Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1) (15 page)

              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 – "

             
"Annie 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 here.  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 all right?"

             
It almost seemed a strange question.  I hadn't been the one giving birth.  But I had been frightened.