Instant Frontier Family. Regina Scott

      A distant thunk woke Michael from a deep sleep. He shifted on the hard planks of the floor, listening. It couldn’t be morning. Not a ray of light came through the curtains, and the room was as dark as it had been when he’d blown out the lamp and gone to sleep, bundled in front of the stove.

      He’d thought between his sparse bedding and his busy mind he would have difficulty sleeping. Lord knew Katie’s betrayal had kept him up more than one night. He still remembered the cold glitter of her green eyes when she’d informed him she wanted nothing more to do with him.

      “As if anyone could ask me to be marrying a coward,” she’d flung at him from the doorway of her father’s flat.

      Michael had fisted his hands at his sides, knowing that half the tenement was listening to their argument. “I’m no coward. But a woman who claims to love me wouldn’t ask me to make myself a liar and a thief.”

      “You think only of yourself,” she’d complained, delicate chin high with righteousness. “I’ll be having nothing more to do with you, Michael Haggerty, until you’ve begged the pardon of those fine men who asked you for a paltry favor you cannot be bringing yourself to grant.” And she’d slammed the door in his face.

      Paltry favor. Michael wrapped the blanket closer now. The coals had cooled, leaving the room as chilly as Katie’s parting look. Katie’s father had asked Michael to lie to the man who’d hired him to keep watch on the ships at shore. Michael was to betray his employer’s trust and look the other way while the Dead Rabbits pillaged what they liked from those they found beneath them. Nothing about that was paltry.

      How could I ever have looked at myself in the mirror again, Lord? How would I have explained myself to You when I see You face-to-face one day?

      He knew he’d made the right choice. But the gang’s reaction had put his life in danger and threatened Sylvie and her children as well. He could only hope the gang’s tentacles didn’t reach across the nation to the frontier.

      Another thump had him stiffening on the floor. Turning his head, he could just make out the three doors across from him that led to Maddie’s, Ciara’s and Aiden’s rooms. No one seemed to be stirring, not even the little gray cat. What had caused that sound?

      As he eased up on one elbow, he heard more noises—a thud, a creak, a murmur of a voice, all coming from below. Had someone broken into the bakery?

      He climbed to his feet, thankful he’d worn his shirt and trousers to bed for added warmth. He had no weapon, but he seized the broom and took it with him as he crossed to the stairs in his stockinged feet.

      Whoever was below was making enough noise that the sounds of Michael’s footsteps on the stairs went unnoticed. The shop stood empty, waiting for the morning’s customers. He crept to the curtain, then whipped it aside with his free hand and sprang into the kitchen with a yell, broom handle raised above his head.

      Maddie dropped the pot she’d been holding with a clang. “What!”

      She was alone in the room, crouching by the firebox, her black-and-white-striped cotton gown swathed in an apron and pooled about her. Her red hair wilted around her face, like steamed cabbage, and the warmth of the room struck him for the first time. He could hear the heat crackling in the firebox, and the scent of something moist and tangy hung in the air.

      Michael lowered the broom. “What are you doing so early?”

      She threw up her hands, sending flour puffing in all directions. “My job, if you’ll let me.”

      She pushed off from the floor and swept up to the worktable, which was draped in checkered cloth. Whipping off the material, she nodded to the two dozen mounds of dough, white and puffy, and pans of rolls, cinnamon showing in each swirl. He set the broom in the corner and ventured closer, mouth starting to water.

      “Forgive me,” he told her. “I heard a noise, and I thought we were being robbed.”

      She chuckled as she shook out the cloth. “No robbers,” she said, folding it up and tucking it under the worktable. “If one stuck his head in the door right now, I’d put him to work.”

      Doing what? By the dirty bowls and pans stacked on the sideboard and the speckles on her apron, she’d already finished for the morning. How early had she risen?

      “What else do you need done?” he asked.

      She eyed him a moment as if trying to decide whether he was teasing. Then she raised her flour-dusted hand and began counting off the remaining tasks on her fingers.

      “I have to finish preparing the oven, put in the bread and rolls, gather the eggs, brush and turn the bread and make icing for the cinnamon rolls, all before my customers arrive on their way to work.”

      That didn’t sound so daunting. “Then you might as well put me to work,” Michael said. “I’m up anyway.”

      She pointed to a door at the back of the kitchen. “There’s a rake and a pail in the shed. Bring them in and muck out the firebox.”

      Michael frowned. “You want to clear out the fire before you start baking?”

      “’Tis the hot bricks that bake the bread, Mr. Haggerty,” she informed him. “And don’t you be questioning my work like you question the raising of Ciara and Aiden.”

      Michael held up his hands in surrender and went to do as she asked.

      Sylvie had baked from time to time, when she could use a neighbor’s oven. He’d never realized there was so much to be done, and all at a rhythm only Maddie seemed to understand. Under her direction, he raked the hot coals into the pail and closed the lid, then swept out the ashes. Taking a long-handled wooden paddle from where it hung on the wall and resting it on the table, she dusted it with flour and then began shifting the rounded loaves onto it.

      As she grabbed the handle, Michael stepped forward. “Let me.”

      Brow raised, she moved aside. “Just you be careful with my peel, Mr. Haggerty.”

      He had a feeling he was going to hear the name Michael from those pink lips only when he’d done something magnificent. He lifted the paddle and was surprised by the weight. With the oven set above her waist, how did she manage?

      As if she saw his surprise, she smiled and reached for the peel. “Here, let me. Watch now. There’s a trick to putting them in so you can bake the most.” She nodded toward the oven, and Michael hurried to open the iron door for her. Heat blasted him, raising sweat on his forehead and neck. With a deft movement, she stuck in the paddle, lifted the end and slid the loaves onto the brick. It took her three trips to transfer everything into the oven. Michael shut the door for the last time, and she closed the damper.

      “Now we wait,” he guessed.

      She laughed. “Now we hurry, Mr. Haggerty.”

      And hurry they did. While Maddie went outside with a basket to gather eggs, Michael began washing the dishes. She took one of the bowls, then shaved sugar from a cone, pounded it to powder with a pestle and mixed it with water for icing. Next, she mixed dough for cookies, rolled and cut them to lay them on a sheet, and popped them into the oven after she had removed the bread and rolls to cool. She never sat down, never stopped moving, even when he helped her carry her wares out to the shop to set them on display.

      The newly risen sun was gilding the signs of the merchants across the street as Michael glanced out the panes of the front window. But what took him aback were the faces pressed against the glass.

      “Me charming customers,” Maddie assured him. She pointed toward the stairs. “Go on, now. Take some of the cinnamon rolls upstairs for you and Ciara and Aiden. I should be finished here in a half hour.”

      All that bread, all those rolls and cookies, gone in a half hour? He couldn’t believe it. She’d be working for hours to sell all that. As she went to open the latch, he picked up three of the rolls, then headed for the stairs. Glancing back, he saw her throw wide the door.