In truth, she dreaded this excursion to Seymour so much that she’d forced herself to arrive far ahead of the appointed time in order to sidestep the temptation of not arriving at all. He was a family man now, and family came before business.

Kiss Tori on the cheek and ruffle little Lewis’s hair. When had she become such a shrew? Ben and Tori had been married barely a fortnight, and here she sat casting silent aspersions on their character. Lately he seemed to prefer lingering over breakfast with his wife to running his routes.Ĭlaire’s shoulders sagged. The freighter had always been the punctual sort, until he married. Where was Benjamin Porter? Claire tapped her toe on the wooden floorboards beneath her feet, then cast a glance over her shoulder toward the store entrance. In that case, glad was the precise opposite of what she felt. Glad to help in any way necessary-unless it required her to travel to Seymour. With seven Nevin daughters still filling the nooks and crannies of their New York tenement apartment, and her da with no intention of denying his insatiable thirst, her mam needed all the help she could get.

Her earnings might have been piddling, but she’d managed to put food on the table when her da drank away all his wages at the pub. She’d left school-though not her books, heaven forbid-to work in a dark little room at the back of the shop, pricking her fingers constantly as she dressed up handkerchiefs and hemlines with tiny flowers and French knots for a trifling wage. Claire had been working in Miss Fester’s embroidery shop for two years by the time she turned sixteen. It was high time she learned a thing or two about responsibility.

Polly was sixteen, no longer in short skirts and pigtails. She wouldn’t feel guilty for her uncharitable thoughts. She wouldn’t abandon them in their time of need.Īnd if she secretly grumbled about her flighty sister jumping into trouble again without once considering the consequences, leaving her older sister to clean up her mess from half a continent away? Well, no one need be privy to that wee detail.Ĭlaire set her chin and straightened her spine against the hard bench outside Harper’s Station’s general store and smoothed the fabric of her myrtle green traveling dress over her knees. The letter in her reticule felt like a stone weighing on her wrist, demanding sacrificial action with no more than veiled hints for explanation. Could they not sense that this day held no cause for celebration? Cause for trepidation, aye. Claire Nevin frowned at the cheerful white clouds frolicking across the blue sky and tried to close her ears against the melodies the birds insisted on singing in response to the deceptively fine morning.

Hearts Entwined by Karen Witemeyer