Love's Reckoning

  Those were her choices then. Since her riding clothes were in her trunk, she’d have to take a coach. Only she had no coin . . . “My belongings were atop the stage that broke down a few miles east of here. The driver—I trust he’s all right—”

  “There’s been no loss of life that we know of, just injuries. But I’ll send someone back that way to be sure.”

  Relieved, she confessed, “My purse is missing—lost in the storm.”

  His gaze was like granite. “Why aren’t you in Philadelphia?”

  She nearly winced at his bold question. Her father would soon ask her the same, only his tone would be more gracious, surely. “I—I’m done with finishing school. ’Tis time I return home.”

  “You picked a poor time to do it,” he murmured.

  She took another sip of tea, unable to refute this fact, glancing toward the kitchen but snagging on his profile instead. He was looking up at the men repairing the roof, the feeble light framing him as it spilled through. His coloring shocked her, so deeply tanned one would think he was a common laborer and spent all his time outdoors. His features had always been sharply handsome, almost hawkish, his hair the color of summer straw, not whiskey-dark like Wade’s. That he was a worldly man there could be no doubt. He even moved with an ease and agility far removed from the stiff formality of society’s drawing rooms. He was, in a word, different. And dangerous.

  Papa would not approve.

  Laura Frantz is the author of The Frontiersman’s Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, and The Colonel’s Lady. A two-time Carol Award finalist, she is a Kentuckian living in the misty woods of Washington with her husband and two sons. Along with knitting, cooking, gardening, and long walks, she enjoys connecting with readers at www.LauraFrantz.net.

  Books by Laura Frantz

  * * *

  The Frontiersman’s Daughter

  Courting Morrow Little

  The Colonel’s Lady

  The Ballantyne Legacy

  Love’s Reckoning

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