Hill Country Courtship

by Laurie Kingery

  Sean lit the lantern he held and gave a single nod. A cacophony of sound shattered the stillness. Quinn’s lightning-fast fingers picked an out-of-tune melody on his banjo. On his right, Helen banged an old frying pan with a mangled metal spoon while her good friend Isabelle Bradley rang the bell that usually sat on the Bradley Boardinghouse’s front desk. On his left side, his best friend, Rhett Granger, played a jumbled assortment of chords on his harmonica before settling in on a single warbling note. Beside Rhett, Chris Johansen’s fiddle screeched. Other folks added to the discordance by banging more pots and pans, whooping, hollering and whistling.

  A cheer went up when the door opened a few seconds later. Lawson appeared, looking startled and drowsy but with a wide grin on his face. Ellie followed him out, laughing even as she covered her ears. In true shivaree fashion, the husband and wife were each made to sit in wheelbarrows. The ride ended on the banks of the farm’s creek where the couple was finally allowed to stand. The noise and the music died down so that Sean’s wife, Lorelei, could speak.

  “Lawson and Ellie, this shivaree is to show you that your marriage has the full blessing of your family, friends and community.” Lorelei gestured toward the creek. “As you take the plunge into married life, we take it with you.”

  Ellie eyed the creek then tilted her head and stared at her friends with calculating mischief. “Does that mean if we jump in, everyone else has to, as well?”

  Quinn grinned at Ellie’s exuberance. It was a pretty balmy night for mid-October. Of course, that didn’t mean the creek would be anything but frigid.

  Sean nodded. “That’s the deal. Afterward, women will change in the cabin. Men will change in the barn.”

  Lawson gave a slow grin and winked. “Well, in that case...”

  Ellie didn’t seem the least bit surprised when Lawson lifted her into his arms and barreled into the creek with what could only be described as a war cry. Pandemonium broke out as folks tossed their noisemakers on the ground and men started picking up whichever woman was handy to follow their leader into battle. Quinn spotted Helen backing away from the melee as he set his banjo in the cushioned wheelbarrow with the other instruments. He cut off Helen’s escape, swept her off her feet and plunged into the creek.

  Rushing water muted the sound of Helen’s shriek and the rest of the hollering until Quinn resurfaced, gasping from the cold. Helen pushed away from him and immediately headed to the creek bank. A wave of water rushed over Quinn’s head. He soon found himself embroiled in a water fight with Rhett and Chris. Once they’d had all they could stand of the cold, they staggered to the creek bank to follow the rest of the party in the rush toward warmth and dry clothes.

  Quinn didn’t make it very far along the path before he realized he hadn’t seen Helen head for the trees. She was probably on the path ahead of him, but even with only three weeks of experience in the role, the parent in him already knew not to leave the creek without making sure she wasn’t straggling behind the group. Quinn doubled back to the creek bank. Sure enough, she was staring at the ground as she walked back and forth along the bank of the creek. “Miss McKenna, what are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to find it in the dark.”

  She sighed. “You’re probably right.”

  “You should change before you catch cold. You must be freezing.”

  “I certainly am.” Her gaze swept the creek bank one last time before she joined him at the edge of the woods. “Thanks to you.”

  His caught her elbow to escort her onto the path. “Aw, I just gave you a little help getting in the creek, that’s all. You would have jumped in eventually.”

  “Yes, but not quite so enthusiastically.” Her smile flashed in the darkness before she gave him a stern look she must have perfected on her students. “Is there a particular reason why you seemed to take such sheer pleasure in throwing me into that creek?”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Maybe I don’t like schoolteachers.”

  “What did they ever do to you?”

  “Plenty.” He tugged her onward, hoping his grim tone would put an end to her question. It seemed to have the opposite effect.

  She stopped and looked up at him. “Now I’m intrigued.”

  The last thing he wanted was to delve into that, so he angled a grin her way as he helped her around a fallen branch. “Truthfully, I hoped you would come out looking as messy as the rest of us. Of course, you didn’t. Look at you...prim, proper and perfect as usual. Not a hair out of place. How’d you manage that?”

  “Is that what you think I am?” She didn’t seem to realize that she was leaning into him to share what little warmth their bodies produced. Or maybe she was just too cold to care. “Prim, proper and perfect?”

  A rush of heat tinged his face. It was too late to take back his words, so he just shrugged. “It sure doesn’t seem like you’re the type to ever let down your hair.”

  They reached the edge of the woods, but she didn’t rush toward the cabin. Instead, she lingered with a hand on her hip. “I jumped in the creek, didn’t I?”

  “I thought you said I threw you.” He winked as she seemed to scramble for a defense. “I guess I was just wondering what you’d look like a little mussed up, is all.”

  “Is that so?” She lifted her chin along with her brow. “Well, I’ve been wondering what you’d look like with a haircut and a shave.”

  He ran a hand over his thick beard. “That’ll happen the day you let down your hair and enjoy yourself.”

  “Deal.” She released his arm and started fiddling with the fancy knot of hair on the back of her head.

  Alarm prompted him to take a few cautious steps back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Letting down my hair.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “No, but it’s what you said, so you can’t go back on our deal.” She shook her head until her hair tumbled from its style then slipped her hand into her thick dark hair and teased it into disarray. “Is that mussed enough for you?”

  He stared at the dark waves of hair that framed her face and slid past her shoulders to stop at her waist. The only other woman he’d seen with her hair down had been his grandmother. She hadn’t looked anything like Helen. The schoolmarm seemed to capture the sparkle of starlight in her mahogany eyes while the glow from the cabin caressed her delicate features and stained her hair with a subtle dusting of gold. His hand reached out of its own accord to slide through the thick locks that were slick and heavy from their recent soaking.

  The sound of her breath catching in her throat brought him up short. Suddenly realizing just what he was doing and to whom, he extracted his hand from her hair and restored the distance he hadn’t realized he’d covered. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I had no right to do that. Guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

  She deftly twirled her hair and pinned it into a simple style. “You get that haircut and shave and we’ll call it even.”

  “You must think I need them awful bad to go through all this.”

  Her expression turned innocent, though her eyes were full of mischief. “Well, you do remind me a bit of a bear.”

  “A bear, huh?” He glanced toward the cabin as the door opened and Lawson walked out with a bundle of clothes in his hand. Quinn urged Helen into the clearing. “You’d better go on inside before you catch a chill.”

  She complied, greeting the bridegroom as she passed him. Lawson lifted a skeptical brow as he met up with Quinn and they walked across the field toward the barn. “Did you two get lost back there or something?”

  Quinn shrugged. “I caught her dawdling by the creek, so I rounded her up and brought her in.”

  “Well, don’t let her hear you describe her that way.”

  “What way?”

/>   Lawson’s eyes started twinkling. “Like a cow.”

  “I guess it did sound kind of bad.” Quinn grimaced as Lawson laughed and clasped him on the shoulder. How was he ever going to find a wife at this rate? Lollygagging with a woman he didn’t have a chance with then talking about her like she was a heifer. It wasn’t a good start. He needed more than just an expert on love like Ellie. He needed divine intervention.

  Being the last one into the tack room gave Quinn a moment alone to do what needed to be done. He bowed his head to whisper a prayer. “Lord, I might not be much and I may not deserve the finer things in life that other folks have, but I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for my children... All right, and maybe a little for me, too. Please send me a mother for them. Someone to be a helpmeet. That’s all I ask, Lord.”

  “Quinn, everyone else has gone ahead,” Rhett called through the door. “I’m going to head to the cabin. You’d better get your banjo out the wheelbarrow and come on.”

  “I’m coming.” Quinn finished dressing, then left the tack room. Rhett waited at the barn door jumping up and down to get warm while looking longingly across the field toward the cabin. Quinn found his banjo resting right where he’d placed it. Whoever had been in charge of gathering the noisemakers from the creek bank hadn’t been particularly careful in their treatment of his instrument. It had all manner of things piled on top of and around it. He pulled the instrument out only to find a stray piece of paper entwined in its string.

  “Quinn, hurry up, will you? Lawson said Ellie was making some hot cider.”

  “Aw, stop your caterwauling. I’ve said I’m coming.” Quinn tucked the folded paper into his pocket before joining Rhett. They ribbed each other all the way to the cabin, but Quinn’s gaze kept rising to the starry sky that stretched above him. He could only hope that God had heard the pleadings of his heart and see fit to answer.

  Fast.

  * * *

  Helen couldn’t believe she’d lost the Bachelor List. That thought, along with the chill in the air, sent her snuggling farther into her covers the next morning. Amy, the oldest of the three Bradley girls at the boardinghouse where Helen lived, had begged off from the shivaree with a headache then entrusted Helen with a secret note for Ellie. Helen hadn’t had any idea that note was actually the Bachelor List until she’d told Ellie about losing it at the creek. Hopefully, the matchmaker would have more success finding the list in the daytime than Helen had last night. She didn’t understand why Amy hadn’t just given it to Ellie herself later. Well, it was just one more thing that hadn’t made sense about last night—like her sudden attraction to Quinn Tucker.

  “Attraction” was the only explanation for why she’d lingered in the woods with him despite her drenched condition. But why would she feel that way? She’d been telling the truth when she’d said he reminded her of a bear. Just like the one she’d seen at the circus when she was a child; Quinn was big, hairy, arresting and more than a little intimidating. She couldn’t help but wonder how he ate without getting things lost in that unruly-looking mustache and beard. His hair was also overly long. However, there was always that indescribable something about a man with hair that nearly reached his shoulders that made her want to chase after him...with a pair of scissors.

  Raised in Austin’s high society, she was used to polished gentlemen who were always perfectly groomed. But she’d learned her lesson about the cold hearts that could be hidden by gentlemanly exteriors.

  As for Quinn, she couldn’t stop thinking about the gentle, almost awed way he’d reached out to touch her hair. She ought to be outraged by his audacity, but then she’d have to be equally shocked by her own behavior. After all, she was the one who’d taken her hair down in front of a man who was practically a stranger. She ought to be ashamed of herself, but she wasn’t. He’d made her feel comfortable, accepted and precious. It was unnerving. More than unnerving—it was dangerous!

  It was dangerous because she might actually start believing what he’d said about her. Prim and proper she could handle since that was what every good schoolmarm should be, but she knew all too well that she was not perfect. Never perfect—especially not as a woman. Any doubts she’d had about that had been cleared away six months ago when she’d made the mistake of telling her fiancé, Thomas Coyle, that a riding accident she’d had at sixteen had left her unable to have children. Subsequently, their engagement had ended before the engagement dinner was over.

  Helen had quickly studied to become a teacher then moved to Peppin in order to forget her humiliation. If only it was as easy to forget the dreams she’d cherished since she was just a child. Back then, she’d often been found playing house in her mother’s dresses with at least one baby doll clutched in each arm. She’d thought being a teacher would be close enough to the fulfillment of that dream to keep her satisfied. Instead, it only fed the longing for the one thing she knew she’d never be able to have—children of her own.

  No, Quinn wouldn’t have called her perfect if he’d known the truth. Or, perhaps he wouldn’t care that she’d never have children. He did have four of his own. She saw the two eldest every school day. She knew a teacher wasn’t supposed to have favorites and she didn’t let it show in the schoolroom, but the Tucker children’s plight had paved their way straight into her heart.

  She tossed the thoughts away along with her covers and dressed for the day. What was wrong with her? She knew better than to let herself think things like that. Hadn’t she learned anything from her fiancé’s rejection? Yet, she could almost hear the comforting tones of her mother’s voice in the aftermath of that disaster. I promise you, my darling, if Thomas loved you—truly loved you—it wouldn’t have mattered to him that you can’t have children. As pretty as those words were, Helen wasn’t entirely sure she believed them.

  She grabbed her teaching materials then hurried out of her room. A quick glance at the grandfather clock in the main hallway told her that she’d better hurry if she planned to get that cantankerous schoolhouse stove going before class started. She popped into the kitchen only long enough to glean a muffin from a rather tired-looking Mrs. Bradley, before heading out the front door.

  A whirlwind of yellow-and-brown oak leaves swirled around her as she hurried down Main Street toward the schoolhouse—their chaos an apt visualization of her nervousness, which increased the closer she got to the schoolhouse. There had been a few minor disturbances early in the school term while she had been adjusting to teaching and the students had been adjusting to her. The president of the school board, Mr. Etheridge, had warned her that another incident of any kind would warrant a discussion of her fitness for the teaching position with the rest of the school board. Sending the man’s son home on Friday with a black eye and bloody nose courtesy of Reece Tucker couldn’t have helped matters.

  Helen took a deep breath to calm herself down. Surely Mr. Etheridge must have understood from her note that she’d managed to de-escalate the situation quickly. If nothing else, he had to appreciate the fact that she’d kept the boys from hurting each other further and had even gotten them to apologize.

  Feeling a bit more confident, Helen unlocked the schoolroom door and got the fire in the stove going just as students began arriving. A few called jaunty hellos, but most just silently stored their dinner pails in the coatroom then rushed out to play until she was ready to call them in. She had the school bell in hand to do exactly that when Violet, the youngest of Mr. Bradley’s three daughters, met her at the schoolhouse door. “Helen, why didn’t you stay for breakfast? You missed all the excitement!”

  She ought to remind Violet to refer to her as Miss McKenna during school hours, but technically the bell hadn’t rung yet, so Helen allowed herself to be drawn in by the fifteen-year-old’s exuberance. “What excitement? What’s happened?”

  “Amy eloped last night!”

  “Eloped?” Her mouth fell open. “I don’
t believe it. How? With whom? Why?”

  “With Silas Smithson, of all people! I don’t think you’ve met him. He left town over a year ago. He stayed at the boardinghouse while he was here, which is how he and Amy became sweethearts. He tricked us all into thinking that he worked with the railroad when he was actually an undercover Ranger. I guess Papa’s pride was hurt by Silas’s deception, because he forbade us to have anything to do with him once the truth came out. That didn’t stop Amy from corresponding with him in secret all this time. At least, that’s what she said in the letter she left us.”

  Helen shook her head. “No wonder Amy asked me to give Ellie the Bachelor List. She wasn’t planning to be around long enough to do it herself.”

  “You have the Bachelor List?” Excitement lit the girl’s blue eyes. She caught Helen’s arm. “What is it like? Where is it? Did you find out who your match is?”

  “I had the Bachelor List. It was nothing grand—just a folded-up piece of paper. I didn’t find my match because I didn’t know the paper was the list until Ellie figured out what it must have been. By that point, I’d already lost it at the shivaree.”

  “You lost it? Oh, Helen. That’s tragic.”

  Helen sighed. “It certainly is, and I feel horrible about it. Hopefully, Ellie will find it today. Meanwhile, I need to ring the school bell or we’re going to start the day late.”

  “But I have so much more to tell you! This elopement is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me.”

  “You’ll have to tell me the rest at dinner. Now, hurry and put your things in the coatroom. I need to ring the bell.”

  Violet gave a dramatic sigh as she opened the cloakroom door then shut it immediately. She glanced back at Helen with wide eyes. “There’s a man in there!”

  Before Helen could do more than frown, Quinn Tucker emerged, hands raised as though he was a victim of a holdup. “I’m sorry, ladies. There just didn’t seem to be a good time to interrupt.”

  Helen held back a laugh at the guilty expression on his face and crossed her arms. “Yes, well, there generally never is when you’re eavesdropping. What were you doing in there, anyway?”