Erica Vetsch - His Prairie Sweetheart

But the feelings were too painful to address. If Savannah opened the door to them, they would swarm out and engulf her. What Aunt Carolina said might well be true, but for now, Savannah’s only hope for recovery lay in keeping her feelings locked up tight and escaping to a place where she could start anew.

* * *

“Why do I have to be here? I didn’t hire her.” In fact, this was the last place he wanted to be. Elias Parker hitched his gun belt on his hip and tipped his chair back to rest against the front of the jail. He reached down and ruffled Captain’s fur. The collie rewarded him with a nudge from his wet nose and a swipe of his rough tongue.

“You’re here because I need your help. Because I have to go to Saint Paul to appear before the State Board of Education and don’t know how long I will be gone.” Elias’s brother, Tyler, straightened the lapels on his checked suit and adjusted the angle of his bowler hat.

Propping his boots on the hitching rail, Elias pushed his hat forward and crossed his arms. “Why are you dressed like a snake-oil salesman? You look like you just fell off a Baltimore bus.”

“And you look like you just fell off a wanted poster. I’m trying to make a good impression on the new teacher.” Tyler checked his watch. “The stage is late.”

“The stage is late eleven times out of ten.” Elias scanned the street from under his hat brim. As the town sheriff, it was his job to keep an eye on things and anticipate trouble—something not too difficult in a sleepy farm town like Snowflake. “Tell me her name again.”

“Miss Savannah Cox.” Tyler said it as if he was reading copperplate writing with lots of loops and whorls.

“And she’s from the Carolinas somewhere?” Elias grimaced. “Why’d you go and hire somebody from so far away?”

“Small matter of ‘nobody else applied.’ After the last two fiascos, I promised myself I’d find the perfect applicant, but Miss Cox was the only one who answered the advertisement.” Tyler fussed with his collar.

“Better to hire nobody at all than have another black mark on your record.” Or have a prissy girl arrive in town, flirting and leading you on one minute, and then decamping without a backward glance the next.

“The children can’t afford to lose another year of schooling while we wait for a better applicant. I’m counting on you to look after Miss Cox. I can’t be here often. I have an entire county to supervise. You’ll be right here all the time.”

“It’s not like I don’t have my own work to do, you know.” Which usually meant sweeping out the jail and making sure all the stores were locked up for the night. Snowflake was as quiet as a church on a Tuesday morning. Which wasn’t a bad thing because it gave Elias time to help his folks out on the farm. And evidently, time to babysit the schoolteacher. “How old is this woman, anyway?”

“I don’t know, but she had such a refined way of writing, and used such fine stationery, I assumed she was middle-aged or better. She sounded very mature in her application letter.”

Elias scratched his chin, feeling the rasp of whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. A “mature” female teacher might set some of his anxiety to rest.

“Here comes the stage.” Tyler straightened and slipped his watch back into his vest pocket. He rubbed his hands together and scrubbed the toes of his shoes on the backs of his pant legs as if he were preparing to meet royalty.

The coach rocked into town and pulled to a stop across from the jail. Elias let his boots drop to the boardwalk and levered himself out of his chair, righting his hat and bracing himself to meet the new teacher. “Stay here, Cap.” He motioned to the dog, which subsided into a hairy heap beside the chair.

Elias formed a mental picture of the new teacher based on Tyler’s assessment. She’d probably be a dried-up old stick with a prunes-and-prisms mouth and no sense of humor. She could pose for the illustration in the dictionary beside the word spinster. She most likely carried a ruler and couldn’t wait to smack a kid’s hand for the slightest infraction. Elias foresaw a long winter ahead if Tyler made him look after her for the entire term. Then again, she’d probably take one glance at the living conditions and bare-bones schoolhouse and scamper back to where she came from.

He rounded the coach just as Tyler opened the stage door, and Elias braced himself to greet an old crone. Instead, a slender gloved hand appeared, and a dainty gray buttoned boot, followed by yards of light blue skirts. A decorative—if impractical—hat emerged, and then she stood on the dusty street.

Elias sucked in a breath and held it. Surely this wasn’t the teacher? He peered over her shoulder, expecting another woman to be perched on the seat, but no one else occupied the coach. He looked back at the young lady.

She was perfection.

Miss Savannah Cox.

In copperplate. With loops. And whorls.

His breath escaped slowly as every thought of crabby spinsters scattered like buckshot. If his teachers had looked anything like her, he might’ve enjoyed school a bit more. Come to think of it, he might be tempted to enroll again.

If she was a day over twenty, he’d eat his spurs. Fair skin that surely felt like rose petals, full pink lips, and those eyes...blue as Big Stone Lake, and about as deep.

But her crowning glory...that hair. Elias had seen some yellow hair before—this was the land of the Scandinavian immigrant, after all—but yellow didn’t seem the right word to describe hers. Gold? Wheaten? Honey? Flaxen? They all fell short.

“Are you Mr. Parker?” She said it “Pah-kah” in a Southern drawl as slow and sweet as dripping sorghum syrup. Elias stepped forward, but halted when he realized she was speaking to his brother.

“I’m Tyler Parker, the school superintendent. Welcome to Snowflake, Miss Cox.” He swept his bowler off his head and smoothed his hair like a boy in Sunday school. “We’re so pleased to have you here.”

Elias tucked his thumbs into his gun belt and leaned against a porch post, aiming to strike an I-am-not-bowled-over-by-a-pretty-face posture, even though she’d knocked him for six. As he strove for some aplomb, his mind raced. He’d never seen anyone less suited to teach the Snowflake school. If Tyler had any sense at all, he’d thank her kindly, buy her a return ticket and send her on her way. The poor girl would perish here before the first snowfall.

If she lasted that long. She might turn out to be just like Britta, who had stayed just long enough to break Elias’s heart.

Miss Cox squinted up at the bold sunshine and turned to retrieve her belongings from the stage. She withdrew a parasol and snapped it open. Elias blinked. The parasol exactly matched her dress, must’ve been created just for her outfit. He’d never seen the like. Where did she think she was, New York City?

Poor Tyler. He’d picked a winner this time. She was pretty to look at, but about as practical as a silver spoon when you needed a snow shovel.

She stared at the buildings lining Main Street, at Tyler who rocked on his toes and rubbed his hands together again, then finally at Elias, sizing him up from his boots to his hatband. His thoughts must’ve been evident on his face, because even though he touched his hat brim and gave a nod, her chin went up and she seemed to freeze. Lips tight, she looked around once more, as if hoping for city streets and fancy houses to appear. She didn’t glance his way again.

Elias shook his head. What was she expecting? A royal welcome? Brass bands and banners? What had his brother saddled him with for the next nine months? She looked tighter wound than a reel of barbed wire.

“Please—” Tyler took her elbow “—come up here out of the sun. You must be tired after your long journey. This is my brother, Elias. He’s the town sheriff, but for today, he’s tasked with seeing you safely ensconced in your new dwellings. He’ll take care of the baggage.” Tyler ushered her onto the boardwalk, making clearing motions ahead of them though there was nobody around besides the stage driver. Treating her as if she were a fragile pasque flower. That might be fine for Tyler, but she’d get no such coddling from Elias. She’d chosen to come to western Minnesota, and she’d have to learn to stand on her own two feet out here. Or go back where she came from. They needed a teacher, all right, but not one like this.