Secondhand Bride by Linda Lael Miller Page A

she could do was try, and keep her expectations as modest as possible.
    She went to the door, stepped out onto the porch, and came face-to-face with a small, red-haired boy in clean but ragged clothes. He sported a constellation of freckles and an eager smile.
    “Are you the new teacher?” he asked, almost breathless with suspense.
    Chloe couldn’t be sure what he hoped her answer would be. “No,” she said honestly, putting out a hand. There was no sense in putting the cart before the horse. “My name is Chloe Wakefield. What’s yours?”
    The boy’s exuberant expression collapsed into disappointment, but he took her hand in his grubby one and gave it a shake. “Harry Sussex,” he said, in a deflated tone. “You sure you’re not the teacher?”
    “Fairly certain, yes,” Chloe said, wanting to ruffle his thick hair and forbearing to do so. She sat down on the front step, and Harry took a place beside her.
    “That’s a shame,” Harry sighed companionably. “The way things are going around here, it’ll be a wonder if I ever learn anything.”
    Chloe suppressed a smile. “You are an unusual boy, Harry Sussex,” she said. “I should think you’d rather be fishing or catching frogs or playing kickball than ciphering and reading lessons.”
    His thin shoulders were stooped with discouragement. “I want to be like Kade McKettrick when I grow up,” he said disconsolately. “He’s real smart. He reads books, and he can add up all kinds of numbers in his head. He knows the names of all the stars, too. Says there are probably people out there, living on other worlds, some of them just like ours.”
    “He must be quite a Renaissance man,” Chloe observed. She’d had very little time to form an impression of Jeb’s older brother, but Harry’s description had raised her estimation of him by several notches. Where Jeb’s whole credo seemed to be a resounding Yippee!, Kade obviously lived from his intellect.
    Harry screwed up his face, puzzled. “ What kind of man?”
    “A smart one,” Chloe clarified.
    “I already said that,” Harry pointed out, quite justly. His attention was deflected by a movement at the schoolyard gate, and his smile was instantaneous.
    Following his gaze, Chloe saw a middle-aged man with a crop of messy hair, wearing a rumpled suit and carrying a battered medical kit in one hand.
    The doctor opened the gate, smiling, and came toward them.
    “This is Doc Boylen,” Harry told Chloe. She recognized the name immediately, from the advertisement for a teacher in the Epitaph. “Doc, this here’s Miss Chloe Wakefield, but she says she ain’t the schoolmarm.”
    Doc favored Chloe with a cordial nod and a discerning once-over. “I received a letter from you,” he said mildly. She wondered if he’d contacted the school in Tombstone, or heard about her disputed marriage to Jeb.
    Chloe wanted to sigh, but she didn’t. “I’m a good teacher,” she said; she had confidence in that much, at least. “But I’ve got a history.”
    Doc chuckled. “Don’t we all?” he said.
    Chloe glanced uncomfortably at Harry; she didn’t want to go into details about her past in front of him. “The school is certainly wonderful,” she said carefully. “And so is the cottage.”
    “Then I don’t see the problem,” Doc said easily. “As the head of the school board, I have the authority to offer you the position, here and now. The pay is downright pitiful—thirty dollars a month and meals. I’m afraid we spent most of our money on the buildings and the books.”
    Chloe’s heart started beating its wings, wanting her to say yes, to run the risk, and devil take the consequences. “You might change your mind when you know the whole truth,” she said carefully, trying hard not to care too much and failing miserably. She was filled with yearning.
    Doc’s smile remained steady. “Harry, why don’t you run on home and ask your mother what’s for supper?” he said, without looking away from