Free I do, I do, I do by Maggie Osborne Page B

toes?"
    Like an idiot she peered down at her sturdy shoes. "I don't believe so."
    "Excellent." Bowing slightly, he made a flourish with his hat. "Bernard T. Barrett at your service." A grin revealed teeth as white as baking soda. "Everyone calls me Bear."
    Clara could see why. His voice seemed to growl out of a barrel chest and he had twinkly brown-bear eyes.
    She would have told him her name, too, but she suddenly heard the silence behind her and realized Juliette and Zoe were watching and listening. Juliette at least would be shocked to her toes if Clara, a married woman, offered her name to a stranger.
    Smiling down at her, he made another flourish, then tapped his hat onto the back of his head. "Well, then. If you're sure I didn't injure you."
    "It was nothing. Really. I turned too fast and wasn't looking where I was going." Clara dipped her head. Mr. Barrett kept gazing at her. Staring, actually.
    "You sure are a pretty little thing," he remarked in a booming voice, causing several men to look up and give her the once-over. Before she could take offense, Bernard T. Barrett grinned, bowed slightly, then moved away from her through the piles of boxes and sacks, his strides as big as the rest of him.
    An hour later, during a demonstration emphasizing the dangers of camp stoves, Clara gave up trying not to think about him. She couldn't get over the fact that Mr. Bernard T. Barrett had complimented her as a pretty
little
thing.
    In twenty-six years, no one had ever described Clara Klaus as little. The word ravished her and sent a shiver of delight coursing through her body followed by a pang of regret. Where had men like Bernard T. Barrett been when she was single? She just knew that he didn't have a string of Mmes Barrett trailing out behind him. Her heart understood with rock-solid certainty that he wasn't that kind of low-down, good-for-nothing man.
    "Clara, are you paying attention?" Zoe glared at her. "We all need to know how to operate this stove, because we'll each have our turn at using it."
    "Wait a minute." Juliette's gray eyes rounded in horror. "You don't expect me to cook. Oh, my heavens. You do."
    Clara listened to Zoe's sharp reply with half an ear. As far as Clara could discern, Juliette had not acknowledged the man across the street. Judging by Juliette's demeanor, she was entirely indifferent to a handsome man's intent interest.
    Which meant that Juliette was a far better person than she, Clara thought with a sigh of irritation. She cast another surreptitious glance in the direction Bernard T. Barrett had taken. She would never see Mr. Barrett again, and that was just as well. After all, she was sort of married.
    Bracing herself, she thought of her thieving husband and waited for the anvil of pain to squash her as it usually did when she grieved over Jean Jacques.
    The pain came, but it didn't quite squash her. For the first time since Juliette had appeared and ruined her life, Clara sensed that a moment might come when she could think about Jean Jacques without the anguish of wanting to hold him or kill him.
    Possibly. Maybe.

----
Chapter 5

     
    The piers at the foot of First Avenue were crammed with men jammed shoulder to shoulder trying to shout or push their way on board the
Annasett
. Hoping to catch the attention of an armed crew member guarding the bottom of the gangplank, Zoe waved her ticket above her hat. It was useless to shout as everyone was yelling. And, she realized, she was too short for her waving ticket to be noticed in the chaotic melee.
    Peering over her shoulder, she screamed at Juliette and Clara to stay right behind her. Then she lowered her head and went to work with her elbows, opening a path. When one man stepped back in surprise or anger, she slipped in front of him and jabbed at the next one. By the time she reached the gangplank, her hat was askew, splatters of tobacco juice soiled her skirts, and her elbows were bruised from banging against ribs, but she presented her ticket