not even focusing on the events of the previous day yet, when he was out the door. Sitting at the kitchen table, trying to order my thoughts, I finally managed a letter to Virginia, filling her in on the trip with Great Aunt Agnes (and strongly recommending against the same, should she for any reason contemplate it) and then describing the house, Hutch, Annie, the town, the Sheriff and the doctor, the mine itself. I described Matthew, briefly, a little nervously, as if somehow this were an indiscretion. I told her Annie's recollections of our mother and about Hutch's family, about Annie, Kitty and Sarah in Gold Hill, his nephew at the University and the rest of his family on the ranch in California. Reminiscences of our mother reminded me to tell her about the birth of Mrs. Barnett's son.

And of the death of Mrs. Bradleigh's. I stopped writing then, briefly, laid down my pen and thought of Hutch kneading the back of my neck until the headache faded. I thought of the servant coming to take me to the house and wished I hadn't been home. Sorrow awoke at the loss of such a tiny life and at the loss the Bradleighs would endure, the sorrow the loss must have awakened in Hutch.

At last, I rose and paced, then sat and finished the letter, omitting the child's death and moving on to my wedding, the wedding dress I'd eventually sew, that we were moving quickly now, ready to get out life together underway.

I finished Virginia's letter by begging her to be a more responsible correspondent than I had been and to write me back with her news and that of our sisters, with news of father and my friends in Boston. Once I folded the letter into an envelope, I started promptly on another to my other sisters, and then one to my father, each more brief than Virginia's letter. I was in the middle of the letter to my Father when my pen ran dry and the ink well had been lost somewhere along the journey to Nevada. Sighing, I rose and went in search of ink and, finding none, resolved to walk to the general store and purchase some.

The day was bright, hotter than the day before, and there were only a few people on the street, none of whom I recognized before I got to the shops. Lost in my own thoughts, it took me until I was in the midst of the grocery and chemist shops before I realized something was strange.

People passing me on the street stared hard at me, blinking and looking away, then turning to their companion if they were with another, their voices lowered and urgent. Coming toward me on the wooden sidewalk, a pair of young wives arm in arm turned their faces to each other in shock, then looked at me, then whispered as they passed.

I slowed and looked around myself. Across the street, a man had stopped hitching his horse to a wagon and was watching me with a scowl. A middle aged couple moving past him followed his gaze and looked away from me instantly.

Caught between the desire to somehow go unnoticed and the need to know what was happening, I turned in a circle, taking in everyone near me on the street. For a brief, insane moment, I thought there were possibly men behind me, guns drawn, about to fight, but the sidewalk held only more pedestrians, all of them staring and talking.

_It's your imagination,_ I told myself. Of course, I hadn't spent much time in town as yet. People were just getting used to me. Probably knew who I was by now. But introductions would be nicer than stares and whispers.

Moving into the grocers was a relief. The grocer's little round wife was behind the counter, finishing up with a customer before me. I waited my turn, then asked if she had ink as I'd run out. She pointed wordlessly and turned to the man behind me. A little chill chased down my neck. I fetched my ink, thinking of the last time I'd been in the shop, and when I was back to the counter, I offered up coins for the ink and asked, "How is your daughter?"

"She fares well, thank you for asking, but she won't be using your services when the time comes. And in the future, _miss_ , we would prefer it if you would take your trade somewhere else."

I stepped back, confused. "Excuse me? I don't understand."

Her glare almost stopped me from asking. "We need the Bradleighs in our town, missy. What you did was unforgivable."

My mouth snapped shut. Surely this woman couldn't hold me responsible for the death of the Bradleighs' son? But turning slowly to observe the store, I saw more than one person hastily looking away from me. No one met my eyes. I thought again of everyone on the street, of being told people were talking and Hutch saying that people will always talk, so unconcerned.

The red rage tried to rise again. I hadn't sold my services to the Bradleigh household, I had been fetched by their servant, sent for by a family that wanted me to come. The child had been dead by the time I got there. The mother would have been dead before much longer had I not arrived. She would not have survived until the doctor was brought from Virginia City.

I took my parcel and my change but did not move. The anger was strong. Too many people had judged me more stringently than they might judge the whores on C Street or the drunk miners who started fires in mines and caused cave-ins. This was going to be my home. I had wanted friendship. If that was impossible, at least I wanted truth.

Leaning forward over the counter, I said clearly enough for all to hear: "The mother is alive for her other children because of me. My training was not at fault for their loss. My training was the reason for her life. The child was dead before I arrived. The mother is alive _because_ I arrived. If you choose to slander me, Missus, I will take action. And rest certain, I will take my trade elsewhere."

And I left the store without losing to the tears that welled up in my eyes. The other shoppers watched me go.

No one spoke.

I didn't run home, but I wanted to. I forced myself to walk slowly, showing my pride every step of the journey until I could open the door to the house, let myself in and lean against the door with the rest of the world sealed outside.

I cried then... because I couldn't help Hutch this way; because I couldn't even create a life for us this way; because I was lonely and wanted to go home and because I missed my mother and because people in this sad place I'd come to blamed me for the death of a child I'd have done anything to save.

Hutch found me sitting at the table with the letters finished, in envelopes, addressed, neatly stacked. They were all lies. All of them said I was happy. They referred to the Barnetts and their child and to the doctor and his reticence, to Matthew and his trials, though I downplayed the shooting for fear Father would send Great Aunt Agnes to collect me and bring me back safely to Boston.

I would not run back to Boston.

Hutch was tired. There had been no good news at the mine, no new veins of silver, just digging throughout the day at the same dwindling supply and looking for more. I thought he missed Matthew and I feared he probably had heard the news but was in no mood to discuss it. At least let us have one night without him comforting me for some injury.

In the morning, Mr. Toomly from the bank came to appraise the house. Hutch refused to let him in.

"You can judge value when it's in the hands of the bank, or in the hands of that villain, Seth. Until then, this is my house and my property and you are trespassing."

When Mr. Toomly tried again, the man was nothing if not persistent, Hutch fetched his rifle from the closet and went out onto the porch with it.

"I'll bring the Sheriff," Toomly sputtered from the bottom of the steps. He backed toward his carriage, which was almost as showy as the one belonging to the Bradleighs.

"You do that," Hutch returned. "Even Bill Townsend isn't stupid enough to believe he can take action before the 30 days are up."

Mr. Toomly left without further protest and he did not return with the Sheriff. Hutch didn't leave for the mines, choosing not to leave me alone.

We sat out on the back porch as the sunlight climbed toward it, staring into the garden. It felt as if we were living in a medieval castle, under siege. There weren't very many options we hadn't discussed the night before, from the sublime to the silly.

There was one.

"We could leave here," Hutch said.

My response was immediate, and negative. This was his home. This was my home, or at least I wanted a chance for it to become so. His brother was here, or would be again, and Annie, and his nieces and nephew. He was established here, it was his home; how could he leave?

Though, of course, I had ruined that.

He took hold of my shoulders when I said that and stared deep into my eyes. "You are never to say that again. A home that doesn't welcome you could never be my home now."

And before I could properly absorb that, he continued.

"And they're wrong. You did everything to save that child."

"How do you know?" I asked. I was sitting next to him on the bench and I didn't look away from the corn when I asked.

"Because you said you did." Simple, forthright.

I sighed.

"My home is to be with you," Hutch said. "We could leave here. We could go to California or Arizona. We could go to Europe."

"On what money?" I asked, dazed at the thought.

"Your inheritance to the throne?" His voice was light.

"Oh, that. I forget, sometimes."

"Careless of you to forget your kingdom."

"I've been busy," I said. "Hutch, what becomes of Annie and Matthew if we leave here?"

He leaned back against the polished wood bench, his feet crossed at the ankles. For all his appearance of being relaxed, I didn't think he was. But I needed to know. I'd come between brothers who were close friends. I needed to know how much damage was still done and how they would move past it.

"What have I told you about my presupposing what Matthew will or will not do?"

"That you try not to do it," I said. "But, he's your brother. And you love him. And I think he's your closest friend."

He was silent for so long, I finally said his name again.

In response, he said, "If we go, Matthew will come too."

And much later, as we watched crows investigate the garden at the foot of the ragged scarecrow, he added, "I hope."

The next day, Hutch returned to the Silver Sky and I found our household in need of various staples. With his blessing, I found the change and the list and set off for town, only to find doors closed to me, businesses unwilling to trade. Unless I wanted stiff whisky or admission into a whorehouse, I was bade take myself elsewhere.

Which I did. I went back to the house and forced myself to learn to saddle a horse, then I tucked my skirts up out of my way, too furious to worry about fashion or custom, and road to Virginia City...

Where I promptly felt overwhelmed. It wasn't the size of Boston, but it was so very different from either Boston or Gold Hill, so many people and wagons, carriages and horses. Though, best of all, no one knew me. I found the food items we needed, at better prices, and thought perhaps the price of pride would weigh heavily on the shopkeeps in Gold Hill. When I had gathered what I needed from grocers, I left my packages in the wagon and went to the dressmaker's, looking for prices on the cloth I'd need to order for my wedding dress, the seed pearls, the embroidery floss.

"Is it your wedding?" the woman in the dressmaker's asked. She was my age, with red hair and dimples and not the slightest idea who I was. It was a relief and a pleasure. I hadn't realized how much it bothered me, even over such a short period of time, that no one would talk to me, that they blamed me for the death of a child.

"It is. I'm going to be making my dress, but I'd welcome any advice."

Her eyes took on the feverish gleam of the truly obsessed and, for the next quarter hour, she filled my ears and my head with details I couldn't possibly remember and suggestions for things I couldn't possibly accomplish, and accosted strangers to ask their opinion of fabrics, buttons, threads and flosses.

It was a lovely quarter hour, interrupted by a sudden shout from the doorway. I was standing, by then, in a clutch of women, from grandmothers to girls, all of them offering thoughts on one thing or another to do with my wedding, when a man appeared, sudden and loud, calling in.

"Is Jennie here?"

"She's gone for the day, visiting friends in Dayton," the shop keeper called back and then, "Oh, Lord, Frank, it isn't Caroline's time, is it?"

Panic, as complete as that washing over the man named Frank, washed over me. I couldn't. Not after what had happened. Not just when I'd found a place where, however temporarily, I belonged. I bit my lip, ready to speak.

"What about the doctor?" one of the women called. She was graying, older, already hustling toward the door.

"I've called for him, he'll probably come but she wants a midwife, she's scared, it's her first," which everyone there, nodding, seemed to already know. "Thank you," he was already withdrawing from the doorway, "I'll go and find—"

"—I'm a midwife," I said. My voice sounded overly loud and overly calm and I was almost surprised to hear it.

The women around me turned instantly. I expected scorn or censor, or that they would have heard of the blonde midwife who had moved to Gold Hill. We weren't so far away, my notoriety could have spread.

But all I found was hope in those faces, excitement in those women already mothers, a kind of awe in the younger women, and impatience in the grandmotherly sort.

"Don't keep him waiting, girl. I'll hold your packages. After dark, come round back and ring the bell. I'll get them to you."

I'd only bought some floss this day, and a roll of calico to make new curtains for Annie's kitchen, but I didn't want to be hampered by the packages and I didn't want to turn away from any offer of friendship. I thanked her, turned and ran toward the man in the doorway, who led the way to his buckboard.

When we started down one of the precipitous streets of Virginia City, I thought once, almost startled at the thought, that no one knew where I was, and that, if in fact someone did know who I was, perhaps this man wasn't who he said he was and we weren't going where he said we were.

In the last few days, I'd learned to trust where I hadn't expected to and learned far more when not to trust at all.

But he fetched up in front of a modest home with bright, wild flowers in the front behind a simple wooden gate. He saw me to the door, then hesitated, his face ashen.

"You're her husband?" I asked. For all I knew he was brother, son, father. The pale, greenish color of nausea made me guess husband. Men become so very uneasy in the face of life.

"I have none of my usual equipment. Please come in with me and fetch what I need and see your wife."

He turned even greener.

I tried to smile but felt like kicking him. She was the one doing the work. Surely he could stand a moment in the room with her.

"Just for a minute. To let her know you're here. Then after you fetch me the whisky to clean, you can take a glass of it out into the sun."

The promise of whisky seemed to cheer him. I resolved to tell Hutch that when we started our family, I expected him to remain at the house as I delivered our offspring.

Then I realized, simultaneously, both that I had come to accept we would marry and would have a family, and that I had just outlined what likely was his worst fear.

He would have to face that fear, almost definitely. Much as I would have to face mine.

Caroline Drake was young and pretty. I hadn't paid much attention to her husband, except to notice the air of panic around him. She sat up in the bed, as if determined not to get into it and thus start something she wasn't certain she could finish.

"I'm not ready for this," she told me. Her brown eyes were very wide.

"You're more ready than you know," I said and turned to smile at her husband, who had brought the whisky, clean towels and himself.

"Frank," she said with relief. "You don't have to stay."

"It's all right," Frank said, clearly lying, but he was making an effort. He handed me what I'd asked for, gave his wife a kiss on the cheek and moved very quickly to the bedroom door. "I'll be right outside," he said, glancing at me to judge if he'd done enough.

When I turned back to Kitty, her eyes were even wider. "How did you get him to do that?"

"Guilt," I said. "And he loves you. Ready now?"

She was. She had been. But alone and afraid. Now that her husband had visited her and a midwife come, she relaxed enough to let her laboring move along. It would have, without her permission, before much longer, but relaxing helped.

We talked away the time, about canning and books and her pet cat, who wanted nothing to do with what was going on in that room. I checked my watch periodically, hoping she would deliver before nightfall. Hutch would be worried to come and find me gone. Just before sunset, her daughter made her way into the world, an easy birth, far more so than I would have expected for a first time mother. I cleaned them both and wrapped the infant in swaddling and gave her to her mother before going to find her father who had taken my advice rather more to heart than necessary. _Very_ relaxed, he was tearing up over mother and daughter when I took my leave, payment in my pockets and joy in my heart.

The dress shop hadn't closed, though it was apt to do so with me in it if they didn't let me go before too much longer. I was introduced around, instantly forgetting so many names, but glad of the smiling faces and offers of friendship. At last, I took my parcels and made my way back to the buckboard and patient Scamp, and made my way back to Gold Hill.

Riding back through our own town felt like riding out of summer and into a snow storm. There were still neighbors on the street, still shops open at the north end of town that I passed before turning and going up to the Longren house, and every step of the way there were people watching. Not so much whispering now, not so many people actually speaking, but a speculation, an awareness.

I was home in time to prepare a simple supper and to put away my groceries, to start to draw the dress I hoped to sew for my own wedding, to plan for the future.

And to think of the difference between where I had been and where I had returned to.

When Hutch got home, he wasn't alone. I heard voices in the drive and a chill passed through me before I recognized Hutch's voice. For a horrible instant, I had imagined the Sheriff, come to foreclose and evict 29 days early, or Mr. Bradleigh, come to avenge his son, or Mr. Seth, come to avenge his cousin. The afternoon's relief was borne away as the present came back to me.

But the voices continued on to the barn and I went to the kitchen window to watch them pass by, and smiled with relief. There was Hutch, leading a horse with Annie perched on its back and Matthew leading his own horse. I watched for barely a breath, then turned back to consider what I could do to extend dinner, to offer hospitality and to manage not to break down in tears at the sight of friendly faces and the sight of Hutch and Matthew turning such friendly faces to each other.

By the time they came in from the barn, I had added to supper and was setting the table for guests. Hutch came in first and crossed the kitchen to kiss my cheek. Matthew followed him, ducking his head in understated greeting. It was Annie who made a beeline to me, wrapped me in her arms, kissed both my cheeks, then took my hands in hers.

"Is there anything cooking that may burn? If so, Hutch, see to it," and she was already hustling me into the sitting room, followed by protests from both men, which she shut off by simple expediency of shutting the connecting door.

"My dear." Her blue eyes were warm. "I heard."

My own eyes watered. I started to shake my head. I'd dealt with it so far and intended to continue to fight, whatever I had to do to keep this from Hutch's door—but she didn't wait.

"Mrs. Bradleigh married well. Her husband struck silver early and kept striking it and may still be striking it for all I've paid attention. They have more money than they have sense and although she may have station now, she did not always have it."

I frowned. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Annie took a breath and blinked, said slowly, "She's not—she didn't." She cleared her throat. "She never sold herself for money, but she had questionable morals and she was happy to let the men buy her a drink."

"Alcohol?" I asked. From my perspective, for women it was better on the outside than on the inside.

"Alcohol," she confirmed. "Since she married, she had two children who lived and, since then, she has struggled to carry another child and have it live. She has failed, every time." I stood without meaning to, took several steps away from her, whirled and returned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying the woman can no longer carry a child to birth and, if she does, the child is born dead. The doctor has attended her at least three times before this and she has been married half a dozen years. You should have been told. And those _fools_ in town, they should know better."

I bit my lip, paced the same way Hutch did, ran a hand through my hair, managing to spill most of it out of its pins and all over my neck.

"The grocer's wife, she said they need people like the Bradleighs in town." I looked at her, imploring, meaning it very much as a question.

Annie made an exasperated sound. "We need their money, I'll grant that, but they're not going to go away because Mrs. Bradleigh lost another child. It's sad, for her, for him, though he doesn't have the sense God gave a goose if he keeps on with her and expects he's going to have a son to leave his fortune to."

She rose and came to where I'd retreated near the fireplace mantle, biting my lip, chewing on my nails. She pulled my hand from my mouth, took both hands in hers.

"You did nothing wrong, Maggie. You couldn't have known and you would have gone even if you did. You're _good_."

"How can you say that? After—" I waved toward the kitchen.

She dismissed it easily. "Lots of girls get silly over Matthew. Many mothers who have lived hard lives before they're expecting lose their children. You have set out to harm no one, Maggie," she said, releasing me and turning to move toward the windows. "Forgive yourself. Everyone else has."

And there she'd gone too far.

"No, they haven't."

When she turned back, it was with surprise. "I don't understand."

I told her. About the visit to the Gold Hill grocer, about the people on the street, about going to buy sundries and finding I couldn't even be waited on. I didn't cry, didn't drag out the story. I just told her.

When I finished, she shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. "Small minded people. But I think Matthew has news that will make a difference."

"Matthew," I said, not understanding.

"Matthew," she agreed. "Come, let's eat the dinner you've prepared."

The day waned as we sat to supper, the four of us, and it was less uncomfortable than I had feared. If there was a tension between Hutch and Matthew, it was still greatly improved from how I had last seen them together.

I hadn't spoken to him, or even seen him, since the day Hutch had thrown him out of the house and, since then, I had been afraid to mention his name. Now, I needed to get past my fears and talk to him, with Hutch present.

Handing him a plate of chicken and corn from Annie's house, I said, with mock severity, "You couldn't see your way clear to letting anyone know where you were going?"

Matthew looked anything but contrite. His eyes were shining and he kept grinning.

"No, no, Maggie," Hutch said, much too carelessly. "I told you that Matthew _did_ leave word—with the most drunken, least dependable man he knows."

"Nonsense," Matthew said. "That would have been Jason Seth."

A comment destined to stop the conversation in its tracks. Except that Matthew was still smiling, as was Annie.

Hutch looked from his sister to his brother, frowned at his brother for several seconds, and looked back at his sister. "What do you know that I don't?"

"So very much," she said lightly.

Hutch looked at me. "Will you talk sense?"

The undercurrent of suppressed glee was getting to me. "I will talk wedding plans, if you like, husband."

He glowered. "I am not your husband."

Another potential conversational gambit sure to go wrong, but something had happened, something that made Matthew smile at his chicken and Annie look contritely at everything but either Hutch or me.

Hutch looked from Matthew to Annie to me and then settled to simply eating. Matthew was able to bear it for no more than two minutes before he put down his fork, pushed back his plate and said, "Annie and I went to Alturas."

Hutch regarded him. "We are aware of that, Matthew."

"But you don't know why." When he had all our attention, he stood. "You were sending our father part of every paycheck before we bought the mines, were you not?" Without waiting for Hutch to answer, he went on. "And once we bought the Silver Sky, or you did and I bought in, once it was producing, you sent home a lot of money."

Hutch had stopped moving, his fork resting on his plate, his food pushed away.

I held my breath.

"Father bought the cattle ranch with what you sent him."

He was beginning to look smug. Hutch must have thought so too, because he turned to Annie and said, "His news is the story of my life?"

"Shh," she said, patting his arm as if she were listening to a riveting story and resented it being interrupted by a small, undisciplined child.

"He invested," Matthew said simply, leaving Hutch confused.

"Then what did he buy the cattle ranch with?"

"Not all of it, brother," Annie said.

"Just enough that we can either inherit the cattle ranch or set ourselves up for another business," Matthew added.

My heart lightened a bit. Hutch would be unlikely to take charity, but money earned from money he'd earned? If there was a chance to save the house, or the mine—neither of which I wanted. The afternoon in Virginia City had given me a freedom I didn't expect to find in Gold Hill. Maybe people would forgive and forget but, more likely, they would close their minds or, at best, tolerate and ignore.

That wasn't the life I wanted.

Hutch wasn't smiling either. "My house is in foreclosure. The mine has stopped producing. Annie—"

"Matthew never wrote and told them how dire straits were," Annie said, standing to start clearing plates because no one was eating. "Did you?" she asked Matthew.

"I don't write letters," Matthew said. "And Hutch does, but he talks about me."

"There's so much to discuss on the topic," Hutch said dryly. He was beginning to smile. "Are they set? Can we borrow? Would they—"

"—Not borrow, I don't think," Annie said. "If you were in California, they would set you up with acres of the ranch, get you started so that you could make a living. If you had told them that the mine was in trouble, rather than telling them that _Matthew_ was in trouble, which is hardly even interesting, let alone new, then perhaps they would have offered assistance before."

Hutch was smiling still.

For him, the future had just changed. Whatever plans he made, there was a chance to save the house, a chance to save the mine.

A chance we would stay in Gold Hill.

I'd wanted to love it there. I did love the house and the garden and the sage-covered foothills and I had wanted to fit in with the people in the town, know my neighbors, make friends.

But the house was another woman's house, where another woman's choices were kept by her husband. The garden had been planted by other hands and cared for by other people, and in that garden, I had almost lost everything.

The people in town would recover. Maybe. But I didn't think I would. The grocer's wife, learning I had not been at fault, might try to make amends. I would accept apologies but I was not sure I was a kind enough person to forgive. I definitely wasn't kind enough to forget.

Hutch, though. Hutch had been given a reprieve, a way to hold on to what he had earned, to make his life where he had chosen to make it. If I was going to be his wife, I would stand by his choices.

I surfaced from my thoughts to hear the other three discussing some childhood infraction of Matthew's, a topic I was convinced could easily entertain all of them through the remainder of our meal and the pie I'd baked the night before. I rose without thinking, so uninvolved in the story I didn't realize I'd said nothing.

It was Matthew who stopped me, reaching up and touching my arm lightly and just as quickly moving away.

"There's something else," he said and I sat, equally without thought, my mind turning over ways I could stay in Gold Hill and yet thrive.

Annie's smile lit the room. Matthew looked fit to burst. I glanced at Hutch. He shook his head, as confused as I was.

"The Faro Queen," Matthew said.

My heart leapt. I looked quickly at Hutch, to see him looking stunned just before the grin spread across his face.

"You've found a location?"

"Empty casino in Virginia City, far end of C Street."

"How close is it to the Silver Queen? Bucket of Blood?"

"Far enough from both; close enough to the entrance of town, close enough to homes."

"There's enough from what Father—"

"—There's enough to buy a herd of saloons."

"Herd?"

"Fleet. Covey. C street. Did a good trade."

"Then why?"

"Owner died."

"Gun fight?"

Matthew shrugged. "His own damn fault."

"There are ladies present."

"There are!" Annie laughed.

"The Faro Queen," Hutch said.

"Our Faro Queen," Matthew said.

_A fresh start,_ I thought.

"Are we running away?" I asked.

Hutch had come out to join me on the front porch in the July night. Annie had gone home, escorted by Matthew, to see if I was as bad at gardening as I had warned her I was. I thought she'd be pleased to see I'd overestimated my lack of skill.

Hutch sat down beside me, rested his arms along the back of the bench, stretched out his long legs, crossed at the ankle. "Would it bother you if I said we are?"

I hadn't anticipated the question. "It would and it wouldn't."

"Because you don't want to run from a fight but would be glad to leave?"

That was accurate enough to make me stare at him. "Yes."

Hutch tightened his lips in a rueful smile. "We're not running. We're making a change. Annie may buy the house, or Matthew might. He's probably going to stay here."

I frowned. "Why would he want a house?" I glanced at Hutch. "What do you know that I don't?"

"So very little," he said. "But I do know there's a certain Mayor's daughter who has been biding her time."

"The Mayor's daughter?" I asked.

Hutch looked content. "She's the one he goes back to, between the others. I always thought he was the one coming and going and making it hard for her but looks like she's sent him away each time."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that.

Hutch could, "Smart girl."

"What does that make her now?"

"The one _he_ pursued. And after that? Mrs. Longren."

And that I _really_ couldn't think of anything to say about. I moved over into the lee of his body and Hutch dropped his arm from the bench to my shoulders, pulling me close.

"So that's one of the Nevada Longren boys married."

My heart sped up.

"And Annie's set, she's going to buy a dress shop."

"How long was I out here?"

He laughed. "She told me as she was going. She was so angry about what happened to you and so excited about what's happening to Matthew—"

"—Excited?"

"Amazed." He leaned down and kissed my hair. "You smell good."

"I spilled vanilla when baking."

"Mm. _You_ smell good."

I turned my face up to his and he kissed me, softly, his fingers caressing my face and throat.

"So when will the other Nevada Longren boy get married?"

"He's not a boy," I said. I traced his mouth with my fingers.

"How fast can you sew a wedding dress?"

"I'll start tomorrow." A thought struck me. "Or I could buy one from Annie's shop."

He looked at me. "I've no objection. You were the one looking to economize."

I took a breath. "When I went to Virginia City today, a man came looking for a midwife at the shop I was in."

Hutch frowned. "Why there?"

"There's a midwife in Virginia City. Jennie, I think. She was gone to Dayton for the day, so I went with him."

Hutch drew in a breath and stopped moving. His eyes searched mine. "You're alright?"

It almost seemed a strange question. I hadn't been the one giving birth. But I had been frightened.

"I'm glad I went," I said. "They had a daughter. It's her first child. She was afraid and he was scared out of his wits." And I wondered what he'd think of me talking about it but if we were going to be together, if I were going to continue to midwife, we'd have to talk about it, wouldn't we?

He kissed me. I wasn't growing used to that at all. Every kiss was like fireworks. I moved closer, pressing against him, finding his mouth with mine. He complied, but pulled away before I was ready. I looked at him questioningly.

Hutch stood up fast and paced away from me on the porch, staring out at the street.

"Hutch?"

I started to stand. He motioned me back down. "Just let me get through this, Maggie, please?"

I spread my hands, confused, afraid, wondering if now, somehow, when it looked like matters had resolved, I was going to lose him anyway.

He paced, ran his hand through his hair and stopped at the edge of the porch. When he turned back to me, he was a silhouette against the sunset.

"When you went to the Bradleighs house, when you came back here and told me about it, I didn't help you."

I wanted to get up and go to him. I wanted to absolve him of this guilt, to say I understood when I wasn't certain I did. Or rather, I wasn't certain he did but I thought he needed to learn. My hands wrapped around each other, tightening into a hard grip, and I waited.

"Annie talked to me tonight."

Again, I wondered how long I had been outside as the others talked.

"I didn't know about Mrs. Bradleigh. Maybe I should have, but..." He shrugged.

I took a chance. "You don't gossip much?"

That actually made him laugh. "Oh, men _gossip_. Some days I think that's _why_ the mine doesn't produce more. But no one had ever told me about Mrs. Bradleigh's past and I might not have listened if they had."

I took another chance. It seemed like a good time to learn something about men. "What kind of gossip _do_ you listen to?" I was teasing, a little.

"The kind that is not fit for a lady's ears," he said promptly. Then, more seriously, "You were hurt by what happened at that house. I knew that. I just couldn't be close to it. I didn't expect what happened afterward. I never thought our neighbors would act that way. And that must have hurt you more."

I laced my fingers very tightly together and stared, wide-eyed, at him. I was not going to cry.

"You know what happened to Ellie." He paused and didn't speak again for several breaths. "I didn't know you were a midwife."

"What?" It was surprised out of me.

"Your mother said nurse."

Confused, I looked around the porch, then down at my hands, then back at Hutch.

Who shrugged again. "It was many years ago. Maybe you were thinking of becoming a nurse. Maybe someone used the wrong term. Maybe I remembered it wrong. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," I said quietly. "It must have been a shock."

He stared at me, silhouetted head cocked toward me, then began to pace again. "When you went to attend and the child was lost—"

_Oh_ , I thought, and wanted to go to him but he was tense against the sunset, every muscle set against me.

"I should have thought how it felt to you. It wasn't my loss."

"It wasn't mine, either," I said, my head down. I looked at my hands in my lap.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him nod. I didn't think he had listened.

"But you saved the mother."

I looked up at him, a rush of horrified understanding. How horrible that must have been for him, another midwife arriving too late and yet, in this instance, the mother—someone's wife, a wife like Ellie had been and, this time, she lived.

Now I wanted to cry. I wanted to run. I wanted to have never come here, never met Hutch Longren. My hands went up over my face. I couldn't have stopped them. I had hurt this man, too many times, too badly. There could be no going back. My shoulders shrugged up around me, my head dropped toward my chest. I sank into myself, withdrawing from everything around me.

His steps crossed the porch fast. His arm went around my shoulder. His hand tilted my head up and brushed my hands away from my face.

"No," he said, shaking his head, his eyes looking deep into mine. "No, Maggie, you don't understand. It's when you saved her I understood that anything could have happened with Ellie. Maybe if the midwife had come early and the baby late, maybe they both would have been lost anyway. Maybe there was no saving her. Maybe nothing could have."

"I let her go, Maggie. All this time, in this house, with her tea pots, with her curtains. Her house. Her memory."

I waited. I couldn't breathe. My hands tightened convulsively around each other, refusing to let go.

"Whether anything could have changed, whether anything could have been different, it didn't and it wasn't. She's gone and I miss her, but I need to leave her house and garden and the things she held dear. I need a new life."

I was crying now. I couldn't even properly hear him. I didn't know if he was saying goodbye or hello.

"I need someone to share that life with."

I looked up at him. His blue eyes were serious and looking straight into mine.

"Maggie Lucas, will you marry me?"

#  Chapter 12

The raging heat of July settled into comfortable, hot days of August. Just as a routine had been falling into place, it changed. Now Hutch was working with Matthew, securing a buyer for the mine, which should have been difficult. The silver had stopped flowing in Nevada; Mt. Davidson was, if not finished, at least much less generous. Around us, fortunes that had been made were being lost. Eilley Bowers had been foreclosed on in 1876, ending her reign as one of the richest women in the world. Now, other families were facing defeat. Times were changing and we were changing along with them.

The buyer for the mine, we discovered, was none other than Jason Seth, who, despite having bought the lien against the Longren house and knowing how close to foreclosure we'd been, still believed there was silver in the Silver Sky mine.

The five of us sat at dinner one night, discussing the pending sale. There were often groups around Ellie Longren's big, well-scrubbed pine table these nights. Matthew frequently brought the Mayor's daughter, Chloe, and the two of them would be lost to the general conversation, as often as not, all supposedly secret glances and stolen moments. Not that Hutch and I noticed, given our own obsessions. He helped me serve, helped me clear, helped me do anything that meant the two of us were in another room, where we could steal kisses and whispers.

Annie made our fifth and, often as not, brought Kitty and Sarah, bright girls who were just starting to make their mother's life interesting as they courted somewhat indiscriminately.

Tonight, the girls had accompanied their gentlemen of the moment to Piper's Opera House, to witness some spectacle of Shakespeare's. When the sale of the mine rose in conversation, the vitriol rose also. We were mostly in agreement that if Jason Seth was so determined to buy what the Longren brothers had owned, he deserved what he got. The discussion itself served little purpose but to vent our ill intent toward him.

Jason Seth was welcome to buy the Silver Sky mine. Hutch and Matthew were in the process of buying The Faro Queen, of late called the Camellia, for no reason anyone understood. It had closed in 1875, following the Great Fire that had gutted it along with so much of Virginia City. Hutch and Matthew would accompany the broker to inspections and come back smelling charred and covered in soot. I looked forward to the day Matthew married Chloe and she could scrub the charcoal and soot from his clothes, as he inevitably asked me for help with a winsome smile and great compliments about my abilities. Compliments about laundry were absurd, but the smile usually got me.

Matthew would inherit Ellie Longren's house. The sale was a formality, _For $1 and for consideration received,_ the deed would read. There was no point transferring the family windfall from one brother to the next when it had come evenly to them.

Brothers they were again. None of us had forgotten, we had just moved on.

Annie bought the dress shop with her share of the investment, hiring Mrs. Barnett to assist with the sewing. Despite her new infant, she was up to the task, and far better than I at sewing, so the three of us worked on my wedding dress after hours, planning fanciful concoctions of lace and seed pearls. I wrote letters home to my sisters, especially Virginia, and to my father, including sketches of the dress and, by request, Matthew's sketches of himself, Hutch and Annie.

And on nights like this one, we all sat together at the table, eating and sharing pieces of our days, planning for the future and, for some of us, waiting to be alone again with the one person who most mattered.

Hutch caught me up in a hug from behind only moments after Annie disappeared into the darkness, her daughters walking with her, and Matthew rode off with our wagon, taking Chloe home and promising to return at dawn with the wagon.

"I don't want to see you before noon," Hutch threatened. Not that he ever slept that long but he was making up for lost time now he no longer had the mine to get to. Long-overdue tasks around the house were getting done—the newel post on the stairs was tightened and the corn was being harvested by more than one (my) hand. And there were lots of moments like this one where we stood, wrapped around each other, my head on his shoulder or his chin in my hair, the two of us looking out over the desert and planning our move from Gold Hill to Virginia City.

This night, I turned within his arms as soon as the darkness swallowed the others. My arms went around his waist and I looked up into his eyes.

When he kissed me, it was with passion and longing. His mouth was hot on mine, his tongue insistent. I opened to him, wanting all of him, and pressed myself against his body, both of us pulling each other closer.

When he released me to stand easily in the circle of his arms, I looked up into his eyes. "I am tired of waiting, Mr. Longren," I said, as I had several nights in a row.

"It's only a few more days, Mrs. Longren," he replied, savoring the name, apparently.

I tsk'd. "I am not Mrs. Longren, as you well know, that being the central issue of your argument."

"You will be soon. That _is_ my argument."

We would wed on Friday but the day was Tuesday and I was, as I had said, tired of waiting. I countered his argument with a very forward one of my own, pressing myself tight against his now-ill-fitting trousers.

Hutch drew in a sharp breath, then kissed me again, harder than ever, his mouth bruising mine, teeth biting my lower lip, his hands ranging over my back and then moving forward to cup my breasts, pressing and circling.

My arms twined around his neck. My mouth trailed down his jaw line, to his ear, to his throat, back to his mouth. The night was silent but for our feverish kisses. I waited for him to pull away, to go almost angrily to his room the way he had on previous nights. I had never thought the anger was for me, I had only not understood the point. We were to be wed. We _would_ be wed. He was, for all intents and purposes, my husband.

My husband who respected me. Far too much.

But tonight he let his own mouth roam, biting my lip, pulling away when I'd ceased my explorations to begin his own, kissing down my neck, around my ears, whispering my name, licking my lips, my ears, cupping my face and, all the while, I pressed against him and he pressed back, not sending me away, not going away himself.

Tonight, he scooped me up into his arms, standing there on the front porch where we had seen off our guests, with enough light inside the house that we should have been visible to any prying eyes. He didn't seem to care. He kissed me as he held me and turned, finding his way without looking because his eyes were locked with mine as he carried me over the threshold.

Inside the house, he kicked the door shut behind him, carrying me easily, taking me down the hall to the too-long empty room with the yellow curtains in the window and the lace and all the pillows.

I expected to be set on my feet, perhaps abandoned there as my body burned and ached, but he laid me onto the pillows, never letting me go as he followed me down gracefully until he lay beside me, cradling me against his chest, his arms pulling me tight, his mouth finding mine again as he kissed me gently again, then harder.

My hands fumbled at his clothes and then fell away. Surely I was not the one to start this. He was. He did. His hands scrabbled at the buttons of my dress, fiddling uselessly with the fussiness of them until he muttered under his breath, "How the devil do women get into these things?"

I laughed then, unafraid somehow of spoiling anything, and struggled just far enough out of his arms to do the miraculous and unnatural contortions required to free myself of that particular dress. When the buttons were undone, I left off so he could continue and I myself concentrated on his buttons and laces, finding men's clothes only marginally easier than women's to remove.

Until, all at once, we were freed of them and the night breeze coming through the window cooled the feverish sweat on our bodies. For the first time, we lay pressed against each other, flesh to flesh, exploring with hands and mouths, full of wonder and joy.

He rolled us to one side of the bed, throwing back the quilts, easing us down under sheets and then his hands began to explore, tracing gently down my sides, circling into the core of me and I touched him, pressed him close, drew him to me. Our mouths stayed close together. Sometimes we laughed, or breathed sharply, kissed or bit, or said each other's names.

We didn't sleep much but, when we did, it was sleep spent tucked into each other like missing puzzle pieces making up a whole. We never let go completely that night.

When dawn came, there were still two days until our wedding, but that night the empty bedroom had been filled again and I was already truly Mrs. Hutchinson Longren.

#  Chapter 13

It was a small wedding.

Telegrams came that Friday morning from my father, who was grateful my choice had turned out to be the right one. He wished me as much happiness as he himself had enjoyed with my mother.

Virginia sent a telegram she couldn't possibly have afforded, longer than most, excited and incoherent. It made me feel like she was with me, arms around me, arranging my flowers, my dress.

My other sisters sent a telegram as well, as did Great Aunt Agnes, though she managed to sound dour, doubtful and disapproving. At least, that way, I was sure it was from her.

Hutch's family also sent congratulations. We'd be seeing them soon—we were planning a trip to Alturas once winter had come and gone.

Annie and Matthew would stand up for us and Annie's daughters were my attendants and the church would be filled with miners and new mothers. Mrs. Barnett was coming and Frank and Caroline Smith from Virginia City, and even Mrs. Bradleigh and her husband. The talk from that unfortunate incident had never been from her, only about her.

Mid-afternoon, I stood in the back of the church, shivering in the hot day, so scared I didn't think I would walk the aisle. The minute we stepped out from the back, I could see Hutch, freshly shaven, his dark curls tamed, his frock coat over his brocade vest, and suddenly I couldn't swallow past my high collar, past the roses I carried. He was so handsome, so serious.

"Are you ready?" Annie asked. The organist began to play and everyone assembled stood.

I nearly stopped standing. My knees shook so hard I didn't think I could walk. Then Matthew was there, one hand under my elbow. He would accompany me up the aisle, following Annie, deposit me neatly into Hutch's waiting hands, and go to stand up for his brother.

"I think Matthew should carry me," I whispered.

"Glad to do it, ordinarily," Matthew drawled. "But Miss Chloe is sitting with her family and I don't want her coming after you on your wedding day." He took a moment to wave to the young lady, who was watching us.

"Come on," said Annie. "This was your idea."

It hadn't been; I was sure of that. My idea would have been far simpler and involved far less folk staring at me. But before I could make a protest, Matthew had given his sister a gentle, brotherly shove to get her started and, a few paces later, he linked my arm in his and led me in her footsteps.

Smiling faces. Women whose children I'd birthed; men who Hutch and Matthew had worked with. At the end of the aisle, Hutch.

His blue eyes watched me draw near. They were lit with joy. His mouth curved upward and he whispered to me when I finally stood beside him, "Took you long enough."

Then he winked.

I almost laughed but the pastor was leaning in close, as if he wanted to overhear some of what we were saying or disapproved on general grounds. He read the service and our vows, which we repeated. He asked if any should know why we should not be wed and I waited for Jason Seth or Sheriff Townsend to interrupt, but no one spoke against our marriage.

No one did. I looked into Hutch's eyes as the pastor read our vows for us to repeat. He looked into mine. The past weeks blurred by in memory. I had come to Virginia City as a stranger. I remained now as a wife.

The future would hold surprises. I had no doubt of that. The Faro Queen needed to be set up and opened, the charred timber hauled away and the interior replaced, but it was better by far than Hutch descending daily into the darkness of the mine pit, better than Matthew stalking around in a town that held Jason Seth.

I had filled Ellie Longren's bedroom. Now, I would leave her house for one of our own. I had come to marry Ellie Longren's husband.

Instead, I was marrying my husband.

The End

Thank you for reading and supporting my book and I hope you enjoyed it.

Please will you do me a favor and review "Silver Heart" so I'll know whether you liked it or not. It would be very much appreciated, thank you.

#  Other Books by Amelia Rose

Stranded, Stalked and Finally Sated (free)

Silver River Romeo

Silver Heart

Learning to Love

Mending Fences

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#  About Amelia Rose

Amelia is a shameless romance addict with no intentions of ever kicking the habit. Growing up she dreamed of entertaining people and taking them on fantastical journeys with her acting abilities, until she came to the realization as a college sophomore that she had none to speak of. Another ten years would pass before she discovered a different means to accomplishing the same dream: writing stories of love and passion for addicts just like herself. Amelia has always loved romance stories and she tries to tie all the elements she likes about them into her writing.
