Regan [The Sisters O'Ryan 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Sisters O'Ryan 1

  Regan

  Davey and Regan O'Ryan Stone bought an Oregon farm sight unseen, hungering for adventure. Davey regretted the impulse far past the point of no return, and then he died. Now, unskilled and alone on her farm, Regan fears going home a failure—as a daughter, a wife, and a farmer. With money quickly running out, she gladly accepts the offer of help from Seth Pratt, an acquaintance from the wagon train, and his friend Haywood Lawrence.

  One-armed Seth seeks work at the remote farm at the end of an Oregon trail with low expectations. When he finds Regan, alone and widowed, he tamps down desire. She deserves better than a handicapped man searching for his soul. She's worthy of someone like his Shakespeare-spouting best friend, Hay. Nothing could have prepared Seth for Regan's simple solution—that both men stay. On the farm and in her bed.

  Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

  Length: 42,778 words

  REGAN

  The Sisters O’Ryan 1

  Jenna Stewart

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  REGAN

  Copyright © 2012 by Jenna Stewart

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-368-0

  First E-book Publication: July 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Regan by Jenna Stewart from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Jenna Stewart’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Stewart’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To my honey, my sweetheart, my forever love.

  You know who you are.

  REGAN

  The Sisters O’Ryan 1

  JENNA STEWART

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  Regan O’Ryan Stone stared at the nearly blank page of her writing paper. She started well, April 9, 1872, Dearest Sisters, but formed nothing further. Stumped, she wondered how much she should reveal about her and Davey. Should she recount the weeks of frustration, trying to buy animals and equipment and watching her hoarded savings disappear like the rainbow she’d spotted hanging over the Columbia River on her first day at the farm? Initially, the bow of light and color seemed like a good omen. Then it filtered away until only dark clouds, one flying after another, filled the sky, and rain brought a different portent to her venture.

  Regan tapped the end of her pen against the paper, picturing her sisters, so far away. Would they, fairly spoiled and used to their comforts, as she herself had been a few short months ago, understand her loneliness and, even more, her desperation not to return to Asheville a failure? First a failed daughter, then a failed wife, and last a failed landowner. They might not understand. After all, they would notice no real repercussions, save her father’s smugness at yet another example of her poor judgment dangling between them.

  Maybe she should lie by omission and say all was well. Nothing, absolutely nothing had gone as planned, in her marriage or on the trip west, but no one thousands of miles away in North Carolina need know that.

  She sucked on her last piece of hard rock sugar. Below, the Umatilla River twisted like a silver snake. Hat Rock, Oregon, seemed nothing more than a speck in the distance, while the rolling territory of Washington lay in haze across the Columbia. Looking over the vista from the rock outcropping where she perched to write her letter home, she couldn’t be sorry about forging onward to the homestead she and Davey had impulsively bought. She could be worried, though.

  From the corner of her eye, movement distracted her. Travelers rode the trail that topped the grass-covered hill to the south, the trail from Cold Springs. She didn’t pay much attention. At the bottom of the hill, the trail turned to shadow the river westward. No one in the past month had taken the second path leading to her property. As a way to avoid continuing her letter, she watched their progress until she could see them no longer. Switching her gaze to the river, she still pondered how much to tell her family. When the truth came out—as it always did—would she be in a situation of pride or humiliation? Would her family be happy for her or shake their heads in dismay?

  A horse’s neigh brought her head around. The riders approached her place, after all. Surprised, she rose, shading her eyes for a better look.

  The lead horse carried the distinct markings of an Appaloosa while the second, a few feet behind, was a gray. The visitors should have instilled fear, but curiosity swayed her instead. She stared with interest. They stopped at the foot of the hill and faced the Umatilla bottomland she and Davey had been told was rich and fertile. To her it looked marshy and unsuitable for anything. But then, she had never farmed, so what did she know?

  They began the steep ascent to the ridge. Regan tucked her writing desk under one arm and shook out her dress, preparing to move back to the cabin. When the first rider reached the bend, then the tree stump, and finally the stand of bright-yellow leopard’s-bane, she stepped lively to intercept him and his companion before they reached the wide wooden porch attached to her three-room cabin. She patted the pocket where Davey’s Colt weighed down her apron. Curiosity was all well and good, bu
t a woman alone couldn’t be too careful.

  The rider on the Appaloosa steered the horse with one hand, his other hanging lifeless. Or at least half of it did. The other half was missing. He had tucked the end of his dark-gray shirtsleeve into the waistband of worn, black wool trousers. His hat sat low on his brow, hiding his face, though a tingle of recognition started low in her belly.

  The second man leaned forward on the horn of his saddle. His cowhide jacket had the cut of a gentleman instead of a frontiersman, and his boots bore the look of fine leather, though covered in dust. Captivatingly handsome, with rich brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair curling at his shoulders, he flashed a dimpled smile, and her mouth went dry. The men didn’t dismount.

  Hand in her pocket on the comfort of the pistol, Regan regarded the first man. “Yes?” she asked.

  He lifted his head. She tried hard not to gasp. Blond streaks brightened his light-brown hair and a short beard covered his chin, but nothing could change the startling blue of Seth Pratt’s eyes.

  Stilling the horse with his knees, he removed his hat. “Ma’am.”

  “Can I help you?” His gaze captivated her. If the truth of a person could be discovered through his eyes, then Seth Pratt’s soul loomed deep and mysterious.

  “The man at the hardware store in Cold Springs said you were lookin’ for help.” He turned his head, and she tried imagining what he saw, switching his attention to the house, barn, and the empty fields beyond before fastening his piercing gaze on her again. Not a successful, running farm, for certain, but hopefully not a lost cause, either.

  She had left word with everyone possible in Cold Springs that she needed competent workers and that she would pay well. Of course, that was before she knew how expensive equipping a farm would be. But of all the people heading west, how did this man happen to be the one sent out? “I am, Mr. Pratt.”

  The look of surprise he gave her spoke volumes. He stared hard, obviously with no remembrance of her.

  “Do you know this lady, Seth?” The second man split his gaze between his companion and Regan.

  Suddenly heat flamed on Regan’s cheeks. Why should he have noticed her, though he certainly stood clear in her mind. Indeed, Seth Pratt had made quite an impression on all the single ladies in their wagon train. Once, despite her married status at the time they shared the trek west, he made an embarrassing appearance in her dream, too, much to her shame. Her imagined image of his naked body joined to hers had pleased her so much, she banished him from her thoughts afterwards.

  She glanced at his companion, hating that he should witness her complete ignominy.

  “I apologize for not recognizing you, Mrs. Stone,” Seth said. His gaze raked the yard again. “Should I speak to your husband about the job?”

  “Mrs. Stone?” the other man said. Seth shot him a silencing look.

  “My husband passed away just west of Cheyenne.” Seth had left the train in western Nebraska, headed, or so she heard through gossip, for the Dakota Black Hill country. At the time, that had been a relief. She thought never to see him again, never to be tempted to dream of him again.

  “My condolences,” he said softly. She acknowledged his comment with a nod. “Was the man in Cold Springs correct, then? Are you really lookin’ for help?” He asked the question, but his expression started to close down as though knowing before she answered that there would be nothing for him here.

  “There is a problem, Mr. Pratt.”

  “My arm. I understand.” He fit his hat back on his head and tipped it at her before tapping the flanks of his horse with his heels and giving the reins a tug.

  The second man said, “Hold on, there,” at the same time she cried out, “No!”

  He stopped and waited.

  “No, Mr. Pratt,” she said. “The problem is not your arm. I assume you would not apply for the position of farmhand if you felt you were not equal to the task.” His eyes lit with interest, and she continued. “The problem is the distance from town, and I’m alone here. I fear it’s too far to travel back and forth each day. Indeed, had I known my property was this far removed from any town, I’m sure I would have faltered in my determination to continue west.”

  Seth’s brows wrinkled. “Are you safe out here alone?”

  She shrugged. “I feel perfectly so.”

  He didn’t seem to like her answer much, but he didn’t argue. “I see.” He sat quietly. “Ma’am, I’ll be honest with you. I need a job. I didn’t have much stake when I lit out for these parts, and I have next to nothin’ now. Folks aren’t anxious to hire a one-armed man, as you might guess. If you give me a chance, I won’t trouble you for nothin’, at least until the snow flies, and then I would need only a roof. I can bed down in the barn.”

  “There are accommodations. But Mr. Barker should have explained that I am interested in hiring a man and wife, so that proprieties would be maintained.”

  “Why the hell did…Begging your pardon, Mrs. Stone,” the second man said, “but I wonder why the man in town sent us out here, then.”

  “Us?” Regan looked more closely at the man, so different in dress from Seth. So different in every way. His clothing spoke of money, though he wore a simple white shirt and vest under the jacket. Obvious hand tooling on his horse’s saddle and the burled-wood rifle butt protruding from a pouch on the saddle screamed taste and the money to afford it.

  He smiled once more, showing good teeth and deep dimples. “Forgive me. I’m Haywood Lawrence, late of Charlotte, North Carolina, traveling the West with this disreputable reprobate. That is, until he decided he wanted to become a farmer instead of a seeker of fortunes.”

  She smiled. “We have something in common, Mr. Lawrence. I hail from Asheville.”

  Smoothly he swung his leg over the horse and strode to her. “‘Such stuff as dreams are made on.’” He took her hand and kissed it.

  Regan blinked in surprise but couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “Asheville is the stuff dreams are made on, Mr. Lawrence?”

  “Not the city, Mrs. Stone, its lovely citizens.”

  “I have it,” Seth said in a quiet tone.

  Startled because she had forgotten momentarily that Seth was there, she yanked back her hand and looked up.

  “The man in town must have heard me tell Koda that I bought a penny candy for Francis. He musta thought I meant a woman.”

  “Who is Koda?” asked Regan. Holy Mother! As surprised as she was to see Seth again, Haywood Lawrence took her breath away. Adding a third man to the mix would surely be too much.

  Haywood sighed. “It’s his horse, I’m afraid. Our friend Seth talks to the horse more than he does to people.”

  “He don’t quote Shakespeare day and night,” Seth grumbled.

  “Well then, who is Francis?”

  “That would be me,” Haywood said, with a glare at Seth. “Though no one calls me that who doesn’t want a fight.” Seth raised his brow and shrugged. Haywood turned back to Regan. “I was christened Francis Haywood Lawrence, but I much prefer Haywood to my first name. Or rather, Hay, which I hope you will call me.”

  “Oh, I…uh.”

  Seth stared at Hay. “I thought you were catchin’ a boat downriver to the coast. Somethin’ about lumber?”

  Hay’s gaze didn’t waver from Regan. “Perhaps not. Never fear, my friend,” he tossed over his shoulder to Seth. “‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.’”

  Seth said something impossible for Regan to decipher.

  She forced her gaze from Hay. “I’m sorry the position won’t work out, Mr. Pratt,” she told Seth. “However, it’s too late for you to go back to town tonight. Why don’t you stay and ride back tomorrow?”

  “It wouldn’t be right. I was so wrapped up in my own troubles that I didn’t stop to think.” For the first time, worry clouded Seth’s startling blue eyes. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that might cause you or your reputation harm, Mrs. Stone.”

  “Who will know if you campe
d out or slept in comfort, Mr. Pratt?” Regan smiled. “My parents raised me to be a proper young lady. But when I lay in my safe, snug bed in my father’s home, I imagined how it would feel to be wild and carefree. To do something scandalous. You would be fulfilling a childhood dream if you stayed for the night.” Holy mother of God! Had she really said that? How would he take her words?

  She knew soon enough. A smile transformed his normally handsome face into utter beauty. No man had a right to a face that rivaled the angels’. Regan felt plain next to him. “Besides,” she rushed on before she lost courage, “haven’t we heard for months on the trail how the West is the new world? That men write their own rules and live life as they see fit?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we sure have.”

  “You’re most kind, Mrs. Stone,” Hay said. “And quite adventurous, too. I have a feeling you’re a worthy partner on life’s journey.”

  She laughed. “I’m only someone who sees the chance for interesting dinner company, Mr. Lawrence.”

  “Hay,” he reminded her.

  She bit her bottom lip, and her cheeks heated. “There is a lean-to behind the barn with beds. Linens are stored in a small chiffonier against the wall. We’ll have dinner here at the house. I’ll look for you around sunset.”

  “Thank you.” Seth tipped his hat.

  Hay mounted, using the reins to steady the restless horse. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’”

  “‘That I shall say good night till it be morrow,’” she responded.

  His face shone. “A worthy partner indeed! You are familiar with Mr. Shakespeare?”

  “Alas, not to your extent,” she said. “You will find hay in the barn and empty stalls for your horses.”