Page 26 of The School Mistress (Emerson Pass Historicals 1)

Now I turned my hat around and around in my hands. To say the words would make them real, and I suddenly wanted to put that off for as long as possible. “Samuel Cole is dead. Someone shot him last night.”

Lind snatched his glasses from his face and rose to his feet. “Do we know who?”

“No idea. I can’t help but think it has something to do with Rachel.”

Lind walked behind his chair and wrapped his hands around the back as if he might fall. “Has there been recent trouble?”

“Not that I know of.” I told him about my conversation with Samuel regarding his will. “Maybe he was worried about someone trying to harm him. Why else would he have come to me now? He wasn’t a man who thought about his mortality.”

Lind chuckled. “No, he was more concerned with living than what came in the hereafter.” He quickly sobered. “Poor Rachel. How is she?”

“Bloody devastated and terrified.” I apologized for my rough language, but Lind brushed it aside. A preacher on the frontier couldn’t be too particular about his flock’s crusty ways.

“I can imagine she would be,” Lind said. “If this is about race, then we’re going to have to do what we can to protect them.”

I leaned against the wall and rubbed my tired eyes. “She and Susan are all alone out there.” Other than Susan, Samuel had never trusted anyone enough to hire help. “Rachel will have to pay three men to do the work Samuel did alone.” I thumped the back of my head against the wall. “He kept them isolated out there. Samuel didn’t want her or the kids to leave their property and go into town. He’d never admit it to me, but he was afraid for them.” I looked back at Lind, who watched me with

sympathetic eyes. “He should’ve been more careful. He should have come to me for help.”

“A man like Samuel doesn’t want his friend harmed because of his own trouble. He most likely was trying to protect you.”

I took my handkerchief and pressed it against my stinging eyes. “It’s hard to imagine him anywhere but traipsing about the woods.”

“I’m sorry,” Lind said. “For you and for Rachel and those kids.”

“I have to figure a way to protect them.”

“Tell me what you need. Pamela and I are here.”

I thanked him, even though I knew deep in my bones that trouble waited around every corner for Rachel now. All she had was me to protect her, and I wasn’t sure how to do that. No amount of money can fix hatred.

Chapter 9

Quinn

* * *

The simple church pews and pulpit that hung over it were made of pale fine-grained wood. Whitewashed walls with tall paned windows framed the winter scene outside. The floor was made of wide planks of oak. A spectacular cross made of a dark wood hung over the front. A faint scent of wood shavings hung in the air.

“Is the church newly built?” I asked Josephine as we walked down the aisle toward the front.

“No, Papa had it built for Pastor Lind five years ago,” she said. “But the cross is new. Harley made it from a fallen tree he found last summer.”

The Barnes children and I took over the entire front row of the left side with a space left for Lord Barnes. I had the two little girls next to me. Josephine and Poppy were on the other end with the twins between us. As we waited for service to begin, Fiona and Cymbeline started poking each other.

“Stop it,” Fiona said.

“You stop it,” Cymbeline said as she poked her sister on the shoulder for the third time.

Fiona began to cry. “That hurt.”

I lifted Fiona onto my lap. “You’ll both keep your hands to yourself from now on or you’ll be punished.”

Cymbeline crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. Her legs, too short to reach the ground, swung back and forth. A small act of rebellion, I thought. This child was strong-willed and stubborn. I hoped to someday see how she changed the world. Whether for good or evil was still undecided, I thought, smiling to myself.

Fiona was warm and soft and smelled like a sugar cookie. She snuggled against me with her cheek on my shoulder. “Miss Cooper, is this what mamas do?”

“What do you mean?”