The coffee helped, and once the sandwich came, Elizabeth finished it quickly. She was hardly noticed in the saloon, and she managed to straighten her hair and quickly reach back and secure her corset, though not so tightly. Every muscle in her body felt stretched to the limit and now that she'd eaten, Elizabeth found the music and the noise in the saloon strangely soothing. I'll just close my eyes for a moment, she thought, to listen...

"Miss Thatcher?"

Elizabeth's head popped up and there were three women standing in a semicircle around the table in front of her. Behind them stood Constable Grant, and to her amazement, on his hip he held a little girl, probably three or four years old. All of them were staring at Elizabeth and she realized to her horror that she had fallen asleep. In a saloon.

This had definitely been a day of firsts.

She sat up quickly and again attempted to fix her hat, which now seemed beyond repair. Finally she simply took it off and placed it on the table.

"Hello," she said feebly to the three women, who she assumed were the mothers who had hired her. "I'm your new teacher."

The three women looked concerned at what they were seeing. "We expected someone more... mature," the dark-haired woman on the right said, clearly disappointed.

The small, pretty woman on the left put out her hand. "I'm Abigail Stanton. Welcome to Coal Valley, Miss Thatcher." She pulled a chair closer to Elizabeth and said kindly, "Constable Grant told us that the coach was robbed. I'm so sorry. Mr. Trevoy has sent someone out to get your things and we can take you up to the teacherage. You must be exhausted. You'll have a couple of days to find your way around and then you can start teaching the children on Monday."

Despite her appearance, Elizabeth at least wanted to appear somewhat professional. "And when may I see the schoolroom?" she asked. Elizabeth sat up straighter, beginning to feel more in control.

The woman in the middle raised an eyebrow. "You're seeing it," she said. "We used to have school in the church, but it burned down. Now classes are held here. It's the only place large enough to hold all the children." She held out her hand as well. "Cat Montgomery."

"School... in the.. saloon," Elizabeth said, shaking Cat's hand and falling back into a bit of a daze. She looked around and now could see that there was a desk with a blackboard tucked into the corner over by the stairs.

"Until we build another church," the third woman said. "Florence Blakeley," she said offering her hand.

Elizabeth bit her lip, not certain how much more excitement she could take. The trip out west, the robbery, spending the night on the floor of the stagecoach, an insufferable Mountie who now held an adorable little girl on his hip, and the news that the saloon was the schoolroom – these were all things that she could breathlessly recount for her journal later, and that Julie would relish in the telling, but for now, Elizabeth thought she might be quite done with new information.

"Is there a bathtub in the teacherage?" she asked suddenly, not caring about the inappropriateness of asking such a question in front of a man. She looked up and could see that it didn't seem to faze him, and that the little girl in Nathan's arms was focused on her hat.

"Yes," Abigail said, relieved that there could be a piece of good news in this conversation. "You only need to heat the water on the stove..."

"Ah," Elizabeth said, suddenly so anxious to get started on that process that she didn't care in the least that she hadn't the first idea how to go about it.

Elizabeth pushed back her chair and stood with as much dignity as she could muster in a filthy dress with her hair going in a hundred directions. She looked down, seeing her empty plate and then she looked for her purse. And then she remembered.

"Oh," she said softly, having reached the absolute bottom in her quest for any dignity at all. "I have no money."

Nathan stepped around quickly, seeing her distress. "I'm sure Tom would be willing to start a tab for you," he said kindly. That smile was starting to unnerve Elizabeth, so she looked at the little girl in his arms. Following her gaze, Elizabeth could see that she was still looking at her hat on the table.

Elizabeth picked it up and smiled. "Do you like hats?" she asked, holding it closer and trying, without much success, to straighten the flowers and ribbons. A leaf had become lodged in the pink netting and she picked it out and put it on her empty plate.

The little girl nodded, smiling back at her. "What's your name?" Elizabeth asked softly.

Allie was being uncharacteristically shy, which Nathan found curious. But the tone of voice Elizabeth was using was so kind, so hypnotic, that Nathan could understand her inability to speak. He was starting to show some of the same symptoms.

"Allie," he said, taking a deep breath. "Her name is... is Allie." When Elizabeth didn't respond right away, Nathan said, "Short for Alice. She's my... my niece."

Oh no, Nathan thought. It's started. Tongue-tied, unable to string thoughts together, the familiar stutter. It took him back to his school days. Before he knew he liked a girl, he could talk at length on any subject. He could make sense, and actually sound somewhat intelligent. As soon as he liked her, everything went south. His vocabulary, his coherence, his understanding of when to stop talking, just rattling on. Things just... came out. So he'd learned over time to be silent and keep his thoughts to himself until he could form full sentences.

"Allie," Elizabeth said softly, unaware of the turmoil going on in Nathan's mind. "That's a very nice name." She held up the hat, and Allie looked at her. "You can touch it." Elizabeth laughed softly, "It's a little dirty, but I think we might be able to clean it. What do you think?" Allie reached out a hand tentatively and ran her fingers across one of the shiny pink ribbons that had survived the night in the stagecoach. She smiled and looked back at Elizabeth. "Pretty hat," she said. Then Elizabeth placed it on Allie's head, and the little girl giggled.

There was a silence around the table and even Florence Blakeley was smiling. Abigail, Cat and Florence had been through so much in the last three months, and all were concerned for their children. As they watched Elizabeth with Allie, a weight lifted from their shoulders. Their new schoolteacher might be young, and she might have had a rough couple of days, but her natural way with the little girl, and Allie's obvious ease with Elizabeth, allowed them to take a deep breath.

The three women looked at each other and smiled, relieved. The schoolteacher they had hired, sight unseen from the east, was going to be just fine.

As Elizabeth began unpacking the boxes Tom Trevoy had brought up, she heard a noise out back behind the teacherage. She pulled back the curtain and peered timidly out of the upstairs window.

The Constable was no longer wearing his red serge. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt with the buttons open at the collar, his suspenders firmly over his wide shoulders and attached to his Mountie jodhpurs. He positioned a piece of wood on a stump and eyed it carefully. Then, in one masterful stroke, he raised the axe above his head and brought it down squarely in the middle of the piece of wood, splitting it into two equal pieces.

Suddenly, Elizabeth was finding it hard to catch her breath.

Elizabeth had only witnessed this particular activity once before in her life. One of the boys who worked for her father had been in charge of keeping the stoves filled in their large home in Hamilton, and in the winter, he spent most of every day chopping wood for the fires. She had been fifteen, and had hidden behind the barn watching him, trying to understand why she couldn't take her eyes off of him. As was the way with fifteen-year-old girls, she had moved on and found other delights, but she'd never forgotten the feeling.

Now, watching Constable Nathan Grant, Elizabeth realized that she knew this man to a degree far beyond her lack of acquaintance with the young man in Hamilton. She knew Nathan's voice, his skeptical raised eyebrow, his kindness, his annoying way of smiling at her when she was at her least confident, the feel of his arms around her holding Newton's reins, the depth of his blue eyes...

Elizabeth closed the curtain suddenly, nearly pulling the fabric off of the rod. She turned and put her back to the wall, closing her eyes and willing herself not to look again, but that battle was quickly lost.

Slowly, Elizabeth turned and moved a corner of the curtain. Once more, Nathan positioned the wood, took a moment, and brought the axe down perfectly. His exertion had caused him to roll up his sleeves, and he was so close to the back of the teacherage that she could see the lines of muscle in his forearms when the axe came down, and the sprinkling of dark hairs there...

"Oh, my..." she said aloud.

"Where do you want this?" came a voice behind her, and she spun around so quickly it made her a little giddy. Tom Trevoy was standing with his kitchen helper, Jake, at the door. They were carrying her largest trunk, the one that held most of her dresses and shoes.

"Right over there," Elizabeth said, a little breathlessly, pointing to a corner of what she could only call the living room, although it was indistinguishable from the kitchen and the bedroom. The entire teacherage was smaller than her bedroom in Hamilton.

Once Tom and Jake had set down the trunk, they turned and went back to the door, nearly running into Constable Grant with a load of wood in his arms.

"Sorry," he said quickly, stepping back and allowing the two men to pass him and go down the stairs. He looked at Elizabeth and said, "Wood. For your fire." When she didn't respond, he blinked a few times and said, "So you'll be warm tonight."

Idiot, he thought, sighing. Brilliant. As usual.

Nathan inclined his head toward the stove. "I'll just put these over here," he mumbled, thinking that Elizabeth's silence was probably due to her amazement that a grown man could have so much difficulty with simple sentence structure.

In fact, Elizabeth's silence was due to the fact that she couldn't stop looking at his arms, now straining a little under the weight of the stack of wood he'd chopped for her. To keep her warm.

"Thank you," she finally managed to say. Her voice sounded small and thin to her, and she hoped it didn't to him.

"You know how to start a fire?" he asked. He'd said it quickly, without thinking how it sounded.

That snapped Elizabeth out of her reverie. "I'll manage," she said.

A frown creased Nathan's forehead. He watched as Elizabeth's chin rose again, and that made him think she didn't have the first idea how to start a fire. "I can do it for you, if you want," he said, feeling a little defensive at her sudden coldness.

"No, thank you, Constable." She remembered her promise to herself that she would accept no assistance from her father's hired help, and she said, more sharply than she intended, "And I didn't ask you to chop the wood."

Nathan stood up and put his thumbs into his suspenders. Elizabeth was beginning to notice that when he was perturbed, he had a way of putting his tongue into his cheek and raising one eyebrow. "No, you didn't," he said with steel in his blue eyes. "I'll remember that in the future."

Why is it that I can talk to her just fine when she makes me angry? Nathan thought. Right now he had a virtual encyclopedia of words he wanted to express to Miss Elizabeth Thatcher.

They both stood for a moment, stubborn, giving each other looks that could freeze the sun right out of the sky. Finally, Nathan reached up to tip his hat, and quickly realized he didn't have one on his head. So it turned into a sort of awkward salute. "Have a good evening, Miss Thatcher." He turned on his heel and walked back through the door.

"You do the same, Constable Grant," she called after him, feeling somehow that she had lost this round, but wanting the last word.

"Annoying man," she said out loud as she began to open her trunk. "Do I know how to start a fire... insufferable!" She looked over at the stove and sighed. She didn't know how to start a fire.

Narrowing her eyes at the offending appliance, she said, "I am Elizabeth Thatcher. I am a strong, independent, capable woman. I can face any obstacle with courage, grace and dignity." Her voice had a little less power in it than she'd heard in the months she'd been repeating it to herself, but now she added quickly, "And I can learn anything. Even how to start a fire."

Two hours later, Elizabeth stood on the ground near where Nathan had been chopping wood, watching as the teacherage went up in flames. Through her tears, she whispered, "Well, I learned how to start a fire..."