An Undisturbed Peace by Mary Glickman Read Free Book Online Page B

rounds were complete and he’d reported back to Uncle Isadore. It would have to do. The next morning, he packed up his wares, gave her a parting gift of all the gunpowder he could spare, and rode Hart off to the farms on his list with a heart heavier than any load of staples and trifles any peddler anywhere could possibly carry.

Tobias Milner’s Farm, Two Days Later
    A be and Hart rode all day to the northeast and slept that night on a bed of pine needles beside a waterfall. It was a hard bed for both after the comforts of their stay at Marian’s, but a safe one. Abe was disturbed by fitful thoughts of Marian’s failure to recognize that he was the ultimate love of her life, but that was the worst of his discomforts. No marauding mercenaries or vengeful Indians molested them. They rose at dawn. Abe offered thanksgiving that he’d got up in one piece, then washed in a chill cascade of mountain water while Hart munched at a breakfast of Marian’s grains. He dressed in the best shirt and trousers he carried, broke camp, and tacked up his horse, packs and all. They set off at a pace that would guarantee they’d arrive at their destination near the northernmost corner of North Carolina, close to the border of Virginia, by afternoon; that is, at the farm of Tobias Milner, one of his best customers the previous year.
    Sales volume and his devotion to Marian aside, Abe looked forward to visiting the Milner farm on account of the Milner daughters, three blossoming, buxom beauties near his own age. If their father didn’t buy a nail, he’d still look forward to stopping there. Last year, they’d welcomed him into their home as if he were a wandering prince in disguise. They were all fluttering eyes and blushing cheeks. They hung on every word of his sales pitch and invented sly excuses to cozy up to him while examining his products. The oldest, Bekka, asked him to tie a ribbon on the end of the long, tawny braid that fell halfway down her back so she could see how it looked in the parlor mirror before she purchased it when her sisters were right there able to help. Their mother had gone out of her way to make a pointed remark that single young men were scarce in these hills and single young men with a secure future were scarcer still. She’d announced that the son, or even nephew perhaps, of one of the county’s most successful industrialists was the answer to a mother’s prayer. She was unconcerned whether prospective grooms for her girls were Lutheran or not. She dismissed lineage as something the family could work around. Abe knew well that in the old country, in Alsace, the Milners’ forebears might have whipped a young Jew who even glanced at her daughters. But this was America, the New World. Here, in the lonely hinterland that was the Milners’ little corner of the foothills, coerced at a great cost of blood and sweat into domestication, he got the clear message that a mother would take what she could get.
    This year, his heart was heavy at leaving Marian. After only two days, he missed her dreadfully and worried that she’d cool to the idea of him before he managed to return. He knew he would love her forever, he nursed hopes that she would come to love him over time but for now, at least, he could do with a little feminine attention from someone who made him feel desirable—a catch, even. A harmless afternoon with the Milner girls fit the bill.
    It was their father who rushed from the house to greet him as he rode up to their front gate. Calling for his stable boy to relieve Mr. Sassaporta of his mount, Milner took up the packs Abe unloaded and carried them himself into the house, chatting excitedly all the way.
    â€œWe’ve been waiting for your visit for so long, lad!” he said. “The women of the house have been on the lookout for you day and night. I confess, it approached annoyance.” The man paused before the front door for a wink and a