Instant Frontier Family

He saluted her again. “On my way, Captain O’Rourke.”

Aiden giggled as Michael strode back toward the longboat.

Maddie drew in a breath. She could manage this. She must. In the next month, she had an opportunity to establish herself as the premier bakery in town by making all the cakes and rolls to be served at the biggest, most extravagant wedding Seattle had ever seen. Every man, woman and child would be singing her praises and lining up to purchase her products. Her future, and Ciara’s and Aiden’s futures, would be secure. She wasn’t about to jeopardize that for the likes of Michael Haggerty.

She pressed her hands into her skirts and bent closer to Ciara and Aiden. “Who’s ready to see their new home?”

“Me!” Aiden declared.

Ciara nodded eagerly.

With a smile, Maddie turned to allow them past her up the pier. “This way.”

Aiden ran ahead, darting between the waiting people and the sailors on the narrow pier. Ciara walked beside Maddie as if trying to be a lady, but Maddie could see her sister’s head turning this way and that as she took everything in.

“Seattle’s different from Five Points,” Maddie told her. “You’ll find everything smaller, except the geography.”

“Where are the tenements?” Ciara asked.

Maddie put an arm around her shoulders, realizing with a pang that she didn’t have to bend all that much to do so. Her sister’s eyes were nearly on a level with hers and pinched a bit around the corners with worry.

“Sure-n but there are no tenements here,” Maddie confided.

Ciara stopped, eyes widening. “Then where does everyone live?”

Maddie pulled back with a smile. “That depends, so it does. Some live in rooms above their shops as we will. Some share a house with many bedrooms in it. Others have grand houses high on the hill. And some live out among the trees in cabins built of logs.”

“Built of logs?” Now Ciara frowned. “Didn’t the coppers stop them from cutting down the trees in the park?”

Maddie shook her head, trying not to let her sister see her amusement. “If you can believe it, the trees aren’t in any park. They live out all on their own, everywhere.”

Ciara put her hands on the hips of her blue coat. “You’re teasing me.”

Maddie gave her a hug. “No indeed, me darling girl. It’s a whole new world here, and we have the privilege of helping to build it.”

Ciara’s brow cleared as Maddie released her. “We had the building of it back home too. That’s what the Dead Rabbits did.”

A shiver went through Maddie at the name of the dreaded Irish gang that had run Five Points. “The Dead Rabbits were violent, nasty creatures who used Irish pride to further their own gains,” she told Ciara.

Her sister shook her head. “You don’t understand. You were gone too long. The Dead Rabbits protect us, keep us safe. We need them.”

Maddie stiffened. “Who’s been filling your head with such nonsense?”

Ciara raised her chin. “I figured it out all by myself. I’m grown now, you know. Oh, look! What’s that?” She ran to the edge of the pier where Aiden had stopped to stare down at something in the water.

Maddie followed more slowly. She would never be able to see the vicious gang as heroes as Ciara did, but her sister was right about one thing. Life had definitely changed since Maddie had left New York. Sylvie McNeilly, who ran the children’s home where Maddie had left Ciara and Aiden, had little use for the gang violence that brought her another orphan every month. She would never have allowed Ciara or Aiden to admire the Dead Rabbits. So who had convinced Ciara otherwise?

If it was Michael Haggerty, he was about to find something considerably harder to deal with than sleeping on the floor.

* * *

Michael slung his cloth bag over his shoulder and picked up the children’s carpetbag to start up the pier. He didn’t want to lose sight of Maddie. He had a feeling she’d have liked nothing more than to leave him behind. His aunt had warned him as much.

“Maddie is a good person,” Sylvie had assured him over the narrow table where she and all her children ate under the light of a single sputtering lamp. “You’ll not be finding a kinder heart. But she’s expecting the lass I promised her, not a big strapping lad the likes of you. See that you win her over straightaway. She can be a big help to you.”

At the time, he’d agreed with his aunt that winning over Maddie O’Rourke would be key. He just didn’t think the winning-over part was going particularly well. Try as he might, he couldn’t understand her.

Help me, Father. I know she isn’t Katie, but how can I be sure that she’ll be any more faithful after leaving her brother and sister behind? These children need a family, a secure future, not more heartache. I’m not their father, but I feel like their brother. Show me how to help them.

“Hold up, me lad!”

The familiar voice stayed Michael’s step. He had known Patrick Flannery most of his life, though they’d lost contact for the past few years as Michael worked the Brooklyn docks and Patrick remained in Five Points. Michael had been pleased to find his friend among those heading to Washington Territory. With his warm blond hair, green eyes and a spring in his step, Patrick was all things good and bright about their heritage.

His friend craned his neck now to see up the pier, battered top hat shading his eyes. “Is that her, then, your warden?”

“She’s not my jailer,” Michael said, starting up the pier.

Patrick kept pace, long legs flashing in his plaid trousers. “She holds the keys to your freedom, my lad. That sounds like a jailer to me. What’s she like, then? Is she the fire-eater Ciara led us to believe?”

Ciara had bragged that her sister could do anything, but Michael wasn’t so sure. For all her confidence, Maddie O’Rourke had a fragility about her. Perhaps, like her sister, a more tender woman dwelled inside the bold shell.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking.

“Give me a day or two, Pat,” Michael said as they moved up the pier, shouldering their way through the crowd. “And then I’ll be able to tell you the truth about Maddie O’Rourke.”

“If anyone can, you can,” Patrick said. “You’re good with understanding people. Me? I just like getting things done. So, I’ll explore the place and let you know me findings.” He dropped back and allowed Michael to continue on alone.

Michael caught up to Maddie, Ciara and Aiden at the top of the pier, where they’d stopped. Aiden was down on his knees, bent over the water and grinning at a furry face that appeared to be grinning back.

“Ah, and here you’ve gone and made a new friend already,” Michael teased him with a nod to the seal.

Aiden glanced up at him. “Can we bring him home?”

Maddie chuckled, a sound as warm as the color of her hair. “No, I’m afraid not. His family would miss him.”

Aiden nodded as if he accepted that, then climbed to his feet. “The people here probably want him for the menagerie anyway.”

“No menagerie,” Maddie said. “All the wild animals here roam about free.”

Aiden stared at her, and Michael couldn’t tell whether the boy thought it a grand idea or a horrible one.

Ciara stomped one foot. “There you go again! You stop teasing us, Maddie!”

Maddie’s smile disappeared. “It’s the honest truth.”

Ciara turned to Michael. “She said you don’t need permission to cut down trees in the park either.”

“What I said,” Maddie clarified, “is that the trees aren’t in a park. Here you can own your land, up to one hundred and sixty acres per lad or lass.”

“Well, that’s a whopper,” Ciara said with a shake of her head.

“It’s the truth,” Michael told her. “It’s from a law called the Homestead Act. I read about it. If you’ve an interest in farming and a stomach for hard work, you could go far.”

He thought Maddie would thank him for supporting her, but she frowned at him as if she wasn’t sure what he was trying to achieve.

Ciara’s frown eased. “Well, maybe you can farm, but that still doesn’t mean you get to cut down trees anytime you please.”

“You have to be cutting down the trees,” Maddie told her. “Those one hundred and sixty acres you claimed most likely are covered in trees so thick you can barely squeeze through them. If you don’t cut them down, you’d have no place to be planting your vegetables.”

“Why would they plant vegetables?” Aiden asked. “Why don’t they just buy them from the grocer?”

“I suspect you’ll not find many green grocers just yet, my lad,” Michael told him. “Or all that many farmers either. This is the wilderness. But that just means you can be anything you want to be.”

Even saying the words made his heart lighten. No one to tell him what he must do, whom he must support in the name of protecting Irish interests. He could be his own man, follow whichever way the Lord pointed. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the crisp, salty air.

“I don’t want to be a farmer,” Aiden announced, heading toward the road beyond the pier with a skip. “I want to be a sailor, see the world.”

“Now, where would you be getting that idea, I wonder?” Maddie said, following him with a sidelong look to Michael.

“Not from me,” Michael assured her as Ciara came along as well. “I worked the docks in New York. I didn’t sail the ships. And I’d think you’d have had enough of living on a ship by now, Aiden.”

“You’re right,” Aiden said. “It was too small. I can’t wait to run!”

Maddie grabbed his hand as if she feared he’d dash off right then. “Not so fast, me lad. First you need to learn your way about.”

With her free hand, she pointed up the steep hill in front of them. Michael had never seen anything like it. Though businesses were rising on each side, the rutted track running down the center was dark with mud. He could not imagine a wagon navigating it.

“That’s the skid road,” Maddie explained. “Lumbermen drag their chopped-down trees to the top and skid them right down to Mr. Yesler’s mill over there, where workers cut them up for boards to make houses and ships. Some of the logs are so big across, a man looks like a wee child beside them.”

“Now I know you’re bamming me,” Ciara said.

This time, Michael couldn’t argue with her.

“Be that as it may,” Maddie said, face turning stern, “it’s a dangerous place for the likes of you. The men are rough, the logs heavy and fast. You’re not to be going anywhere near it, understand?”

Aiden nodded solemnly. Ciara looked less sure, but she nodded too.

As if satisfied by their responses, Maddie set off walking, one hand still holding her brother’s. Ciara walked on her other side. Michael could only fall in behind. Her heavy skirts twitched with her impatient stride, and he didn’t think it was her siblings who concerned her. She didn’t like him by half. He needed to work harder if he wanted to put himself in her good graces.

He tried to keep quiet as he followed her up the street. Humility had been a hard lesson, but nearly three months at sea had given him time to reflect. He had a chance for a future and he wasn’t going to lose it by slipping back into old habits.

But Seattle, he saw, was even more sparsely populated than he’d supposed. He was used to tenement buildings crowding out the sunlight, masts of sailing ships so thick in the harbor he could have walked from one yardarm to another.

Here, single-story, whitewashed houses dotted the hillside, with dusky green trees taller than any he’d ever seen rising all around them. Two-story businesses were rare. The wide roads were heavy with black mud and crowded with wagons pulled by thick-necked oxen and wiry mules. And almost everyone he saw was male.

They were halfway up the hill, Maddie pointing out interesting shops to the children, when an older fellow in a fine suit, his whiskers thickest over his chin, stopped them. The tiny woman holding on to his arm must have been his wife.

“Good afternoon, Miss O’Rourke,” he said as he tipped his hat. “Mrs. Horton was asking when we might purchase more of your exceptional ginger cookies.”

“Now, dear,” his wife chided him with an affectionate smile, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m sure Miss O’Rourke is much too busy preparing for the wedding to bake us cookies.”

The wedding? Was Miss O’Rourke about to be married? A wealthy groom, eager to please his bride-to-be, would explain where the money had come from for passage as well as her fancy clothes and hat. What he couldn’t understand was why the thought of a wedding disappointed him. Was he truly so hurt by Katie’s desertion that he couldn’t see others happy?

Maddie smiled at the couple. “Sure-n but I’ll never be too busy for my best customers. I’ll have a batch ready tomorrow afternoon, just for you.”

Mr. Horton nodded, cheeks pink with obvious pleasure. “I’ll come get them myself,” he promised. “And good day to you and yours.”

With a nod to the couple, Maddie led Ciara and Aiden on.

Ciara glanced back at them. “Who was that? And why did she ask about a wedding?”

Michael walked closer to hear the answer.

“That was Mr. and Mrs. Dexter Horton,” Maddie replied, skirting around a rain barrel that sat at the corner of a building they were passing. “They’ve been loyal customers. They know I’m helping with a wedding for a friend who’s marrying at the end of the month. It will be a grand affair.”

Michael seized on the one word that made sense to him. “Customers. For your laundry?”

Maddie glanced back at him, and he thought a challenge lurked in those dark eyes. “First for my laundry, now for my bakery.”

“A bakery?” Aiden hopped up and down beside her. “You mean with sweets and cakes?”

Maddie turned her smile on him, warmer and more tender, and something inside Michael reached for that smile like a plant seeking light. He thought he knew the source of the reaction. His parents had died when he was about Aiden’s age; he hardly remembered them. Sylvie had been the one to look so kindly at him, to make him feel he was loved and appreciated. Was it any surprise he wanted the same for Aiden and Ciara?

But a bakery? How did a former laundress manage that, either from skill or with finances?

“Sweets indeed,” Maddie promised Aiden, her voice glowing with excitement. “And breads and cakes. As much as you want.”

That didn’t sound like such a good idea. Michael opened his mouth to tell her, then shut it again. She wouldn’t thank him for the suggestion. Still, he couldn’t help wondering whether she was trying to buy their affection.

She certainly didn’t need to buy the affection of Seattle’s citizens. That much was clear by the slow pace at which they progressed up the block of mercantiles. Every man acknowledged her as they passed, tipping his hat or otherwise greeting her as if she were the queen come to visit. By the looks in their eyes, more than one was smitten with her.

They tended to glare at Michael, who merely looked over their heads. He noticed, however, that Maddie didn’t introduce any of them to the children. Was she unsure of the men or ashamed of her kin? The latter didn’t seem likely, as she’d paid their passage and arranged for an escort.

“And here we are,” she sang out, stopping before a narrow, two-story building at the end of the street. A wide window fronted a boardwalk, and a wooden sign over the door proclaimed the place the Pastry Emporium. Aiden’s eyes lit.

“You own this?” he asked, voice heavy with awe.

“Not entirely,” Maddie replied, taking out a ring of keys and inserting one in the door. “A gentleman here finds likely enterprises and funds them to grow. He was persuaded to support my endeavors. I’m paying him back a little at a time, with interest.”

More than a little interest, most likely. Back home, there had always been shifty types ready to lend money, only to demand every penny for years while threatening their clients’ health and the lives of their families. He could imagine Maddie wanting some way to support Ciara and Aiden, but at what cost?

As she opened the door, Ciara and Aiden scampered past her into the shop, and the scent of cinnamon floated out behind them. Maddie gazed at them, her face soft. She drew in a breath as if seeking assurance she could be all they needed. He could almost see the burdens pressing on her shoulders.

It wasn’t right. First Sylvie and now Maddie—working themselves into an early grave to support family foisted upon them by fate.

Michael bent his head to hers. “Taken on more than you can handle?” he murmured, concerned and ready to offer his help.

She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at him. “Not at all, Mr. Haggerty. You’ll learn I always know exactly what I’m about. If you intend to be of use, you’ll have to keep up.”

She marched into the shop, and he had to catch the door to keep it from slamming in front of him. He’d been raised to help those in distress, particularly a lady. What was he supposed to do when the lady wanted no help from him?

Chapter Three

The nerve of the man! How dare he question her decisions? She’d thought long and hard before taking out a loan to purchase the shop, and furnish it with the tools and supplies she’d need to establish herself as a baker. She was confident she could pay the money back in good time, so long as she proved herself at the wedding.

She forced herself to focus on Ciara and Aiden, who were glancing eagerly around the shop.

“This is where I’ll be selling my goods,” she told them, nodding to the long display counter where light glistened on specks of icing left over from the cinnamon rolls she’d sold that morning. “The high shelves behind it are for the confections and spices I hope to offer one day. And through that curtain is a fine kitchen with a brick oven big enough to cook all manner of sweets.”

“Like in ‘Hansel and Gretel,’” Aiden said, cocking his head to peer through a crack in the curtain. “Only that lady cooked children.” He glanced back at the skeptical-looking Michael, frown forming.

Michael must have interpreted the look, for he came to put a hand to Aiden’s back. “Your sister doesn’t cook children,” he assured the boy. He bent to put his mouth even with her brother’s ear and lowered his voice. “But I’m not so sure about a longshoreman like me.”

“No, silly,” Aiden said. “You’d never fit in her oven.”

“You haven’t seen my oven,” Maddie muttered to herself.

Just then the curtain gave a twitch, as if something waited on the other side. Maddie made herself smile. “Now, there’s one other resident of my bakery you should be meeting. She’s short and round-faced, with gray hair.”

Ciara and Aiden looked at her, gazes quizzical.

“I thought you wanted Sylvie to send you a lady to help,” Ciara said. “Why did you need Michael if you already had one?”

Why indeed? She couldn’t help glancing his way, only to find him regarding her as if she were a piece to a puzzle that just didn’t fit.

“You’ll see in a moment,” Maddie promised her brother and sister. She was merely glad Amelia Batterby hadn’t made herself scarce when strangers arrived. Maddie ventured to the curtain and tugged it aside. A short-haired, gray cat peered up at her, amber eyes wide.

“You have a cat!” Aiden cried, lunging toward her.

Amelia Batterby disappeared like a puff of smoke.

“She’s a bit skittish still,” Maddie explained as Aiden’s face fell. “She came to Seattle as a ship’s cat, and a mighty explorer she was, escaping every time they made port and causing the captain all manner of concern. He was persuaded to leave her in my care, and she now earns her keep as a mouser. Just know that you mustn’t let her outside, or she’ll escape again.”

Ciara angled her head to see through the curtain. “What’s her name?”

“The captain called her Her Ladyship on account of her proper ways, but I think she looked more like old Amelia Batterby.”

Michael chuckled. “The lady who lived next to Sylvie. I remember her. She was always finding something to concern her.”

Aiden shivered. “She scolded us whenever we even peeked out the door.”

“But she always brought presents for Easter and Christmas,” Michael reminded him.

“What presents does this Amelia Batterby bring?” Aiden asked Maddie.

“Mice and squirrels,” Maddie told him. “And any other vermin that creep into the bakery.”

Ciara winced.

“Maybe she’ll catch you one night,” Michael teased Aiden.

How easily he joked with her siblings, as if he were their brother and her the stranger come to live with them. She shouldn’t be annoyed with him for such a gift, but she was.

“I’m too big for a cat to catch me,” Aiden said. “But I like her. Can she sleep in the bed with us?”

“Very likely she does her best work at night,” Michael told him. “But if she finds her way to the bed, I wouldn’t be protesting.”

And who was he to be deciding that? Although she agreed with him in this instance, she was the one who should have made the decision. And Michael should know that.

Drawing in a breath, she nodded to the far wall. “Did you notice that door to the side, Aiden? That leads to our home.”

Aiden hurried to open the door, and he and Ciara clambered up the wooden stairs. Maddie stepped in front of Michael, preventing him from following.

“We need to come to an understanding, Mr. Haggerty,” she said. “You did your job bringing my brother and sister here. Now they’re my responsibility. Leave any concerns about their upbringing to me.” Satisfied she’d made her point, she turned for the stairs. A firm hand on her arm spun her back around.

All at once she wasn’t looking at a penniless vagabond but a warrior prince ready to defend his country. There was steel in those blue eyes, determination written on every feature.

“I’ll make you a deal, Miss O’Rourke,” he said. “You prove to me you have what it takes to raise Ciara and Aiden, and I’ll stop being concerned. But not one second sooner.”

Heat licked up her. She’d had to fight with herself over the decision to raise her siblings. She had plenty of frustration left to fight him too. “I’ll not be having you speak to me in such a tone, Michael Haggerty. I’m their bone and blood.”

“And I’m the man who’s listened to them cry themselves to sleep at night for the last three months,” he countered. “I don’t understand why you left them behind, and neither do they. I owe you a debt for paying my passage, but if you want my respect and theirs, you’ll have to earn it.”

* * *

There, he’d said it aloud. Aunt Sylvie had always claimed his tendency to stand up for the rights of others would get him into trouble. It had made him a pariah in New York. Likely it had just cost him room and board here. Maddie would be within her rights to toss him out on his ear for such a challenge. If she did, he’d have no recourse but to throw himself on the mercy of the church, if they even had a church yet in Seattle. He waited for her stinging rejoinder.

She took a step back from him and snapped a nod. “Done. And thank you for telling me about the crying. I’ll be sure to watch for that. Bring up their things now, then we’ll find someplace for you to sleep.” She swept past him, lifting her skirts to climb the narrow staircase.

Bemused, Michael could only follow.

Upstairs, the space over the shop had been divided into four rooms—three smaller ones across the back and one larger one facing the street. The larger room held a fat-bellied stove and a tall sideboard along one wall, with a wooden table and chairs in the center. The red-and-white chintz curtains on the window and the red checkered cloth on the table brightened the space.

“Look, Michael,” Aiden cried, gesturing toward the table. “Maddie got chairs enough for us all.”

Maddie’s cheeks turned a pleasing shade of pink. “Sure-n but I was expecting a lady to be coming with you. I thought she’d need somewhere to sit.”

And she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted him to take the lady’s place at the table. Michael set the children’s bag down on the floor. “And what might those rooms be, do you think?” he asked Aiden, nodding toward the three rooms across the back.