Instant Frontier Family

She was alone in the room, crouching by the firebox, her black-and-white-striped cotton gown swathed in an apron and pooled about her. Her red hair wilted around her face, like steamed cabbage, and the warmth of the room struck him for the first time. He could hear the heat crackling in the firebox, and the scent of something moist and tangy hung in the air.

Michael lowered the broom. “What are you doing so early?”

She threw up her hands, sending flour puffing in all directions. “My job, if you’ll let me.”

She pushed off from the floor and swept up to the worktable, which was draped in checkered cloth. Whipping off the material, she nodded to the two dozen mounds of dough, white and puffy, and pans of rolls, cinnamon showing in each swirl. He set the broom in the corner and ventured closer, mouth starting to water.

“Forgive me,” he told her. “I heard a noise, and I thought we were being robbed.”

She chuckled as she shook out the cloth. “No robbers,” she said, folding it up and tucking it under the worktable. “If one stuck his head in the door right now, I’d put him to work.”

Doing what? By the dirty bowls and pans stacked on the sideboard and the speckles on her apron, she’d already finished for the morning. How early had she risen?

“What else do you need done?” he asked.

She eyed him a moment as if trying to decide whether he was teasing. Then she raised her flour-dusted hand and began counting off the remaining tasks on her fingers.

“I have to finish preparing the oven, put in the bread and rolls, gather the eggs, brush and turn the bread and make icing for the cinnamon rolls, all before my customers arrive on their way to work.”

That didn’t sound so daunting. “Then you might as well put me to work,” Michael said. “I’m up anyway.”

She pointed to a door at the back of the kitchen. “There’s a rake and a pail in the shed. Bring them in and muck out the firebox.”

Michael frowned. “You want to clear out the fire before you start baking?”

“’Tis the hot bricks that bake the bread, Mr. Haggerty,” she informed him. “And don’t you be questioning my work like you question the raising of Ciara and Aiden.”

Michael held up his hands in surrender and went to do as she asked.

Sylvie had baked from time to time, when she could use a neighbor’s oven. He’d never realized there was so much to be done, and all at a rhythm only Maddie seemed to understand. Under her direction, he raked the hot coals into the pail and closed the lid, then swept out the ashes. Taking a long-handled wooden paddle from where it hung on the wall and resting it on the table, she dusted it with flour and then began shifting the rounded loaves onto it.

As she grabbed the handle, Michael stepped forward. “Let me.”

Brow raised, she moved aside. “Just you be careful with my peel, Mr. Haggerty.”

He had a feeling he was going to hear the name Michael from those pink lips only when he’d done something magnificent. He lifted the paddle and was surprised by the weight. With the oven set above her waist, how did she manage?

As if she saw his surprise, she smiled and reached for the peel. “Here, let me. Watch now. There’s a trick to putting them in so you can bake the most.” She nodded toward the oven, and Michael hurried to open the iron door for her. Heat blasted him, raising sweat on his forehead and neck. With a deft movement, she stuck in the paddle, lifted the end and slid the loaves onto the brick. It took her three trips to transfer everything into the oven. Michael shut the door for the last time, and she closed the damper.

“Now we wait,” he guessed.

She laughed. “Now we hurry, Mr. Haggerty.”

And hurry they did. While Maddie went outside with a basket to gather eggs, Michael began washing the dishes. She took one of the bowls, then shaved sugar from a cone, pounded it to powder with a pestle and mixed it with water for icing. Next, she mixed dough for cookies, rolled and cut them to lay them on a sheet, and popped them into the oven after she had removed the bread and rolls to cool. She never sat down, never stopped moving, even when he helped her carry her wares out to the shop to set them on display.

The newly risen sun was gilding the signs of the merchants across the street as Michael glanced out the panes of the front window. But what took him aback were the faces pressed against the glass.

“Me charming customers,” Maddie assured him. She pointed toward the stairs. “Go on, now. Take some of the cinnamon rolls upstairs for you and Ciara and Aiden. I should be finished here in a half hour.”

All that bread, all those rolls and cookies, gone in a half hour? He couldn’t believe it. She’d be working for hours to sell all that. As she went to open the latch, he picked up three of the rolls, then headed for the stairs. Glancing back, he saw her throw wide the door.

And every man in Seattle, he thought, stampeded into the shop. Dressed in flannel shirts and rough trousers, caps pulled down over their lank hair, bushy beards bristling, they crowded the counter, the sound of their heavy boots against the wood planks as loud as thunder. Voices rose in entreaty, hands held out coins. They were the happiest gang of rioters he’d ever seen.

One of the men with a deep voice managed to make himself heard over the din. “Whatcha got for us today, Miss Maddie?”

“Cinnamon rolls dripping icing,” Maddie assured him, beaming around at them all. “Fresh-baked bread with the steam still rising and gingersnaps to tickle your tongue.” She waved one arm down the display counter as if presenting jewels to royalty.

“I’ll take one of each,” someone declared.

“I’ll take two!” another shouted.

Voices rose louder as they surged forward.

How could he leave her surrounded?

Michael wasn’t sure how he heard the noise on the stair. Looking back, he saw Ciara creeping toward him. Her brown hair was tumbled into her face, and she hugged a plaid flannel wrapper around her nightgown.

“Is it the mob?” she whispered, face pinched. “Have they come for us, then?”

She must be remembering the violence that had cut like metal through the fabric of life in Five Points, as the Dead Rabbits clashed with other gangs.

“Just some happy customers come to sample your sister’s baking,” Michael assured her. He handed her the rolls. “Take these upstairs for you and your brother. I’ll be up shortly.”

Her face brightened as she accepted the rolls. Holding them close, she scurried back up the stairs.

Michael turned to the fray. Maddie was handing out loaves, rolls and cookies at breathtaking speed and grabbing payments even faster. He wasn’t sure how she knew which came from whom. He started to wade through the men, but they squeezed closer, frowning at him as if thinking he was trying to reach the food before they did. He was only thankful he could match or better the muscle arrayed against him.

With the liberal use of his shoulders, he managed to reach the counter and slide in next to Maddie. “How can I help?”

“Take their money and give them what they want,” she said, turning her smile on the next fellow. The wizened man asked for a roll and a half-dozen cookies, and she named an exorbitant price that would have set the denizens of Five Points to crying with despair or laughing at the sheer lunacy of it. The man piled his silver on the counter, offering a toothless grin.

“How about you?” Michael asked the next fellow.

This man was tall and lean, short-cropped dark hair showing under the edge of a broad-brimmed black hat. His gaze swept over Michael as cold and gray as the Confederate cannon on display in the Battery.

“I’ll wait for Miss O’Rourke,” he said, voice low and gravelly.

Was he a suitor? She certainly hadn’t mentioned a particular fellow. In fact, she’d seemed pretty against marriage last night.

“Suit yourself,” Michael told him.

He tried the next man over and the one after him, but the answer was always the same. Even though the food was disappearing by the moment, every man was content to wait until Maddie could serve him personally.

That’s when it struck Michael. They weren’t here because they loved Maddie’s baking. They were here because they loved Maddie!

He wanted to throw wide his arms, shove them all out of the shop right then and there. They had no right to treat her as if she was one of her own confections, available for a smile and some pieces of silver. Yet even as the thought poked at him, he knew it was none of his affair. In the end, the only way he could help matters was to control the crowd.

Stalking around the edges, shoulders thrown back and eyes narrowed, he managed to herd the men into some semblance of a line. At least then they couldn’t all rush her at once. He yanked back a few who tried to push ahead before their turn, made one fellow sit down on the floor when he shouted for her attention. One by one, they bought their food and left.