Lynna Banning Read Online Free PDF

usually my best customer, but this afternoon her mama too busy.”
    “I’m Jessamyn Whittaker, and I need some kerosene to clean the printing press at the newspaper office.”
    “Ah! You are the Miss Whittaker who comes from the East? I am Otto Frieder. My wife, Anna-Marie, is in theback. You wait.” He disappeared, then emerged from behind a curtained doorway with a plump, dimpled woman of about thirty in tow. “Anna-Marie,” he said with obvious pride.
    The woman extended both hands past her distended abdomen and squeezed Jessamyn’s fingers. “We are so happy you come to Wildwood Valley.”
    “I—Thank you, Mrs. Frieder.”
    “We are much sorry about your father.”
    “Thank you again.”
    Anna-Marie immediately curved her palms over her belly. “Baby comes in just a few weeks,” she said with a shy smile. “Our first.”
    Jessamyn looked into the round blue eyes of the woman facing her. How happy she looked. How eager for life. In just a few years the storekeeper’s wife would have three or four young ones hanging on to her skirts, and then she would look exhausted. Worn out, like Mama.
    “About the kerosene, Mr. Frieder.”
    “Ah, yes.” Otto turned toward the back of the store where oak barrels lined one wall. “Kerosene…kerosene,” he muttered. “Cigars…cartridges…nails…no kerosene. We just run out. Shipment is again late.”
    “I will also need newsprint and ink for the paper.”
    Otto sighed. “That I must order from Chicago—will take two, maybe three weeks.”
    “Three weeks!”
    “Maybe four, even. Come by train to Omaha, then by wagon over the mountains.”
    Four weeks! Jessamyn groaned. That was a whole month! How could she publish a newspaper without ink and newsprint? If she was frugal, her father’s supply might last for one edition, but it would have to be a very short press run.
    “I’m sorry, Miss Whittaker. Your papa, he was always running out of supplies. ‘Otto,’ he would say to me. ‘I needmore ink, more newsprint.’ He kept on printing his paper, though. I never could figure how he did it.”
    Anna-Marie made sympathetic clucking sounds.
    Jessamyn’s spirits plummeted. Getting out her first issue would be more of a challenge than she’d thought.
    Otto patted her hand. “I will get your supplies for you. There is else you need?”
    “What? Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Frieder.” She tried to keep her disappointment from showing in her voice. No ink. No newsprint. No kerosene. How had her father managed?
    Otto gestured to his wife. Anna-Marie made her way to the candy case, dug a tin scoop into a fat glass jar and poured the contents into a small brown paper sack. She handed it over the countertop. “No charge,” the young woman whispered.
    Jessamyn smiled her thanks at the couple. Her mind churning, she left the store, snapped opened her parasol and stepped out into the late-afternoon sun. Deep in thought, she popped a candy into her mouth.
    What would she do now? Papa had managed some way, but how? Jessamyn sucked on the gingery-tasting sweet and racked her brain. She was a Whittaker, she reminded herself. Like Papa. She wasn’t beaten yet. After all, a Whittaker never gave up.
    But how could she clean the press? With her tongue she turned the gingery-tasting sweet over and over as she thought about the problem facing her.
    First she’d need a substitute for kerosene. She rolled the candy drop around inside her mouth with the tip of her tongue. The sharp flavor surprised her, hot and sweet like spices and pepper mixed up together. It made her mouth burn. Her lips felt warm and sticky, as if she’d been sipping…
    “Spirits!” she blurted aloud. She could clean the press with alcohol!
    Where, she wondered as she marched along the board walkway, could she get alcohol?
    Across the street the plunking of a tinny piano drifted out the open front door of Charlie’s Red Fox Saloon. Jessamyn halted midstride.
    A saloon served alcohol, didn’t it?
    She set her