A Bride For The Asking -- (on hold)

Chapter 24--The Confrontation

June 1, 1868

Dakota Territory

Michael hung back in the shadows of the open doorway while his Pa stepped out of the barn to meet Uncle Woody and Michael’s new aunt.  Aunt? Dear God, Michael hadn’t thought of the girl that way, but technically, she was his aunt by marriage. This wasn’t going to work. Michael could see that right now.  He’d be damned before he would call a girl younger than him - Aunt!

Michael took a step further back into the shadows, not yet ready to show himself to them as watched his uncle pull the horses up in front of the barn.

The girl was prettier than he remembered her being the last time he’d seen her aboard the Lily Belle. The care-worn look that had draped over her before like a shawl had fallen away. She was radiant, Michael thought, for lack of better words to describe her.

Michael glanced from her to his uncle when he heard himlaugh at something his pa had said. It was a rusty cough of a sound, like a fiddle that hadn’t been played in a while. Michael tried to recall his uncle laughing, and couldn’t.

Always a dour man, his Uncle Woody had changed in the ten years Michael had been gone. Michael couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to change his taciturn uncle. Has the girl done that for him?

Uncle Woody hopped down off the wagon as spryly as a young man, and turned to reach up for his young bride. A chill of foreboding swept across Michael at the adoring gaze his Uncle Woody wore on his face like a banner as he held his arms up for Rose McGregor - Rice, now.

The one person in his life who had done even more to shape it than his own parents and here she stood smiling down at his uncle for all the world like she was in love with him. A man she had met only yesterday.

If Michael hadn’t had such a strong reaction to Eleanor Rosenthal, he would swear that was impossible; but not after his own recent experience.

Even thinking about Eleanor brought back his recent memories of her. It also brought back his memory of Doctor Walenburger showing him an arrest warrant Eleanor was carrying, no doubt to Fort Randal to seek their aid in serving that warrant – on the very same Rose McGregor who was now married to his uncle. The same woman responsible for his missing leg.

An impossible situation, Michael thought. How would his uncle ever be able to look at him again if he participated in her arrest?   Something he could very  well be ordered to do as an officer at Fort Randal, the way his luck seemed to run everytime he got near that woman.

Michael closed his eyes and tried to tamp down the well of emotions threatening to boil up inside him. How could either he or Rose ever look upon the other with anything other than dread.

 Michael  loathed the sight of her. Surely she felt the same. He could taste his abhorrence on his tongue like the bitterest bile.

He’d had three years to build up the wall of his animosity. He recalled the restless nightmares which forced him to relive the horror of an innocent man dying at his hands. 

 He could still feel the hot spray of blood from the man’s body hitting his face; dripping down his neck and into his collar.

He no longer had to close his eyes to picture the look of condemnation on her face as she screamed her accusation at him and raised the shotgun to her shoulder.

It had haunted his sleepless nights repeatedly as he writhed with the agonizing phantom pain of his missing limb.

Unaware of Michael's gaze upon her, she glanced up at his uncle as he stood her on the ground. The look told of an intimacy between the two. It told of a marriage well and truly consummated, and joyously so.