Training Ivy [How The West Was Done 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (24 page)

Neil just wished Ivy didn’t have to view the repellant body, but she had insisted. She could hardly ignore it, when they were stringing Ace up from the telegraph pole directly outside her office. There was a flurry of telegrams to be received and sent today, but Ivy had locked up the office to join the festivities by the train depot. First Street was packed like a sardine tin with tracklayers, rowdies, prairie flowers, and hoodlums from the moveable Hell on Wheels shanty town, and Neil kept a close hold on Ivy. He wanted to get her alone, but her father had driven out in advance of the train’s arrival, and Simon now kept asking the same question over and over.

“So how’d his brother Con Moyer die?”

Neil rolled his eyes. He pitched a vendor some peso coins and accepted the whiskey refill with which he’d been hoping to shut up Simon Hudson.

Simon slurped down the offering but insisted on repeating, “Did the bullet strike Con?”

It sounded incredible, but it was true. “Yes. The bullet Ace shot into the air two days ago when we were in the corrals,” Neil said wearily. “It came down a mile away over near Boswell’s ranch, where Con was talking to Boswell. It struck Con in the shoulder and pierced his heart.”

“Killing him instantly!” Ivy cried. She really had warmed to that outlandish but true story.

Neil smiled at her. “Stranger things have been known to happen in Laramie City.”

Ivy added, “Since the electric magnetism has arrived.”

Simon said, “Electric what? Tell me about the rat.”

Neil allowed Ivy to repeat this story. “A rat ran up Ace’s pants and chewed his bullet wound. The rat pissed on him, which infected the wound, so Ace would’ve died anyway.”

Simon chuckled and threw his arm around a passing merchant. “Richard! Did you hear about the rat?”

Ivy said, “He’s going to be talking about that rat for weeks.”

This was a good opportunity for Neil to steer Ivy out of the crowd. “Let’s go to the Bucket of Blood. I’ll buy you a proper champagne, not this rotgut on the streets.”

But the Bucket of Blood was jammed to the rafters with revelers, and without its two main proprietors, Bob was attempting to serve drinks with only the help of a few Indian boys. Neil grabbed a bottle of champagne from behind the bar and led Ivy back into the street. They ducked behind Freund and Brothers, where he poured the champagne.

He was nervous. He knew the best way to approach this predicament was to be out with it, just spit it out. “Miss Ivy Hudson,” he said formally as a trio of floored bog-hoppers wove past, waving their own bottles. This was not the best place for this, but Neil wanted to beat Harley to the punch. Harley rode east along the track to Sherman Summit to be one of the first passengers on the Union Pacific Railroad into Laramie City along with all his engineering buddies.

Ivy nodded, just as formal. “Mr. Neil Tempest,” she acknowledged.

Neil took off his slouch hat and wrung it in anguish. “I’m in love with you,” he said all in a rush.

Ivy looked sheepishly at his boots. He’d expected some sort of riposte—ideally, “I love you, too”—and now he had to continue in the mortifying face of things. “You know I want a passel of children. You may have been wondering who I intended to be the mother of these children.”

Ivy’s eyes flickered over his face. “I wasn’t wondering.”

This stunned Neil. Was she not wondering because she knew he’d ask her or because she thought he intended to ask Philomena Clancy? Neil knew that Philomena was no longer considered the most desirable belle in Laramie—Ivy now held that title—but Ivy probably didn’t know that.

He cleared his throat and withdrew the small jewelry box from his waistcoat. “Well, the fact of the business is, it is you I wish to wed and have children with, Miss Ivy Hudson. I can give you a good life. I have the ranch, and there is talk of making me marshal so I don’t need to report to Fort Sanders anymore.” He opened the box and displayed the ring to Ivy. He’d had a jeweler make it from gold recently found in the Black Hills. The green emerald matched her earrings and would remind her of their meeting.

Ivy’s eyes were round in astonishment, and she didn’t move to grab the ring box. Perhaps she
had
imagined he’d ask Philomena to wed him. “Neil,” she breathed.

Neil was crestfallen. “What’s wrong, Ivy? Do you not love me?”

He listened to her breathing for a while as she looked from the box to his face then back to the box. “I…I’m not used to having feelings.”

Neil frowned. What did that mean?

She explained as though she had read his mind. “I never had feelings for John Prahl. I was just doing what was expected of me. I think I learned to numb my feelings. I suffered through year after year of caring for my mother, barely leaving the house, having no social skills or friends. The two beaus I had? Honestly, it was merely sex. I was just there because I was deathly afraid of becoming an old maid who was also a virgin. Unloved.”

Oh, great balls of fire
. She was going to reject him because she had no feelings for him. Neil lowered the box to his side.

Seeing this, Ivy put more pep into her talk. “But my feelings for you have run very deep, and it’s been difficult sorting them out. Neil,” she said sincerely. “I don’t know what ‘love’ is, so how can I tell what these strong feelings are?”

“All right.” Neil regarded her. “When you think of me, does your heart leap?”

“Oh, yes!”

“When we’re apart, do you spend most of your time thinking of me?”

“Yes, yes! That’s it! Almost all my time.”

“And has it crossed your mind that it would be pleasant to live with me as my wife and have babies?”

“Yes! Neil, what do these things mean?”

Neil smiled. “Means you’re in love with me.”

There was a brief tense moment where they just stared at each other. Then Ivy exhaled and closed her eyes. Flinging her arms around Neil’s neck, her warm words came against his ear.

“I love you, Neil Tempest. Oh, that sounds so odd! I’ve never said it to anyone before.”

Neil sank his fingers into her loose bun and kneaded her scalp. The midday sun beat warmly against her shoulders when he propped the ring box there, the Black Hills ring gleaming with a life of its own.

“I love you, Ivy Hudson,” he said against the top of her head. “Minerva will be glad her prophecy will be fulfilled. She said she’d be in our wedding party.”

Ivy peeled herself away from him. He was surprised her eyes were misty when she looked up at him. “Yes. We can’t let Minerva down.”

Neil laughed, but Ivy silenced him by plastering her mouth to his and pressing him up against the wall of Freund and Brothers. They kissed voraciously, Ivy making little mewling sounds of emotion.

A passing wallpapered rummy happily exhorted him to “pop off that piece, Deputy!” Neil became self-conscious canoodling in public, so he separated from Ivy in order to take the ring from its box. “Mrs. Ivy Tempest,” he said, testing out the name as he put the ring on her finger.

Her eyes shone with a vigor he’d never witnessed before as she admired her ring. “Mrs. Ivy Tempest,” she agreed.

“Wait,” said Neil. “I should have asked your father first.” This idea had not occurred to him. He wasn’t that experienced in asking women to marry him.

Ivy shrugged. “He’ll accept you. He’s not terribly opinionated. As long as my fiancé isn’t…well,
that
guy.” She pointed at the rummy who had just encouraged them, now busily falling into a water trough.

“All right. Let’s find your father.”

They fairly skipped around the side of the building, Neil’s chest swelling fit to bust.
Mrs. Ivy Tempest…
He’d never heard such a thrilling phrase before. He kept glancing at Ivy to make sure this wasn’t all a dream, some hallucination conjured by an angry Minerva Shortridge. “I’d like to spend more time at Serendipity Ranch,” he told his fiancée. “Weekends, maybe, at first. I’ll have to find some deputy sheriff to help me out. More than one, as this town is booming.”

They passed by a raised platform where a rickety band was now creaking out “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” Some fellows crouched behind the drummer were fixing to set off fireworks.

“Crime will boom, too,” Ivy reminded him. “‘Last Night’s Shootings’ will become ‘The Hourly Shootings.’ I doubt you’ll ever have time to head to Serendipity Ranch. I heard tell Melville Brown retired as mayor?”

“Yes,” Neil admitted. “The Moyers were harassing him with threats. He might step back in now they’re gone.”

Ivy held Neil back before they plunged into the teeming street. “Neil. What about Harley?”

Neil had dreaded this question. He saw nothing wrong with their current arrangement, but he was asking too much of Ivy if he expected it to continue. Neil proceeded with tact. “What do you prefer to have happen with Harley?”

She looked him boldly in the eye. “I love Harley. I want our relationship to continue just the way it has.”

She loves Harley?
Was Neil then just another of the masses? Men she was clamoring to love? “You…
love
Harley?”

“I’m sorry. I’m new to this whole emotional business, Neil. Please have patience with me. When I say I love Harley, I mean…Well, using your definition of love. I think about Harley quite often when he’s away, too. Not as often as I think of you, though. Is it possible I love him just a bit less than you? Or in a different, non-marrying way? You’re the one I want to marry, but I can’t stand the thought of kicking Harley out of Laramie either.” She paused. “I wouldn’t want to live without him.”

Neil was immensely relieved.
She’s in love with me.
“Well, Harley’s an adventurer, Ivy. He knows life—he’s experienced and I think easily bored. Chances are he’s fixing to leave town soon anyway.” The thought of losing Harley filled his stomach with dread and doom, but Neil had always assumed Harley would be moving on once he had finished overseeing the train depot and building the roundhouse.

Ivy agreed. “Yes. I guess we should talk to Harley, too.”

Some unwed ladies were alleged to be arriving on the train at noon, so Zeke Vipham had been camping out since sunrise on the arrival platform. He’d staked out his area by setting out a couple of occasional tables next to a dining room chair. He now reclined, master of all he surveyed. He’d been melancholic since viewing Minerva’s spirit the other day, mopey and silent, but now his face was wreathed in smiles as he hefted a tall horn of ale.

“Look at all these funsters!” Zeke cried. “This is the biggest shindig this town has ever seen!” The crowd was closing in on Zeke in anticipation of the train, knocking his occasional tables closer to his chair. Now he had to hold his elbows close to his body, and Neil yanked a fellow aside to view Zeke.

“Miss Hudson has just agreed to marry me.”

Zeke’s face was blank for a moment, but he evidently decided to be happy at the news. He stood in order to kiss Ivy’s hand, and a large woman plopped down in his dining chair. “Great news!” Zeke had to shout to be heard over the clamor of the crowd. “Say, you don’t suppose. Is there any chance Minerva might come back?” He looked about nervously as though the crowd were hanging on his every word. “I know there are some highfalutin women coming on this train, but I just thought…” He shrugged boyishly.

Neil guffawed, but Ivy said calmly, “She said she’d come back for our wedding. Remember? Meantime, though, I’m sure you’d have better luck courting these women on the train.”

The crowd surged forward when a tiny puff of gray smoke appeared on the horizon. Some of the more enthusiastic and wallpapered fellows were actually pushed onto the tracks, where they sprawled until their buddies dragged them off. The band struck up “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” the flutes tinkling and the drummers beating out that rhythm in synchronicity. The martial flair of the song incited the crowd even further, men climbing on each other’s shoulders and whooping so loudly Neil’s ears began to ring.

He clutched Ivy close to him, fearing he’d made a mistake in standing this close to the station. But an overwhelming thrill surged through his body to see the engine chugging closer. Civilization was coming to his city, at last! Laramie would boom, people would stay and make families, and he held in his arms the only woman he’d ever loved.

The engine hissed and slowed as it neared the station. Festooned with flags, arms waving out the windows, it was a terrifying and exhilarating piece of giant machinery. Fireworks wailed overhead, showering the funsters with sparks.

“Where’s Harley? Where’s Harley?” Ivy squealed over and over.

The engine passed them in a whoosh of wind, coming to a stop several cars down. Before it had even braked completely, citizens of Laramie City were making mad leaps onto the sides of the train, swarming over the railcars like prairie dogs. There was no room to move, so Neil and Ivy eagerly scanned for the closest door to them. By now Zeke’s tables had been trampled into kindling underfoot, and Ivy’s face was crushed into his shirtfront. The train’s hissing, the steam, the bellowing of the crowd all overwhelmed Neil.

When the railcar door opened, the crowd pushed them forward. Only about four passengers disembarked before Neil, Ivy, and Zeke were pressed into the doorway. Stuck between the disembarking humans and the ones pushing them forward, they were held immobile in a terrifying snarl of limbs and smelly bodies.