Lily's Secrets [Elk Creek 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Elk Creek 1

  Lily's Secrets

  Newlywed Lily Baldwin has news for her husband that she never gets to share before she is attacked by a savage in their home and left for dead in the middle of nowhere.

  Miraculously, Lily is rescued by a stranger who takes her to his people to recuperate. She never sees her stranger or gets to thank him for what he did, but she doesn’t forget him.

  Five years later Lily has returned from her ordeal with the Kiowas, but her husband Wyatt finds it difficult not to blame himself for failing to protect her.

  When half-breed Dakota Cooper turns up near the couples’ property injured and needing the same aid Lily needed years previous, Lily cannot resist helping him even if her husband wants to leave Dakota to die.

  What will Wyatt do when he finds out the complete truth behind Lily’s attack and her lost years with the “hostiles”?

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

  Length: 78,656 words

  LILY’S SECRETS

  Elk Creek 1

  Gigi Moore

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  LILY’S SECRETS

  Copyright © 2013 by Gigi Moore

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-745-1

  First E-book Publication: March 2013

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2013 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.

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  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  LILY’S SECRETS

  Elk Creek 1

  GIGI MOORE

  Copyright © 2013

  Prologue

  Baldwin Homestead, Oklahoma Territory, 1875

  Lily Baldwin stood at the bedroom window, curtain pulled back as she watched Wyatt ride away from their house and down the road. She watched until the horse and wagon finally disappeared over a ridge and she was sure he wasn’t going to turn around and come back for a forgotten item or any other such reason.

  It had taken all of her powers of persuasion convincing her husband that she wasn’t well enough to accompany him to town as usual, but that she was well enough for him to leave her alone and to her own devices.

  Wyatt was adamant about taking care of her, and his protective instincts had kicked into full force once she’d mentioned not feeling well that morning. He didn’t like leaving her out on the farm all alone, especially if she was sick.

  “What if something happened and you need help before I get back?”

  He had a good point, as she and Wyatt were well-nigh cut off from civilization, their nearest neighbor more than a mile away.

  Lily had had to assure him that she wasn’t dying and she would be just fine and dandy until he made it back. It was just a routine trip to pick up supplies in town, after all.

  He’d finally, grudgingly agreed to go, promising he’d get a wiggle on returning.

  “Oh…oh no…” Lily dropped the curtain back into place now, plopped a hand over her mouth as the bile began to rise, and rushed from the bedroom down the hall to the water closet. She made it just in time to throw up in the toilet for the second time that morning.

  She didn’t know how she had been able to keep the morning sickness from Wyatt for the last couple of months, but she didn’t want him to know about their little one until the time was right. She was a mite superstitious that way. Her momma had had three miscarriages before she and Lily’s daddy had finally been blessed with her. Lily didn’t want to push her luck with her and Wyatt’s first by talking about him or her too soon.

  Lily flushed the toilet, thankful that Wyatt had added his own improvements on his parents’ house since he and Lily had married and moved in a little more than a year ago.

  She made her way back to the bedroom where she wiped her face and rinsed out her mouth with the fresh water from the water basins she kept on the bureau.

  Lily finally climbed into bed, leaning back on a couple of pillows propped against the heavy oak headboard and placing her hand on her belly. She gently rubbed the slight bulge and thought about her and Wyatt’s baby within, smiling despite her queasiness.

  She knew she would have to tell Wyatt soon enough, but for now she just welcomed the solitude and knowledge of the secret she would soon be sharing with him. She could just picture the smile that would light his face and his eyes when she told him. Both she and Wyatt were only children and right after they’d married he told her he couldn’t wait to fill up his mama and daddy’s house with a bunch of little nippers.

  Lily couldn’t wait for that either.

  She closed her eyes and drifted for a moment, enjoying the vision of Wyatt’s big strong arms cuddling their tiny infant.

  She knew he would make the right best of fathers.

  The sound of approaching horse’s hooves had Lily’s eyes jerking open with the realization that she had a visitor.

  She got up from the bed, instinctively grabbing the rifle leaning against the wall beside the window.

  There had never been any reason to concern themselves with more than the nor
mal precautions, as there hadn’t been an attack from hostiles in these parts in more months than anyone could remember. Other parts of the West had suffered much worse and more frequently than they ever had in the Oklahoma Territory, even with its proximity to Indian Territory. Since the Medicine Lodge Treaty that had relegated Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes to an established reservation where they were confined several years later following their defeat at the end of the Red River War, homesteaders had been exercising slack vigilance if any at all.

  Despite their complacence and isolation, the house itself was sturdy, built by Wyatt’s father decades ago.

  Lily wasn’t too worried about someone getting into the house that she didn’t want in it, and if they did, well, she had the rifle to protect her. Her practicality and skill with guns were probably two of the main reasons Wyatt had let her talk him into leaving her alone earlier.

  She pulled back the curtain right before leaving the bedroom, and once she saw who the lone rider was she knew she didn’t need her rifle.

  Lily made it all the way downstairs and had opened the front door before she realized she had made a grave error. By then, it was too late and she had let a savage into her home.

  Chapter 1

  Elk Creek, Oklahoma Territory, 1881

  Lily opened the door to the Healing Magick shop, listening to the bell overhead heralding her entrance as she glanced around in wonder.

  Maia Malloy had only just arrived in Elk Creek a little under a year ago and already she had forged a partnership with the town’s boarding house owner, Sabrina Walker, to open up the notions and potions shop, a shop like no other. Even the name, with its oddly spelled “magick” in it, was distinctive and different.

  Lily let the door close behind her and stepped farther inside, fighting to keep her hands to herself as she walked by the numerous shelves and tables stocked with various colorful concoctions and mixtures—some she would probably never have an occasion to use and some of which she made frequent use.

  The scents that drifted to her were simply sinful, rich, and fancy things that only the sporting or painted ladies in town would have reason to use.

  The good people of Elk Creek looked down on these women who provided the men of the town their carnal pleasures, but Lily saw them as independent and free-spirited, due no less respect than her or any of the other “decent” ladies of the town. She admired them, all businesswomen and entrepreneurs in their own right just as much as were Maia and Sabrina.

  Lily didn’t reckon any of them would have allowed what happened to her happen to them, not in this lifetime. They were all determined and strong-minded.

  I used to be once.

  She wasn’t anymore, however, hadn’t been in a long time.

  She thought about asking Maia and Sabrina for work, the words on the tip of her tongue. She needed something to fill her empty days. The nights were another matter altogether. Unfortunately, a job couldn’t help her escape the cold space beside her in bed every night.

  Things wouldn’t be so bad if Wyatt allowed her to help him around the farm like any good homesteader’s wife should do. At least she’d be able to work out her demons with hard physical labor. Her husband would have none of it, though. He treated her like a sick, fragile thing, an egg that would crack at the slightest application of pressure.

  Lily hated that he felt the need to protect her so since she’d returned, though she understood his reckoning.

  Sometimes she thought she and Wyatt would have been better off all the way around had the savage just killed her. Wyatt might have been able to start over again with another woman, one healthy in mind, body, and spirit, unlike Lily. She’d had these thoughts often after the raid that had stolen her adopted family away from her and before she’d found her way back home almost a year ago. She’d come home more out of desperation than desire. With most of her Kiowa clan dead and whatever survivors left scattered to the four winds, Lily had had no choice but to return to the only other home she’d known since her childhood.

  Wyatt had suggested several times since her return that she go back to teaching. She had been a good teacher, loved working with children, but the thought of being around all those youngins again on a regular basis made a tight ball of sorrow form in her throat.

  Lily didn’t want to think about the little boy now lost to her and shook off the emerging memories of plump, ruddy cheeks, chubby, churning toddler legs, and hearty childhood giggles.

  Avoiding the other customers and the town’s curiosity, she quickly found refuge in a deserted aisle before someone could witness the tears forming in her eyes. True, the people of Elk Creek made allowances for her “delicate” condition since she’d returned from her “ordeal” with the Indians and would have probably understood her sudden bout of melancholy. Lily just hated seeing pity shining out of the town people’s eyes, especially in relation to her.

  She took a hanky out of her handbag, patted her eyes dry, and quietly blew her nose before she felt ready to rejoin civilization.

  Cautiously, she poked her head out of the aisle, looking left and right, still not ready to leave the safety of the passageway when she noticed Lucy Peyton chatting with Sabrina over one of the mixture displays.

  Lily smiled at how confident and happy Lucy had been looking lately. In fact, she seemed to be thriving in the wake of her husband’s recent death. This was in spite of his estate—including the saloon where Lucy had worked up until very recently and the house where she’d lived with her husband—being in probate. Lily wasn’t too sure of all the legalities regarding Rance Peyton’s will, except that Lucy didn’t have access to her husband’s assets and had had to take up residence in Sabrina’s boarding house until everything could be set to rights.

  She thought how charitable Maia and Sabrina had been to hire Lucy when no other businesses in town except Winchester’s would and when Lucy needed the income most.

  Lily knew what it was like to be a pariah and she knew that Maia, Sabrina, and Lucy understood those feelings, too.

  For the second time that morning she thought about asking Maia and Sabrina to take her on as an employee. Though her monetary situation wasn’t dire like Lucy’s, far from it. Wyatt would always provide for her as long as he was alive and, unlike Rance had done Lucy, even after he was dead. Lily’s emotional situation, however, was a horse of a different color.

  She ducked back into the aisle, browsing the shelves of colorful bottles with interest. There were several bottles marked “Sample” that drew her attention. She lifted a small one off of a top shelf. It was filled with an inviting amber liquid and she unscrewed the cap. Carefully, Lily lifted the mouth of the bottle toward her nose, unprepared for the clean, woodsy scent that wafted out to her.

  Lily’s nostrils flared at the familiar aroma and she closed her eyes at the memory of the stranger it evoked. She could almost hear his deep voice rising over the sound of a nearby flowing stream. She could just feel the heat of his strong fingers when he’d touched her, the slight calluses on his palm prickly against the back of her hand. She’d reckoned then that he was a hard worker like Wyatt, most probably a hunter or a warrior of some sort.

  She thought he could have been the most bloodthirsty hostile around, but no one would ever know it from her. With her he had been nothing but gentle, his manner never wavering from kind and polite, even when she had been less so.

  Lily regretted that she’d never had the chance to thank him for saving her, but once they’d arrived to “his people,” he’d disappeared and she’d never heard from him again. He could have walked up and spit on her in the street and she wouldn’t have known him. She regretted this most of all, that she had never laid her gaze on her savior. She only had the memory of his voice, his smell…his touch.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cedar from the bottle and releasing a shuddering sigh as her bloomers became wet.

  Goodness, she was shameless, no better than a loose Jezebel! Maybe she had deserved e
xactly what had happened to her five years ago. What well-brought-up woman, a decent married woman, harbored such carnal thoughts about a man who wasn’t her husband?

  The self-recriminations did precious little to stop Lily reminiscing about the day her life had changed forever.

  After the attack she had woken to the sensation of intense pain all over. She’d lain on her back and tried to blink open her eyes but they were well-nigh swollen shut. She was, however, able to catch a peek of stars and the moon against the indigo sky as the litter carrying her battered and bruised body bumped along the quiet road.

  Though the ride proved rough, she sensed the care and time that someone had taken to secure her to the makeshift stretcher slowly dragging behind a horse. She was wrapped in a blanket, the thick cloth cushioning the jolts enough not to overly jar her.

  They rode a long while in silence before arriving at a flowing brook. The scent of flowers, trees, grass, and earth remained heavy in the air, suffusing her lungs with the promise of hope, the promise of life.

  Lily listened as the stranger got off his horse and spoke to the animal in a language she didn’t recognize, his voice gentle and deep, almost musical.

  This was not the same savage who had attacked her.

  Fleetingly, Lily wondered what Wyatt would think when he returned from town and found her missing from their home.

  Lily closed her eyes against the idea of Wyatt’s grief and realized she couldn’t go back to him in this condition and that was if she lived through whatever came next.