“Good of you to spare me, but next time, don’t. Well, there won’t be a next time.”
“I’m excited to be here,” Evan said. “I never dreamed we’d get to see this part of the country.”
“I feel the same,” Daniel said enthusiastically. “So I volunteer to manage the mine.”
But Evan objected. “We may have to fight over it, Brother.”
“Mines,” Violet corrected. “There are two of them side by side, and we have an equal partnership with Morgan. We can figure out who goes or if you both go later.”
They were halfway to the ranch when Evan said, “Vi, I just remembered! You’ll need to send someone with a wagon for your trunks.”
“Trunks? I just asked for one.”
“Yes, but you didn’t say which one, so we had to bring all of them to make sure you got the right one.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Morgan told her, then added in a whisper, “You’re happy around them, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am, they’re my brothers.”
He smiled. “Another good reason for you not to run back to England.”
Was that a subtle way of asking for her answer to his partnership offer? But he wanted her to help run his store here in Nashart, and her brothers would be near Butte—but they wouldn’t be an ocean away, either. Was Morgan playing underhanded, or just sweetening the pot?
She might be able to put off answering him until she was ready to leave, so she could continue helping him in the meantime. She wanted to fantasize a little longer about how wonderful it would be working beside this man permanently. She just had to ignore for now the one stumbling block: how inappropriate it would be to partner with a man while she was an unmarried woman. It just wasn’t done. She was sure her father would forbid it.
Her brothers’ argument about whether they should rent a carriage while they were in Nashart caught her attention. “Stop it,” she ordered. “There are no carriages to be had—” She broke off, and gave Morgan an excited glance. “A carriage-maker! For one of the shops on your new street. Or you might even bring in a few carriages yourself and add them to your emporium’s inventory.”
He grinned. “I like seeing you like this, open, bubbly—bossy.”
She laughed. “I’m not bossy.”
“She is!” both brothers said in unison.
Chapter Forty-Nine
THE STAY IN NASHARTwas turning out to be most pleasant. Violet loved advising Morgan about his fancy emporium; in fact, it was nearly all they talked about that week. And soon the mines would be earning an incredible amount of money for both partners. Daniel and Evan had left a few days ago to manage them temporarily since they both found the prospect interesting. Morgan spent hours instructing both of them on everything they needed to know to start mining.
While Morgan could have gotten his friends in Nashart to help him build his store in just a few days once all the lumber had arrived, Violet had reminded him that it wouldn’t be grand enough for the distinctive furnishings he intended to sell, so he’d sent off a few more telegrams to the Melling brothers in New York, asking them to find an architect as well as an experienced manager for him.
Texas got married the very day he arrived back in town, too eager to make Emma his wife to wait for a traditional wedding to be arranged, so only Emma’s family witnessed the ceremony. Two days later, he left to take Daniel and Evan to the mines—but Emma went with them. No more separations for those two, a thought that made Violet sad because it reminded her that she would soon be separating herself from her own family—once again. Which had sparked an argument—with herself. But her brothers helped end it by stating a simple truth.
Both were angry with her when she got around to telling them her plans. But it was Daniel who said, “It may take months for Father to regain his usual vigor. Are you really going to leave us before then?”
“I could return with my husband.”
“An English lord visiting America? Must you marry him, Vi? Nine years was too long for you to be over there, and you want to make it forever?”
She’d started to cry, and emotion won out. It was that wordforever.And she’d already been leaning toward not going. It was definite now.
And today—today she was getting married. Well, maybe. She wasn’t exactly sure how it all came about, but she was certain it had started with Mary Callahan, who came into the dining room just as she and Morgan were finishing lunch. He had business in town and had just stood up to leave. He kissed his mother in passing. Mary stared after him for a moment before she turned to Violet and remarked, “He’s partial to you.”
Morgan had used the same word back in Butte, but it hadn’t been clear what he meant by it, so Violet asked his mother, “What exactly does that mean around here? Something more than fond?”
“Hell, yeah, a lot more. And it’s obvious. How come you don’t see it?”
Actually, she did see it when he looked at her, touched her, did nice things for her; it was just that she’d never heard it. But Morgan was a man of action, not a fancy talker. And, as she knew from playing poker with him, he held his cards close to his vest.
With a big smile on her face, she ran upstairs to find her father. Stepping into his room, she said, “What would you think about my staying here and marrying your partner?”
