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“Don’t you take that tone with me, girl! You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, but I’m still your father. You don’t get to tell me what I ca—”
“Ma is buried back there!” she yelled, her voice cracking.
Her father went stone-still, all emotion draining from his pasty face. Nora tried not to flinch at that vacant look. Her father had taken her mother’s death hard. It’s why he’d started drinking and stopped caring for everything else. Even her.
She understood…to a point. She loved her mother, too. Missed her so much sometimes it physically hurt. But while she’d buried herself in work, her father had done whatever he could to numb the pain, drinking and gambling their money and land away. He seemed determined to drive himself into an early grave. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him take her with him.
She tried again, keeping her voice as calm and quiet as she could. “The family cemetery where Ma and her parents are buried is on that land,” she reminded him again. “If you sell it off, they are gone. If you just need money…”
She strode to a small box that she’d tucked away on the top of the bookshelf in the corner of the room and pulled out a small leather pouch. “Here,” she said, dropping it on the desk in front of him. “That’s everything I’ve been able to save for the last few months. Take that. The land is not for sale.”
He remained stiff, unseeing, unyielding. Long enough that, for a second, she thought he might refuse the money.
But after a few moments, he finally unfroze, grabbed the bag, and marched from the room. She shouldn’t have allowed herself the hope that he’d do the decent thing and not steal from his own child. From himself, really. That money was all that stood between them and disaster.
The front door closed, and after a few more minutes, she heard him ride off, and she dropped into the chair behind the desk and laid her head on her folded arms.
That was too close. The loss of the money hurt, but as long as nothing too catastrophic happened, she could weather it. Make it up. But if he’d found the deed to the property…
She reached under the desk, her fingers feeling for the latch to the small hidden drawer that her father didn’t know existed. The button clicked beneath her finger, and the drawer sprang open. The weathered paper of the deed still lay folded and safe in the drawer.
She let out a trembling breath and closed the drawer. There was no way she could do this for five more years. Which meant, objections or no, Mr. Brady was going to have to accept their marriage. It would be much easier if she could just tell him why she needed his name on that marriage license.
But she didn’t know the man. Couldn’t trust him. A wife’s property didn’t belong to her. And the last thing she was going to do was get the deed from her father just to turn it over to her husband. The property was hers, and she’d be damned if she was going to allow anyone other than herself to claim it.
And since Mr. Brady didn’t seem amenable to marriage—she tried very hard to not let her mind wonder why…she’d had enough men laugh at the thought of her as a romantic companion to not venture into that territory again—she was just going to have to convince him, somehow, that he needed this partnership as much as she did.
Chapter Seven
By the time supper approached, Adam had managed a few hours of fitful dozing but not much else. Even if Mrs. DuVere hadn’t offered to put in a word with her builder, Adam would have volunteered, just to ensure the walls went up on his room as fast as possible. He hadn’t been the only one catching an afternoon nap and sleeping on a floor with nothing but sheets separating a bunch of snoring, flatulent men. It made actually getting any rest a bit more difficult than he’d anticipated. He wouldn’t be able to take too many nights in the bachelor paradise that was the boardinghouse.
After dinner, Adam headed to the tavern to meet the builder, Mr. Vernice. Mrs. DuVere had indeed had a word with him, and he’d reluctantly agreed to meet with Adam after supper.
Adam tried not to put too much hope into it. The man could say no, after all. However, if Mrs. DuVere was correct, the builder needed workers. Hopefully badly enough he was willing to overlook Adam’s not-insignificant shortcomings.
Reggie, the barkeep, pointed him in the direction of Vernice, and Adam nodded his thanks before heading over and sliding onto the barstool beside him.
“Mr. Vernice,” he said, giving the man his most charming smile. “I’m Adam Brady. I believe Mrs. DuVere mentioned me?”
Mr. Vernice grunted and went back to his whiskey. Talkative bunch in this town. Luckily, the man’s drink was nearly gone.
“How about another for Mr. Vernice?” Adam said to Reggie, who nodded and grabbed the bottle from behind the counter.
“Thanks,” Vernice said, taking a healthy sip from his newly refilled glass before leaning on the bar so he could get a look at Adam.
He didn’t seem nearly as pleased with the arrangement he’d made with Mrs. DuVere as she and Adam had been. The man looked Adam up and down, his skepticism stamped all over his face.
“You ever done any building before?” Vernice asked.
“No, but I’m willing to do just about anything you need doing.”
Vernice grunted. “We’ll see.”
Adam just grinned, trying his hardest to look strong and capable. Either it worked, or Vernice was more desperate for help than Adam had figured, because he just grunted again.
“Meet me on the walkway in front of the boardinghouse at seven sharp,” Vernice said.
“Seven in the morning?” Adam said, quickly trying to hide his dismay behind another smile.
