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CHAPTER ONE
MCNEAL RANCH LAND, Near Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, October 1885
Despite the bright and warming light of the sun rising up over the eastern ridge known as McNeal Hill, there was a definite chill in the late October morning air, holding the promise of the coming winter. Throughout the plains of the Wyoming Territory, leaves on trees were growing more and more colorful as the days passed by, dropping from the branches before being caught in the lifting winds that swept them further across the land.
Though the sun’s rays were strong even as they caressed the buildings that stood in the center of the McNeal Ranch, they could not penetrate the heavy curtains which kept the bedroom of John and Margaret Baldwin cast in darkness. The couple was nestled close to one another in their large bed, their bodies bare of a single stitch of clothing beneath a thick bearskin blanket. John lay flat on his back, lightly snoring while his arm was curled beneath and around the waist of his beautiful wife Maggie, her own body curled up against his for further warmth.
The two had been married for the better part of two months, and neither of them could recall having been any happier than they were at that time. Despite their initial rough patch when they had first met, the two had only grown to love one another more and more as each day passed. Together, they had brought further prosperity to the McNeal Ranch as well as an impressive display of horse riding skill in tandem during a few of the show-riding events held in nearby Cheyenne.
Every day brought new challenges for the two of them in some form or another. Even though they could have handled much of it by themselves, they instead chose to work together and found that there was little they could not overcome, whether it related to ranching, business, or otherwise.
But life all too often has a funny way of presenting people with new challenges that they were completely unprepared for before sitting back and observing how they react. And life was prepared to present Maggie and John with an altogether different shade of challenge than they’d previously faced.
***
I KNOW THERE’S WORK to be done, but I do not want to leave this bed at all.
That was the first thought that made its way to the front of Maggie McNeal Baldwin’s mind as she awoke from her slumber, the combined warmth of the bed and her husband’s body offsetting the chill permeating the room. The pot-bellied iron stove which helped warm the room at night had obviously consumed the wood inside throughout the night and grown colder. Even with the window closed tightly, the chill of the autumn air still found its way inside.
Despite the heavy curtains keeping the sun’s initial light out, just enough of it managed to pierce the material and give light to the room. For Maggie, that was more than she needed as she carefully propped herself up on her elbow and looked at her sleeping husband, a catlike grin spreading across her lovely face.
John Baldwin, ranch boss of the prosperous McNeal Ranch & Cattle Company and husband of fierce show rider and ranch owner Margaret McNeal, continued to lightly snore in his sleep, blissfully unaware of his wife’s observation.
Silly tumbleweed, Maggie thought teasingly as she looked over her husband’s appearance. A collection of stubble had started to form across his jaw, evidence of his lack of shaving. On top of that, his long blond locks of hair were disheveled—testament to the strenuous activity she’d put him through before they’d both fallen asleep the night before.
Maggie knew she was likely just as much of a lovely wreck as he was. A slight scratching of her head told her that her chestnut curls were far more riotous than she recalled them being during dinner, but that only made her all the happier. It meant that John had been every bit as attentive to her as she’d been to him during their lovemaking.
I think I’ll keep him, she thought jokingly, knowing full well there was little that could pry her away from him and him from her. To her, it almost seemed as though the woman she’d been—resistant to change and deriding the idea of falling in love with someone, especially a wanderer like John Baldwin—was becoming more and more of a distant memory. Now she couldn’t stand the idea of a life and future without John.
She was idly toying with the idea of waking him up in a special way when her stomach gave a low growl. Her hand moved to massage her abdomen in order to quiet it down, but it seemed that her stomach would have its say and would not be appeased until she ate something.
Giving a slight huff at having her fun interrupted, Maggie leaned over and gave her husband a loving kiss on his forehead before she slowly slid out from under the heavy blanket they shared.
The immediate change in temperature from the warmth of the bed to the coolness of their bedroom caused goose pimples to spread across her skin. Maggie wrapped her arms around her bare chest, trying to conserve any heat she could as she looked for her wool nightgown.
For Heaven’s sake, where is it n—? There you are! she thought triumphantly as she spied the garment, tossed in a bundle against one of the walls; no doubt John’s handiwork, having undressed her before bed. The memory of their foreplay gave Maggie a giggle and a rosy blush as she slid the garment over her head, reveling in the thick wool’s warming properties.
As she straightened out the nightgown over her frame, her stomach gave another grumble, a more persistent one than the previous. Once more, Maggie placed her hand over her stomach to try and silence it, but as she pressed her hand against the material covering her, she was made reminded of something that she had noticed recently: she had put on weight.
It had been a week or two prior when she had first discovered that her previously trim stomach had gained a slight curve. Of course, this was obvious only to her as far as she could tell (and if John had noticed it as well he wasn’t saying anything for fear of the consequences that came with saying something stupid). But it wasn’t just her stomach that had caught her notice. Her hips and her backside had lost a bit of their toned quality built up from years of riding, despite the fact that Maggie continued to ride everyday on and off the ranch.
Probably just a result of sleeping in a little more, she told herself, rationalizing her slight increase in weight and figure to the fact that her nights and mornings with John had caused her to have to readjust her scheduling a bit. She hadn’t performed her early morning rides in two months’ time because she was so unwilling to leave their bedroom in the morning.
There was, however, one other possible explanation to her growing physique, but Maggie wouldn’t dare allow herself to entertain that thought for even a single second. Though she had acclimated to loving a man and getting married, well, the thought of a child was not something she was ready to contemplate just yet.
That thought only grew more nettlesome when she considered the fact that since their wedding she and John had been coupling at a rate that would have given rabbits pause. The pleasure had outweighed prudence, but she was still hesitant to consider the idea that she could be with child so soon after marrying John.
But, whether from being lax in her ranch activities or otherwise, the fact remained that she was hungry. And though she couldn’t quite tell how, she swore she could smell the alluring scent of ham frying in a pan.
Casting one more smile over her shoulder at her still sleeping husband, Maggie quietly opened the bedroom door and slipped out before closing it just as stealthily behind her and tiptoeing down the stairs.
***
ABIGAIL MCNEAL WAS always an early riser, a trait that had served her well before she had married her late husband Peter and had continued to serve her well as she raised two daughters out on the plains of the western territories. Though she knew her daughter Margaret fancied herself an early riser as well, Abigail took a small amount of wizened pride in the knowledge that she still had her oldest daughter beat. On the mornings when Maggie rode out to check the ranch just as the sun was rising, Abigail was usually already up and lighting the fire in the stove to ready breakfast.
Though in all fairness to Maggie, Abigail thought with a grin, the sun is rising later now than in the summer, and she’s never been good at adjusting to those little seasonal time changes.
The matriarch of the McNeal family continued to smile as her hands manipulated the cast-iron pan atop the stove, the slab of ham inside sizzling nicely. With the pan in one hand, she reached over and picked out an egg from the basket with the other before cracking it on the side of the pan and splitting the sBlazes so that the contents spilled into the pan, a hiss marking the contact of the food with the hot metal.
Abigail quickly repeated the process with another egg and continued minding her work, humming a few odd tunes as she did so. She knew her daughter and son-in-law would awaken soon and be down for breakfast in short order, especially if the creaks in the floor she’d heard the night before were any indication.
Despite the racket, Abigail couldn’t have been any happier for her elder daughter. John Baldwin’s appearance had been a Godsend for both the ranch and Maggie, and Abigail would consider herself forever indebted to the young Kentucky boy who had managed to capture her daughter’s wild heart. The two months since their wedding had seemed to go by in the blink of an eye, though part of the swiftness of time’s passage could also be attributed to the fact that the McNeal Ranch was slightly quieter since her daughter Leyla’s departure.
Though Abigail missed her younger daughter greatly, she was proud to know that she was pursuing her show-riding dreams with Chase McAllister’s team of professional show riders in a travelling western show. Leyla’s plan of staying with the show for a month had been extended, and the young redhead reported in her telegrams that she was having a magnificent adventure.
Both Maggie and Abigail couldn’t bring themselves to ask Leyla to return home just yet when even the dry wording of the telegrams seemed to express the boundless joy Leyla was having with Chase and the others, especially considering that her last message put her right on the border of California. Sure, it meant that Abigail had to take over handling the financial books of the ranch again, but she didn’t mind. After all, she’d been expertly tending to that task ever since she and her husband had first moved west.
The sound of a pair of feet trying to sneak down the stairs broke her from her nostalgic reverie. At once, Abigail knew that the light tread of the feet could be none other than that of Maggie. Her prediction proved true as her daughter soon appeared in the doorframe, clad in her wool nightgown with her brunette curls strewn about.
“Morning, Mama,” Maggie yawned as she made her way to the table, seating herself while making no further attempt to be presentable.
“Good morning, Maggie,” Abigail replied brightly as she removed the pan from the stove and deposited the ham and eggs on a nearby plate. The plate was swiftly delivered to the table and deposited in front of her daughter.
Maggie looked up at her mother with grateful eyes as she seized the knife and fork on the table and tore into the meal as though she’d not eaten in days.
Abigail was momentarily taken aback by her daughter’s sudden voracious appetite, but she chalked it up to physical exertion’s toll on her daughter’s body. After all, she and John had been vigorously preparing for one last show-riding event before the season ended.
“Are you and John all set for the event this evening?” Abigail asked as she laid a slab of bacon in the pan in preparation for her son-in-law’s eventual appearance.
Maggie momentarily paused in her eating to answer her mother’s query, smiling around a mouthful of egg before she swallowed. “Ready as we’ll ever be, Mama,” she answered determinedly. “We’ll give the folks in Cheyenne a performance to end the season that they’ll never forget!”
The event of which the two spoke was the annual harvest celebration in Cheyenne. The celebration was meant as a capstone to the year’s work and productivity for the local farms and ranches as well as the continued prosperity of the town itself. An entire week was devoted to the event which had already been running the previous four days.
For the past several years, the highlight of the fifth night was a show-riding demonstration performed by the skilled riders in town. Though Margaret and her horse, Apollo, had been the stars the previous years, this year they would be joined by John and his ebony mount, Longbow, for a tandem performance that would dazzle the residents of Cheyenne.
As such, the couple and their horses had been training extensively for the big night, ready to show off just what a husband and wife pair of riders could do.
Leaving the frying pan and its contents to sizzle for a few moments, Abigail grasped the percolator full of hot coffee and poured some of the rich liquid into a vacant cup with the intention of handing it off to her daughter. But as she turned to place the steaming cup in front of Maggie, the brunette held up a hand indicating that she was passing on coffee.
For a moment, Abigail McNeal, the nigh unflappable matriarch of the ranching and riding family, was stunned.
No coffee? she thought in bewilderment. There’s not a day that’s gone by since Maggie could first drink the stuff that hasn’t seen her down at least one cup of coffee.
Still standing there, Abigail took a closer look at her daughter. The fact that she was eating like a man fresh from the desert wasn’t strange in and of itself. Abigail knew that both of her girls had learned some of their eating habits from their father, both the good and the bad. But Maggie declining coffee, combined with her appetite, struck the older redhead as something queer.
Maybe it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, she thought idly as she watched Maggie chew her food, but I swear her features have gone slightly softer as well.
She gave a shake of her head as if to clear her eyes and her mind, and then Abigail turned back to the stove and her cooking, pushing the thoughts away for further examination later.
***
SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE right, here.
That was the first thought that entered John Baldwin’s head as he roused himself from his slumber. He could already tell that something was off, but he couldn’t readily identify what it was.
He was going to see if Maggie could tell him why something felt awry, but then his arm swept the side of the bed his beautiful wife slept on and found it to be empty of her smaller form.
Well, that’s one mystery solved, he chuckled, realizing that the absence of his wife this early in the morning was likely what had momentarily confused him. She’s either out on the range or downstairs talking with Abigail.
Propping his back up against the wooden headboard of the bed, John Baldwin allowed himself a wide stretch of his arms as he tried to wake his body up and clear his mind of the fog of sleep and forgotten dreams. The minor soreness he felt throughout his body and the fact that he was naked beneath the warm bearskin blanket.
If other folks say that marriage is a terrible thing, then they must be doing something wrong, he thought as the memories of the previous night and others before it—as well as a few mornings, afternoons, and evenings—climbed their way up to his mind’s eye. I never thought I’d see the day I’d be a happily married man with a wife that’s the most beautiful woman in the west, Blazes, maybe the whole country.
Once more, John Baldwin couldn’t believe his good fortune. In the four months since he’d first arrived in Cheyenne, he’d gone from wandering cowboy to respected ranch boss and fallen in love with the best and prettiest rider in the west. Now the two of them were married, and John still couldn’t believe that it all wasn’t some wonderful dream that he hoped he’d never wake up from.
The blond rider sighed happily as he turned his gaze toward the bedroom ceiling, as though he could see right through it and look at the clouds in the sky above.
I don’t know who I pleased up there that gave me the chance to love Maggie McNeal and spend my life with her, but I thank you with all my heart, he prayed, genuinely grateful for everything he had.
I went from nothing to having everything I’ve ever wanted, he thought happily, but in the far corners of his mind, a small desire lit up like a candle in the darkness, reminding the Kentuckian of one more thing he wished for: a family.
John knew that he already had family in spades between the Natives who helped run his family’s ranch, Maggie and her family, and even Fergus Finnegan in Cheyenne, but his mind had been continuously returning to the idea of starting his own family with Maggie.
As far as he could tell, she wouldn’t be against the idea itself, but rather the timing. He knew she was devoted to the efficient operation of her ranch as well as her show riding. The idea of having a child now would likely be met with less than enthusiasm.
Still, he mentally sighed, a man can dream. A man can dream.
Pushing his hopes for a few kids one day aside, John rose from the bed and began the arduous task of locating his trousers from the night before.
If Maggie and I are gonna thrill the crowds in Cheyenne tonight, I better find those trousers and get Longbow saddled right quick, he thought humorously as he searched around the room for his ersatz clothing.
***
THE REST OF THE DAY passed relatively without incident on the McNeal Ranch. Maggie and John eventually began their rounds across the ranch, ensuring everything was in order. Moving the cattle from pasture to pasture was starting to slow down as winter approached and the grasses started to go dormant.
As the colder temperatures drew closer, it would be up to John and the ranch hands that stayed through the winter to make sure that they rotated the herds from the pastures into the larger stable meant for the cattle so that they wouldn’t freeze and could be fed with stocks of hay. Though the cattle raised on the McNeal ranch had a reputation for being hardy creatures in the summer heat and the winter cold, there still wasn’t much sense in taking a chance on them freezing.
Much of the current ranch operations focused on preparing for the winter. The ranch hands were kept busy with any number of tasks, ranging from readying the bunk houses for the winter drafts and snows to unloading wagons full of hay and dry goods in case a heavy snow cut off access to Cheyenne. But despite their dedication to their work, harvest celebration week usually saw Margaret telling all of them to knock off for the day around midafternoon so they could go enjoy themselves.
Of course, the ranch hands all knew that their generous employer was also giving them the afternoons and evenings off so she could focus on her preparation for the show-riding event in Cheyenne. And with their ranch boss, John Baldwin, in on the event too, they all knew something special was brewing.
True to form, Maggie and John spent the afternoon and early evening running through the routine they’d prepared for the celebration, a mixture of their own tricks and a few they’d picked up from Chase and his riders two months previous.
There was just enough time for the two of them to make it back to the homestead to clean up and put on their best riding clothes before remounting their horses and preparing for the ride into Cheyenne. Abigail, wearing one of her more colorful dresses, followed along behind the couple in a wagon driven by Fergus Finnegan, Maggie and Leyla’s devoted godfather. The two would watch from the stands as John and Maggie performed the routine they’d been practicing for weeks.
All said and told, it looked to be a memorable evening for all involved.
***
CHEYENNE, WYOMING TERRITORY, October 1885
Cheyenne was truly a sight to behold during the yearly harvest celebration. While not as grandiose an affair as the show-riding competition the town had hosted four months previous, the harvest celebration was a far more intimate event best enjoyed by the local residents of the town and the surrounding areas.
All of the streets were lit with the lamps as well as colorful paper lanterns strung from building to building while farmers, ranchers, and business owners all celebrated another year for better or worse in the town on the plains.
Bonfires on every street helped warm the denizens in the crisp October air, the flames of each reaching high into the night sky, which was slowly yielding its star-filled bounty. All around the scents of countless foods assaulted the nostrils from every which way, ranging from sweet to savory and back again. The odors were wonderful to everyone passing through the town.
Everyone, that is, except for Margaret McNeal Baldwin.
The brunette ranch owner and her husband had just entered Cheyenne and were heading for the corral where the show-riding event was set to take place, but the minute that her nose registered the myriad scents wafting through the air, she felt her stomach perform a somersault inside of her. It took every ounce of willpower she had to not allow herself to double over and vomit when it all hit her.
When she finally regained control of herself, she glanced at John out of the corner of her eye to see if he’d noticed. She sighed in relief when she was certain that he hadn’t, distracted as he was by all the sights and sounds surrounding him.
I don’t what that was, she groused, but I hope it’s gone. Thank goodness John didn’t notice it or else he’d call the whole routine off.
Maggie knew John would be acting out of concern for her well-being, the fact that he’d remained by her side after she’d fallen from Apollo during the show-riding competition was evidence enough of that, but she didn’t want to let all of their hard work and training go to waste over something as silly as a little nausea.
No, she thought defiantly as she drew determination up from the well of her being, I’m going to ride tonight, and I’m going to give the audience a real show.
But as she and John continued riding toward the corral where the show riding was set to begin, an uneasy feeling began to settle in the pit of her stomach, and Margaret was unable to tell if it was dread or something far worse.
***
LOOKS LIKE IT’S GOING to be a good night for a show, John thought excitedly as he peered out from the stable near the corral where the show was already in progress. He and Maggie had been directed to their own stalls where they could tend to Apollo and Longbow and prepare for their demonstration.
The stands surrounding the corral still smelled of freshly milled pine and paint as they were filled to capacity with an audience raucously watching the best riders in the Wyoming Territory perform their best tricks on horseback. Those who weren’t lucky enough to have a seat made the best of their situation by watching from the corral fences, packed in with countless others to watch the antics of Cheyenne’s most skilled riders.
But as each rider performed his tricks and moved along, two names still hung anxiously on everyone’s lips: Margaret and John Baldwin.
Jeremiah Weatherby, editor in chief of one of Cheyenne’s larger newspapers, hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said that the announcement that Margaret McNeal was finally taking a husband would be one of the biggest scoops of the year. The bespectacled journalist had later profusely thanked the couple when he told them that, even though they’d kept the announcement of their coming nuptials to a simple section in the newspaper, that edition had sold like it was the recipe to some genuine miracle cure. The news had spread like wildfire, and all of Cheyenne now knew that Margaret McNeal was married to a man who was as deft a hand at horses as she was.
And it hadn’t taken long before the newly married couple had taken to showing their horse riding skills together in front of the crowds in Cheyenne.
But their previous demonstrations would pale in comparison to what they had planned tonight. It’d taken a week or two of hard practice, but they’d come up with something daringly unique, something that would make even Chase, Leyla, and their fellow show riders gawk in amazement had they been present.
However, like many things in life, the wait that preceded the moment itself was always the toughest, and though John was still relatively new to show riding, he found a touch of anxiety swirling in his stomach. He looked to Longbow for some measure of comfort, but his ebony black mount simply returned his stare.
“Fat lotta help you are,” John chuckled, running his hand along his partner’s mane.
Longbow blew a strong gust from his flared nostrils, as though he took offense to John’s little slight, but otherwise didn’t appear vexed.
“Yeah, well, we better go get Maggie and Apollo,” he assured his horse, giving him another appreciative pat before moving to the next stall. “After all, it’d be a pretty poor show if it were just me and— Maggie?”
John’s boots ground to a halt on the hay-covered floor as he found the stall next to him to be occupied by Apollo. His wife, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Maggie?” John asked aloud again, hoping for some kind of response. But once more, relative silence answered him back.
Where in the Devil could she have gone to? he wondered, knowing full well that it was not in Maggie’s repertoire to leave her prized steed alone in a stable other than her own. He was just about to turn around and ask one of the stable hands if they’d seen where she’d gone when he heard a sound reminiscent of someone heaving their insides up.
That can’t be good, John worried as he moved two stalls down to where the noise had come from.
Peering his head slowly into the stall, he saw the unmistakable figure of his wife hunched over a barrel and chucking what was likely her dinner into it.
All thoughts of the upcoming performance vanished from John’s mind as concern for his wife immediately took over.
“Maggie!” he cried out as he rushed to her side.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
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