Free Bride Blunder by Kelly Eileen Hake

Chandler.”
    â€œNone taken.” Though I’m not half so poor a risk as you might think. Have they not noticed Gavin didn’t bother to accompany me this morning? In all likelihood, I’ll be a schoolmarm until I can no longer remember the subjects I teach.
    â€œWe’d be no worse off than before.” The farmer, Mr. Grogan, held true to Midge’s prediction.
    â€œNo. I remember us discussing Miss Collins as a possible candidate for the position.”
    Marge held back a sigh. Normally she didn’t like to judge. But to her understanding, Mr. Fosset dealt in oxen. Perhaps that was the source of his bullish obstinacy?
    â€œI don’t believe I’d make a good candidate.” Midge didn’t mince words. “Besides having no experience, patience isn’t my strongest suit. Everyone knows that.”
    Guffaws met her admission.
    â€œWhat if we compromise?” Parson Carter leaned forward. “Hire Miss Chandler to help set up the school and keep her on so long as is possible, but with an added provision.”
    Hope, vibrant and welcome after the flattening revelations of the day before, fluttered to life. “What provision?”
    â€œMiss Collins trains alongside you as your successor.” The parson couldn’t look more pleased as the rest of the council nodded in agreement.
    Marge stood in no position to protest, although one look at her friend’s face told that Midge felt just as she had when she realized Gavin didn’t want her.
    Trapped.

CHAPTER 9
    Peace and quiet. That’s all Midge really wanted. Complete silence. A place with no one and nothing but utter stillness. So she could shatter it by shrieking.
    Instead, she got a guided tour of the new schoolhouse-in-progress. Led by none other than Amos Geer. Amos. Geer. The very reason—aside from her total lack of patience and inability to remain still indoors for any significant length of time—she balked at becoming a teacher.
    The moment they contracted Amos Geer to construct the school, Midge decided to have nothing to do with it. Folks were always saying to “listen to her gut,” and that man made hers grumble. Not in a sour milk sort of way, but in a keep-your-distance type of warning.
    A warning she’d done her level best to heed until a scheming town outmaneuvered her. All because she’d tried to do the right thing for a fellow outsider. The old adage is true—no good deed goes unpunished.
    She scarcely refrained from aiming a kick at the stray rock in her path—that would have been childish. Instead, she played a little game as the three of them trouped toward the building. A game of how-many-things-about-Amos-are-unattractive. Midge prepared to create a long list.
    Four years ago, that incident at Fort Bridger, for one thing. He most likely didn’t even remember it. But I do.
    Then there was the sad matter of his overconfidence. His walk alone should be a source of shame. That stride, legs swallowing the distance as though it was nothing, shoulders relaxed as though completely at ease.
    Why couldn’t he slouch, stoop, strut, swagger, or go stiff in the neck like every other man in town? Those men had the sense God gave a goat and knew full well that everybody had something to cause a hitch in their get-alongs. Any man unaware of his flaws made for a fool.
    And any man who could hide his so well became a threat.
    â€œHere we are.” An obvious statement—and another thing to add to her list of things to dislike, since people who said obvious things lacked ingenuity, as Amos gestured to the already-laid foundation of the schoolhouse. “You can see it’ll be a good size, but plan for the walls to be thick.”
    â€œIt’s larger than the schoolroom I managed in Baltimore.” Marge seemed pleased, at least. “Why will the walls be so thick, I wonder?”
    â€œCouncil batted around a few ideas when I came up with the