Page 9 of Inventions of the Heart

Michelle gave Caroline a significant look. “The house is overflowing. I heard one of the hands say Zane’s other sister will probably come home and Annie will stay, at least for a while, if not permanently. This house is packed to the rafters. We need to get out of it.”

Harriet came up behind Michelle and rested one of her hands, in her usual friendly way, on Michelle’s shoulder. “You needn’t go anywhere.”

Jilly noticed a faint blush on Harriet’s cheeks. “What’s going on?”

Nora came over just a second later. The two sisters exchanged a smile.

“Two of Zane’s men have asked us to marry. Bo Sears—”

“The ramrod? He has his own cabin here.”

Harriet smiled. The Hogan sisters were in their thirties. Dedicated schoolteachers who’d always lived together. That they, comfortable spinsters, would be brides clearly surprised and delighted them.

“Yes.” Nora blushed a deeper pink. “And Jesse Green proposed to me. He was riding herd with us today, Jilly.”

“I remember him.” Of course, Jilly remembered everyone. “He’s got wild blond curls and smiles a lot.”

“They asked us yesterday, and we accepted. We were going to announce it tonight at the supper table, but it’s not appropriate after today’s grief.” Nora rested a hand on Caroline’s chubby cheek and managed a generous smile. She was a fine woman with a kind heart, but she had a stern way about her. Jesse would keep her smiling.

Harriet went on. “They’re going to ask Zane if they can build two line shacks out near where the Purgatory settlement was. But down in Zane’s valley, not on that rocky high ground where we set up the mission group. Zane sends men out that far almost daily to ride herd. He’s talked of putting up a cabin out there. Bo said the Steinmeyers could possibly move into his cabin. Gretel might come in and work as a cook and housekeeper if she’s willing. Her husband, Rick, is handy enough he can work around the ranch yard. He’s no cowboy, but there are plenty of chores for him. And we think two of Zane’s men are showing an unusual interest in Sally Jo and Melinda.”

Sally Jo and Melinda were the remaining members of the mission group, though they hadn’t come west with the group. They’d lived in Purgatory under terrible conditions. They’d asked to join the mission and had been accepted. Melinda had a baby girl named Hannah.

“So is Zane going to build two more cabins?”

Harriet shrugged as if nothing worried her. “It’s been wrong of Zane to ask so many men to live this kind of bachelor life. Having married men working for him will make for a better life for everyone. Caleb and Laura probably should have stayed and claimed Zane’s ranch as a mission field.”

Jilly knew Michelle wanted to stay and work at the gold mine, which was still a secret hidden from most everyone.

“I can build all those cabins if Zane wants me to. With help of course. But I love building.” Jilly felt the spark of excitement few things gave. “He needs four more cabins at least. Five if he names someone as ramrod, because Gretel and Rick need a cabin. And we’ll make them good-sized, larger than the one-room church I built in Purgatory.”

Jilly rested a hand on Nora’s shoulder, then looked from her to Harriet. They had long ago chosen life as schoolteachers over marriage and family. But now they had a second chance, and they were taking it. Jilly was delighted for them. “You’ll need rooms for the children.”

Both women turned so pink Jilly suspected the idea had never occurred to them. But they didn’t seem to dislike the idea one bit.

“If you two go,” Michelle said, always planning, “and Melinda and Sally Jo move out, maybe Jilly and I could take over the housekeeper’s rooms. Then Annie and Caroline could have our room—”

Harriet cleared her throat loud enough to stop Michelle from organizing the whole world. She gave Michelle and Jilly a rather alarmed look. “As for you two being housekeepers, I think we need to do some serious work on the skills required for the job.”

Jilly knew Michelle hadn’t really considered taking the job of a housekeeper. Only taking the housekeeper’s small three-room apartment in the back of Zane’s lovely home.

Michelle was a highly educated woman, a woman trained to take a hand in running a huge business, a woman with plans to invent and improve machines. She already had two patents. Jilly was trained to build roads through dense, mountainous forests, bridges across rushing rivers, and trestles across vast gorges, and lay train tracks on all of it. Laura had plans to blast tunnels out of the heart of a mountain, or at least manage a crew of men while they did it.

Yet with all that, the sisters were failures at cooking, cleaning, and sewing.

Zane had been told the truth about the Stiles sisters, but no one else. There was still a danger in being found by their stepfather and forced into marriage. Edgar had lost his chance with Laura, but if he could get Michelle and Jilly handed over to the cronies he hoped to marry them to, he could still control two-thirds of the company. Edgar could hang on to the power and money that went with marrying Margaret Stiles, the fabulously wealthy widow of lumber baron Liam Stiles. And Edgar wanted that badly.

They believed Mama was safe now. But Jilly knew she and Michelle weren’t.

Harriet and Nora went back to cleaning the kitchen. As soon as they were out of earshot, Jilly whispered to Michelle,“How have four of the women in our group rounded up husbands within a month of moving here, but you haven’t?”

“Five.” Michelle crossed her arms and scowled. “You’re not counting Laura. And why me? You’re supposed to get married, too.”

“I think I’d make a poor wife. I’ve been trained too well how to manage men. I’d have a wreck of a marriage. If you get married, that’ll give us two-thirds interest in Stiles Lumber. We’ll kick Edgar out.”

“We’ve solved the problem of him abusing Mama, and as long as he can’t find us, he’ll be unable to marry us off to those lecherous friends of his,” Michelle said, staring into the middle distance, thinking it all through, organizing her thoughts. “But he’s doing a terrible job of running the company. He’ll run us into ruination if we don’t take the company back from him soon.”

“Not to mention he has to be searching for us. We were a lot better hidden in Purgatory with the mission group. Neither of us has gone to Dorada Rio or anywhere else. No one save Zane knows our name.”

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