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

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
 

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

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.

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PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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Lily’s Secrets
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LILY’S SECRETS

Elk Creek 1

GIGI MOORE

Copyright © 2013

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 normal 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.

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.