Excerpt from The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Frantic, I grabbed his sleeve and whispered, "Please, Pa, I don't want to marry."

"What's wrong with you, Daughter? It ain't natural to defy the Lord's natural order."

I took his palm in mine and pressed the silent plea into it.

Pa looked at my coloring hand and pulled his away. "I gave up my sleep to ride over to his holler and arrange this."

I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a shushing hand.

"This harsh land ain't for a woman to bear alone. It's cruel enough on a man." Pa reached for his hand--carved bear poker with the razor--sharp arrowhead tip. "I've been digging my grave since the first day I dug coal. I'll not dig two." He tapped the poker against the boards. "You will take a husband so you'll have someone to care for you when I no longer can."

He buttoned his coat and grabbed his tin lunch bucket off the porch boards, ambling off to his night shift down at the coal mine.

Hearing a horse's strangled whinny, I turned toward a rustling in the trees, straining to listen above the prattling song of creek waters. The courter would be here shortly.

I leaned over the wood railing and peered out. When I could no longer see the flicker of Pa's miner's lamp and was sure he'd disap-peared into the woods, I reached over, adjusted the wooden slide on the timekeeping candle, and lowered the taper to where the wax would touch the old spiral holder's lip within a few minutes of being burnt—-a signal to this latest suitor that a prompt and swift departure was in mind.

Raising my hands, I watched them quiet to a duck--egg blue.

Two

Barely another gray week had passed when Pa sent a new suitor to our porch. Gradually, the man got down off his mount and tied it to a tree. He was just one more hungry troll out there hunt-ing, and one more I needed to run off.

Racing a thumb across my fingers, I ticked off the number of cour-ters who had come calling. It had to be over a dozen, maybe higher, closer to two dozen if I counted the ones who'd never showed, who'd turned back at the mouth of our woods.

I watched the man lumber up the steps, eager for him to take his spot so I could burn the courting candle and be rid of him.

Fumbling, I picked up the box of matches and pulled one out. This particular chore of lighting the wick was always mine after Pa's hopeful intended arrived, and was done as soon as the suitor sat.

Hewitt Hartman plopped heavily into the rocker, nearly busting the planked seating as I lit the short taper. He hunched over a ripe belly, twiddling his hat, working his coated tongue around a big chaw before sputtering a greeting I couldn't understand. Looking down at his knees, he asked to see the land deed.

Silently, I went inside and brought it out, placing the paper beside the courting candle. I caught a whiff of shine from Mr. Hartman and moved over to the rail, laced my hands behind my back, watching the flame quiver, the wax melt ever so slow.

The man grunted several times while reading the deed. The ten--acre dowry was more than generous. The land could be cleared for farming or timber, or even sold if a man wanted. Pa never wanted neighbors, never had those means, that mindset, or the money to do anything. But as his illness set in and his determination to see me wed-ded persisted, his thoughts had latched on to other ways.

Mr. Hartman leaned in toward the taper and studied the deed over the yellow light, a greed flickering in his dull eyes. Squinting, he snatched a glance at my face, then another back to the paper, and once more at me. Snapping the old document, he took a dirt--stained finger, running it down the page, his lips chewing over the fancy script. Again, he pinched off a flurry of peeks at me.

Finally, he cleared his throat, stood, and spit a wad of tobacco over the rail, the brown spittle painting his bottom lip and a few droplets speckling his chin.

Excerpted from The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Cheryl Richardson. Copyright © 2019 by Cheryl Richardson. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.