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,” she 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
