She glanced down, away from the intensity of his eyes. "I'll walk."
He fell into step beside her as the family wagon creaked its way out of the yard and down the rutted trail toward home. He held the reins loosely, and the beautiful stallion trailed them.
"Your family seems kind," Adam said after a moment of awkward silence. "Not at all like you made them out to be."
Just wait. If he was to be subjected to a meal with the entire rowdy crew, he'd soon find out what they were really like.
Walt leaned over the side of the wagon. "Philadelphia is a long ways from here."
"So it is," Adam said easily.
"I went to Philadelphia," Ida chimed in. The six-year-old couldn't bear to be left out of anything, often trailing her older siblings. "I rode the train with Ma and Pa and ever'body, but I don't remember it none."
Breanna couldn't help but recall the anticipation of that train ride and her secret mission. The long hours being confined had stretched endlessly. The disappointment that followed. She never wanted to do it again.
"Did you come all this way to see Breanna?” Ida asked. “How come?"
Breanna caught the glance her parents shared on the wagon seat, but maybe Adam hadn't. He was looking at her.
"Your sister is special. It didn't take more than a few moments for me to realize just how special."
"Stop saying things like that," Breanna muttered, her face on fire again. It wasn't true. She made an impression, just not one she wanted to make.
Walt was pulling a face as if he'd stepped in a cow patty. "That's a long way to come courtin'."
Adam didn't seem ruffled by her brother's nosiness. "I've been further. I once went to Alaska to report on a sled dog race."
Walt's eyes widened.
Alaska? He’d been that far? If he would’ve been anyone else than Adam—here for the express purpose of courting her—she’d have immediately asked him about his travels.
"I'm a journalist," Adam explained. "I write for my father's paper, theDaily Explorer."
Walt's face scrunched up. "That's lots of writin' and thinkin', isn't it?"
Adam laughed.
"Have you read any of his writings?" Walt asked Breanna now.
"How would I? We barely know each other." The family usually got a month's worth of the daily newspaper from Calvin, the next town over, every four to six weeks when Ma's brother Sam brought them out. But she'd never even picked up a Philadelphia newspaper.
"I stored a paper in my bag," Adam said. "At the boardinghouse. Maybe I'll bring it out to you."
Breanna didn't know what to say. Would she want to see Adam again after today?
Thankfully, Penny broke in to carry the conversation. "So your father is...?"
"The editor-in-chief. And owner. He ran the paper himself until about a month ago, when he collapsed from a heart condition."
Penny murmured condolences.
"I'm sorry," Breanna said, because Adam's smile had completely disappeared, and tiny lines had appeared around his eyes.
He seemed to shake himself out of whatever thoughts had taken him captive. "Thank you. He's made a good recovery, though the doctor recommended he not go back to work. I'm to take over theExplorer."
Breanna's stomach swooped low, like the time she'd jumped from the hayloft onto a soft bed of hay below.
Adam's newspaper was in Philadelphia. No matter how flattered she was that he'd approached Pa, and that he wanted to spend time with her, she couldn't forget that he lived hundreds of miles from here. The attraction between them might flare, but he was going back.
