Heartland Courtship

“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, already 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.

Freshly shaven and with his face no longer drawn with fever, he was an exceptionally handsome man. She brushed a fly away from her face. She turned her gaze forward. Handsome men never looked at her. Why should she look at this one?

Brennan spoke to the horses as he slowed them over a deep rut. His Southern accent made her wonder once more. The horrible war had ended slavery, yet tensions between the North and South had not eased one bit. And after four years of war, the South was devastated. What had brought this Southerner north?

She watched his jaw work. She wondered what he was getting up the nerve to say to her. She hoped he wasn’t about to repeat the usual words of discouragement.

“Are you sure you’re ready to set up a place all by yourself?” he asked finally.

Rachel did not sigh as loudly as she felt like doing. Her stepmother’s voice played in her mind. An unmarried woman doesn’t live alone. Or run a business on her own. It’s unnatural. What will people say?

“Brennan Merriday,” Rachel said, “if thee only knew how many times that has been asked of me. I am quite certain that I can homestead on my own land.” Her tone was wry, trying to pass his concern off lightly—even though it chafed her. She had become accustomed to being an oddity—a woman who didn’t marry and who wanted to do things no woman should want.

“Why do you say thee and thy and your cousin doesn’t?”

This question took her by surprise. “I don’t really know except there isn’t a Quaker meeting here.”

“I take it that Noah’s the preacher hereabout, but not a Quaker.”

She barely listened to his words, still surveying him. His body still needed feeding, but he had broad shoulders and long limbs. Most of all, the sense of his deep inner pain drew her even though she knew he didn’t want that. She turned her wayward eyes forward again. “Yes, he seems to have reconnected with God.”

“Don’t it bother you that he’s not a Quaker no more?”

“We were both raised Quaker but I don’t consider other Christians to be less than we are. Each Christian has a right to go his own path to God.”

“And what about those who don’t want to have nothin’ to do with any church?”

She heard the edge in the man’s voice and wondered how to reply. She decided frankness should be continued. “When he enlisted in the Union Army, Noah was put out of meeting.”

The man beside her said nothing but she felt that he absorbed this like a blow to himself. She recalled praying for God to keep her cousin safe and reading the lists of the wounded and fallen after every battle, hoping not to see his name listed. The horrible war had made a dreadful impact on all their lives. Still did.

She brushed away another fly as if sweeping away the sadness of the war, sweeping away her desire to hold him close and soothe him as she would a wounded bird.

Brennan remained silent. His hands were large and showed that he had worked hard all his life.