Chapter 7
A long time ago I imagined taking a wife. Most men do. But somewhere along the way I lost that dream. Until I met her. It would be better for her if we hadn’t met at all.
—Austin Wilder’s journal, September 14, 1855
W hen she arrived at the library the next day, there were ten crates filled with costumes stacked outside the door. Julie had told her that she was going to bring some things from the historical society by, but Millie hadn’t thought she was just going to leave them, and she also hadn’t thought there would be . . . this much.
She began to rifle through the items. Prairie dresses and chaps and spurs. A vest with the sheriff’s star. She plucked up a pair of handcuffs and let them dangle from her finger before shoving them back down into the crate.
“Goodness,” she said, as she unlocked the door and pushed past all the detritus.
Then she dragged each bin inside, stacking them behind the reference desk before flicking on all the lights and turning the CLOSED sign.
Nobody was busting down the library door today, which meant she had time to get out her planner and start making a list of things she needed to do to get ready for Gold Rush Days. She knew that Austin was going to call soon....
She sat for a moment. She tried and failed to stop herself from playing last night through like a movie.
She had felt out of sorts the entire evening, from the moment Heather had dragged her into the saloon.
As if on cue, her phone screen lit up with her friend’s name.
I come in peace. And with chai.
The door’s open.
Heather came in a minute later. She had two cups in her hands, and she looked exhausted. “Thankfully, I am working remotely today,” she said. “I got you your favorite.” She set the pale blue cup in front of Millie, and Millie took a moment to take inventory of which animals had made it onto today’s cup. Scallywag’s Coffee Company served her very favorite drinks in town. And the cups had sketches of different animals on them. Her present one showed an elk, a raccoon, and a family of weasels.
“Thank you,” she said, picking up the cup and taking a sip of the sweet, spicy liquid.
“Are you mad?”
Millie considered the question for a minute. She was surprised that Heather was even aware enough of the mood she’d been in last night to ask. Not because Heather wasn’t considerate, she was. It was just that whatever had been going on last night was so subtextual, Millie didn’t even have a definition for it. Or a way to articulate it.
She looked down at the top of her cup, then back up at her friend. “I’m not mad.”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I just . . . I’m fascinated by him.”
“I didn’t realize that you were,” Millie said.
“Come on. Who was more legendary—ever—than Austin Wilder? And yes, we were a little ridiculous about him when we were younger—”
Millie narrowed her eyes. “Not we .”
“Okay, fine. You were immune. You made that position abundantly clear even then.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Every time someone at a slumber party would mention having fantasies about kissing a Wilder, you’d say they were bad news.”
Millie frowned. “I don’t think I was quite that—”
“You were. And it’s fine. You’re you. I love that you’re you and that you never compromised.”
But not everyone had loved her. Maybe that was why the only time she’d ever been invited to a slumber party was at Heather’s house, where everyone else had to suffer her grim presence.
“You never wanted to stare down danger and see what might happen,” Heather said, lifting a shoulder. “But it’s not an uncommon thing to be a little bit fascinated by something—or someone—who might be bad for you.”
Millie grimaced. “You seemed a little bit too excited about Flynn Wilder flirting with you.”
“I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old,” Heather said. “And most days only the top half of me is dressed, just what’s visible in the Zoom meeting. I love my husband, he’s amazing, but I expect that he’s going to love me and think I’m attractive. After all, my body is like this because of his children. So yes, I was a little bit flattered to get attention from a different man.”
Millie was tired of herself right then. Tired of the relentless catalogue of rules in her own head. Tired of the way she’d tried so hard to live up to the Talbot name—even in her own mind—so much so that even as a teenage girl, when everyone had been sighing over the Wilder Bad Boys, she’d been rigid in her adherence to rules and her admiration of people who liked said rules as much as she did.
“I can understand that,” Millie said, suddenly feeling the burn of Michael’s betrayal. No one had flirted with her last night.
Instantly a vision of Austin’s face went before her eyes. She shouldn’t be thinking of him and flirting, not in the same sentence or context.
“Actually though, I just wanted to observe the Wilders in their natural habitat. I’m fascinated by how Austin just . . . came and threw himself into all of this.”
“I don’t think it’s that random. He has a vested interest in the history of the town.”
“He’s never had one before,” Heather pointed out.
“That’s not entirely true. You know he comes in here all the time.” She gestured around the bright, well-organized room, at all the packed shelves of books.
Heather blinked. “Really. You haven’t mentioned that.”
“Well, it’s not new. He’s been coming into the library since before you and I were friends.”
“We’ve always been friends.”
“That isn’t true. You used to be friends with Bonnie McElroy. And she didn’t like me. So you didn’t like me either.”
“I always liked you,” said Heather. “I just didn’t know it. I had to aggressively friend you on the merry-go-round in fourth grade because you didn’t respond to my casual hallway waving.”
Millie scowled. “I thought you were waving at someone behind me.”
“This is one of your problems, you know. You still act like everyone who’s nice to you might be waving at someone behind you.”
“I. . . .” Her mouth dropped open, then shut again.
It had been true, though, with Michael. There had been someone behind her. Getting rid of that feeling wasn’t so easy when it had been reinforced at different times over the years. She’d known Danielle since middle school, but the woman had still betrayed Millie with Michael, which meant she must not have ever liked her either.
She realized that she was getting lost in the weeds of her own brain, and she fought her way back out. She cleared her throat. “Anyway. The subject of Austin and the library never came up because it wasn’t as if he just started coming. He came in when my mom was the librarian. Every week. Sometimes two or three times a week. He was always here when I was here.”
“Oh, he knows you.”
Millie shook her head. “He doesn’t know me.”
“He kind of does. Is that why he jumped in to bail you out?”
“I have no idea.”
“It just seemed like last night there was . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t as conscious of it as I should’ve been at the time, because I was more than a little bit tipsy, but I was afraid that I pushed too hard. You know . . . do you. . . ?”
With creeping horror, Millie began to anticipate what her friend was going to say, and she couldn’t imagine anything worse. Not a single thing. “I do not have a crush on him,” she said. “You know how I feel about the Wilder family.”
“You asked him for help!” Heather said. “You don’t think of him the way you did when we were teenagers.”
“Well. No. But we are generationally sworn enemies.”
“That’s ridiculous. You are not generationally sworn enemies.”
“Yes, we are. The issues between our families are enshrined on a plaque at the head of Main Street. We are the history of this town.”
“It’s fitting, then, that the two of you are running Gold Rush Days, I guess.”
“I guess. I really didn’t think it was going to include crashing his night out at the bar.”
“I just thought that maybe you were mad because he danced with that other woman.”
“I’m not mad about that,” she said, ignoring the stinging heat in her cheeks. “I was going to get married two months ago. And he . . . he has always been around. Austin has. I’ve never.... You had a crush on him.”
“Yes, I did,” said Heather. “Because everyone did.”
“ Everyone didn’t,” said Millie. “I have never understood the bad boy thing.”
Heather grimaced. “Aren’t they better than fake nice guys?”
“I don’t even know if you can call Michael a fake nice guy. He seemed normal. And now I’m worried that what he did is normal. Which I hate. I don’t want to be worried about that. I don’t want to . . . I don’t know how I’m supposed to just trust somebody again.”
Which was ridiculous. How had talking about Austin led to this? Because even if she did decide to trust somebody else again, it wasn’t going to be the baddest man in town.
Well. That wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been the baddest man in town for a while, she supposed.
Though that was just because he wasn’t causing trouble in the streets, not because there was anyone badder. There wasn’t.
“Anyway,” she said. “I don’t care who he dances with. That isn’t the point. He and I are going to be working together on history stuff. And I can give you all the juicy details about what I learn about him, but I suspect that what you’ll find is he’s just a normal guy. He actually isn’t an outlaw.”
“I do know that,” said Heather. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t good-looking, though.”
“So is your husband.”
“Don’t worry,” said Heather, waving her hand. “I’m well aware of how hot my husband is. This is not a cry for help.”
Millie felt tension rising in her chest that she worried might actually be a cry for help on her end.
“Good.” She took another sip of her drink. “Thank you so much for this. Really.”
“What do you have behind the desk?”
“Costumes,” she said.
“Fun,” said Heather. “I’m sorry, but if you don’t dress up as the schoolmarm with him dressed up as the outlaw. . . .”
“ Heather .”
“I just want to see you having fun. Whatever shape that takes.”
“Rest assured, I will be dressing up and having fun—in the context of the historical event only.”
“Sometimes dressing up in other contexts is fun.”
Millie blinked. “Yes.”
“I mean that sexually.”
“ Heather ! I can’t . . . have that kind of fun with . . . I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. I see him all the time. And I’m not. . . .”
“I know,” Heather said. “You’re sweet and romantic, and I love that about you.”
Millie grimaced. “I’m not romantic.”
“You aren’t?”
“No. I’m not. Why would that be your take?”
“You’ve just always been so careful about dating. I thought it was because you were waiting for that big love, and then you found it with Michael. And now I’m devastated he hurt you, and I just want to punch him in the face.”
Heather had been so careful around the subject of Michael, and Millie just hadn’t known how to talk about it. She hadn’t realized what her friend was thinking.
It made her feel smaller. Sadder.
“I wasn’t in love with him.” She said the words out loud, into the sacred stillness of the library, and felt them resonate in her soul.
Heather went slack-jawed. “Then why were you marrying him?”
“I thought I was. I didn’t have anything to compare it to. And then I caught him with her, and I have never been so angry in all my life. I have never wanted to hurt someone so badly. But it wasn’t because I was heartbroken. It was because I felt pathetic. It was because I felt like I did in high school. Little Millie Mouse, who no one took seriously or even liked all that much. And I’d been stupid enough to think this man really loved me. It was hurt pride, not a broken heart, and that was actually a horrifying thing to realize. It didn’t hit me like a lightning bolt but I . . . I really wish I was a romantic. I just wanted to marry the right person.”
Heather frowned. “Meaning what?”
“Someone who would make my dad proud. And I wanted to give him grandchildren and. . . .” A lump formed in her throat. “I didn’t get to do that. I’m the only one left.”
Heather reached over the reference desk and pulled Millie in for a hug. “I am so sorry you’ve been feeling this way.”
“I don’t always walk around feeling this way. Mostly I feel . . . I don’t even know.” She pulled away and wiped at some stray tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes. “I almost married him. I almost married him because I was so dedicated to this vision of . . . sometimes I think I live in a fantasy world. And not a fun one. Like I’m caught in this nostalgia for the past because my dad cared about it so much, and it colored my relationship with him in real life, colored my image of myself.”
“There’s a lot of expectation on your family.”
“I guess. But it feels silly to be upset about that. Austin’s family is treated like a pack of black sheep. Your family was cheated and discriminated against. It feels stupid for me to complain.”
“Expectations are hard,” Heather said. “I don’t care where they come from. If they come from a hundred and fifty years ago or they come from . . . your parents. Or even if they just come from yourself. You had an expectation for your life, and why wouldn’t you? It isn’t a bad thing that you wanted to be in love, that you wanted to get married.”
“But I wasn’t. And I very nearly married him. That’s actually why I feel . . . unmoored. Messed up. Like I can’t trust myself, like I don’t know my own mind. Because I was so sure. I had this version of how everything was going to be cemented so firmly in my head. I was wrong. About everything. About him, and about what I wanted. I feel like a failure. I feel like I can’t fix it.”
“Because you can’t give your dad what you wanted to give him. But he had you , Millie.”
She wished she could believe that was enough. That she was enough.
“I know. I . . . it’s just hard.”
“Bless you,” Heather said. “You poor thing.”
“I’m not poor.”
“You kind of are,” she said, and frowned deeply at Millie. “Very poorly. But you aren’t alone. Remember that. My family is your family. We love you.”
“I do know that,” she said, her throat getting tight again.
“I really didn’t mean to be pushy last night.”
Millie frowned. “You just wanted to go to the bar. Because you wanted to see them.”
“Well, and I was a little bit hoping you might decide to do something wild.”
“I already told you,” said Millie. “I couldn’t. Also, it’s laughable.”
“It really isn’t. Because he showed up and did all that for you. Most people would assume that a man would only do that when he wants a woman.”
“He doesn’t want me,” Millie said, pushing that thought as far out to sea as possible. She wasn’t even going to entertain it. Because it was ridiculous. She had never had a crush on Austin Wilder. He had been dangerous. She’d been furious at her friends for sighing over him, when she heard over dinner every night about the kinds of trouble the Wilder boys were causing about town.
He had certainly never had a crush on her. They were opposites. Kind of. Except maybe they weren’t.
“I think you might have an inflated idea of me,” Millie said, looking at her friend and embracing wholly the sadness inside her heart. “You thought I was involved in some kind of great love when really I just wanted security. I wanted to nail down this really specific future while my dad was still around to see it, with the kind of man he would’ve approved of. You thought it was a big wild romantic thing and it just wasn’t. And this isn’t me being brave.”
“Maybe it should be. Maybe it would do you good to learn how to be an outlaw, Millie Talbot.”
For a moment, it was tempting to envision herself as the gunslinger. Wearing all black.
“You said it yourself,” she said. “I would be the schoolmarm.”
“Wasn’t Austin Wilder, the original, married to a schoolmarm?”
“Yes,” Millie said, her cheeks getting hot, and most certainly red. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“I guess I just think any woman who was married to an outlaw must have been stronger than she seemed.”
“Well, I am not a schoolmarm. And I’m not related to anyone like that. My family were the law-abiding citizens. My family were the ones that kept the peace.”
“And you disturbed it. When you crashed that meeting. When you wrangled Austin Wilder, the second one, down from the mountain so that he would come and vote your way. I see it in you. I always have. Little bits of sparkle here and there. Don’t get me wrong. I love you no matter what. But I wish there was just a little more fired-up Millie sometimes. For your sake.”
She didn’t feel particularly strong or fired up. She felt destabilized. She felt . . . lost. Her identity had been so set in stone from the moment she was born, but she had never quite lived up to it. And her efforts at being what was expected of her hadn’t worked. Maybe she would just be a spinster. Maybe the Talbot line would end with her. She didn’t hate the idea. Because it sounded safe.
She would never disappoint anyone again. There was no one left to disappoint.
“Thank you for the chai,” she said.
“Of course. I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”
“It really is. It was probably good for me to go to the saloon. I’ve never done that.”
“I guess it’s unbecoming for the sheriff’s daughter to be seen in a house of ill repute,” Heather said, reaching over the counter and picking up a fan, then wiggling it next to her chin. “It will be gossip all through church.”
“Never,” she said, snatching the fan back. “Because I have never done a gossip-worthy thing in my life. I was the designated driver, remember?”
“Oh, it’s one of the things that I do remember from last night.” Heather sighed. “I have to go. Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m all right. You don’t need to baby me.” But it was nice that she had.
And now Millie just had to push all these revelations away and wait for Austin to text her. Easy.
Nothing could be easier.