Their Frontier Family

She bowed her head, praying that she wouldn’t reveal the waves of shame coursing through her. Though she wore the plain clothing of the Quakers, a simple unruffled gray dress and bonnet, she hadn’t fooled anyone. They all saw through her mask.

A man cleared his throat. The storekeeper wanted her out. Could she blame him? While she shopped here, no “decent” woman would enter. She set down the bolt of blue calico she’d been admiring, hiding the trembling of her hands.

Feeling as if she were slogging through a cold, rushing flood, she moved toward the storekeeper. “I think that will be...all.” She opened her purse, paid for the items Mrs. Gabriel had sent her into town to purchase. Outwardly, she kept her head lowered. Inwardly, she dragged up her composure like a shield around her. Trying to avoid further slights, she hurried across the muddy street to the wagon. Approaching hooves sounded behind her but she didn’t look over her shoulder.

Just as she reached the wagon, a man stepped out of the shadows. “Let me help you up,” he said.

She backed away. This wasn’t the first time he’d approached her, and she had no trouble in identifying what he really wanted from her. “I don’t need your help.” She made her voice hard and firm. “Please do not accost me like this. I will tell Adam Gabriel—”

“He’s a Quaker,” the man sneered. “Won’t do anything to me. Just tell me to seek God or something.”

And with that, he managed to touch her inappropriately.

She stifled a scream. Because who would come to her aid if she called for help? A prostitute—even a reformed one—had no protectors.

“I’m a Quaker,” a man said from behind Sunny, “but I’ll do more than tell thee to seek God.”

Sunny spun around to see Noah Whitmore getting off his horse. Though she’d seen him at the Quaker meeting house earlier this year, she’d never spoken to him.

The man who’d accosted her took a step back. “I thought when you came back from the war, you repented and got all ‘turn the other cheek’ again.”

Noah folded his arms. “Thee ever hear the story about Samson using the jawbone of a jackass to slaughter Philistines?” Noah’s expression announced that he was in the mood to follow Samson’s example here and now.

Sunny’s heart pounded. Should she speak or remain silent?

The rude man began backing away. “She isn’t the first doxy the Gabriel family’s taken in to help.” The last two words taunted her. “Where’s the father of her brat? She’s not foolin’ anybody. She can dress up like a Quaker but she isn’t one. And we all know it.”

Noah took a menacing step forward and the man turned and bolted between stores toward the alley. Noah removed his hat politely. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

His pant legs were spattered with mud. He looked as if he had just now gotten back from the journey that had taken him away for the past few months. She’d noticed his absence—after all, it was a small church.

But honesty prompted her to admit that Noah had always caught her attention, right from the beginning.

Noah wasn’t handsome in the way of a charming gambler in a fancy vest. He was good-looking in a real way, and something about the bleak look in his eyes, the grim set of his face, always tugged at her, made her want to go to him and touch his cheek.

A foolish thing I could never do.

“Is thee happy here?” Noah asked her. The unexpected question startled her. She struggled to find a polite reply.

He waved a hand as if wiping the question off a chalkboard.

She was relieved. Happy was a word she rarely thought of in connection with her life.

She forced down the emotions bubbling up, churning inside her. She knew that Mrs. Gabriel sent her to town as a little change in the everyday routine of the farm, a boon, not an ordeal. I should tell her how it always is for me in town.

But Sunny hadn’t been able to bring herself to speak of the insults, snubs and liberties she faced during each trip to town—not to the sweet unsullied Quaker woman, Constance Gabriel. The woman who’d taken her in just before Christmas last year and treated her like a daughter.

Sunny then realized that Noah was waiting to help her up into the wagon and that she hadn’t answered his question. She hastily offered him her hand. “Yes, the Gabriels have been very good to me.”

Two women halted on the boardwalk and stared at the two of them with searing intensity and disapproval. Sunny felt herself blush. “I’d better go. Mrs. Gabriel will be wondering where I am,” Sunny said.

Noah frowned but then courteously helped her up onto the wagon seat. “If thee doesn’t mind, since I’m going thy way, I’ll ride alongside thee.”

What could she say? He wasn’t a child. He must know what associating with her would cost him socially. She slapped the reins and the wagon started forward. Noah swung up into his saddle and caught up to her.

Behind them both women made loud huffing sounds of disapproval.

“Don’t let them bother thee,” Noah said, leaning so she could hear his low voice. “People around here don’t think much of Quakers. We’re misfits.”

Sunny wondered if he might be partially right. Though she was sure the women were judging her, maybe they were judging him, too. Certainly Quakers dressed, talked and believed differently than any people she’d ever met before. She recalled now what she’d heard before, that Noah had gone to war. For some reason this had grieved his family and his church.

“You went to war,” slipped out before she could stop herself.

His mouth became a hard line. “Yes, I went to war.”

She’d said the wrong thing. “But you’re home now.”

Noah didn’t respond.

She didn’t know what to say so she fell silent, as well.

Twice wagons passed hers as she rode beside a pensive Noah Whitmore on the main road. The people in the wagons gawked at seeing the two of them together. Several times along the way she thought Noah was going to say more to her, but he didn’t. He looked troubled, too. She wanted to ask him what was bothering him, but she didn’t feel comfortable speaking to him like a friend. Except for the Gabriels, she had no friends here.

Finally when she could stand the silence no longer, she said, “You’ve been away recently.” He could take that as a question or a comment and treat it any way he wanted.

“I’ve been searching for a place of my own. I plan to homestead in Wisconsin.”

His reply unsettled her further. Why, she couldn’t say. “I see.”

“Has thee ever thought about leaving here?”

“Where would I go?” she said without waiting to think about how she should reply. She hadn’t learned to hold her quick tongue—unfortunately.

He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

And what would I do? She had no way to support herself—except to go back to the saloon. Sudden revulsion gagged her.

Did those women in town think she’d chosen to be a prostitute? Did they think her mother had chosen to be one? A saloon was where a woman went when she had nowhere else to go. It wasn’t a choice; it was a life sentence.

As they reached the lane to the Whitmore family’s farm, Noah pulled at the brim of his hat. “Sunny, I’ll leave thee here. Thanks for thy company. After weeks alone it was nice to speak to thee.”

We didn’t say much—or rather, you didn’t. But Sunny smiled and nodded, her tongue tied by his kindness. He’d actually been polite to her in public. At the saloon, men were often polite but only inside. Outside they didn’t even look at her, the lowest of the low.

With a nod, Noah rode down the lane.

Sunny drove on in turmoil. A mile from home she stopped the wagon and bent her head, praying for self-control as she often did on her return trip from town. If she appeared upset, she would have to explain the cause of her distress to Constance Gabriel. And she didn’t want to do that. She owed the Gabriel family much. She’d met Mercy Gabriel, M.D., the eldest Gabriel daughter, in Idaho Territory. Dr. Mercy had delivered Sunny’s baby last year and then made the arrangements for Sunny to come here to her parents, Constance and Adam, and try for a new start.