His Prairie Sweetheart. Erica Vetsch

wasn’t suited for any of this. The sinking feeling she’d been fighting for days grew in her middle. Fiercely, she battled it down. Somehow, some way she needed to regain her belief in herself. If she couldn’t do that, what future did she have anywhere?

      “Tyler wanted me to give you this.” Elias spoke from just behind her, startling her. She whirled as he pulled a paper out of his back pocket. He walked to the desk, leaned over and blew, sending dust puffing into the air, then spread the sheet on the blotter. She followed him, trying to still her beating heart.

      Her contract.

      “You can fill it out now if you want.” He slid an inkwell and pen toward her. “Or you can read it over, think about it and weigh up if you really want to sign it. The stage will be back on Tuesday if you decide to leave.”

      She frowned. “Why do you seem so eager for me to run away?” The man didn’t even know her. She might be a bit daunted, but he didn’t have to assume she was a failure before she even got started.

      He parked his hip on the corner of the desk. “Maybe because I’ve been down this road before. The two teachers before you skedaddled the minute things got tough. The first one was a man—a city boy, I’ll grant you, but even he wasn’t tough enough to stick it out through one of our winters. The other was a girl.” Elias paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “She only stayed for a couple of months, and when she left, she didn’t even resign or say goodbye. Just hopped on the stage one morning and took off.” With a shrug, he paced a few steps down the aisle and then turned to look at Savannah once more. “She caused a lot of hurt...among the students and their families, I mean.

      “And here you come, fresh from the South, a slip of a girl with a fancy paper that says she’s a teacher, but precious little else to recommend her for this job.” He took off his hat and swept his fingers through his hair. “I hate to see the parents and kids get all excited, only to have you walk away in a week or a month because life out here is harsher than you thought. Not to mention that my brother has a lot riding on you. Better you call it quits now than disappoint everyone.”

      “What makes you think I will disappoint everyone?” She spoke through her tiredness and the tightness in her throat. “I graduated first in my class from normal school, and though I’ve never lived in Minnesota, I assume other women do? If they can, so can I.”

      He threw his head back and laughed, the strong column of his throat rising from his open-necked shirt. “Miss Cox, I doubt you share anything other than gender with the women around here. They’re hardy Norwegian stock, hard workers, practical and used to getting by without much luxury. From the way you dress and the amount of baggage you brought, I surmise you’ve never been within a stone’s throw of milking a cow or plucking a chicken or hoeing a garden.”

      “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not being hired to do any of those things.” She snatched the pen, dipped it in the inkwell and signed her name before her courage could wilt entirely under his criticism. “I will teach school and follow the rules, and if I need help, I’m sure I can find someone who won’t be as grudging and skeptical as you are.” She snapped the pen down on the desk, snatched up her parasol and marched toward the door.

      She’d show him.

      Savannah wanted to slam the schoolhouse door, but her aunt’s training in the fine art of being a lady came to her rescue in time. She climbed aboard the buckboard, snapped open her parasol against the ruthless sun and searched her reticule for her fan. Flicking it open, she cooled her hot cheeks.

      He strolled down the steps, his shaggy canine on his heels, and took his seat with a long-suffering sigh, as if humoring a toddler in a tantrum.

      Which made Savannah want to bite a nail in half. Sheriff Elias Parker would know the meaning of the word determination before this school year ended.

      “Do all your fans and parasols match your dresses? Is that what’s in all these bags and boxes?”

      That’s what he wanted to talk about? “Some of them match. I can’t see why it’s a concern of yours.” She regretted her sharp tone at once, but then again, he’d made no bones about how he felt about her qualifications. He seemed to think he could sum her up just by looking at her, so why couldn’t she do the same?

      He fell silent.

      When they finally approached a cluster of small buildings, Savannah found herself praying Elias would drive right by. A tiny abode, the size of the summer kitchen of Savannah’s house in Raleigh, sat in a dusty yard, and though it had a peaked, wooden roof and log walls, part of it appeared to be built right into a small hillside. Surely this wasn’t one of those horrid sod houses or dugouts of which she’d heard? Chickens pecked along a fence, and a row of laundry hung out on a line for all the world to see.

      The sun bounced off the whitewashed cabin, nearly blinding her. At least the paint made it look clean and tidy. But it was so small. How many people lived here?

      Too close for Savannah’s comfort, a pair of pigs rooted in a sty next to a sturdy-looking barn. The barnyard smells rising up in the summer sunshine had her flapping her fan. How did anyone stand it, especially in this heat? Not a tree broke the horizon for as far as she could see, though fields of corn and wheat rustled in the breeze. What she wouldn’t give for some decent shade and a glass of iced lemonade.

      A woman emerged from the house, wiping her hands on her apron. She had her blond braids wrapped around her head like a halo, and her smile was sweet.

      But her calico dress was faded and drooping, and she wore...wooden clogs on her feet. Savannah glanced at her traveling costume, the fine sateen cloth, the ivory lace and her kid gloves. She’d thought it serviceable enough when she donned it at the hotel that morning, but now she understood what Elias had meant about her parasol and fan matching her dress.

      “God kveld, Elias. Er at den nye læreren?” The woman greeted Elias and bobbed her head, smiling at Savannah.

      “Ja, dette er hun.” Elias hefted a couple of her bags from the back. “Hennes navn er Miss Cox.”

      Two children, both fair and sun-browned, tumbled out of the house. They skidded to a stop when they spied Savannah. Surely they would be her students, as they were both school-aged. Perhaps ten and twelve? The girl found her voice first, firing a rapid question at Elias. He replied, and Savannah understood not a single word.

      “Pardon me.”

      Elias turned, and she motioned him over. Setting her bags in the dirt, he went to her side. “What?”

      Lowering her head and her voice, she whispered, “It’s rude to speak in another language and leave someone out of the conversation. Why aren’t you using English?”

      From this close, she could see the blue flecks in his gray eyes and the beginnings of a beard shadowing his slim cheeks. When he leaned in, she smelled sunshine and cotton. “We’re speaking Norwegian because the Halvorsons don’t speak English.”

      A strange trickling feeling started in her chest—probably what was left of her courage draining out. “Are you jesting?”

      “Nope.”

      “I’m to board with a family that speaks no English.”

      “They’re the closest family to the schoolhouse.” His shrug made her want to scream. She’d traveled across the country, leaving everything she knew, and he was going to dump her with a family that didn’t even speak English?

      Then the little girl edged over, eyes sparkling, freckles spattering her nose. She reached up gently, as if sensing Savannah’s fear, and took her hand. “Du er pen. Mitt navn er Rut. Du vil dele rommet mitt.”

      Savannah looked to Elias.

      “She says she thinks you’re pretty, that her name is Rut, and that you will be sharing her room.” He continued to unload the bags. “This fellow is Lars, Rut’s brother, and this is their mother, Agneta Halvorson.”

      Savannah remembered her manners, slipped