Heartland Courtship

by Lyn Cote

  The woman who’d nursed him…what was her name? His wooly mind groped around, seeking it. Miss Rachel, that was it. She still slept in a rocking chair near him. He could see only the side of her face since her head had fallen against the high back of the chair. Light golden freckles dotted her nose. Straight, light brown hair had slipped from a bun, unfurling around her cheek and nape. From what he could see, she was not blatantly pretty but not homely either. There was something about her, an innocence that frightened him for her.

  The smell of bacon insisted on his full attention. He opened his eyes wider and turned his head. His stomach rumbled loudly.

  As they heard it, both the husband and wife turned to him. Miss Rachel’s eyes popped open. “Thee is awake?”

  He nodded, his mouth too dry to speak. Thee? Quakers to boot?

  “I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” the wife said.

  Miss Rachel stretched gracefully and fully like a cat awakening from a nap and rose from the rocking chair, throwing off a shawl, revealing a trim figure in a plain dark dress. She knelt beside him and tested his forehead. “No fever.” She beamed.

  He gazed up into the largest gray eyes he’d ever seen. They were serene, making him feel his disreputable appearance. Yet her gaze wouldn’t release him. He resisted. I’m just weak, that’s all.

  The husband walked over and looked down. “Thank God. You had us worried.”

  At the mention of God, Brennan felt the familiar tightening. God’s notice was not something he wanted. The wife handed Miss Rachel a steaming mug of what smelled like fresh-brewed coffee. She lifted his head and shoulders. Lilac scent floated in the air.

  “I can sit up,” he protested, forcing out the words in a burst through cracked lips. Yet when he tried, he found that he could not sit up, his bones as soft as boiled noodles.

  “Thy strength will return,” Miss Rachel said, nudging his lips with the mug rim.

  He opened his mouth to insist that he’d be up before the day was out. But instead he let the strong, hot, creamy coffee flow in. His thirst sprang to life and he drank till the mug was empty. Then he inhaled, exhausted by the act and hating that. Everyone stared down at him, pity in their eyes.

  The old bitterness reared. Enjoyin’ the show? he nearly snarled. His heart beat fast at the inappropriate fury that coursed through him. These innocent people didn’t deserve the sharp edge of his rough tongue.

  “You’ll feel better,” the wife said, “when you’ve been able to eat more and get your strength back.”

  “How did I end up here?” he asked, the thought suddenly occurring to him. Hadn’t he been on a riverboat?

  “The captain put you off the same boat I arrived on,” Miss Rachel replied, sounding indignant.

  Brennan couldn’t summon up any outrage. What had the captain owed him? But now he owed these good people, the kind who usually avoided him. The debt rankled.

  “You’re from the South?” the husband asked.

  There it came again. Most Northerners commented about his Southern drawl. Brennan caught his tongue just before his usual biting answer came out. “Yes.” He clenched his teeth.

  The husband nodded. “We’re not still fighting the war here. I’m Noah Whitmore. This is my wife, Sunny, and our children, Dawn and Adam. And Rachel is my first cousin.”

  Brennan tried to fix the names to the faces and drew in air. “My brain is mush,” he admitted, giving up the struggle.

  Noah chuckled. “We’ll get you back on your feet. Never fear.”

  The immense, unasked-for debt that he owed this couple and this Miss Rachel rolled over Brennan. Words seemed paltry, but they must be spoken. “You have my thanks.”

  “We were glad to help,” the wife, Sunny, said. “We all need help sometime.”

  Her last phrase should have eased him but his reaction was the opposite. Her last phrase raised his all-too-easy-to-rile hackles, increasing his discomfort. How could he ever pay what he owed these people? And he’d be forced to linger here to do that. Canada was still a long ways away. This stung like bitter gall.

  *

  Three days had inched past since Brennan had surfaced from the fever that had almost killed him. Noah had bathed him. And humming to herself, Miss Rachel had washed, pressed and ironed his clothing. The way she hummed when she worked, as if she was enjoying herself, made him ’specially fractious. Each day he lay at ease under their roof added another notch to his debt.

  From his pallet now, he saw the sun barely lighting the window, and today he’d planned to get up and walk or know the reason why. He made himself roll onto his knees and then, bracing his hands against the wall, he pushed up onto his feet.

  For a moment the world whirled around. He bent his head and waited out the vertigo. Then he sat in the chair and pulled on his battered boots. His heart pounded and that scared him. Had this fever affected his heart? Visions of old men sitting on steps in the shade shook him, moved him.

  He straightened up and waited out a momentary wooziness. He shuffled toward the door and opened it. The family’s dog lay just outside. Brennan held a finger up to his mouth and the dog didn’t bark, gave just a little yip of greeting. Brennan stepped outside and began shuffling slowly down the track toward the trail that he knew must lead to town. The dog walked beside him companionably.

  Brennan tried not to think, just to put one foot in front of the other. A notion of walking to the road played through his mind. But each step announced clearly that this would not be possible.

  About twenty feet down the track, his legs began to wobble. He turned, suddenly wishing he’d never tried this stunt.

  “Brennan Merriday!” The petite spinster was running toward him, a long housecoat nearly tangling around her ankles.

  He tried to stand straight, but his spine began to soften.

  She reached him just as he began to crumple and caught him, her arm over his chest, her hand under his arm. “Oof!”

  Slowly she also crumpled. They fell together onto the barely bedewed grass, he facedown, she faceup. She was breathing hard from running.

  “Brennan Merriday,” the little Quaker scolded, “what was thee thinking?”

  “Why do you always use both my names?” he snapped, breathing hard too and saying the first thing that came to mind that didn’t smack of rudeness.

  “That is the Quaker way, our plain speech. Titles such as mister and sir are used to give distinction, and all are equal before God.”

  She lay beside him, her arm lodged under his chest, much too close to suit him.

  “God and Quakers may think that but hardly anybody else does,” he panted. He rolled away to stand but halted when he’d gained his knees. He had to get his breath before trying to stand to his feet, get away from this soft, sweet-smelling woman.

  The Quaker sprang up with—he grumbled silently—a disgusting show of energy. “I’ll help thee.”

  “I prefer to get up by my lonesome, thank you,” he retorted, his temper at his own weakness leaking out. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

  Her hair had come loose from a single braid and flared around her shoulders. Her skin glowed like a ripe peach in the dawn light. He took a deep breath and tried to turn his thoughts from her womanliness.

  “Why did thee do this without discussing it first, Brennan Merriday?”

  “I reckon,” he drawled, “I overestimated my strength, Miss Rachel.”

  “I don’t think thee understands just how ill…” She pursed her lips. “A little patience is what is needed now. I had planned to help thee take a short walk today. It is exactly what is needed.”

  “Well, I saved you the trouble and took my own walk.” He couldn’t stop the ridiculous words.

  She gave him a look that mimicked ones his sour aunt Martha had used often when he was little.

  “I’m not a child,” he muttered.

  A moment of silence. Miss Rachel pressed her lips together, staring at him. Then she glanced away. “I know that,” sh
e murmured.

  Slowly he made it onto one foot and then he rose, woozy but standing.

  She waited nearby, both arms outstretched as if to catch him. “Should I call Noah to help?”

  “I can do it myself. Just let me take my time.”

  The family dog stayed nearby, watching as if trying to figure out what they were doing.

  “You can go on in,” he said, waving one hand.

  She studied him. “Very well, but since thee has so much energy, thee can help me today. I am going to try a new recipe and I need the walnuts I bought in Saint Louis shelled and chopped.”

  “I’ll look forward to it, Miss Rachel,” he said with a sardonic twist and bow of his head.

  She walked away and he had to close his eyes in order not to watch her womanly sway. Even a shapeless housecoat couldn’t completely hide her feminine curves. Why hadn’t some man in Pennsylvania married her? She wasn’t ugly or anything. And why was he, Brennan Merriday, drifter, thinking such thoughts?

  He was the last one to speak about getting married. His wife had betrayed him, but perhaps from her point of view he’d betrayed her. Either way, Lorena was dead and he had no business wondering why someone was or wasn’t married.

  *

  After breakfast, Noah went outside to work on some wood project. Brennan watched him leave, wishing he had the strength to do man’s work. The pretty wife and children were off to visit friends and that left him alone with the spinster.

  Miss Rachel began setting out bowls, eggs, flour, sugar and such. “I am baking rolled walnut yeast logs today. I recalled that it’s one of Noah’s favorites and I want to thank him for his kindness to me.”

  Her remark caught Brennan’s attention. So she felt beholden to the Whitmores, too? And then he recalled that she had said she’d arrived on the same riverboat as he had. “What’d you come here for? To find a husband?”

  If looks could slap, his face would have been stinging.

  “No, I am not looking for a husband. I could have had one back in Pennsylvania. That is, if I didn’t mind being a workhorse, raising six stepchildren under the age of twelve.” Her tone was uncharacteristically biting.

  She reddened. “I didn’t resent the children, honestly, but if I’d felt any love for their father…or sensed that he might ever…” Her jaw tensed. “I like to do business but marriage should be a matter of the heart, not something akin to a business contract. Doesn’t thee agree?”

  A matter of the heart. His jaw clenched and his unruly mind brought up Lorena’s face. Miss Rachel wanted to be loved, not just needed. And he’d found out that his beloved one could let him down, turn her back and walk away.

  Wrenching his mind back to the present, he held up both hands. “I get it. I ain’t looking for a wife.”

  “That suits me.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve come to set up in business here.”

  He couldn’t mask his shock. “You plan to have your own business?”

  “I intend to open a bakery and sweet shop. And Pepin is just the kind of town that can support one.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” he blurted. “A bakery in this little half-horse town?”

  “No,” she said, dismissing his opinion. “I am not out of my mind. Pepin’s a river town. Boats stop daily, dropping off and picking up passengers and goods. I will sell my confections to the river boatmen and passengers. Candies and baked goods. I’ve rarely met a man without a sweet tooth.”

  He glanced directly at her for the first time. “You good at makin’ candy and such?”

  He glimpsed a flash of pleased pride in her eyes. “People have said I have a gift for creating sweet things.”

  “Well, when am I gonna taste some?” he asked with a sly glance.

  He’d made her smile. “Well, if you start shelling these walnuts, that would be today.”

  She set a cloth bag of nuts, a small hammer and a slender, pointed nutpick in front of him. “Take thy time. I must mix the dough and it must rise once before I’ll need to roll it out, then spread the filling of honey, cinnamon and crushed walnuts and roll it back up to rise again.”

  He usually spent his days sweeping out liveries or saloons or lifting and carrying at docks. It had been a very long time since he’d sat in a kitchen with a woman while she baked. There was something cozy about it. Then memories of shelling pecans for his aunt Martha came back to him. He shook out a few walnuts from the bag and stared at them.

  Many minutes passed as Miss Rachel measured and mixed.

  “I’ve been thinking about a proposition for you, Brennan Merriday.” She took a deep breath and plunged on, “I also intend to stake a claim for myself here.”

  The few words shocked Brennan again. He’d never conceived of a woman doing something like this. “A single woman homesteadin’? Is that allowed?”

  “It is. I am determined to have my own place.”

  Unheard of. “You couldn’t do it. You wouldn’t have the strength to prove up, to do all the work.”

  Proving up meant fulfilling the government requirements of building and clearing the land within the five year time limit. She went on, “That is where my proposition comes in. I was wondering if I could hire thee to help me out for a few weeks.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, concentrating on her mixing and measuring.

  He gaped at her. Work for a woman?

  “Around here, men only work for others upon need or when their own chores are done,” she explained what he could already guess. “And this is the growing season. Men are plowing and planting…” Her voice faded away.

  Work for a woman, he repeated silently. When he’d been without funds in the past, he’d done chores for women in payment for meals. But work for one like a hired hand? The idea sent prickles through him. He swallowed down the mortification.

  “So?” she prompted.

  “Even if I accepted this employment, I can’t build a cabin all by myself, not even with Noah’s help,” he pointed out.

  “Noah says there is an abandoned homestead near town.” Her voice had brightened. “There is already a cabin. So that would mean just fixing it up. But I’ll also need someone to dig me a garden and so on.” She looked him in the eye, her expression beseeching. “Is thee interested in such employment?”

  Brennan’s mind struggled to take this in. A woman stake a claim? A woman run her own business? Preposterous. And him work for a woman? An outlandish idea. Men didn’t do that. He could hear the kind of comments he’d get from other men about working for this spinster.

  And Miss Rachel was just the kind of woman—respectable and straightlaced—he generally steered clear of. And he never stayed in one place long and this suggestion would interfere with that—mightily. Canada was calling him.

  But then he recalled his debt to her and picking up the little hammer, he whacked the nearest walnut so hard it cannonaded off the table and hit the wall.

  Miss Rachel’s finely arched eyebrows rose toward her hairline. She walked over and picked up the walnut. “Try it again, Brennan Merriday. If thee doesn’t wish to work for a woman, I will understand.” She turned her head away.

  He could tell from the mifftiness of her tone that he’d insulted her. He hadn’t meant to. But Miss Rachel was going against the flow and probably knew what was in store for her, probably knew what people would say to him for working for her.

  Why would she do this? He looked down at the returned walnut. He remembered Aunt Martha, his father’s unmarried sister, who’d lived with them. He’d just accepted that unmarried women spent their days looking after other women’s children and washing other people’s clothes. Had that made his aunt so crusty? Had she hidden blighted dreams of her own?

  He couldn’t actually work for a woman, could he? He looked up. Did he have a choice? He owed this Quakeress his life. “I can’t take the job formal-like, Miss Rachel. But I will help you get set up.”

  “Thank thee, Brennan Merriday. I’d shake thy hand but…” She nodded to her hands, alread
y kneading the large bowl of dough. Her face was rosy from the oven and from their talk no doubt. He wondered why this woman kept catching him by surprise, causing him to want to shield her. She was not like any other woman he’d ever met.

  He expertly tapped another walnut and it opened in two clean-cut halves. He felt a glimmer of satisfaction and began digging out the nuts, breathing in the scent of yeast and walnut oil.

  He’d help this woman get started and then he could leave, his conscience clear. He’d start north to Canada again—Canada, where no one had fought in the war and held no grudge nor memory. Where he might finally forget.

  Chapter Two

  A week later, Rachel climbed up on the bench of the wagon with Brennan’s help. He had insisted that if he was accompanying her, he would do the driving. She’d given in. Men hated being thought weak and this man had been forced to swallow that for over a fortnight now.

  Finally she’d be able to get started doing what she’d come to do, create her new life. A fear niggled at her. What if someone had gotten the jump on her and already claimed the property? Well, she’d deal with it if she had to, not before.

  Another worry pinched her. The homestead might need a lot of work, more than Noah and Brennan could do. “Did Noah tell thee where to find the abandoned homestead?” she asked, keyed up.

  “Yes, Miss Rachel, you know Noah explained where it was. What you’re asking me is, do I remember how to drive there.”

  She grinned at him, ignoring the barely disguised aggravation in his tone. “Thee must be feeling better if thee can joke.”

  He looked disgruntled at her levity but said nothing, just slapped the reins and started the horses moving. They rode in silence for the first mile. Against her own will, she studied his profile, a strong one.