Free Gingham Bride by Jillian Hart Page A

trouble?”
    Aye, there would be trouble if he gave in to the need to stay near her. Trouble in the form he hadn’t reckoned on.
    A shy man, he said no more, even when she continued to inspect his hand. He stayed the urge to brush the stray untamed curls before they tumbled in her eyes. He fought to wrestle down soft emotions coming to life within him, feelings he did not want to name or examine too closely. “You have taken care of me well enough, Fiona.”
    “It looks good, so I’ll let you have your way, tough guy.” She gently relinquished control of his hand. “I should fetch some breakfast for you before you go. Town is a long walk on an empty stomach.”
    “Is this what you always do? Take care of everyone else? Do you have no one to care about you at all?”
    “There’s no other family. No one else left alive but my parents.” She shook her head, scattering gossamer curls that fell back in place around her perfect heart-shaped face. What a picture she made with her simple gingham dress peeking out beneath her long gray coat and her silken black locks. “Are you starting to worry about me, Mr. McPherson?”
    “We are back to being formal, are we?”
    “We are strangers.”
    “And yet I’ve heard of you all my life, lass. I did not think you would be so beautiful.”
    “Beautiful? No wonder you’ve never married. You have terrible eyesight and poor judgment.”
    “Aye, I have been accused of the latter more times than I’d care to admit.” He chuckled, a warm coziness coming to life within him. “You enjoy insulting me?”
    “What other course do I have?” Her chin went up. “Da might decide to lower his price and then where would I be? It’s best to make sure you can’t stand the likes of me.”
    “Wise thinking.” He hefted his rucksack from the shadows and settled the strap on his shoulder. “Times might get harder for you, Fiona. You can come to me if you need help, if you need a friend.”
    “Perhaps I should offer you the same. You might have need of a friend, too.”
    “That I do.” They were too alike, Ian realized, as he buttoned his coat. With family burdens and financial hardships and no clear way to turn, and he wished there was more he could offer her. He grabbed his hat from a nail in the wall and settled it onto his head. His feet did not want to move, although the rest of him was ready. He had not bargained on caring about the girl. He cleared his throat. “I left something for you on your sewing basket.”
    “A gift?”
    “Aye. It was your grandmother’s.” He hesitated with his hand on the door. “A promise was made long ago that it would be given to you on our engagement day. I think we can agree that you should have it anyway.”
    “May God go with you, Ian McPherson.”
    “And with you.” He shouldered open the door and the fierce snow pounded against him, cloaking him with white. “Goodbye, Fiona.”
    “Take care of that hand.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, watching as he braced his cane and ambled into the storm. The thick veil of white stole him from her sight long before the door slammed shut, leaving her in darkness.
    That was one burden off her shoulders. Ian McPherson, the man chosen for her long ago, had come and gone and her family duty was over. She ought to feel jubilant, or at the very least relieved. She was neither as she knelt to rub the top of Mally’s head and dodge him underfoot. She stopped to pat Flannigan and Riley and the emptiness dogged her, a vague feeling that something would never be the same.
    Her sewing basket sat tucked in the darkest shadows of the stall, in the soft hay that Ian had freshly stirred and beside the quilts and blankets he had neatly folded. She couldn’t make out the two items sitting on the woven basket lid until she knelt close and Mally knocked the edge of a paper with his cheek. The paper flew into the hay like a giant maple leaf, and something sparkled as it fell, too. A small gold locket