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“Wouldn’t be too bad to have his help around here either.” Ed dusted the crumbs from his hands. All eyes fixed on him as if he were interrupting. “Might do him good to be around family more. That’s all.”

“A wife will do the trick.” A dreaminess filled Kaitlyn’s words. “Someone to love the rough edges away.”

“He’ll never go for it.” Wise words from Nick. Surely no one imagined Isaac would agree to their plan. It might even drive him further away. But Drew wasn’t used to being questioned.

“We don’t have to tell him.” Ed finished the last of Nick’s coffee. He rose to refill the cup from the pot Kaitlyn had placed at the other end of the table. Steam rose from the liquid. Even if breakfast hadn’t warmed his belly, the coffee had.

“Good point.” Drew ran a hand along his chin. “We don’t tell him at first. We run an ad, evaluate the replies, then pick a woman or two that might fit him. We turn it over to Isaac from there.”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“He’ll go for it when a pretty lady shows up,” Kaitlyn said. She shared another glance with Drew. Obviously, the honeymoon phase hadn’t passed yet.

Ed cleared his throat. Now was as good a time as any to tell them he’d be at his place working for a couple of hours. If he finished the cradle, he might have time to get it to town today.

“That’s decided, then.” Drew rose from the table before Ed got a word out. “Nick, are you ready to go see about that mare? Ed, I promised one of us would take the Boutwells to town. I need you to take care of that. Put in that ad while you’re there.”

What had led his brother to think he’d be available? Drew lived and breathed this homestead, thinking he needed to command them all like an army regiment. What if Ed refused? What if he dared to want more?

“I’ve got things to do here.” Helping the Boutwells wasn’t so bad, but more than likely, he’d end up with Rebekah wanting to join them.

She hadn’t changed one bit from their school days, back when there’d been a little school on the edge of Heath Quade’s property that all the neighbors had attended.

Before Quade’s wife had passed and he’d sent his younger girls off to boarding school, closing the local schoolhouse down.

But that’d been after all the McGraws and Rebekah had graduated.

Time with Rebekah still rubbed him wrong, like a sand burr stuck inside his boot.

Drew halted for the briefest second, then waved off Ed’s faint complaint.

Ed swallowed back another protest. Wouldn’t do him any good. The cradle would have to wait. He glanced at Nick. “You want to write the ad? You’re the one with all the book smarts.”

Nick rose to follow Drew without a look back. “I’ll leave the ad to you two.”

“Do the ad next trip. Time’s a-wasting to get the neighbors to their train.” Drew waved it off. Which meant Ed would get saddled with writing the ad too.

The sooner he got this over with, the better.

“I can always count on you, Ed.” Drew’s words settled heavy in Ed’s chest as Ed stepped past his brothers on the way to the door.

One more thing added to the endless list of jobs everyone counted on him to do.

All he wanted was a chance to prove his woodworking could be a means to bring in money.

A reason for him to have the time to work on it.

But how would he do that if he never caught a break to even finish this one project?

* * *

It simply has to be Isaac McGraw.

Rebekah Edwards stood at the kitchen window and strained her eyes to make out the identity of the driver approaching the farmhouse.

Her heart beat out a fluttering rhythm. If Isaac drove to town, she’d add each minute of the long ride to her collective memories of every move he had ever made in her presence.

But the man’s hat was down, and the morning sun coming through the kitchen windowpane blurred the figure on the wagon seat. He sat broad-shouldered, muscles flexing as he halted in front of the house.

If only his head would tilt to reveal Issac, his eyes the deep green of the pine trees and his dimpled smile so endearing. She hadn’t seen him in town recently, but she was still holding out hope.

“Are you listening, Rebekah? I don’t want to leave you here alone. Not with all the rumors about Quade’s men.” Aunt Opal’s words pulled Rebekah’s stare from the window. The men’s voices were muffled through the wall.

Despite her excitement at the possibility of seeing Isaac, nothing in Rebekah relished being separated from her aunt and uncle.

She’d lived with them on this farm since coming west over fifteen years ago at the tender age of eleven.

While she stayed by herself in the loft over the newspaper office in Calvin during part of each week due to the distance, she’d never stayed on the farm alone.

Rumors of Quade and his men harassing local farmers until they agreed to sell their land didn’t help matters any.

“I can’t leave the paper. It wouldn’t make it a month without me.

” Rebekah leaned against the kitchen counter, cluttered with the meat and cheese her aunt was preparing for sandwiches, as she folded the checkered cloth around the loaf of freshly baked bread.

Her statement held no bravado, only the bitter truth.

She’d worked at her beloved paper since the summer after she’d graduated from school, and it was struggling. If it didn’t turn around soon, there’d be nothing for Mr. Sullivan to leave her. If she lost her paper, she’d lose her dream of independence.

Aunt Opal’s brows knit together, further deepening the lines of worry as she layered the sandwiches together, working on the little counter space that remained. “I don’t understand how you staying is going to make it better.”

The yeasty scent of the bread tempted Rebekah as she shoved the loaf into the basket.

How would she stretch it out for as many days as possible, this hug in a loaf?

It would be all she had of her aunt’s cooking for a long while.

She stepped closer to Opal, looping her arm around the petite woman’s shoulders.

This woman who’d been closer to her than her own mother all these years.

“We’ve added a special section to take on more matrimonial ads.

They’re my specialty. Mr. Sullivan left them totally in my hands.

I even convinced a larger paper to run them for broader circulation.

” She leaned in to give her aunt a squeeze in an effort to silence her arguments.

Rebekah didn’t need to add her aunt’s concerns to her own worries about looking after the garden, the canning, and the endless list of chores inside the house as well as performing her duties at the newspaper.

At least their closest neighbors, the McGraws, had agreed to help with the livestock.

Opal’s weary smile faded. “Mind you, I don’t want you talking to Quade while we’re gone.”

Rebekah suspected the fire in her aunt’s voice hid a mountain of worries. For their homestead. For Uncle Vess. For Rebekah. Not to mention the trip east. It echoed Rebekah’s own worries of staying here alone. The ones she’d been pushing aside for the sake of her dreams.

Opal cast another glance her way. The creases between her brows deepened as if she’d been reading Rebekah’s thoughts. “And if he ever shows up here, you go get the McGraw brothers.”

Heath Quade had been by more than once to make an offer on their place.

The first one had made Rebekah whistle, which had garnered a scolding from Aunt Opal for being unladylike.

The second one had come with a veiled threat.

Rebekah hadn’t heard it herself, but she had no reason to doubt Uncle Vess’s word.

“I doubt Quade will come here while you’re gone. I likely won’t even see him unless he does something worthy of a news article.” Not that Rebekah would mind going to get one particular McGraw, even if she could handle Mr. Quade on her own.

“You and that paper.” Aunt Opal’s weathered hands settled the sandwiches for her and Uncle Vess’s train trip in another basket.

“Make sure you weed the vegetable garden. Watch out for that hen that tries to slip out of the coop.” She glanced up from shuffling the sandwiches. “And lock the door at night.”

All of Aunt Opal’s talk meant more than the words she spoke. It meant she would miss Rebekah and worry about her. That she loved her. In a funny sort of way, the words wrapped themselves around Rebekah tighter than any hug ever could. She stepped closer to enclose the woman in her arms.

“What’s all this?” Aunt Opal’s words wobbled with emotion.

Rebekah leaned closer to her ear. “A little something to remind you of me while you’re gone.”

Aunt Opal gave Rebekah’s arm a squeeze before backing away to swipe at a tear with the back of her other hand. “We’ll be back, you know. Before you have time to even miss us.”

“I doubt that.” I miss you already.

Opal sniffed, then straightened. “Doesn’t your uncle know it’s high time for us to be leaving? I wish he wouldn’t overwork himself walking all around giving out instructions. As if the McGraws don’t know their way around a farm.”

“Stop your worrying, Opal.” Dear Uncle Vess leaned his lanky form into the doorway, blocking the view outside as another cough racked his body. “Everything is loaded but us. And whatever delicious-smelling bread you have there.”

Rebekah’s brow furrowed at his cough as she picked up the loaf and placed it in her makeshift bag.

She had everything she’d need to remain in town for a day or two.

Her regular trips to help oversee things at the newspaper office were usually a source of joy to her.

If only her aunt and uncle weren’t catching a train.

The only source of joy today, putting butterflies in her stomach, was the hope of Isaac driving them.