Frontier Engagement. Regina Scott

could make out a shape that resembled a log cabin sewn into the fabric. But she had a feeling Beth was merely trying to divert her attention.

      James evidently thought the same, for he straightened. “You don’t have to posture, Beth. We may have decided that Miss Fosgrave is everything we could wish in a teacher, but she deserves to know everything about the position before making her decision.” He turned to Catherine. “Tell her.”

      Catherine nodded as if accepting her fate. “We only have three students right now, Miss Fosgrave—Beth, Levi and a young fellow named Scout Rankin.”

      Rina frowned. “Forgive me, but I must have misunderstood you. Beth is nearly grown...”

      “Thank you!” Beth cried with an eye to her mother, who shook her head.

      “And Levi appears to be an adult,” Rina finished.

      “He’s eighteen,” his mother confessed. “Scout’s seventeen.” She eyed her daughter. “And despite any other hopes, Beth is still only fourteen.”

      Beth deflated with a sigh.

      So did Rina’s hopes. She could feel James watching her as she glanced at each of them in turn. “You have no need for a grammar school,” she said. “You want a university.”

      Beth nodded eagerly, but Catherine held up a finger. “Not quite. For one thing, their skills aren’t advanced enough for a true university setting. For another, the distance to Seattle is great enough that we cannot send them to the territorial university there, even if they had the proper underpinnings. Besides, I would never trust their education to that man.”

      That man. Rina knew she must mean Asa Mercer. Catherine and her friend Allegra Banks Howard had been some of the most vocal opponents of the emigration agent and university president aboard ship on the way to Seattle. Like Rina, they could not appreciate his high-handed ways and underhanded approach of accepting bride money from men without informing the prospective brides. Any teacher would be better than him.

      But Rina hadn’t come prepared to teach at the university level. At times she’d wondered whether she would be able to discipline an unruly child. How did one discipline men? She’d purchased primers with the last of her funds, prepared to teach rudimentary skills to young learners. These would be more determined students, ones with every ability to thwart her, try her patience, sap her strength.

      Keep her from remembering all she’d lost.

      “We know we’re asking a lot,” James said to her, gaze serious for once. “But this school is important. Beth and Levi are important. We want the best for them.”

      And he thought she was the best. Once more her heart swelled. He knew exactly the words to disarm and persuade her. She shouldn’t trust him, yet she wanted to.

      She turned to Catherine and Mrs. Wallin. “It would be my honor to accept the position of teacher at the Lake Union School. I will do everything in my power to provide my students with the education needed to take their places in the world.”

      James smiled as if he’d known all along this was the right decision. Rina felt it, as well.

       Thank You, Lord.

      Beth wasn’t content to smile. She threw her arms around Rina and hugged her so tightly Rina’s breath left in a rush. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Miss Fosgrave!”

      James reached out and carefully disengaged his sister. “She doesn’t come with a warning, either,” he murmured to Rina.

      She couldn’t help her smile. There were many things to warn her away from Wallin Landing. Yet all she wanted to do was stay.

      * * *

      James followed Catherine, his mother and Beth out the door of the school, leaving Rina to settle herself in her new home. After that note on the board and Catherine’s explanation of their unorthodox arrangement, he’d half expected Rina to demand that he return her to Seattle immediately. But she’d heard about the school and accepted their terms. He ought to be overjoyed.

      Still something nagged at him. He didn’t believe his brother’s protests for a second. Levi had no interest in schooling. It would be just like him to leave that note on the blackboard. James had made sure to erase it before exiting the schoolhouse, but by the look on Rina’s face where she’d stood in the doorway to the teacher’s quarters watching him, she wouldn’t be able to forget it.

      And James couldn’t forget Catherine’s concern that Rina didn’t have the experience to handle a student like his brother. Would she stay long if Levi kept up his pattern of harassment? He knew from experience that threats and punishments had little effect on the boy. James had been much the same way, until Pa had died.

      “You go on,” he told Catherine, who was walking beside him as Ma and Beth hurried for the house, chatting about what Beth intended to wear the first day of school. “I just want to make sure there’s enough wood for the fire.”

      Catherine paused to eye him. With the night so clear, he could see her smile in the moonlight. “A very wise precaution. I think we should do all we can to make Miss Fosgrave comfortable, particularly after what Scout wrote on the blackboard.”

      “You’re sure it was Scout?” James asked with a frown.

      “Who else?” Catherine sighed. “He’s had a difficult time of it. We have to help him. His father clearly won’t.”

      Scout was another of Catherine’s projects. His father, Benjamin Rankin, lived in a run-down cabin on the lake to the south of Wallin Landing. The man’s high-stakes card games and homemade gin drew a certain crowd to his door. James had to agree it couldn’t have been a good situation in which to raise a child.

      “Still, that doesn’t mean the task should fall to Rina,” he protested. “Between Scout and Levi, she may well hightail it back to Seattle.”

      Her smile inched up. “I know I can rely on you to convince her to stay, James.”

      She knew nothing of the kind. “Your confidence in my abilities is inspiring,” James quipped. “But I can tell what you’re trying to do, Catherine, and it won’t work. You and Drew may be blissfully happy, but that doesn’t mean marriage will have the same effect on the rest of us.”

      “And it doesn’t mean it won’t,” she countered.

      “That sounds like one of those improper double negatives,” James teased. “Rina was pretty set against them.”

      Catherine gave his arm a squeeze. “But she isn’t set against you. I see how she looks to you for support.”

      To him? That wasn’t possible. Ever since Pa had died, everyone looked to Drew or Simon, and with good reason. His older brothers were stable, reliable. He normally preferred to live each moment as it came, without a great deal of fuss about the future.

      “She’ll learn,” he told Catherine. “She’s a teacher. She’ll see who she can count on, and it isn’t me.”

      Catherine puffed up as if prepared to argue, but he turned his back on her. This request to secure the teacher had been the first time she’d ever asked anything of him. He was fairly sure if he hadn’t had this glib tongue, she’d have been focused on convincing another of his brothers to do the job.

      Still he was thankful for his brothers as he gathered up an armload of wood from the pile leaning against the side of the barn. They each took turns filling the crib, so he wouldn’t have to chop tonight. He carried the fuel to the schoolhouse, stamping his feet on the porch to make sure Rina knew he was coming. Balancing the wood in one arm, he opened the door with the other.

      “Just delivering some firewood, ma’am,” he called.

      She rushed out of her room and jerked to a stop beside the last bench, chest heaving and eyes wild.

      “Close the door!” she cried, finger pointing behind him.

      Did