Chapter 18
I had hoped the love of a good woman would change me. If I am honest, it did. It made me fierce and protective. It has not made me good, though.
—Austin Wilder’s journal, August 18, 1857
H e had been texting Millie off and on most of the day, and if Carson and Flynn noticed, they had decided to keep their comments to themselves, so far. Which was good.
The brothers had been out riding, checking the fence line and making sure everything was shipshape. They had a respectable operation, raising organic beef that they sold to local grocery stores, and at different farmers markets. The name of Wilder might be mud in Rustler Mountain, but beyond that? Wilder beef was a lucrative thing.
They had slid right into that niche, and it did well for them.
They’d achieved something their father had never been able to do. Something no Wilder before them had ever been able to do. Because they weren’t trying to cheat anybody. They were putting in an honest day’s work.
It made a difference.
I have the entire school district committed to coming to Gold Rush Days. Three districts, in fact.
That’s amazing.
And that was when he heard it. His brothers. Grunting in a way that was actually designed to get his attention.
He looked up. “You got something to say?”
“No,” Carson said. “Nothing.”
“Liar. Say it.”
“I’ve never known you to text like a teenage girl,” Flynn said.
“I’m planning something.”
“What exactly?”
“Millie is coming to dinner.”
“Ah,” said Carson.
“What?” he asked.
“I think you’re sweet on her,” said Flynn.
The word made him think of sugar. Which did not make him think of anything that had happened between him and Millie—that had been more hot than sweet. “Well, I think you’re an asshole.”
“So you’re going to tell me that nothing is going on with her?”
Austin gave them a hard glare. “Did Cassidy blab?”
Carson and Flynn looked at each other. As if they had just hit the jackpot. “Well, I didn’t expect to be proven correct,” Flynn nearly crowed.
“I will wear you to a frazzle ,” Austin gritted out.
“Why are you so resistant to it?” Carson asked.
“You. You’re asking me that.”
“Right. Granted. I can certainly list the downsides.”
“And?”
“You’re not like us,” Flynn said. “You never have been. You think. You don’t just act like G.I. Joe over here, who enlisted without giving it a second thought. And you aren’t . . . all this.” He waved his hand over himself.
Austin crossed his arms and glared at them both. “What am I, then?”
“The thinking man’s cowboy,” said Carson.
Austin snorted. “Oh, bullshit.”
“You’re writing a book,” Flynn pointed out.
“Well, I would be , if I wasn’t staying late at the library so often,” Austin said.
“I would think that staying late in the library would help you get your book written. Unless you aren’t reading in the library,” Flynn said meaningfully.
“It’s none of your business.”
“Be that as it may. I’m intrigued. It’s character development.”
“Leave my character and its development out of this. She’s coming over for dinner and to see Cassidy drive the wagon. She’ll be here in thirty minutes. You have to behave yourselves. And maybe you should splash some water on your pits.”
“So charming,” said Carson.
“A gentleman,” said Flynn.
“I never said I was. You all seem to be having some fantasy that I’m turning into another person.”
“Would it be so bad?”
“It would be pointless. Because what is it gonna matter?”
“Maybe you could be happy. Maybe just living past thirty-five isn’t the goal,” Flynn said.
“Clean your own house, you little weasel.” His brother was in fact neither little nor a weasel. He was an inch taller than Austin and all lean muscle.
“Boy, you are a cranky bastard.”
He mock-kicked at his brother, and then they got back on their horses and rode up to the house. He followed his own advice and freshened up to the best of his ability, just in time for Millie’s arrival. Cassidy was nearly vibrating with excitement.
“The other two guessed,” he said to Cassidy as Millie got out of her car and began to walk up to the front door. “So I no longer require your discretion.”
“I’m free!” She made a dramatic gesture around her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my muzzle off. Now I can speak my mind.”
“Please be civilized.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“ Cas .”
“I’m kidding. I’ll be good. I want to drive the wagon.”
Cassidy all but tumbled out the door, greeting Millie before he had a chance to.
“This is going to be so fun,” she said. “Do I get to drive it around town?”
“Yes. We’re going to block off some of the streets. We’ll make a route for you.” Her eyes met Austin’s, and he smiled. She smiled back.
She bit her lip, and he felt that gesture resonate deep inside him.
Cassidy was still yammering, but he was only slightly aware of it.
“Obviously we’re not going to load the wagons down with bullets and grain,” she was saying, “so we can use a team of horses. And we have the old draft boys.”
“The draft boys?” Millie asked.
“Yeah. A pair of Clydesdales. They’re really old, but they can still pull. They used to be in parades and things. They were glue factory bound, and Austin saved them.”
Millie looked at him, and he felt a twinge of discomfort as her eyes skimmed over him. “You did?”
He tried to keep his expression blank. “Once I found out about it, I couldn’t let that happen. Couple of fine horses.”
“What do you need draft horses for?” Millie asked him.
“ This , apparently.”
“Come on out to the barn. We can get them ready.”
The wagon was already sitting out, ready to have the horses hitched up to it. “This will probably disappoint the kids,” Cassidy said. “Since every small child knows it was oxen that made up a real wagon team. I mean, those kids have all played Oregon Trail .”
“They should just be thankful they don’t have to ford the mighty Columbia,” Austin said.
Cassidy looked bemused. “You don’t ford the Columbia. You have to raft it or all your shit will float away.”
Millie smiled. “That’s true.”
All this togetherness between his sister and his . . . whatever she was, was making him itch. This was the problem. He wanted to keep his connection to Millie private. For one thing, he didn’t know what the hell to call it. But there was too much throwing them together for them not to be involved with each other. He had spoken the truth when he’d said that they might as well keep going. So he had kept it going . . . in the library. In the library. It was shameful. Awesome, but shameful.
It also proved his point. If there was resistance to be found, neither of them had access to it right now.
Their eyes caught and held.
How had this happened?
He would’ve said . . . he and Millie could never be a thing.
But he thought of her. How he had seen her for all those years in the library. She had always stood out to him. Because he couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to have all that Talbot privilege be your world, from the beginning.
And maybe he’d also wondered what it was like to be good. Born good. Rather than born bad.
Of course, also, her father had been his nemesis. It was complicated.
Yeah. Complicated.
He thought of everything they had uncovered in the past few days.
Everything was shifting and changing.
What he needed to do was write his book. Not worry about tours through the streets, or where he could next have her.
But he was thinking about both of those things.
Hell.
He followed Cassidy and Millie at a slight distance as they went into the barn, and Cassidy scrambled for the stalls. “Loco and Moco,” she said. Then she opened the stalls up, grabbed the oversized bridles for the horses, and went on in.
“Don’t do it by yourself,” he said.
They were gentle beasts. They really were, but they were huge, and he didn’t love the idea of his sister disappearing into the stall.
He brushed by Millie as he went inside, and she stood in the doorway, watching as he and Cassidy outfitted the bay horses.
“They’re beautiful,” Millie said. “Twins.”
“Close enough to it,” he said.
“I can’t believe that those two beautiful animals were going to be destroyed.”
“Human nature,” he said. “When people can’t make use of something in the way they want to, they’re done with it.”
“I didn’t expect the horses to be a metaphor.”
“I’m a writer. Everything is a goddamned metaphor.”
Cassidy snickered. “You’re so grumpy about it. Like you think creativity makes you less manly.”
He shot his sister a look. “I’m not worried about my masculinity, thanks.”
He wasn’t. He never even gave it a thought. Only the insecure worried about such things. He just felt exposed by his desire to write. But Millie already knew. Knew that he overthought everything. That he tried to figure out the story behind everything and everyone.
His blessing and his curse, he supposed.
He helped Cassidy get the horses hitched up to the wagon. It was a grand sight. The stark black bridles, reins, and blinders on the tan-colored horses, the bells that jingled merrily to signal their coming. The wagon with its big, white canvas draped over the top in an arch. Inside were benches for kids to sit on. Nicer than what the settlers would’ve had in a wagon train. Where passengers would’ve been propped up on supplies.
“This is amazing,” said Millie. “I want to go for a ride.”
“All right. Cassidy, do you want to give us a test drive?”
“I definitely do.”
He went around to the back of the wagon and put his foot up on the step. He extended his hand. “Ma’am.”
She blushed as she took it, and he helped lift her up inside, following close behind. Once they were seated inside, he turned and hollered to Cassidy, “Get along now.”
He heard the snap of the reins, and the jingle bells started to ring. Then the wagon rolled into action along the bumpy dirt road.
They pitched and rolled in the back, and Millie grabbed hold of his forearm. Her touch was like electricity. His gaze met hers, and he smiled. “You know, Austin wrote a bit about the Oregon Trail in his journal.”
“When did they make the crossing?”
“Eighteen forty-eight to forty-nine. Their dad passed, and then they were on their own. Just before they made it to Oregon. They decided to head down this way because there was talk of gold. California gold rush. But they were starving.”
“That’s so sad. And their mother was already gone?”
“She died giving birth. Before they set out west. That left Austin to care for his brothers. I think that might be the only good part of the story, you know.” He felt slightly emotional even thinking about it. Maybe because he had taken care of his own siblings. Maybe because he actually knew what that was like. “That he didn’t know Jesse and William were hanged. I think that would’ve felt like the biggest failure to him. After he’d done so much to protect them. His wife and children were all right after he died. His widow never remarried. She always mourned him, I think. But they were okay. I think if he’d known his brothers’ fate, though . . . that would’ve made it all feel pointless.”
“That’s horrendously sad.”
“It is.” He cleared his throat. The noise from the wheels and the jingle of the bells, combined with the clip-clop of the horse hooves kept Cassidy from hearing their conversation. “I get it. I know what it’s like to just want to protect your siblings. More than anything. And to know that you can’t. Not from life. Not from how hard it can be. From the way everybody treats you. I consider it a blessing that Flynn and Cassidy seem to be immune to the talk in town. They find it funny. But I worry sometimes. That with Cassidy it’s all just bravado. Hell. I worry about it with Flynn. He seems to like the chip on his shoulder. At least, that’s what he pretends. But I don’t know that I buy it. Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it. Because they’re adults. It’s a hell of a thing. To wish that your family could somehow be better off than you are, when you don’t even know what to do for yourself. How can I teach them better if I didn’t know better?”
“I think you knew better enough,” she said. “You all seem so happy. I was struck by that the other night at the Watering Hole. I don’t know how I imagined that bar, but it wasn’t . . . that. It was welcoming. And it was . . . it was its own kind of good. I was always told that couldn’t be true. There was just one way to be. I’m so desperately sick of appearances being the most important thing.
“Because at the end of the day, that’s my family legacy. Men who didn’t care about really being good. About really having honor. It was all stolen valor, in a way. A sheriff’s badge to cover up the fact that they ought to be in handcuffs.” She looked at him. “I want you to tell me the truth. What was my dad like?”
Her eyes were keen, and she looked so sharply at him, it made his chest hurt. “He was your dad.”
“But I didn’t know him. Not like you did. You know that. I didn’t know who he really was. He arrested you. He. . . .”
“Held me in contempt? I don’t mean in the court sense.”
“Yes,” she said.
“He wasn’t a bad man, Millie,” he said, looking down at his hands. “He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t friendly . He definitely seemed a bit weary of having to deal with Wilders. And you know, fair enough. My dad was a mainstay in the drunk tank. He earned that. And at the time, hell, I earned my stripes too. I made sure I did.”
“Because you got so much crap that wasn’t earned.”
“But not from him,” he said. “I think it’s important for you to know that. Your dad didn’t antagonize me. He didn’t target me. I did what I did, and I paid the price for it. He followed the letter of the law.”
“What a low bar we set for our heroes,” she said softly.
“But the regular folks don’t know that, do they?” He looked at her. He meant her.
“No,” she said. “It makes you feel like you can’t live up. But. . . .”
“Your dad was a decent man,” he said. “Don’t go confusing Lee Talbot with your father. Any more than you should be confused with your father, or I should be confused with Austin. We are our own selves.”
“That’s true,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Are you making out back there?”
He reached forward and thumped the back of Cassidy’s seat. “If so then you just interrupted.”
“I’m your little sister. That’s my job.”
“Get it together, you weasel.”
When he looked at Millie, she was smiling. And it made him smile right back.
When Cassidy was done driving the wagon, she hopped out and scurried around to where Millie and Austin were sitting. “Austin,” she said. “Have you shown Millie your sharpshooting?”
Millie turned to him, her eyes wide. “Sharpshooting?”
He scowled, irritation lancing him. “Don’t bring the sharpshooting into this. We can’t do that on Gold Rush Days.”
“Who cares about that? It’s just cool.”
“You do . . . sharpshooting?”
“It’s dumb stuff. It’s Hancock stuff. Showmanship.”
“Well,” Millie said, “why do you do it then?”
“My dad thought it would pay to be a quick draw. But this isn’t the Wild West. We were all pretty good, though. We could shoot playing cards out of the air from the time we were little.”
Millie suddenly looked determined. “I want to see.”
“Cassidy. . . .”
“You love me,” she said.
“Yeah. Just barely.”
But Millie had gotten such an interesting light in her eyes, and he wanted to impress her. He wanted to know more. To see more. He felt as if he was in high school, trying to impress a girl.
How had it come to this?
He didn’t need to impress her. He’d screwed her senseless in the library.
Just the memory made his body get tight.
She was a real firecracker. This mouse.
Damn.
“Come on, then,” he said. “Let’s do some sharpshooting.”