Free Heartland Courtship by Lyn Cote

window, granting him a reprieve. He turned to head to the blacksmith shop to jaw with the smithy.
    “Mr. Merriday!” a woman’s voice called from above. “Did you need anything?”
    Irritation ground inside him. Mrs. Ashford with her windows overlooking Main Street didn’t miss a thing. He looked up, pinning a smile on his face. “Yes, ma’am, I came to thank you.”
    “Come to the rear and we’ll let you in,” she ordered.
    He wanted to decline but Miss Rachel didn’t want him to be rude to this busybo...this good woman. So he walked around to the rear and Mr. Ashford let him in. “I just came to thank you—”
    “Ned, ask Mr. Merriday to come up!” Mrs. Ashford called down.
    Ned dutifully motioned to Brennan to precede him up the stairs.
    Brennan gritted his teeth and climbed to the living quarters. As he topped the stairs, he snatched his hat off and schooled his face into a smile. “Evenin’, ma’am.”
    “Mr. Merriday, so glad to see you accepted our gift of thanks.” The storekeeper’s wife sat in the dining area that took up half the large, open room overlooking the river. There were several people around the long table, two he’d never seen in town.
    “Cousin, this is Brennan Merriday, a workman in our village,” Mrs. Ashford said. “He saved our store from thievery last night. Mr. Merriday, my cousin, Mrs. Almeria Brown, and her granddaughter Miss Posey Brown. They arrived today by boat.”
    Brennan glanced at the plump older woman who lifted an eyeglass on a string to study him like a bug on a pin. He bowed his head to her, his neck stiff. “Ma’am.” And then to the younger lady who looked about seventeen, too slender but pretty in a common way with brown hair and eyes. “Miss.”
    “Are you homesteading hereabouts?” the older woman asked, piercing him with her gaze, her eye magnified by the glass. Some of her iron-gray hair had slipped from its bun.
    “No, ma’am, just working to help set up Miss Rachel, the preacher’s cousin, on her homestead.”
    Two other young people, one a young girl and one a young blond man, also sat at the table, looking at him. “This is our daughter Amanda and her friend Gunther Lang,” the storekeeper said.
    Brennan nodded, feeling beyond awkward. These were not the kind of people he associated with. He knew where he belonged—down the street at the saloon.
    “You did very good last night,” the young man said with the trace of a foreign accent.
    “Yes,” the young girl agreed, “you were so brave.”
    “I didn’t do much. They weren’t too dangerous, just sneak thieves.”
    “Please sit down, Merriday,” Ashford invited, coming up behind him. “I’m sure Miss Rachel has fed you, but would you take a cup of coffee with us?”
    From the shopkeeper’s tone, Brennan knew these people were experiencing the same disorientation. They weren’t comfortable with his sort in their dining room. And the old biddy with the eyeglass on a string was staring bullets at him. “No, thanks. You’re right, Miss Rachel fed me to the brim. I just wanted to say thanks. This morning I wasn’t ready to accept anything.” Anything from you people.
    “We wanted you to know that we appreciated your quick action,” Ashford said.
    Brennan nodded, his head bobbing like a toy. “Just did what anybody would.”
    “I think you did more,” the young man said.
    Brennan nodded once more. “I’ll bid you good evening then.” He waved Ashford back into his seat and tried not to jog down the stairs.
    Unwillingly he overheard the old woman say, “What kind of man works for some woman when he could stake his own claim? Must be shiftless.”
    Insulted yet irritated that a stranger’s opinion could get to him, he let himself out and breathed with relief. And headed straight for the saloon.
    He walked through the doors and let out a big breath. The saloon didn’t have a piano player and the atmosphere was more drowsy than raucous, but nobody here would make him