Courting Emma (Little Hickman Creek Series #3) Read Online Free Page B

hitching posts and various
shade trees. Here and there, lanterns dotted the landscape
like dozens of fireflies. In the distance, a child's excited whoop
filled the air, followed by whinnying horses and inpatient,
barking dogs. Yes, it was unfortunate that so many had had
to witness Ezra Browning's drunken display, Jon mused, but it
was nothing new to most of Hickman's townsfolk. It irked him
how people placed so much importance on outward appearance and less on the decaying souls of men.

    "Well, I imagine Mrs. Winthrop won't be too pleased tomorrow mornin' when she learns I've taken old Ezra to the bathhouse
and cleaned him up," Jon said, taking a gumdrop from his shirt
pocket, tossing it straight up, and catching it in his open mouth.
    Ben whistled through his teeth. "You serious? I'd venture
to say Emma won't be so happy herself. She prides herself on
handling her own affairs, you know."
    Jon made a scoffing sound. "It's high time Emma Browning swallowed some of that pride."

    A rooster crowed at precisely five-thirty the next morning.
Precisely, because, no sooner had he screeched out his morning call than the grandfather clock took up its chiming. Emma
groaned, buried her face in the folds of her cotton blanket, and
squeezed her eyes shut against the early stages of dawn. Had
she slept a wink? Last night's fireworks, although an impressive
display of glitter and dazzle from her second-story perch, still
echoed through her brain, the crack and boom of each explosion singeing her nerves. To make matters worse, after she had
settled in for the night, each of her boarders had plodded up
the stairs at varying times, some moaning and mumbling to themselves, others tripping along the way, the result of overimbibing. The only two who had cone in at a decent hour and,
thankfully, sober, were Elliott Newman and his son, Luke.

    She heard the twitter of waking birds out her open window,
felt a warns, tickling breeze creep past her bare arms, and
noted that the temperature in her room had barely dropped a
degree in the night.
    With a sigh, she yanked back the cotton sheet and hauled
herself up.
    It was going to be another sweltering clay.

    Breakfast had been a quiet affair. Of Emma's six boarders,
four had missed the meal, either sleeping past the deadline for
receiving a hot breakfast and settling for a cup of coffee and a
piece of buttered bread on the run, or choosing not to eat at all
for lack of appetite, hoping to slip out the door unnoticed. While
she'd been scrubbing a fry pan, Gideon Barnard, who worked
at Grady Swanson's Sawmill, had sauntered past the kitchen
door looking fuzzy-eyed. He'd shot her a wary look, as if to say,
"I know, I know. Don't lecture me." Not that she'd intended to
do so. She'd lived long enough to know lectures didn't solve a
thing; they certainly didn't deter a man's drinking habit. Proof
of that lay out in the old tin tub in the backyard.
    "D-did you like the f-fireworks, Miss Emma?"
    Eninia looked up from her bread making. It was just
past nine-thirty. Luke stood in the doorway, thumbs hooked
in his suspenders, dark brown hair haphazardly brushed to
one side, close-set eyes darting about, avoiding direct contact
with hers. Pug-nosed and rosy-cheeked, it was his ever-present
grin that most endeared him to her. A grown man with the innocence and intelligence of a youngster, he was Little Hicknian's lamplighter, faithfully lighting the lamps along Main
Street at dusk. During the day, he made himself available for
jobs that didn't require mind power. Most of the time, she had
no trouble keeping him busy, but on those days she couldn't,
she'd send him off to his father's wheelwright shop, Flanders'
Foods, Eldred Johansson's Mercantile, or Sani's Livery. Thankfully, they always had a job waiting for him.

    "They were a sight to behold, weren't they?" she replied,
pausing for a second to recall the event, then quickly going
back to kneading the large lump of