Harry had looked at Melinda Williamson, sister to Ada, who had married the wealthy Scout Rankin. Melinda was beautiful, charming, and sweet-natured. But there had been something about her, a fragility, a fascination with her own needs to the exclusion of all else, that had kept him from pursuing her.

  Beth said he was too picky, but a man had to have some standards in a bride. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for one that was pretty as a picture, clever—but not so clever she’d think she was better than him—and strong, so she could help him prove up his claim. And if she could cook as well as Ciara O’Rourke, well, that would be a real blessing.

  It wasn’t as if he had nothing to offer in return. His claim was one hundred and sixty acres along the edge of Eden Hill, in an area that was sure to grow as Seattle expanded. His two-room cabin was about finished. All he had to do was complete the porch overhang, lay down the planks beneath, dig a well, and put in a pump. And he had a good job, for good pay, in a settlement worthy of calling home.

  A lady could do worse.

  For some reason, Katie Jo came to mind again. Sometimes, when he could see up under that slouch hat, he would swear she was pretty. She was clever enough to take care of herself, and she didn’t act as if she was better than him. She was plenty strong. She helped Ciara clear the tables and wash the dishes at the inn. She might even have learned a thing or two about cooking.

  But Katie Jo McAllister had spent a lot of time with Beth and Ciara lately. She might have her own ideas about courting and marriage. He’d tried courting multiple times over the last few years, and every gal had chosen a different groom. It was enough to make a feller wary of opening his heart.

  Which made a stranger like the new schoolmarm a safer bet than Miss Katie Jo McAllister.

  Chapter Two

  “It was mighty nice of you to buy those corsets for me,” Katie Jo told Beth as they strolled back up the street to wait for Harry in the rare fall sunlight. “I can repay you from my working money.”

  Beth held up a hand. “No need. They were a gift for a friend.” She glanced around Katie Jo at Ciara, who was walking on her other side. “I just can’t wait to see what Harry does when he spies you at the wedding.”

  “He’ll probably be too busy ogling the new schoolmarm,” Katie Jo said. “And that’s fine by me.”

  She shifted on the boardwalk, uncomfortable even though she hadn’t taken possession of the fancy corsets yet. She never had liked telling half-truths. Good thing she didn’t have to do it very often and usually only with Uncle Cole to prevent her brother from getting a beating.

  “There’s Mr. Hitchcock.” Ciara waved at someone, and a gentleman angled his bay horse out of the others passing to rein in alongside them. He wore a leather duster that had earned its share of mud, as if he’d ridden far, but his saddle was tooled leather. His mount was about the color of Harry Yeager’s hair, and it had a swagger like Harry too, as if it knew it was a fine figure of a fellow.

  “Miss O’Rourke,” the rider said with a tip of his short-crowned hat that revealed light brown hair, combed and pomaded, if the gleam on it from the sun was any indication. “Mrs. McCormick. Ma’am.”

  He saw that she was female? Katie Jo didn’t know whether to grin or blush at the smile he directed her way. He was a handsome enough fellow, with eyes like quicksilver. And he had a nice voice too, higher than Harry Yeager’s, but warm and sociable.

  “Are you heading for the Landing?” he asked.

  “I’m heading home,” Beth told him. “But Miss O’Rourke and Miss McAllister are returning to Wallin Landing. I don’t think you’ve met our friend, Katie Jo.”

  He pulled the hat from his head and inclined it. “Miss McAllister, a pleasure. Dixon Hitchcock, at your service.”

  And polite to boot. Wasn’t that refreshing?

  Ciara nudged her with one elbow.

  Oh, right. Katie Jo smiled dutifully back. “Sir. A pleasure to meet you too.”

  “Mr. Hitchcock is the attorney who’s helping Kit with his family’s estate,” Ciara explained.

  So, that was the connection. Ciara’s intended was the guardian of a darling little girl, the daughter of his late sister and brother-in-law. Everyone had been shocked to learn that baby Grace was the heiress to a highly successful company. Kit had had no interest in running the enterprise for her, so Mr. Hitchcock was seeing to the process.

  “And I have more papers for Mr. Weatherly to sign, alas,” he said, patting the saddlebag on one side of his horse. “Might I ride out to the Landing with you?”

  “Delighted,” Ciara said. “And here comes Harry.”

  Katie Jo couldn’t help perking up as Harry pulled the wagon in beside Mr. Dixon’s horse, especially when she noticed he was alone.

  “Where’s Miss Dennison?” Beth demanded.

  The scowl on Harry’s face ought to have told her the news wouldn’t be good. “She wasn’t on the boat. I sent a telegram to San Francisco. Someone will need to come in tomorrow to fetch the answer.”

  Beth deflated. “Oh, Rina will be so disappointed. I wonder what happened.”

  The Lake Union School had grown beyond all expectations in the last few years to the point at which the sole teacher, Mrs. Rina Wallin, was stretched thin. All the menfolk in the area had pitched in to add a second room to the building, where another teacher would take over the youngest students. The Wallin family had hired a teacher all the way from Boston Normal, where Rina had also been trained. But school was set to start next week, and Miss Dennison had yet to arrive.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Harry said. He nodded to the lawyer. “Hitchcock. You heading out our way again?”

  “I am indeed, and Miss O’Rourke has already graciously invited me to ride along with you,” Mr. Hitchcock said with a smile to Ciara.

  “Great,” Harry drawled, and he did not sound at all pleased about the matter. “Well, climb up, you two. We need to get back before dark.”

  “Someone’s grumpy,” Ciara murmured to Katie Jo before hugging Beth goodbye. Their friend would be coming out the day before the wedding, with Katie Jo’s corsets.

  Katie Jo helped Ciara onto the bench, then swung herself up beside her, and Harry set off, with Mr. Hitchcock riding next to Katie Jo’s side of the wagon.

  “Shopping?” the lawyer asked with an eye to the packages stored in the bed.

  “A few last items for the wedding,” Ciara told him around Katie Jo. She winked at her friend. “And some last-minute things for a lady.”

  “Seattle is certainly coming into its own for goods,” Mr. Hitchcock said as they swung around the corner and started up the hill. “You may rival Tacoma one day.”

  Even Katie Jo had heard of the competition between the two cities on the Sound. Tacoma may have captured the Northern Pacific Railroad’s end station, but Seattle had the Territorial University.

  “Seattle won’t just rival Tacoma,” Ciara said, settling back in her seat. “She’ll surpass it. You wait and see.”

  “Is that your opinion as well, Miss McAllister?” he asked.

  Nice to be included. “Seattle can grow as big as it likes,” she said. “Wallin Landing suits me just fine. They have a library, post office, and mercantile.”

  “James Wallin stocks everything a man could need,” Harry agreed, urging the horses up the last bit of steep hill. “Fish hooks, tinned goods, trousers, and shirts.”

  Ciara eyed him. “Some of us need more than trousers and shirts, Harry.”

  Katie Jo refrained from touching her clothes with an effort.

  “They are practical,” Mr. Hitchcock said. “Far more so than the delicate dresses some of the fairer sex seem to delight in.”

  She blinked at him. “That’s what my uncle says.”

  “Wise fellow,” he said with a nod. “I commend you for your wisdom as well, Miss McAllister.”

  Harry turned his scowl on him. “You like a gal in trousers and shirts?”

  Evidently, Harry did not. A shame she couldn’t topple backward into the bed and hide among the packages. But that would only draw more attention to her.

  “I like anyone who knows what needs to be done and does it, regardless of the opinions of others,” Mr. Hitchcock said. “Though, if more people followed that path, I would shortly find myself in need of another occupation.”

  Ciara laughed at that.

  They turned onto the road out to the Landing, which narrowed as it left the city. Mr. Hitchcock clucked to his horse and went ahead of them as the towering trees closed in on either side and the briny scent of the Sound was replaced by the tang of fir and cedar. Shadows crossed the road, striping them in darkness and light. Bushes rustled as small things scurried away.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Ciara said, turning to Katie Jo. “Are you certain you don’t want to come in and work at the inn during the week? I could use the help if I’m to open six days a week, as planned.”

  Katie Jo squirmed on the bench. “And I could use the money. But I just can’t. Zeke needs me.”

  “I told you you’re welcome to bring your brother with you,” Ciara reminded her. “Maybe he’d like to work too.”

  “He can’t work much,” she tried explaining. “He wasn’t born strong, like me. He sickens easily. And any little tumble is like to break a bone. But I’m hoping someday soon Zeke and I can both move in to Wallin Landing. Then I can work for you all week. I just have to convince Uncle Cole that we’re ready.”

  “Would you like me to talk to him?” Ciara offered, smoothing her skirts with one hand.

  Katie Jo chuckled. “Uncle Cole isn’t exactly the sort you can talk to. You more have to show. And that’s what I’m hoping to do, as soon as we get you wed. Once he sees that Zeke and I are grown and no longer need his protection and guidance, I’m hoping a whole lot of things will change, for the better.”

  ***

  As the sun slanted through the firs, Harry tried to shake off his bad mood. It wasn’t Ciara and Katie Jo’s fault that the schoolmarm hadn’t showed. But how many gals did a man have to court before one actually stuck?

  Beth McCormick had recently intimated it was more Harry’s doing than theirs. He hadn’t believed her at first, but lately, he’d begun to wonder. Was there something wrong with his character or his looks that the ladies naturally turned tail? He couldn’t see anything amiss, and it wasn’t something a man could ask his friends, much less the females around him.

  As the road widened again, that lawyer dropped back to ride beside them and was soon chatting away with Ciara and Katie Jo. A man who liked women in trousers. Well, there was room for just about anything in this world. Still, every time Hitchcock smiled at Katie Jo, Harry felt as if someone had stuck a burning coal in his gut.

  Why? He couldn’t be jealous. Katie Jo wasn’t his gal. And it was good that someone thought to praise her. From what he’d seen, appreciation was as rare in her world as it had been in his.

  “If you really want to explore the area, Mr. Hitchcock,” Ciara was saying, “you should ask Miss McAllister to show you around. She knows the woods around Wallin Landing well.”

  Katie Jo ducked her head, but he would have bet she was blushing. “Well, maybe a little better than most,” she murmured. “Seeing as how I have to traverse from our claim to the Landing several times a week.”

  “And where is your claim, Miss McAllister?” the lawyer asked in that fine voice of his. Harry had heard visiting nobles from England talk less fancy.

  “Up near Salmon Bay,” she said. “Along the Outlet, the crick that runs from Lake Union toward the Sound. But don’t come up that way without telling me first. My uncle doesn’t take well to visitors, particularly ones he hasn’t met before.”

  “I’ll be certain to warn you in advance,” Hitchcock said. “What made your uncle settle so far out, if I may ask?”

  “Wasn’t my uncle,” Katie Jo said. “My pa and ma settled the claim. They were hoping to fish and log and send everything down the crick to the Sound and south to Seattle. My uncle came to help. They managed to prove up the claim. Do you know what that means?”

  He nodded. “Your parents had five years to prove that they had built a residence or cultivated the land and resided on it for more than six months of the year. They then had to produce credible witnesses, presumably your uncle and a neighbor, who filed affidavits that they had proved their claim, resided on it, had sold none of it, and were loyal citizens of the United States.”

  “I didn’t know that last part.” Surprise tinged her voice.

  He chuckled. “Well, I am an attorney.”

  “The Wallins had to do the same,” Harry put in. “John told me. He’s offered to write an affidavit for me when my claim is ready, which it should be by spring.”

  “Well done, Mr. Yeager,” Hitchcock said. “I cannot imagine the amount of toil involved for a gentleman to go to the trouble of building a house, clearing the land, and establishing a home.”

  Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. “It’s been work, but it will be worth it when my wife and I settle in at last.”

  The wagon bench shifted under him. Had someone slouched? He wasn’t sure why either Ciara or Katie Jo would care. Everyone around Wallin Landing knew he was intent on courting.

  Everyone.

  “A wife as well,” Hitchcock mused. “Congratulations.”

  “Don’t congratulate him yet,” Ciara warned with a sisterly grin at Harry. “He hasn’t found his wife.”

  Harry urged the horses faster. “Only a matter of time.”

  “You married, Mr. Hitchcock?” Katie Jo asked.

  And the coal commenced burning again.

  “No, Miss McAllister. I find my work keeps me too busy to search for a bride. Mr. Yeager will likely be married long before I will.”

  If Harry had anything to say in the matter.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Hitchcock,” Ciara said, cocking her head as if considering him. “Fine-looking fellow like you, with a good income and a ready address, ought to be able to find a wife, even in Seattle.” She slid sideways and bumped into Katie Jo. “Isn’t that right?”

  Harry glanced over in time to see Katie Jo wrinkle her nose, making her look a bit like a rabbit. “Courting isn’t for the faint of heart in these parts.”

  “And there are still far more men than women,” Ciara agreed. “Which means a lady can afford to take her pick.”

  And didn’t he know it.

  “And what sort of gentleman do you prefer, Miss McAllister?” Hitchcock asked.

  Harry leaned to the right. It was the road. It had nothing to do with wanting to hear her answer better.

  “I guess I never gave it much thought,” she admitted. “I never expected to go courting.”

  Harry frowned, straightening. Why wouldn’t she be courted? Lots of fellows would be proud to wed a lady they didn’t have to pamper.

  “Miss McAllister practically raised her brother,” Ciara told the lawyer. “She helps her uncle on the claim, and she helps me at the restaurant and inn. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Some fellow is going to be very fortunate when he wins her affections.”

  “I have no doubt,” Mr. Hitchcock said with a smile.

  Katie Jo bent forward to look around Ciara at Harry. “Can you pull the horses over? I need a moment.”

  “Sure.” Harry guided Lancelot and Percival, the two steeldust horses James Wallin had allowed him to use on the trip, over to the side of the track. Even as the lawyer reined in as well, Katie Jo dropped from the bench and took off into the trees.

  “Is she all right?” Hitchcock asked.

  Ciara shook her head. “I don’t know. She was fine in Seattle, and we didn’t eat or drink anything there. Perhaps I should…”

  Harry shoved the reins at her. “Hold the horses. I’ll see to Katie Jo.”

  Before either of them could stop him, he jumped down and loped after her.

  She’d only gone a little ways into the thicket, just far enough so those on the road might not catch a glimpse of her. Her back was to Harry, and her shoulders were shaking.

  He stopped a few feet away. “You all right?”

  She stiffened, and he could see she was wiping at her cheeks. “Fine. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “You don’t look fine.” He edged closer. “That lawyer bothering you? I’ll send him packing.”

  She sniffed and turned at last. Even in the cool shade of the forest, he could see the tracks of tears on her round cheeks. “It’s all right, Harry. It wasn’t him. I guess all the changes just got to me. Coming in to the Landing, preparing for the wedding, and a corset!” Color flamed into her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze.

  “Some people always have opinions on what you can do better,” he allowed, settling his boots on the mossy ground. “Dress a certain way, talk a certain way, even walk a certain way! That doesn’t change who you are inside.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Maybe that’s the real problem. I’m not sure who I am inside.”

  Harry straightened. “Course you do. You’re Katie Jo McAllister.”

  She peered up at him from under her hat. “And who’s that?”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Who was he to tell her? He didn’t know her all that well. And he might get it wrong.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But from what I’ve seen, she’s a hard worker, unafraid of stepping up to new challenges if it means helping others, and she doesn’t bristle up over little things.”

  She glanced around him in the direction of the wagon. “Maybe not the last.”

  Harry grinned at her. “Well, don’t prove me wrong on that one. We don’t need any folks who like to bristle up at Wallin Landing.” He held out his arm. “May I escort you back to your conveyance, Miss McAllister?”

  Her smile lit her blue eyes, and something inside him lit as well. He was pretty sure he was strutting as she put her hand on his arm and returned to the wagon with him.