Then Came You: A Prequel to The McPhee Clan (9 page)

Sadly, she brushed bark and moss off her hands, watched the fire claim the new chunk of log, and flames snapped and popped, warming the room.

"Nathaniel Denby?" Mother croaked, opening one eye. "Is that you standing there, about to leave?"

"Well, I was only going downstairs, Maureen." Nate tossed Aumaleigh a helpless look, patient, as always, with her mother.

"Well, think again." Mother scowled, as much as her slack face would allow. "Get over here. We have business and it doesn't involve anyone else. Aumaleigh, get your big behind out of here and close the door behind you. Stop dragging your feet."

Aumaleigh sighed, remembering a time when Mother's hurtful and inaccurate comments had been hard to take as a young girl growing up. She slipped past Nate, offered him a sympathetic look because doing business with Maureen was never easy, stepped into the small hallway and closed the door tight. Hard to explain the jumble of emotions tangled up inside her, although they made it hard to breathe. Her ribs ached as if they were broken.

Heaven knew love wasn't always easy and families could be complicated. But as time went by and her mother's condition worsened, she'd hoped for some kind of reconciliation. For a chance to repair the hurts of a lifetime and be able to see the good in Mother. To laugh with her, to share with her, to make some kind of a loving bond before it was too late.

She knew now that was never going to happen. Heart heavy, she took two steps and spotted someone else in the kitchen. Gil Blackburn. Her breath caught, and she gripped the banister tightly, knowing without words why he was here.

He'd come to ask Maureen if he could buy out Maebry's contract. Aumaleigh hung her head, hesitating in the middle of the stairs. She already knew how that was going to go.

"The Missus is coming." A dapper butler, sporting gray hair and wearing a perfectly pressed suit, popped into the kitchen doorway, holding the swinging door open with a narrow shoulder. "Just thought you might need warning. She's on a rampage, but you didn't hear it from me."

"It's the snow." The Montgomery's cook stirred something steaming in a pot, ruddy from the heat. The pleasant woman shook her head, as if in disapproval. "Having to move the party inside is messin' up her plans. A lot of good it'll do to punish us all for it."

"I agree, but you didn't hear that from me either." Harvey the butler winked, let the door swing shut and left the army of workers in the kitchen to their frenzied tasks.

Maebry finished scraping one carrot and grabbed for another. Off the peelings went, tumbling onto the counter. The back of her neck ached from the nonstop work—she'd been on carrot duty now for almost an hour—and still had a ways to go. How many carrots did one party need?

"My arm is about ready to fall off," Missy, the blond kitchen maid standing next to her, commented ruefully, stopping to rub her shoulder. A mini-mountain of denuded potatoes sat beside her. Missy reached for a potato from the sack and immediately started peeling. "This must be a really big party. I just moved here, so I've never seen one of the Montgomery parties."

"I have." Maebry couldn’t help the note of wistfulness creeping into her words. Probably because she thought of last year's party, when there had been no Gil. Of course, no other man had caught her eye, but the local schoolteacher, Sarah Combs, had been surrounded by all the eligible bachelors in town (and there were many since there was a surplus of men and a shortage of marriage-aged women). "They are lovely. Everyone who is anyone in the county attends."

"I heard a real string quartet will be playing." Missy sighed as she bowed her head, rotating the potato in her palm as she peeled, knife flashing. "I've never heard of such a thing. I grew up on a Minnesota farm."

"I grew up on a farm, too." Although she'd eventually gotten used to being surrounded by luxury serving in the McPhee Manor house, before the damaging storm. "When I came to work for Maureen, it was like serving for the Queen of England. That's how fancy it was—"

She fell silent as the kitchen doors swung open again and a regal, handsome woman sashayed in, draped in a flawless ruby-colored gown. Her blond hair was so light, it shone platinum in the sunlight streaming through the many windows. Her face carried middle-aged hints of a greater beauty she must have had in her prime. Her gaze narrowed as she scanned the room. She zeroed in on Maebry. "You, there. Come with me."

Maebry gulped, set down her knife, felt Missy's silent sympathy as she stepped away. Her hands were stained orange from the carrot peeling, so she swiped them the best she could on her apron. From years with Maureen, she was afraid to address Mrs. Montgomery, although she wondered what the woman wanted. Surely it was too much to hope she would be sent home, no longer needed.

"The stable boy and driver are not making adequate progress with the snow shoveling." The fine lady waltzed down the hallway, through an exquisite dining room where a pair of maids were setting out linens and china, and heading in the direction of the front door. Quality and elegance were everywhere—the graceful line of an imported sofa, the arches of the intimately coved ceilings, the glint off the tasteful crystal chandeliers. Mrs. Montgomery frowned at her. "You look sturdy enough, and I can't count all the times Maureen has told me you can work like a horse and not feel it. Work is what you're good for."

Mrs. Montgomery paused, looked Maebry up and down and frowned again, as if unsure of that statement. Maebry stared at her shoes, feeling inadequate, feeling every inch of her shabby clothes and her station in life.

"Go on with you now. Don't stop until the work is done." The regal lady gestured with a wave of one soft hand in the direction of the entrance.

She bobbed the required curtsey at the lofty Mrs. Montgomery. Sure enough, a shovel was waiting for her, leaning against the wall by the front door.

Woodenly, she went in search of her coat and returned, buttoned up and ready to face the chill. The late morning sun angled across the yard, casting small shadows on decorative trees and precious bushes and flowers mantled by a foot and a half of white. The rhythmic scrapes of shovels against bricks drown out the usual sounds of wind and merry birds.

An older man looked up from his shoveling, his forehead furrowing as if puzzled. "I asked the Missus for another hand, and she sends you? You're just a bit of a thing."

"But I'm strong." She didn't mention all the times she'd filled in at the barn, mucking out stall after stall. Very physical work. It wasn't much different here. "Where would you like me?"

"Inside, with the other maids." The man shook his head, giving her a sympathetic look. "But I suppose that won't go over with the Missus. Better clear the stairs, then, and the porch. That's the lightest work I have out here."

"Thank you, sir." Relieved at his kindness, she gripped the shovel's handle tightly, sized up the problems of the drifted snow on the porch, and got to work.

As she scooped up her first shovel full of white stuff, she heard the clomp of a horse in the drive and the squeak of sled runners on the snow. Something clicked in her heart, like a key turning in a lock, opening that door within, the one needing to stay closed. If she was going to fight her feelings for Gil, that is.

She didn't need to turn around to know who'd arrived. She felt his nearness as surely as the porch boards at her feet. His presence seemed to fill her like a new sun, threatening to light up the dark. Tender emotions she had to resist flickered to life, affection and caring that could never be expressed or realized. She tossed a load of the snow over the rail and hunkered down for another shovelful.

"Casey, you nut." Gil's voice drifted on the wind. "Go with Agnew. He's got grain. Yeah, I thought you'd like that."

"He's a handsome fellow," a man's voice answered, presumably Agnew. A set of boots and horse hooves sounded in the snow, traveling around the far side of the house.

The silence she felt within as she waited for Gil to come closer ached like an old wound. Maebry stiffened, fighting the pull of him on her heart, both dreading the moment when she looked up into his familiar gaze and wanting it so much. Needing to see him, hungering for the sight of his smile, the feel of his substantial, dependable presence. The spot on her forehead tingled in memory of his last kiss, the one that had felt like resignation. How could she look at him the same now, when they couldn’t be together?

His boots crunched in the snow. His voice rumbled low and deep, friendly, as he chatted with one of the other shovelers. Maebry dumped a load of snow over the porch railing, feeling the icy wind and the heat of his gaze. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't think she could bear to.

Her spine shivered at the knell of his footsteps coming closer. Up the steps, across the porch. She stiffened, scooped up a shovelful of snow and swung away from him, sending it flying over the banister into the yard. It would be easier if he kept on walking, went inside without stopping to say hello. She didn't know where they went from here. She saw only her breaking heart. Gil was simply so easy to love, and she cared more than she could admit.

Far too much.

"Maebry." His words warmed the air, drove the chill from the wind, made the sun brighter. "Give me that shovel. You shouldn't be out here doing a man's work."

"I don't mind." She hoped her forced smile would fool him. She spun toward him, pretending seeing him didn't break her apart. Oh, how good he looked standing there, limned by sunlight, substantial and masculine, dressed all in black. She ignored the squeeze of her chest, the kick of her pulse and the wishes rising. "I'll take working out in the fresh air any day so thanks, but I'll be keeping this shovel. What are you doing here? You've not come to do work, I bet."

"I will be lending a hand with the horses. In weather like this, they'll need to be blanketed and stabled." Gil's knowing gaze searched hers, as if he wasn't fooled. "Not that I'm here of my own free will. Maureen ordered it when I spoke to her today."

"You spoke to her about the ranch?" She scrunched up her forehead, wondering why. "Beckett's usually the one who has to deal with her. Let me think...it's not his day off."

"No, I needed to talk to her about a different matter." He lowered his voice, wrapped his large hands around the shovel handle and tugged until he pulled it from her grip.

She wanted to protest but he leaned in, his big body blocking the wind and sun until all she could see was him. The midnight blue flecks in his blue irises, the caring reflected there, the importance of what he was about to say. Easy to read the sadness in those bright blue depths, feel the weight of it in the air between them. His gloved hand brushed the curve of her face, as tenderly as a dream.

"I asked Maureen if I could buy out your contract." He spoke quietly, so his words wouldn't carry, holding all the weight of his disappointment.

"You
what
?" Her jaw dropped. Shock catapulted through her. Surely she'd heard him wrong.
"What did you do?"

"I asked to buy your freedom."

"No. Tell me, you didn't." Panic jolted through her, so hard it rattled her teeth. She stared up at him, aghast, horrified. "Gil! Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because it's what I want for you." His square jaw tensed, muscles bunching along the jawbone. The tenderness in his blue gaze disappeared, becoming shadowed with hurt. "I didn't think you'd react like this."

"Clearly." She opened her mouth to say more, didn't know what on earth to say or where to start, so she pressed her hands to her face, felt the icy wool from her gloves against her cheeks, unworthy. She did not deserve this, it was too much to ask of the man she cared about. No,
cared about
was too small of a word for what she felt for her Gil. She felt as if her ribs were cracking too, spearing every internal organ. It took all her strength to pull her hands from her face, fighting down her emotions, and meet his troubled gaze.

"I thought it would make you happy, that we could be together." Gil looked struck. His chiseled mouth swooped downward in the corners. Pain clouded his honest eyes. "I don't understand. I thought you cared about me. I thought—" He hesitated, as if he were about to say something, perhaps bare his heart, but changed his mind.

Great, now she'd gone and hurt him. She gritted her teeth, felt a deep rending in her heart. "You can't have had the time to save up that kind of money, Gil, which means you'd be the one in debt to Maureen. No, that's too much of a sacrifice. It's not what I would ever want for you."

"I see." He said the words slowly, digesting them. Tendons corded in his neck as he thought things over. "Last night, I thought I made it clear how I felt."

"You did." Tears stood in her eyes. She blinked, as if fighting to control them. Her lovely face crinkled up unhappily, leaving so much unspoken. "It's simply too much money, Gil. You need to talk to Maureen and take back your offer. Otherwise, I won't be able to live with myself."

"I see." He rocked back on his heels, drew in a breath, let her words settle. That was Maebry, thinking of everyone before herself. He should have known. It only made him love her more. "Well, no worries. She said no."