Frontier Cinderella, page 1
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Frontier Cinderella
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By Regina Scott
Frontier Matches, Book 3
Smashwords Edition
© 2023 Regina Lundgren
License Note
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Praise for Regina Scott’s Work
“Regina Scott writes some of today’s best Historical Romance novels!” Huntress Reviews
“Scott dazzles.” Booklist on A Distance Too Grand, which was given a starred review and named one of the top ten romances of the year
For the previous book in the Frontier Matches series: “Her Frontier Sweethearts was a winner for me. I love books about protecting children and books about fake engagements so this was a special treat for me. A+” Hott Book Reviews
To all the gals who live life on their own terms—we see you,
and to the Lord, who made us exactly the way we were meant to be.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Sneak Peek: The Schoolmarm’s Convenient Marriage, Book 4 in Frontier Matches
Other Books by Regina Scott
About the Author
Chapter One
Seattle, Washington Territory
September 1876
It sure took a lot of work to be a lady.
Katie Jo McAllister glanced around at the busy Seattle street. Plenty of menfolk were going about their business, dressed like her in loose wool trousers and a collarless flannel shirt. But every one of them stopped to doff their hats and smile as the few ladies walked past, skirts swishing and swaying like aspens in the breeze.
She lifted a hand to the slouch hat mostly covering her hair. The other ladies’ hair was curled around their foreheads and piled up to tumble down behind them in heavy braids and waves. That swung too as they walked. And every feller watched them go.
None of them watched her. Most of them probably didn’t even notice she was female. But if prim and fussy dresses dripping with bric-a-brac and hair hanging every which way would get Uncle Cole to see her as a lady, and allow her and Zeke to move on with their lives, she was ready to give any amount of work a try.
“Here we are,” Beth McCormick sang out. Now, she knew how to dress like a lady. Her gown was a pretty shade of pink, with flowers embroidered all over it, and it had extra skirts front and back draped in a darker pink, with gathers all along the hem. Under a hat trimmed in ribbon and flowers, her hair was the color of the gold Uncle Cole wished he could get the stream on their claim to spit out.
Beth had insisted that Katie Jo and their friend, Ciara O’Rourke, come in to Seattle from the settlement of Wallin Landing to purchase gewgaws for Ciara’s wedding, which was less than a week away. One of the other ladies at Wallin Landing, Mrs. Nora Wallin, had sewn Katie Jo a new dress for the occasion, only the second dress she’d owned in a long time.
It was a pretty dress too, made of silk, even! Katie Jo had picked out the blue fabric because it was the color of the sky on a summer’s day, like her eyes. Nora had even given her two cotton petticoats to go beneath. She ought to have looked real nice. But standing in the lady’s bedchamber with Ciara, gazing at herself in the standing mirror, Katie Jo had become aware of a distinct settling of her spirits.
“It doesn’t look good on me,” she had said.
Nora’s kind face had sagged. “Perhaps more trim?”
Nora liked trim. She’d already added an overskirt to Katie Jo’s dress, with a ruffle along the hem. Nora’s dresses boasted embroidery, lace, fringe, and double and triple skirts, for all she lived in a house on a wilderness farm and cared for the little ones of the settlement when their mas and pas were busy.
Ciara had studied Katie Jo critically. As the proprietress of the Wooden Rose Inn and Restaurant, she dressed more practically in a cotton blouse and skirt that were usually covered in an apron. And she wore her dark brown hair either in a braid down her back or wound up around the back of her head.
“What you need,” she’d said that day, “is a corset.”
Katie Jo blushed now, remembering, as she glanced up at the sign over the door of the establishment they had reached two blocks above the waterfront. Mrs. Blanchard’s Selection was written in curling letters washed over with gilt. Painted on the glass window were the words For the discriminating lady of fashion and elegance.
That wasn’t her. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be her. She just had to try. Anything to help her little brother.
She pulled open the door and held it wide to the tinkle of the shop’s bell. “After you, ladies.”
Smiling, Beth and Ciara stepped inside.
Katie Jo followed them. She’d been to the mercantile in Wallin Landing, and she’d come in to Seattle once or twice with her uncle for some piece of equipment. None of the shops she’d ever visited looked like this one, all pink and white, like Beth’s skirts. Forms shaped like a lady’s upper body were covered with corsets in white, cream, or black satin, the tops edged in lace and some with embroidery along the panels. One was even scarlet! She tried to imagine herself in it and failed.
“Welcome, ladies,” called a tall woman with hair swept back like a raven’s wing from her face. Her dress too was covered with lace and beading and trim. “May I ask your brother to wait outside? My clients prefer their privacy.”
Katie Jo glanced behind her to see what feller had had the temerity to step into this lair of femininity, but she saw no one.
“This is our friend, Miss McAllister,” Ciara said, steel in her voice, as Katie Jo faced front again. “She requires a new corset.”
The lady’s lashes fluttered as if she’d been swarmed by gnats. “Of course. Something in a durable cotton?”
That sounded practical. Katie Jo nodded.
Beth shook her head. “Durable, certainly, but Miss McAllister is a lady of some refinement. Satin covered, lace along the top. Comfortably boned. Sturdy laces.”
Katie Jo stared at her.
Mrs. Blanchard, or so she assumed the lady to be, nodded. “Certainly. This way, Miss McAllister, and we’ll get you measured.”
The thought of undressing in front of this lady was as horrible as getting stuck in the privy on a winter’s morn. Katie Jo fumbled in the pocket of her trousers. “Mrs. Wallin already took my measurements.” She thrust the paper at the corset maker. “She thought it would be easier if I just gave them to you.”
Mrs. Blanchard accepted the piece of paper with two fingers, as if Katie Jo had somehow dirtied it, then studied it a moment. Her brows went up, and she gazed at her so fixedly Katie Jo wanted to turn and run out the door.
This is for Zeke. Uncle Cole is never going to let him go unless you can prove you are a lady grown.
Besides, she refused to let down her friends. She just smiled politely.
“Are these correct?” she asked, gaze now jumping from Ciara to Beth.
“Absolutely accurate,” Ciara said. “Miss McAllister has an enviable figure.”
“Which I’m certain you will know how to show to advantage,” Beth added.
For the first time, Mrs. Blanchard’s smile blossomed. “I most certainly can, and it will be my pleasure. I’ll just gather some material, and we can come to an agreement on how she’d like it made.”
Beth held up a finger. “Two, if you please. Long stays and short. Miss McAllister’s maid has to take a day off on occasion.”
Katie Jo nearly snorted. Maid. Who did Beth think she was kidding? Anyone looking at her would know she was more likely to be a maid than employ one.
“Do I really need two of the contraptions?” she whispered to her friends as Mrs. Blanchard hurried off.
“Yes,” Ciara whispered back. “A lady can more easily deal with short stays when she’s alone.”
She wasn’t really alone on the claim, but she understood. Zeke would have been mortified to no end if she’d asked him to do up her stays for her. And Uncle Cole would have told her she was being a fool to wear them, if she’d dared to ask him for help.
Which she wouldn’t have. She was just thankful he’d agreed to allow her to go in to Wallin Landing for a whole week to help at the Wooden Rose Inn and prepare for the wedding. She still couldn’t quite bel
Hence the need for a corset. She’d never owned one in her life. She’d been twelve when Ma had passed, and Uncle Cole had sold her mother’s clothes to help make ends meet. As soon as Katie Jo had outgrown the dresses her mother had made for her, she’d been relegated to store-bought trousers and shirts, usually ones Uncle Cole no longer fancied.
“Whole lot easier,” he had told her. “You don’t have to fuss with seamstresses and the like, and they’re less likely to wear out or get torn. Besides, you’re not a lady yet.”
Ten years later, he still didn’t like to acknowledge she was a lady any more than he liked acknowledging that Zeke, now seventeen, was about old enough to be on his own too. Together, she and her brother did the bulk of the work to maintain the house and critters, while her uncle worked his trap line or attempted to coax salmon from the bay. Uncle Cole had given up his own dreams to raise them. She understood the need to pay him back for his trouble. But it was time he let her and Zeke go.
She could only hope he’d be patient with her brother while she was gone. Zeke did his best to please, but it wasn’t his fault he’d been born puny. Any little thing overset him. And Uncle Cole wasn’t always good about standing in front of him, so Zeke could read his lips and understand what was expected of him.
The shop door tinkled again, and she glanced back in time to meet the gaze of Harry Yeager. Her heart plummeted to the soles of her sturdy boots, then shot up into her throat. Likely even he could hear it pounding as he sauntered closer.
Like her uncle, she might sometimes forget she was a gal, but when Harry was around, she was acutely aware she was female.
Maybe it was because he was such a male. That confident swagger, that drawling voice, even the cut of his mustache was cocky! That mustache and his hair were the color of her mother’s mahogany chest that had come with their family all the way across the Plains, and his hair waved around a strong-jawed face with a smile that could melt butter. When those dark brown eyes twinkled, she felt warm all over. He was taller than she was, which, she was coming to realize, was rare, and he was strong enough to swing a double-headed axe with precision. All in all, a gal could go all swoony in his presence.
It had been hard enough sitting beside him on the bench of the wagon as he’d driven her and Ciara in from the Landing this morning. Facing him here? Impossible!
She whipped around, tugged down on her hat, and prayed he wouldn’t pay her any more mind than usual.
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies,” he said from behind her. “I just wanted to let you know that the steamship is offloading passengers. It might take an hour before I have Miss Dennison and her things in the wagon.”
“Thank you, Harry,” Ciara said. “We should be ready by then.”
Katie Jo heard the shop door tinkle a third time as he must have left.
She sighed.
She hadn’t realized the sound was loud enough to carry, but Ciara put a hand on her shoulder, face soft, as if she’d heard the yearning too.
“You wait, Katie Jo,” she said. “Harry’s going to be singing a different tune when he sees you in your new dress. He’ll forget all about Miss Dennison.”
Katie Jo shook her head. “Thank you, but I realized straightaway that I’m not what Harry Yeager is looking for in a wife. That’s not going to change with some new finery.”
But something inside her pressed upward, as if reaching for the moon. Maybe it wasn’t only Uncle Cole who she hoped would see her as a lady.
***
Harry Yeager whistled to himself as he strolled down the street toward the wharves. His wife could be coming in on that steamship. Beth McCormick might be the town matchmaker, and she’d picked out Jesse for the new schoolmarm, but Harry had something Jesse didn’t.
A powerful will.
Harry considered it a blessing, even if some called it a failing.
“He’s a headstrong lad,” his third cousin had complained to the town constable when Harry had run away from the backbreaking work expected of him at only nine years old. “But never fear. We’ll beat it out of him.”
So far, no one and nothing ever had. Not the various distant relatives who had passed him around after his parents had died when he was eight. Not the ministers and schoolteachers who had tried to settle his spirit with kind words or harsh reprimands. Not the plowing, milking, and wood chopping he’d been required to do to earn his keep. Not the employers who generally saw him only as another strong back.
Not even the first friends he’d found, after joining Drew Wallin’s logging crew.
“What would I have to do to convince you to let me bring home the new schoolmarm?” he’d asked his friend, Jesse Willets, last night as they’d sat at the table in the cabin they shared now that Ciara O’Rourke had turned their former home into the Wooden Rose Inn.
Jesse had eyed him. He was bigger than Harry and Kit Weatherly, the third member of the crew, nearly as big as the legendary Drew Wallin himself. Jesse also hoped to find a wife in an area with eight and a half bachelors for every unmarried lady. “Mrs. McCormick asked me to collect her.”
“I remember,” Harry said. He put his elbow on the table and raised his fist. “Arm wrestle you for it.”
The russet-haired Jesse couldn’t resist a game. With a lopsided grin, he planted his elbow and clasped Harry’s hand, gray eyes alight.
Jesse was strong. Harry’s muscles, honed by years of hard work, protested the pressure. His fist moved over and out as Jesse shoved harder.
No. This was his chance. Ever since his parents had died, he’d been looking for a family. He’d found one in the Wallin kin, but he wanted one all his own.
A wife, children. Home.
Jesse blinked and stared down at his arm, pinned to the table, with Harry’s on top. “You won.”
Harry released him, arm aching worse than if he’d felled a dozen trees in one day. “Looks like it. Thanks, Jesse. I promise not to propose until she’s at least had a chance to meet you.” He grinned. “But not much beyond that.”
So here he stood. On the edge of the wharves, watching small boats bobbing in on the tide as they crossed the blue-gray waters of Elliott Bay from the San Francisco steamer. One step closer to having a family again.
He frowned, studying the heads in the two closest boats. All men, if those hats were any indication. Then again, he knew a female who wore a man’s hat.
His mind conjured the image of Katie Jo McAllister in that lady’s shop. For one moment, when their gazes had brushed, he’d thought he’d seen something like admiration in her eyes before she’d spun and put her back to him. He hadn’t thought Katie Jo McAllister had those kinds of feelings, especially not toward him.
He had to appreciate her grit, though. He understood enough about what went on in such shops to know ladies were pinned and prodded every which way to fit into their dresses. He wouldn’t have wanted to let some stranger measure him and possibly find him wanting. He was done with that part of his life.
“Morning, Harry.” Mr. Bartholomew, the young assistant harbormaster, nodded from his booth at the top of the wharves as Harry drew up next to him. “You expecting something from San Francisco?”
Harry grinned. “Yes, sir. Miss Alice Dennison. The new Wallin Landing schoolteacher.”
Bartholomew frowned down at the manifest he must have been given and scratched his clean-shaven chin. “Funny. I don’t see a lady on the list.”
Harry frowned as well. “Let me look.”
Bartholomew handed over the paper, dark brows high and nose higher, as if he scented a story in the making. Harry ignored him to scan down the list. Not a miss, missus, or Dennison was in evidence.
“Must be some mistake,” he said, shoving the paper at the assistant harbormaster. “She telegrammed to say she would be coming on this boat.”
Bartholomew shrugged and tapped the pages on the edge of the booth to straighten them. “Happens all the time. Some ladies like San Francisco too much to continue to Seattle. Look at Miss Williamson. She only lasted a few weeks before hightailing it south.”
