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Page 165
But Mariah Walker offered to each, in greeting, one of those small, work-roughened hands. She repeated each name in turn.
As she welcomed the others, Francis Kerr prattled on about their brief business at the inn. "The opportunities farther west are like a magnet, drawing us here and beyond until we find a home."
When Mariah proffered her hand to Kerr, he held on to it much too long. Thorn felt his spine stiffen, as though he had backed against a stone wall. Kerr was not a tall man, nor did he appear of great breadth or strength. His hair was a bright orange shade that would be too conspicuous in a forest, would attract Indians. Fool, for undertaking such a venture!
But Thorn himself was more the dunce, he told himself, for minding in the slightest the visitor's attention to Mariah.
"I'll bet you're hungry." She showed them to seats about the tables in the common room as though she were the mistress of the inn.
"What have you to pay for your meal?" Thorn did not like Mariah's fleeting irritated expression. But he had an inn to run, and no one without means to pay was welcome.
The settlers had English shillings, a most suitable medium of exchange here on the frontier.
Mariah and Holly, who, except for the braising on her face, seemed to have recuperated, swept to and from the kitchen serving the travelers. It mattered not at all to Thorn that Holly flirted shamelessly with the men in the party, even sitting on one's knee when invited.
Thorn noted, though, that René, who served the men ale from a cask behind the bar, glowered when that occurred. Might his friend be attracted to the pale-haired woman whom Mariah had inserted so unexpectedly into their lives?
Perhaps, however, no more unexpectedly than Mariah herself.
Thorn, as René always insisted, joined his guests at their meal. He made certain to sit at the table with Kerr to keep an eye on him. Thorn liked not at all that the ever-present sorrow and watchfulness on Mariah's face was swept away by the tide of frivolity issuing from Kerr's lips. The man's

 
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