His Prairie Sweetheart. Erica Vetsch

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      If she was a day over twenty, he’d eat his spurs. Fair skin that surely felt like rose petals, full pink lips, and those eyes...blue as Big Stone Lake, and about as deep.

      But her crowning glory...that hair. Elias had seen some yellow hair before—this was the land of the Scandinavian immigrant, after all—but yellow didn’t seem the right word to describe hers. Gold? Wheaten? Honey? Flaxen? They all fell short.

      “Are you Mr. Parker?” She said it “Pah-kah” in a Southern drawl as slow and sweet as dripping sorghum syrup. Elias stepped forward, but halted when he realized she was speaking to his brother.

      “I’m Tyler Parker, the school superintendent. Welcome to Snowflake, Miss Cox.” He swept his bowler off his head and smoothed his hair like a boy in Sunday school. “We’re so pleased to have you here.”

      Elias tucked his thumbs into his gun belt and leaned against a porch post, aiming to strike an I-am-not-bowled-over-by-a-pretty-face posture, even though she’d knocked him for six. As he strove for some aplomb, his mind raced. He’d never seen anyone less suited to teach the Snowflake school. If Tyler had any sense at all, he’d thank her kindly, buy her a return ticket and send her on her way. The poor girl would perish here before the first snowfall.

      If she lasted that long. She might turn out to be just like Britta, who had stayed just long enough to break Elias’s heart.

      Miss Cox squinted up at the bold sunshine and turned to retrieve her belongings from the stage. She withdrew a parasol and snapped it open. Elias blinked. The parasol exactly matched her dress, must’ve been created just for her outfit. He’d never seen the like. Where did she think she was, New York City?

      Poor Tyler. He’d picked a winner this time. She was pretty to look at, but about as practical as a silver spoon when you needed a snow shovel.

      She stared at the buildings lining Main Street, at Tyler who rocked on his toes and rubbed his hands together again, then finally at Elias, sizing him up from his boots to his hatband. His thoughts must’ve been evident on his face, because even though he touched his hat brim and gave a nod, her chin went up and she seemed to freeze. Lips tight, she looked around once more, as if hoping for city streets and fancy houses to appear. She didn’t glance his way again.

      Elias shook his head. What was she expecting? A royal welcome? Brass bands and banners? What had his brother saddled him with for the next nine months? She looked tighter wound than a reel of barbed wire.

      “Please—” Tyler took her elbow “—come up here out of the sun. You must be tired after your long journey. This is my brother, Elias. He’s the town sheriff, but for today, he’s tasked with seeing you safely ensconced in your new dwellings. He’ll take care of the baggage.” Tyler ushered her onto the boardwalk, making clearing motions ahead of them though there was nobody around besides the stage driver. Treating her as if she were a fragile pasque flower. That might be fine for Tyler, but she’d get no such coddling from Elias. She’d chosen to come to western Minnesota, and she’d have to learn to stand on her own two feet out here. Or go back where she came from. They needed a teacher, all right, but not one like this.

      “Hey, Sheriff.” Keenan hopped down from the high stagecoach seat and coiled his whip, threading it up his arm and onto his shoulder. “Good traveling weather, but we could use some rain.” He spit into the street under the horses’ bellies. “That’s some looker I brung ya, huh?” His version of a whisper rattled the windows of the stage office, and Miss Cox’s already straight spine stiffened. If she put that nose any higher in the air, she’d drown in a rainstorm.

      “Just get up there and throw down her bag.” Elias adjusted his hat. “I’m supposed to be the teamster today, getting her where she needs to go.”

      “Her bag? You mean bags. They’re in the boot.” Keenan swaggered toward the canvas and strapping covering the rear compartment and began setting valises and trunks and bags on the porch.

      Four, five, six, seven. “All of these?” She had more baggage than an empress.

      “And one inside the coach, too.” Keenan shook his head. “She put up quite a fuss about being careful with that one. Must have all her china in it or something. She brought near everything else she must own. Maybe she’s planning on staying in the territory. It could be she hopes to snag her a husband while she’s here and set up housekeeping. Way she looks, I reckon they’ll be lining up. Won’t matter if she can’t cook a lick nor sew nor garden. A fellow might marry her just to have something that pretty to look at every day.”

      Wonderful. This just kept getting better and better. Maybe she had come out here hoping for a husband. There were more men than women in western Minnesota, and a woman of marrying age got snapped up pretty quickly. Pity the poor sap who wound up with her, though. A man needed a helpmeet out here, a woman who could tend the house and garden and children, and help in the barn and fields if the need arose. Miss Cox hardly looked the type to pick up a pitchfork or hoe a row of potatoes. More likely to know how to pour tea and do needlepoint.

      Elias gathered several of the bags and brought them to the steps. He staggered, just to get his point across to Tyler. Who needed all this stuff?

      “Ah, good. You can load Miss Cox’s things in the buckboard.” Tyler slanted Elias a “behave yourself” older-brother glance, forbidding him any comment on the exotic import standing in the shade of the porch. “I will check in with you as often as I am able, Miss Cox, but Elias will make himself available to assist you in any way he can, should the need arise.”

      “Sheriff Parker.” She held out her gloved hand, and Elias let her bags thump to the porch before taking her fingers for a brief clasp. “I’ll try not to be too much trouble, I’m sure.”

      Ahm shu-wah.

      Elias swallowed, steeling himself not to be swayed from his position by nice manners. He’d been down that road, much to his regret, and he had no desire to repeat his folly.

      She turned to Tyler. “Mr. Parker, is this all there is of the town?” She looked both directions along Main Street. Actually, it was the only street. Twenty or so buildings, none of them grand, lined the thoroughfare.

      Tyler cleared his throat. “Um, yes, for the time being. But we’re always growing. Snowflake is mostly a farming community, but we’re hoping to draw more commerce to town. Having a good quality school will go a long way in enticing family-owned businesses to our little settlement.”

      “I see.” Her faintly bewildered tone said she didn’t see at all. She’d probably never lived anywhere with fewer than a thousand people within shouting distance.

      “The buckboard’s over here.” Tyler ushered her up the street. “We’ll have you at your lodgings soon.”

      Together, they walked toward the buckboard, and Elias, left with the baggage, forced himself not to stare at the graceful sway of her walk and the way her dress trailed and draped in layers and ruffles. He’d never seen a getup quite like that. She looked as if she should be at some garden club or tea party...not that he had any notion what women wore to tea parties, but her outfit had to be more suited to a social engagement than to traveling across the prairie.

      “And which building is the school?” She had to look up at his brother, who wasn’t all that tall. Elias had a feeling he’d dwarf her, since he was half a head taller than Tyler.

      “Oh, the school is north of town a ways. They built it there because that’s where СКАЧАТЬ