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Chapter Two

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Dear Gentleman of Montana,

Good day to you, I pray this finds you in good health. I do not know exactly what to say, so please forgive me if my words seem stilted or even rushed. I have never done anything so impetuous as to contact you in my entire life. I don’t even know what possessed me to put pen to paper and write, but I just felt the strangest urge that I should regret it if I did not do so.

I am a chambermaid, and I live and work in a big house in Boston for a lovely family. I have been working extra hard recently as a friend left to get married and she has not yet been replaced. I have some education, but not sufficient to be a governess to two young women who already outstrip me in their knowledge. Yet, I try my best to at least teach them useful skills and try to keep them to their studies in comportment and manners.

I cannot say I enjoy being a maid, but I do get an immense sense of pleasure from seeing a job well done. I am a quiet sort, love reading when I have the time. But I am happiest when I am busy and have plenty to keep me occupied. I should very much like to correspond with you, to get to know you with a view to seeing if we might suit. I should very much like to be mistress of a home I could make with a supportive partner, and to become a mother someday.

Please tell me of yourself, I should love to hear of your home and what you do. Do you enjoy music and the theatre, or are you a homebody happy to curl up with a good book and a warm fire at the end of the day?

I look forward to your response, though I am sure you will receive many replies from women far more interesting than myself. I shall understand if I hear nothing further.

Yours most hopefully

Annie Cahill

Mack put the simple little letter down on the left hand side of his large oak desk. He looked at the towering pile on the right. It surprised him how so many of the women who had replied to his advertisement had not asked a single thing about him. Annie Cahill was the only one so far who had not only wanted to know more of his life, but had even asked after his wellbeing.

He could not explain it, even to himself, but something about her short missive made him feel comfortable and content. He was no fool; he knew that feeling passion for a woman one met through an advertisement in the newspaper was not ever going to be likely, but he did at least want to not feel revulsion towards the woman he wrote to, maybe considered bringing here, to Montana, to be his bride. As he looked over the other responses once more, looking for any hint of kindness, humility or even simple politeness he could find nothing. He threw them on the fire, and stared again at the plain spoken words of Annie Cahill. This quiet and unassuming woman intrigued him. She had told him little of herself, and he was sure it was not because there was little to know - but because she believed her life to be of little interest. That in itself put her head and shoulders above the vapid and vain women whose letters were now crisping and crackling up in the flames.

He leaned back in his chair, and ran his fingers through his hair. The ends curled as they reached his collar, reminding him he really needed to get a haircut. He rubbed his hands over his heavily stubbled cheeks; it had definitely been too long since he had visited the barbers. Mack looked out at the sheeting rain and decided that he would take a trip into Great Falls, he would get nothing done out on the land in weather such as this. It had been stormy for days and he was beginning to feel confined. His place was out on the land herding his cattle – but even he knew better than to do much more than check on them once or twice a day when thunder, lightning and wind raged outside. He couldn’t afford to get sick and so he had learned to temper his naturally adventurous side – his sister called it recklessness and she was probably right.

“Mackenzie if you are going to be under my feet like this, you could at the very least clean up after yourself,” Penelope’s voice called down the stairs. Mack listened to her steps, the wooden floorboards creaking as she made her way towards the cozy little room he used as an office. “Anyone worth responding to today?” she asked him, her tone a little more kindly.

“Just the one.” He handed over the letter. Penelope read it in silence, but a smile began to play around her lips as she did so.

“She sounds lovely – what little she has given away.” She looked back at the address. “She’s from Boston, and the governess at her place of work has just left - I wonder if she knows Myra Green,” she mused. Mack looked at her confusion knotting his brow.

“Why ever should she know Mrs Green?”

“Because Mrs Green was once Miss Gilbert, and because she was a governess in Boston until very recently! Do you not ever listen to a word anyone tells you dear brother?”

“Not such things as that, no! I just knew Carlton looks like the cat that got the cream since he brought her home. It is good to see him happy. He works too hard, and has no help.”

“Well he does now - and he’s hired Ted Holkham and young Eric Graham. He should find things much easier now.”

“And a pretty wife to keep his home and make him fat. Sounds like bliss,” Mack joked, but he couldn’t deny that a small part of him was more than a little jealous of his friend. He had gotten lucky.

“I know you’ll never admit that you would miss me if I weren’t here, but one day I shall be married and out of your hair, and then you will regret not having taken a wife,” Penelope said poking her tongue out at him.

“I know, and that is why I agreed to let you put that blasted advertisement in the newspaper in the first place. Now, I have found one woman out of too many to count that I would consider writing to I thought you would be happy.”

“I am, and I shall tell Callum that finally there may be hope that we can wed and I can leave you to your own devices!”

“I have told you a hundred times dear sister; do not put off your nuptials just for me. He is a good man, he won’t wait forever – no matter how besotted he is with you right now. You’re not getting any younger after all,” he teased. “I shall be fine, can take care of myself you know.”

“If I left you for even five minutes you would burn your supper and the house down.” She patted him affectionately on the cheek.

“Well, maybe Miss Annie will be able to come and take care of me and you will be free to burn Callum’s toast every morning instead of mine!”

“Ha, ha! What are you doing today? Please tell me you will be getting out from under my feet you pest?”

“You’d send me out in that?” he asked incredulously, a grin tweaking at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t fret.  I shall be out of your hair. I am going to take a little trip into Great Falls. I need to go to the bank and discuss my plans for the herd. I may even stay overnight, take in a show, go to the barbers and get a good shave and trim. I may even pop by the station to find out how much passage to Boston on the train would cost.”

“That sounds hopeful, and after only one letter too,” Penelope said smiling, but Mack could see her brain working. She knew him too well, knew that he had found something in this young woman’s words that had touched him and made him curious.

His curiosity had done them both a lot of favors over the years. Without it they would not have made the move here, and would not have taken the chance to become ranchers. His curiosity about their neighbor, Callum Walters, had also paid off handsomely. The quiet man had kept himself to himself upon his arrival in Sun River, but the perfectly tended fields full of handsome and hardy horses and his immaculate fencing had intrigued Mack. He had to know who was capable of such precision – especially as he was out there doing it alone. The moment the reclusive horse breeder had met Penelope had changed everything for them all.

Yes, his curiosity was a good thing, and Annie Cahill made him curious and he longed to unravel the mystery that surrounded her. Why should a woman with a good position wish to leave it and take the chance on a stranger? Why did her plain and simple words make him feel as if he had known her for a lifetime? Why did he want to find out more about her? He let Penelope leave the room and began to pen a reply, there was so much he simply had to know and he had a feeling that just a correspondence spread over weeks and months as their missives crossed the entire breadth of the country wasn’t going to be enough to unravel the mystery she posed to him quickly enough.