Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ELIJAH
Ihated the docks.
Too many people. Too many smells, most of them foul. Too much noise—peddlers selling their wares, sailors barking orders. Bells ringing, chains clanking, and somewhere wood struck wood in a hollow thud as cargo was unloaded.
Nothing like the mountains, where the loudest sounds were the cry of an eagle, the rush of a creek after a storm, or the steady, comforting crackle of a fire at night.
I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t needed to be.
I’d come for supplies, most of which I might have gathered closer to home. But I ached for something permanent. The millstones promised that. Men could hunt and clear land, but families needed bread. A mill meant flour, trade—and a reason to plant roots.
For all the bustle, there was something I recognized here.
Trades supported one another. Households created rhythm.
Children meant a future worth planning for.
Our settlement would never grow beyond its first winter without that same balance.
A place built by men could survive, but it would never grow.
Which led to the second reason I’d come.
Months ago, in a moment of weakness, I’d admitted in a letter to an old friend that I missed the company of a woman. Women were scarce where I now made my home, and those who stayed were married. Not many were willing to move to the western edge of North Carolina.
Jeremy’s reply surprised me. He wrote that he knew of a woman who needed to leave the same small village my parents had left when I was a lad.
The implication was clear enough: she’d been wronged by a man who would not answer for it.
Her parents, he said, would provide a dowry of sorts if I agreed to bring her to the new states.
I didn’t hold with arranged marriages exactly. But something about it sounded… easy. Practical. Perhaps smoothed along by a few cups of a friend’s corn whiskey.
And so, here I was.
A burst of laughter drew my attention to a gathering crowd.
A woman stood near the edge of the quay, a babe tucked close against her, jabbing the blunt tip of her parasol into a man’s arm with a ferocity I’d seen matched only by seasoned soldiers. Another child cowered in the folds of her skirts next to a spilled cart.
“Shame on you,” she said, her accent cutting through the dockside din.
The man cursed—more startled than hurt—and the moment stretched just long enough for others to notice. He straightened, smoothed his waistcoat, and glanced around as if only just realizing he had an audience.
Someone laughed. Another voice challenged him by name.
Cormac.
The woman crouched, steadying the boy, murmuring to him as she helped him to his feet. She never once looked rattled. Even with a baby pressed to her chest, she stood between the man and the child as though it were instinct.
Cormac muttered something under his breath and turned away. The child grabbed his cart and fled. The crowd lessened.
It should have ended there.
But the woman followed him.
Not chasing—just close enough to be heard.
“I need a word,” she said.
He turned just enough to loom over her, blocking her path, his bulk a deliberate reminder of what he could do if they were alone.
Something in my gut tightened. She might have a spirit I admired, but Cormac could easily hurt her. Instinctively, I stepped forward through the waning crowd.
“You’ve had your say,” he snapped. “Be grateful I don’t—”
“My sister is dead.”
The words stopped us both short. They came out raw and uneven, as though she’d been holding them back and could no longer manage the weight of them.
Cormac stared at her, his irritation sharpening into something colder. “Your sister,” he said. “And why should that concern me?”
She hesitated.
It was brief—but I caught it. The smallest falter, a flicker of something—possibly uncertainty or fear—crossed her face before she masked it. Her arm curved instinctively around the infant, drawing it closer.
Then she lifted her chin. “My name is Nora O’Dwyer,” she said. “My sister, Brigit O’Dwyer, was to be indentured to you.”
The name struck me like the crack of a tall pine breaking in a storm.
Nora.
The woman I had come all this way to meet.
I looked at her again, seeing her anew—the set of her shoulders, the quiet defiance in her stance. This was not the woman I’d imagined from Jeremy’s careful words and polite omissions.
“That leaves me short a servant and out of my coin,” he snapped, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth.
“She was not a servant,” Nora said fiercely. “She was my blood.”
Cormac glanced around again, his temper checked by the presence of too many witnesses. I could see the calculation working behind his eyes.
“I do not believe you. I believe you are her, and you are cheating me out of my money.” He grabbed her arm, nearly knocking her off balance.
That was when I stepped forward.
“I believe,” I said evenly, stepping between Nora and Cormac, “this is where I come in.”
Cormac drew himself upright, clearly annoyed to be interrupted. “And who the hell are you?”
“Elijah Allen,” I said. “I arranged passage for Nora O’Dwyer. And I’ve come to collect my bride.”
I heard a slight gasp behind me, but I ignored it as I stared Cormac in the eyes.
His mouth tightened. “That so?” he said. “You know her? And is that your babe, I wonder? Fresh off the ship and already burdened with a bas—a child,” he sneered, letting the insult linger.
Something low and immediate stirred in my chest. Not anger—not exactly. Something colder.
“She is under my protection,” I said, my voice even. “And what she carries with her is none of your concern.” I took a step closer, turning up my nose at his unwashed smell. “You’ll speak of her with respect,” I said. “Or you won’t speak at all.”
I felt it then—the strange rightness of the act. As though stepping into her space had settled something that had already been set in motion, but with no clear direction.
Cormac’s jaw tightened. He scoffed, turned, and wandered off, already scanning the dock for his next diversion.
Only then did I turn.
Nora stood very still behind me, her arms tight around the baby, her face pale but composed. Her eyes lifted to mine, searching—not for reassurance, but for truth.
“I am sorry to hear about your sister,” he said quietly. “I had not known she was traveling with you.”
I lowered my eyes. “It was arranged at the last moment,” she murmured. “There was no time to send word before the ship sailed.”
“We’ll speak,” I said quietly. “But not here.”
I turned back when she did not immediately follow. I couldn’t help but huff a little laugh at her stubbornness at being told what to do. I lifted an eyebrow, silently questioning her.
With a cock of her head, she followed.