Pioneer Yearning: The O’Rourke Family Montana Saga, Book Three

  Pioneer Yearning

  The O’Rourke Family Montana Saga, Book Three

  Ramona Flightner

  Grizzly Damsel Pubslishing

  Copyright © 2020 by Ramona Flightner

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without permission in writing from its publisher, Ramona Flightner and Grizzly Damsel Publishing. Copyright protection extends to all excerpts and previews by this author included in this book.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. The author or publisher is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Cover design by Jennifer Quinlan.

  For You, Dear Reader:

  Thank you for your

  passion for my writing

  and for embracing

  this new series.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Sneak Peek at Pioneer Longing!

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  Also By Ramona Flightner

  About Ramona

  Chapter 1

  Fort Benton, Montana Territory; October 1865

  The pouring rain prevented many of the townsfolk from attending the funeral. Anyone related to the deceased man, dedicated to those mourning or foolish enough to otherwise attend stood next to the gaping hole, dripping from the incessant fall deluge. The priest’s voice, nearly drowned out by the sound of the downpour pelting hats and the ground, rose as he said his final prayer.

  Those gathered looked to the widow, eager for her to get on with it, so they could return to their homes or the saloons.

  “Does she want the priest to have more business?” one man muttered, as he stared at the woman standing stock-still as she peered into the yawning hole in front of her.

  “Still can’t believe Dunmore found a priest so near winter,” another murmured.

  “No one can deny an O’Rourke,” a third grumbled.

  Unaware of the murmuring and the speculation around her, Niamh O’Rourke Ahern stared into her husband’s grave. She bent, scooping up a handful of mud to sprinkle over his casket. Rather than the priest’s final blessing ringing in her ears, she heard the final words her husband had spoken to her, before he had stormed out of their house that fateful night.

  Her hand shook as she opened her palm, the mud landing on the casket in a splat. Thankful for the rain, it concealed the fact she did not cry for Connor. How could she mourn such a man?

  At her father’s urging, she turned away from the grave to return to her family home and to her daughter, Maura, ignoring the echo of her husband’s words, as though carried on the vicious wind.

  I never loved you, you faithless harpy.

  Cormac Ahern stood beside his brother’s grave, long after all the other mourners had departed. Against his will, he had watched Niamh leave, leaning against her father for support, as her brothers hovered around her. He fought anger and rage at all that had transpired.

  “Damn you, Connor,” he rasped, as he swiped at his face, smearing tears, snot, dirt, and raindrops across his bearded cheeks. “How could you do this to her?” He closed his eyes, as he knew he would have one-sided conversations with his brother for the rest of his life. How was it that his beloved elder brother was dead?

  Swaying, he fell to his knees and bowed his head, taking off his hat in deference to his deceased brother. “I shouldn’t swear at you. Not on the day of your burial.” He slammed his hand onto the packed-down earth. “But how could you?” he asked again, his shoulders shaking with sobs. “We were supposed to go through life together. Fight all our battles together.”

  He put his hat back on, ignoring the horrible weather. Today he refused to remember the distance that had sprouted up between him and his brother since they had arrived in Fort Benton. The disappointment and the frustration which Cormac had felt in equal measure. Instead he mourned what should have been. What could have been.

  A hand squeezed his shoulder, and he looked up into the eyes of Ardan O’Rourke, the eldest son of Seamus O’Rourke. “Come, Cormac. You’ll give yourself pneumonia, sittin’ out here in the rain, an’ you know Connor would never want that for you.” He took a step back, granting Cormac a few more moments alone beside his older brother’s grave.

  Finally Cormac stood and faced Ardan. “I can’t go to your family’s home tonight.”

  Ardan stood in front of him, as tall as Cormac, although not nearly as brawny. Cormac had earned his strong lean muscles from the hours steering a team of oxen hitched to supply wagons to various destinations throughout the Montana Territory. Ardan knew he could never force Cormac into doing something he didn’t want to do. However, Cormac was as loyal to the family as any O’Rourke. “Niamh needs her family around her, Cormac. All of her family.”

  Swearing under his breath, Cormac ducked his head and kicked at a rock, inadvertently pushing it into a puddle. “Fine. I’ll come for a few minutes. But then I’m leaving.”

  Ardan slapped him on his back, letting it rest there to give further solace to Cormac. “You won’t want to leave. Not after you taste the fine whiskey Da unearthed.”

  “I thought we drank all the whiskey last night.”

  Ardan rubbed at his head with his free hand and shook his head with chagrin. “So did I, Cormac. So did I.” He gave a slight tug on Cormac’s shoulder, urging him into motion and away from the grave. Murmuring in a soft voice, he said, “You know we’ll help with a gravestone. We’ll ensure he’s remembered.”

  Cormac jerked his head in acknowledgment, walking beside Ardan in silence to the large O’Rourke house. Although the two eldest O’Rourke sons, Ardan and Kevin, had married and no longer lived there, and the next three sons—Declan, Eamon, and Finn—were in Saint Louis for the winter, procuring supplies for their business, still the house was always full. Rarely did Ardan, Kevin, and their brides miss a family dinner together. And, since Connor’s death, Niamh had moved home too, with her fifteen-month-old daughter, Maura.

  Cormac paused at the back entrance of the kitchen, attempting to scrape the mud and the muck off his boots before entering. Crossing the threshold of the kitchen, he saw a makeshift clothes rack near the stove. He shucked his hat and jacket, adding them to the pile of clothes steaming by the range. With a shy smile, he accepted a towel from Mary O’Rourke, the matriarch of the large family. Of middling height, she had a presence about her that commanded the respect of all her family, although a distance remained between her and her daughter, Niamh. Unlike most of her children, Mary had auburn hair, now shot with gray, and her hazel eyes were always filled with compassionate concern.

  “Wipe yourself down, lad,” she said, as she fussed over him with a worried smile. “Seamus has set out dry clothes for you,
if you like.” Although she had never taken to Niamh’s husband, she had shown an instant affinity for Cormac.

  Flushing, Cormac shook his head. “There’s no need,” he protested, as he ran the towel over his long brown hair. “I shouldn’t stay long.”

  Mary tugged at his arm, urging him into the living room. “You’ll stay as long as you like. An’, if you want to spend the night, there’s room. With too many of my boys away, there’s always a bed for you.” She squeezed his arm. “Don’t allow your grief to turn you into a hermit.” She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek and returned to the kitchen and a large pot of soup she was preparing with her youngest daughter, Maggie.

  Cormac paused at the entrance of the living room to find the O’Rourke men, standing and chatting in low voices, while the women sat near Niamh in a far corner. Although Niamh’s hair was damp, she appeared to have changed into dry clothes, although they were no longer black. The indigo-blue dress enhanced her natural beauty, making her auburn hair shine. He frowned as it also highlighted the circles under her eyes and the desolation in her expression. Kevin’s and Ardan’s wives, Aileen and Deirdre, sat on either side of the widow.

  Cormac forced himself to stop staring at Niamh and to approach the O’Rourke men. He absently noted the priest, warming himself near the potbellied stove, talking with Dunmore, a successful stagecoach driver and friend of the O’Rourkes. Cormac accepted a glass of whiskey from Kevin, the second-eldest brother and husband to Aileen. Ardan stood beside Seamus, their father. Younger brothers, Niall and Lucien, stood tall, as though honored to be included in the group of older men. However, the three youngest boys loitered nearby, although they had begun to fidget. Cormac understood their restlessness. If possible, he’d be outside wandering, rather than cooped up inside, spouting niceties.

  Seamus clapped Cormac’s arm, and he focused on the men around him. “’Tis a tragedy,” Seamus murmured.

  Cormac nodded and lowered his head. “Yes. But Connor had lived a wild life for too long. It was only a matter of time …” He broke off what more he would have said and took a sip of his whiskey.

  “We’ve all had wild times in our lives,” Seamus murmured. “’Tis a shock what occurred.” Seamus shared a quick look with his two eldest sons, who nodded subtly.

  “Thank you for finding a priest,” Cormac murmured. “I don’t know how you managed that this time of year.”

  Seamus looked with gratitude in the direction of the stagecoach driver. “Dunmore has his ways,” Seamus said. “An’ I’m glad of it, for we wanted to honor Connor too. It wouldn’t have been right, burying him without a proper prayer.”

  Cormac made a sound of agreement, taking another sip of whiskey, as his throat had thickened and he was incapable of speaking. The image of the yawning hole with his brother’s casket inside filled his vision.

  “I know you must believe that no one understands how you feel,” Ardan murmured, recalling Cormac to the present, “but we have an idea of what today is like.” He paused. “We remember what it was like to lose our mum.”

  Cormac nodded to acknowledge their sympathy. He knew well the story of Mary O’Rourke’s separation from her family, upon their arrival from Ireland in 1847 in Montreal, Canada. She, and Seamus’s youngest daughter, Maggie, had spent nearly eighteen years apart from them. Only in June of this year had they been reunited. However, Cormac fought a deep resentment because they had always had one another. They had never truly been alone, as Cormac now was. He paused as he took a deep breath to calm his anger and his grief. Except for Mary, he realized. She had been left alone with a newborn to care for. “Thank you,” he finally rasped out, his voice roughened by his deep emotions.

  Seamus cleared his throat and squeezed his shoulder, as though knowing instinctively what he thought. “You aren’t alone, Cormac. You have all of us. We will always be your family.”

  A rising surge of emotions threatened to overwhelm him, and he thrust his whiskey glass at one of the youngest O’Rourke boys before fleeing the room. In the kitchen he snatched his hat and coat and raced outside into the rain. After a few steps, he shrugged into his jacket, jammed on his hat, and stormed away to his nearby one-room cabin. Grief and guilt threatened to swallow him whole. For, no matter what the O’Rourkes said, Cormac knew they would never be his family. How could they want him after what he did?

  Niamh sat in a dazed stupor on the sofa, tears coursing down her cheeks. She gave silent thanks for the outward sign of bereavement, for now that she cried, there would be little gossip about the widow who failed to grieve for her feckless husband. Closing her eyes, she attempted to corral an inappropriate giddiness that she was free of Connor. Immediately after that thought, guilt at her lack of grief filled her. What kind of woman was she to feel relief at her husband’s death?

  When one of her sisters-in-law touched her arm, she jerked.

  “Niamh,” murmured Deirdre, Ardan’s wife. “You will come through this. I promise. I know it seems unfathomable right now. But you will.”

  She nodded dumbly, for she didn’t know what else to do.

  Aileen spoke up, stroking her other arm. “You won’t be alone. Your family will always be here to support you.”

  “I know,” Niamh murmured. “It’s hard to realize he was alive three days ago and now …” Her voice faded away, as she swayed in place in her seat, her gaze distant and unfocused. “Now Maura doesn’t have a father.”

  “No,” Deirdre said in a soothing voice, “but she has plenty of uncles and a wonderful grandfather. She will never lack a man’s love and support.”

  Niamh nodded over and over again. As though against her will, her gaze rose and met the mournful, rage-filled gaze of her brother-in-law, Cormac. More guilt and other emotions she had no desire to examine today swelled up in her, and she closed her eyes, unwilling to look into his beautiful blue eyes. Rather than the cobalt of her father’s eyes, they were robin’s-egg blue. Or sky blue. Depending on his feelings. She sighed, resenting how much time she had spent contemplating his eyes and the emotions hidden within. When she opened her eyes, Cormac had disappeared from the room.

  “I wish I could dull how I feel with whiskey, as men do,” she murmured. “Why are such escapes denied to women?”

  Aileen and Deirdre shared worried smiles, as they scooted closer to Niamh. “It’s the way of the world, love,” Deirdre said. “Besides, I highly doubt you’d want to drink such a horrible beverage.”

  Niamh shrugged. Only at the sight of her daughter, Maura, did she brighten. “Oh, there’s my little angel,” she whispered. She held out her arms for her daughter and sighed with pleasure to hold her daughter in her arms. Maura snuggled into her mother’s embrace and soon fell asleep. Ignoring the room filled with those paying their respects, or merely present to sip at her father’s fine whiskey, Niamh rocked her daughter in place and tried to envision a day free of guilt, grief, and fear.

  Seamus watched Niamh with concern, as she held her daughter. “I fear we didn’t soothe the lad as we had hoped,” he murmured to Ardan and Kevin, after Cormac had stormed away. “For some reason, he wants to keep himself apart from us.”

  Ardan shared a look with Kevin and then said in a soft voice, “He just lost his brother, Da. If I lost Kevin, or one of the other lads, I wouldn’t be much for company.” He cleared his throat, as though fighting a strong emotion at the thought of such a loss.

  Kevin made a sound of agreement, and Seamus nodded.

  “Aye. Makes me anxious to contemplate how Declan, Eamon, and Finn are coping during their stay in Saint Louis. I hate we’ll have no news until they return home next summer.” Seamus took a sip of whiskey, his cobalt-blue eyes filled with despair at the absence of three of his sons. “I want us all together again.”

  Kevin cleared his throat, as he looked at Niamh, who now held her daughter, Maura. “Did you notice she didn’t cry at the grave?”

  Seamus broke off what he was about to say when a man he did not know approached their sma
ll group.

  “I’m sure I should offer condolences,” said the man in an iridescent navy suit with matching waistcoat stretched over his small paunch. A mocking gleam in his eyes put a lie to his words.

  “If one is drinking my whiskey, in my house, on the evening after the burial of my son-in-law, ’tis appropriate,” Seamus said in a low voice.

  “Ah, yes, the dearly departed. He’ll be sorely missed, won’t he?” the man asked, as he looked around the room at the clusters of townsfolk, speaking in low voices, before his gaze homed in on Niamh. “His widow, Nee-am, looks particularly devastated.”

  “You are not familiar with our ways, I see. My daughter’s name is pronounced Nee-ev, akin to leave when drawn into two syllables,” Seamus stated in his full Irish burr, standing taller, and nearer, to the irritating man. His brilliant blue eyes shone with dislike.

  Ardan took a warning step toward the man. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  Puffing out his chest and smiling in an inappropriate manner in the wake-like atmosphere, he said, “Mr. Uriah Chaffee, Esquire, at your service.”

  “Well, Mr. Chaffee, we are thankful for your condolences. However, we are … engaged in mourning all that has been lost.” Kevin placed a hand on his elder brother’s arm, as he looked at Mr. Chaffee with an unveiled warning.

  “Ah, yes, of course. Might I be permitted to call during your … involved mourning period? I must discuss a matter with you regarding the deceased’s wishes.” He smiled as though he had just declared “checkmate.”