Free Faith of the Heart by Jewell Tweedt Page A

not!
                  She composed herself and replied as sweetly as she could muster, “Mr. Dawson, this is all such a surprise that my head is spinning. Might I just take these papers home and look them over this evening? It is such a big decision and I just don’t know what to do.” She batted her eyelashes at him and he swallowed the bait.
                  “Of course, little lady, of course. I’ll just swing by tomorrow and we’ll take this problem off your hands. Why, I can even recommend a boarding house for you to move into. That is, until you decide you want to head back east.”
                  Claire forced herself to smile at the loathsome man, backing out the door as quickly as she could.
                  “Until tomorrow, dear,” he called after her, but she was already gone.
    Grumbling to herself, Claire stomped down the street clutching the papers.
    That stuck-up, pompous miser ! No one ’ s taking my store and my home from me. There ’ s got to be a way around this. Turning the corner, Claire bumped into someone very solid , sending her grasping to right her footing. She found purchase on a shirt of sturdy course fabric. She quickly pulled her hands away.
                  “Oh excuse me! ” S he looked up into the twinkling eyes of Sheriff Maxwell.
                  Maxwell quickly took in her serious expression. “Well, now. That doesn’t look like the smiling Miss Secord I usually run into. Something bothering you today?”
                  Claire swallowed hard and tried to smile reassuringly. Right now the last thing she wanted to do was talk to another man. She didn’t want anyone, not even the attractive s heriff, to know about her encounter at the bank. “I’m fine . J ust a little preoccupied, I guess. Excuse me, please, Sheriff. I really have to get back to the mercantile.”
                  He looked at her questioningly, “Why sure, Miss Secord, I understand. I’ll be ’round to see you later. I wanted to talk to you ‘bout somethin’.”
                  She agreed to meet with him later, wondering what he might want, but more concerned about the immediate problem. She hurried on, leaving the sheriff standing on the boardwalk with a puzzled look on his face.
     
     
     
                                                            CHAPTER EIGHT
                                                            Baltimore, Maryland , May 1868
                                                           
     
                  As dusk deepened at the Baltimore seaport, Cal tidied up his desk, blew out the whale oil lamp, and started back to his boarding house. His slight limp was more pronounced when he was weary and tonight his head throbbed. After a quiet dinner in his room, Cal laid down on his narrow bed. Some days it was all he could do just to put his time in at the paper, days when all he wanted to do was sleep. Other days sleep came at a terrible price. For years now, Cal had nightmares of horrific days in battle, nightmares of being left for dead, nightmares of Claire calling out to him, all a product of being a part of the so-called Civil War—the most un-civil war ever fought .                                                        
    “Claire! Claire!” Cal a woke screaming , drenched in sweat and his limbs tangled in the bedsheets. It was early morning and he had slept fitfully through the night, still fully clothed.                                          
    After all these years , he still couldn ’ t stop thinking of her, of the life they’d planned together , of his deep love for her and the terrible thought that she might belong