Instant Frontier Family. Regina Scott

      “In truth, I’ve never tried it,” Michael admitted. “But I’ve a strong back and a ready mind. I should be able to learn the way of it.”

      She shook her head. Perhaps she thought he denigrated her work by making it seem too easy. From what he’d seen, laundresses worked harder than most for less pay.

      Ciara and Aiden were glancing back and forth between the two of them, as if willing their sister to give in. Maddie looked as if she couldn’t or wouldn’t budge, even for them.

      You offered me light when all was darkness, Father. Show me the way now.

      Michael reached out and took Maddie’s ungloved hand in his. “Give me the opportunity to help, Miss O’Rourke.”

      Maddie gazed up at him, eyes narrowed as if she thought to see inside him and determine his worth. Michael held her gaze, wishing he could see inside her instead. Ciara and Aiden had talked often about their sister Maddie, and his Aunt Sylvie had sung her praises, but he couldn’t understand her. Why would anyone leave a little brother and sister behind? Why travel halfway around the world? Had she been escaping trouble, like him? Or was she the cause of it, like Katie?

      “Very well, Mr. Haggerty,” she said, pulling back her hand. “You can stay with us, but only,” she cautioned, finger in the air as Ciara cried out in delight and Aiden began jumping up and down, “until you secure a proper job. I suppose I can find some use for you.”

      “I’ll do anything that needs doing, Miss O’Rourke,” he vowed, “without complaint or compromise. You’ll have no cause to regret your decision to help me.”

      “So you say,” she answered, but Michael got the impression that she was regretting it already.

Chapter Two

      Maddie could see that Michael Haggerty was going to be trouble. For one thing, Aiden and Ciara looked to him rather than her for guidance. She supposed that was a natural consequence of him serving as their escort aboard ship, but she could not allow it to continue. She had enough doubts about her abilities to raise her brother and sister.

      And as for Ciara’s insistence that Michael and Maddie must marry, that was nonsense. If Maddie wanted a brawny man in her life, she could have married one of the Wallin lads who were brothers to the man her good friend Catherine had married. Failing that, all Maddie had to do was whistle, and a dozen loggers and mill workers would have run to her side and dropped on bended knee to propose. Seattle was so desperate for marriageable females that she hardly needed to import a suitor all the way from New York!

      Besides, why had Sylvie sent a man when Maddie had specified a woman? With her money going to pay Mr. Haggerty’s way, Maddie had nothing with which to hire the lady she’d needed. And by the size of him, he’d more than eat his weight in wages!

      He was watching her now with those blue, blue eyes, as if waiting for her orders. She straightened her spine. “Set to work, then, Mr. Haggerty. Find Ciara’s and Aiden’s things. They’ll need to be carried home.”

      He saluted her again. “On my way, Captain O’Rourke.”

      Aiden giggled as Michael strode back toward the longboat.

      Maddie drew in a breath. She could manage this. She must. In the next month, she had an opportunity to establish herself as the premier bakery in town by making all the cakes and rolls to be served at the biggest, most extravagant wedding Seattle had ever seen. Every man, woman and child would be singing her praises and lining up to purchase her products. Her future, and Ciara’s and Aiden’s futures, would be secure. She wasn’t about to jeopardize that for the likes of Michael Haggerty.

      She pressed her hands into her skirts and bent closer to Ciara and Aiden. “Who’s ready to see their new home?”

      “Me!” Aiden declared.

      Ciara nodded eagerly.

      With a smile, Maddie turned to allow them past her up the pier. “This way.”

      Aiden ran ahead, darting between the waiting people and the sailors on the narrow pier. Ciara walked beside Maddie as if trying to be a lady, but Maddie could see her sister’s head turning this way and that as she took everything in.

      “Seattle’s different from Five Points,” Maddie told her. “You’ll find everything smaller, except the geography.”

      “Where are the tenements?” Ciara asked.

      Maddie put an arm around her shoulders, realizing with a pang that she didn’t have to bend all that much to do so. Her sister’s eyes were nearly on a level with hers and pinched a bit around the corners with worry.

      “Sure-n but there are no tenements here,” Maddie confided.

      Ciara stopped, eyes widening. “Then where does everyone live?”

      Maddie pulled back with a smile. “That depends, so it does. Some live in rooms above their shops as we will. Some share a house with many bedrooms in it. Others have grand houses high on the hill. And some live out among the trees in cabins built of logs.”

      “Built of logs?” Now Ciara frowned. “Didn’t the coppers stop them from cutting down the trees in the park?”

      Maddie shook her head, trying not to let her sister see her amusement. “If you can believe it, the trees aren’t in any park. They live out all on their own, everywhere.”

      Ciara put her hands on the hips of her blue coat. “You’re teasing me.”

      Maddie gave her a hug. “No indeed, me darling girl. It’s a whole new world here, and we have the privilege of helping to build it.”

      Ciara’s brow cleared as Maddie released her. “We had the building of it back home too. That’s what the Dead Rabbits did.”

      A shiver went through Maddie at the name of the dreaded Irish gang that had run Five Points. “The Dead Rabbits were violent, nasty creatures who used Irish pride to further their own gains,” she told Ciara.

      Her sister shook her head. “You don’t understand. You were gone too long. The Dead Rabbits protect us, keep us safe. We need them.”

      Maddie stiffened. “Who’s been filling your head with such nonsense?”

      Ciara raised her chin. “I figured it out all by myself. I’m grown now, you know. Oh, look! What’s that?” She ran to the edge of the pier where Aiden had stopped to stare down at something in the water.

      Maddie followed more slowly. She would never be able to see the vicious gang as heroes as Ciara did, but her sister was right about one thing. Life had definitely changed since Maddie had left New York. Sylvie McNeilly, who ran the children’s home where Maddie had left Ciara and Aiden, had little use for the gang violence that brought her another orphan every month. She would never have allowed Ciara or Aiden to admire the Dead Rabbits. So who had convinced Ciara otherwise?

      If it was Michael Haggerty, he was about to find something considerably harder to deal with than sleeping on the floor.

      * * *

      Michael slung his cloth bag over his shoulder and picked up the children’s carpetbag to start up the pier. He didn’t want to lose sight of Maddie. He had a feeling she’d have liked nothing more than to leave him behind. His aunt had warned him as much.

      “Maddie is a good person,” Sylvie had assured him over the narrow table where she and all her children ate under the light of a single sputtering lamp. “You’ll not be finding a kinder heart. But she’s expecting the lass I promised her, not a big strapping lad the likes of you. See that you win her over straightaway. She can be a big help to you.”

      At the time, he’d agreed with his aunt that winning over Maddie O’Rourke would be key. He just didn’t think the winning-over part was going particularly well. Try as he might, he couldn’t understand her.