“Nary a complaint did she make.”
“I’d likely have stayed a spinster.”
His low chuckle lent to her warm skin. “You might have mimicked Hester, aye. But as it stands, there’s hope.”
“Hope?”
His decisive nod ensnared her further. She couldn’t look away, captured by his face in profile with all its handsome lines and angles, the heavily fringed lashes, darker even than his charcoal hair.
“I know a man who’s right fond of you.”
Surprise pinched her. “And who might that be?”
He hesitated as if trying to collect the details. “New to the settlement. Stands over six feet tall. Not much to look at—”
“Says who?”
“Hester,” he returned with another chuckle. “But he’s a quick study. From parts east. Outshoots any gun along the Buckhannon, if not the border.”
“I’d be pleased to meet him.”
“All right then.” He pulled himself to his feet, rifle dangling from a large hand, leaving her hanging just like he’d done after that muster-day kiss.
Reaching out, she took his other hand in her own and gave it a little squeeze before releasing it reluctantly. “Give him my regards then.”
He smiled down at her before retrieving his hat in the grass. It looked in need of a good washing, though the rest of him was tidy, his once-bewhiskered jaw smooth as newly tanned buckskin. “Better hie to the fields.”
Jasper was approaching in the distance, the ball of a two o’clock sun behind him. Clay turned his back on her. Called his horse. She had no clue as to when she’d see him again. Here was ample opportunity to stake his claim, yet . . .
“What are you afraid of, Clay?” she called after him.
He swung round, pinning her with that startling gaze. “You been talking to Maddie?”
“Nay,” she said. What did Maddie have to do with it?
Touching his hat brim as if signaling an end to the conversation, he kept on, pausing briefly to speak to Jasper on his way.
“Is there a wedding in the offing, little sister?” Jasper said once Clay was out of earshot.
She stared at Clay’s back. “Hardly.”
“Well, Ma may have a suitor, if you don’t.”
She followed him to the barn, bemused. “Where is Ma?”
“At the edge of the cornfield, courting.” He sunk his axe into a chopping block. “Old Eb.”
“The widower Westfall? I wondered why she was tarrying in the fields.”
Jasper seemed pleased. “A worthy match.”
Worthy in the sense that Westfall owned more acreage than any in the valley, maybe, and served as county magistrate. Jasper was all pounds and pence and position.
She left the barn and returned to the cornfield to find Ma indeed in Westfall’s company beneath a spreading sycamore tree. And Clay with them to boot. Such sent her scurrying back to the cabin and Jasper, wondering if Westfall would join them for supper.
Though it was hours away, the venison needed tendering on the spit outside, the corn with the husks left on to roast in the ashes. She chopped potatoes with a vengeance, her brisk movements making short shrift of the work.
Sure enough, near five o’clock, Westfall stood at their door. “Miss Tessa.” He removed his hat, revealing a full head of white hair despite his sixty years. “Your ma asked me to supper.”
