“Is it?”
She didn’t know and held it up for him. “You check.”
“Not a him,” he said.
She smiled. “Even better. You realize you couldn’t have given me a nicer gift.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I had a feeling.”
“It can come inside the house, correct?” she said on her way out of the barn, the puppy in her arms.
“I’d say it will whether it’s allowed to or not,” he said, following her.
And then she stopped. “Oh my.” She was staring at the beginning of a magnificent sunset.
“That was the other thing I wanted to show you. Let’s head to the front porch where you can get an unobstructed view.”
She nodded. They made their way to the long swing on the porch that she’d noticed when they arrived; it hung from the ceiling and had room for two. She sat down, and Morgan joined her there and pushed a little with his long legs, making the swing rock slowly. At the mining camp, the sky was obscured by all the trees, but here she could appreciate the beauty of Montana’s big sky.
She petted the puppy in her lap. Morgan slipped his arm around her shoulders. He probably thought she didn’t notice because she was so amazed at the flaming colors in the sky. She noticed. She noticed everything about him.
“I bet you never saw a sunset like this in London,” he remarked.
She laughed. “No, there’s too much fog and coal smoke!”
There were other beautiful things in London, but she didn’t mention them, because nothing could really compare to this view and how happy she felt sitting here sharing it with him.
She went to sleep that night with her very own puppy curled in the crook of her arm and memories of that lovely little interlude on the porch.
Chapter Forty-Five
THE NEXT MORNING ONher way downstairs to take the puppy outside, she heard Zachary demanding, “Then where the hell did Morgan go?”
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she could see most of the parlor and the couple in it. Zachary hadn’t been talking to her, but both of Morgan’s parents looked at her when she came into view, so she shrugged. “I haven’t seen him today.”
“He didn’t mention his plans to you when you sneaked off with him last night?” Zachary asked.
Violet objected to what he was implying, but she didn’t blush. Instead she raised Tiny, the name she’d given her precious gift, and said, “He took me to the barn to let me pick out one of the puppies for myself.”
“At least it’s not a pig,” Zachary grumbled, and headed out the front door.
Mary chuckled when she saw Violet’s confused look and explained, “Tiffany kept a pet pig in the house while she lived with us. Go ahead and take your pet outside to start its training. Use the side yard. Her ma favors that area, so the pup will recognize the smell and know what to do. And don’t let it sleep in your bed yet, or you could wake up to wet sheets.”
Violet’s eyes flared. The puppy had woken her, licking her cheek. She hadn’t even thought to check the sheets.
Mary grinned. “I’ll see if I can find some old newspapers and a box for you to put the pup in at night. And the coffee’s hot. There’s fixings to eat in the kitchen. We’re not formal about breakfast, so get a plate and sit wherever you like. I’ll take you out for a tour of the range later, if you like. Find me when you’re ready.”
Violet smiled. “Thank you. I’ll take a plate up to my father, too.”
A little later Mary took her out to the range to see where the cattle were grazing. There were no fences out there, so cows that wandered had to be brought back to the herd; and because the herd was so big, it needed to be moved to new grazing pastures often. But she hadn’t expected the sheer size of that herd, more than a thousand cows. No wonder it took the whole family plus a lot of cowboys to manage it.
Then in the afternoon Tiffany came by to take her for a tour of her house, a short ride away. Violet laughed when she saw how many servants worked there, which caused Tiffany to whisper, “They’re all from New York and they may be hard to keep. I’ve already heard complaints about how isolated they feel here. They miss the bustle and excitement of crowded city streets. But they haven’t been here long, so I hope they’ll fall in love with Montana as I did.”
Violet was impressed by the home. It was built with lumber, but the inside was furnished and decorated as finely as any home in Philadelphia, or London, for that matter. Tiffany explained, “Hunter and I took our wedding trip back east to pick out all the furniture. The house was finished long before the furnishings got here, but it was worth the wait.”
Violet could have told her that waits like that would soon be a thing of the past, but again she said nothing about the emporium Morgan planned to open. She hoped he would break the news to his family soon. She was beginning to feel uneasy about their reaction.
After they settled in the parlor with coffee and pastries, Tiffany asked bluntly, “You and Morgan, is there something we should know about?”
