Quotes from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“So Captain Jack’s come a-courtin’.” Her hands stilled on the basket. “Who?” “The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin.” The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. “He come by, but I don’t know why.” “Best take a long look in the mirror, then.” Lael’s eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn’t own one. “Beads and a blanket, was it?” She nodded and looked back down. “I still can’t figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me.” Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. “Why, Captain Jack’s as white as you are.” “What?” she blurted, eyes wide as a child’s. Ma Horn’s smile turned sober. “He’s no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name—Jack.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“She swam nearer and her breath caught. Lying atop the rock was a bow and quiver full of arrows beside a pair of beaded moccasins. She spun around in the water, joy bubbling up inside her. But before she could take a breath, firm hands caught her ankles and tugged her under. She came up sputtering and laughing, but he’d still not surfaced. So he swims like a fish. She remembered he could also run like a deer, overtaking her in the woods all those years before. “Yellow Bird.” The voice behind her seemed almost to drown her with its depth. She turned to Captain Jack, hard pressed to keep her pleasure down. How many days since they had walked in the meadow? Too many, from the feeling inside her. In one glance she took in the doused eagle feathers of his headdress and the fine silver bands encircling his solid upper arms. Shimmering with water, Captain Jack’s hair was blue black. The beads about his neck were the same startling jade as his eyes and made him even more appealing. Suddenly shy, she ducked beneath the water, then swam away. Would he follow? They did a dance of sorts in the warm current, circling, gliding, swaying. Each time he caught her she pulled free and swam farther downriver than she’d ever been before. But he continued to woo her, pursuing her until she was so breathless she could only lie upon her back and float, the river like a watery bed.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Since you’re no’ going tae ask, I’ll just tell you tae come,” he called. “Come as you are. But if you dinna hurry, we’ll miss Christmas.” Christmas. She felt the delight of it clear to her toes. He leaned forward in the saddle, looking frozen. “Are you coming, Lael lass, or are you no’?” “I—well . . .” She turned and flew into the cabin, smoothing her hair, banking the fire, and disposing of her uneaten supper all at once. Suddenly she reappeared at the door. “I don’t even know where we’re going!” “Tae Cozy Creek. Till the new year.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Before she could even step off the porch he was picking her up. “Light as thistledown,” he teased. “’Tis what I suspected.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“You were not much afraid when I went after you,” he said with a little smile. “Oh, I was afraid,” she confessed, picking up some pine knots. “But then I saw that it was you . . .”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Captain Jack said he’d take some of you if he couldn’t have all of you,” he said, the mirth in his eyes making light of her ire. “And you let him?” “Seems a small price to pay to keep you.” “When? How?” she sputtered. “Near dawn, with his scalping knife.” “While I slept?”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“He’s not come again for some time now, though he promised to return. But truly, what does it matter?” “It matters more than you know.” The poignancy in his voice hurt her, and she felt the urge to stem his words with her fingertips, but he kept on. “I ken one day he’ll come for you and you’ll simply disappear. Withoot a word tae anyone. Withoot a trace.” Put this way, it sounded so selfish, so unfeeling, if it ever did happen. “I—he—” she began, then stopped, contemplating all the uncertainties before her. His voice dropped lower, yet more a whisper. “You’re needed here, Lael. The settlement needs you. I need you.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“You’re uncommon tall for a lass.” Surprised, she smiled. “Do you always speak your mind so?” He nodded. “You’ll find I do.” “Anything else?” “Aye,” he replied, coming around the press to close the distance between them. “Do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where’er you go?”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Are you alone?” she asked, glancing around. Never before had she seen him without a half dozen or so other Shawnee. “No. With you,” he said, eyes alight. She smiled, warmed by his teasing.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Do you often make meals for outlanders, Miss Click?” There was teasing in his tone and in his astonishing eyes. Scarlet, she looked down at her apron, now soiled by three spots of coffee, a bit lost in the richness of his speech. “You’ve yet tae call me Doctor, which I dinna mind in the least. But it tells me you are questioning my credentials. And those eyes of yours demand I must somehow prove myself, pass a test. Like your faither did when he ran the Shawnee gauntlet.” “You read that in the papers, I reckon.” “Aye. Is it true?” She nodded. “He carried the scars to his grave.” “So he passed the test. Will I?”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“You call yourself a gentleman, yet you stare at me.” “I never called myself a gentleman.” “You are a gentleman and you still stare.” “If I do, the fault is your own. You are a complicated lass, Lael Click.” She set the dishes down with a clatter. Complicated? She wouldn’t ask him to explain himself. She didn’t have to. He leaned back against a porch post, stretched his legs, and crossed his shiny black boots. “You went tae one of the finest finishing schools in the colonies, yet I find you barefoot and bonnetless and making social calls tae Indians, wi’ your hair down tae boot. And unchaperoned, as weel.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I ken you want me off your porch and out of the settlement as weel. But I’ll no’ oblige you till you answer a few questions of my own.” Her voice was cold as creek ice in January. “I don’t have to.” His blue eyes flashed a warning. “If you want tae be rid of me, you’ll answer. Or I’ll still be here come morning.” She didn’t doubt it. “You Scots are a stubborn lot.” He grinned and rolled his eyes. “And you colonials are no’?”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“As I told you, I’m not the settlement midwife. I’ve not birthed one baby.” “But you are an herbalist.” “I suppose I am. The woods and Ma Horn have been my teachers since I was a girl.” She looked away from him, embarrassed. Here she was, considering him a quack, and he was unraveling her own lack of expertise fast as a spool of thread. “I’m finding the settlers here a superstitious lot. I dinna doubt you are much the same.” She sat up straighter. “What do you mean?” “Axes under the bed tae cut the pain of childbirth. Garlic charms and spells. Boiling beaver tails tae cure snakebite. No’ tae mention the misuse of useful herbs.” Her own face clouded. “I do none of those things.” He looked doubtful. “Prove it.” “How do you expect me to do that?” His steely eyes held a challenge. “Work alongside me.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I asked once before, do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where’er you go?” She flushed. So word of her run-in with Hero McClary had reached the doctor as well. Her face grew pinker, not from his mention of the feud but from his intense scrutiny. She managed as calmly as she could, “As I told Colonel Barr, the matter is settled.” His eyes sparked. “Nae, no’ settled. Nothing is ever settled with a clan like the McClarys. It matters no’ that you’re a woman. It matters greatly that you live alone.” She swallowed, not taking her eyes from his, and saw the warning and concern in their blueness. Wearily, elbows on the table, she rested her face in her hands. Gently but firmly his fingers encircled her wrists like iron bands and brought them back down. “Look at me, Lael, and say that you’ll come tae the fort, just for the winter.” Lael. Lay-elle. In his Highland brogue, it sounded like no name she had ever heard, yet she bristled at his familiarity. Her resistance to the notion of forting up doubled. “Nay,” was all she said as she looked away. Releasing her, he looked down at the bowl of food Ma Horn had set before him. Did he find turnips and greens disagreeable fare? Or was he regretting saying her given name? In a few days’ time, “Miss Click” had changed to “Lael.” “I’d best be going,” she said but made no move to do so. “Nae . . . stay.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Will you forgive me for the things I said tae you when we last met? Before I went oot and slammed the door?” She looked up at him. “I came here to ask you that very thing.” Only when I saw you, I forgot. “Forgiven, then?” She softened. “You were only trying to warn me, as a friend.” “Aye, as a friend.” “I shouldn’t have sassed you so.” He smiled, or tried to. “But you are so good at it.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“was a mighty daring stunt you pulled outside fort walls. You ain’t been back two months, and you’re the talk of the settlement again. Only this time the tattle’s mostly good, considerin’ you saved all our hides.” “You can thank Captain Jack,” she told him, careful not to look at him overlong. His expression turned almost wistful. “Captain Jack, is it? You never let your hair down for me, Lael.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I’m no longer your concern.” “You’ve been my concern ever since you were six years old, come to fort up with me. You’re in my blood, Lael—a forever and endurin’ part of me!”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I made a terrible mistake marryin’ Piper. It was you I said my vows to on my weddin’ day—your face was in my mind. And that night ’twas you I—” “Nay!” She covered his mouth with her hand, unable to hear it, but he only held her tighter. She cried until the front of his linen shirt was damp with her tears, and when she pushed away from him he would not let her go. “There’s never been another like you,” he whispered. “And never will there be.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“How many days was it? Two? I could’ve told you that you don’t belong in any schoolroom.” Stung, she stammered, “Wh-where do I belong?” He removed his hat and placed it over his heart, though his eyes remained faintly mocking. “Up on my four hundred, Lael Click. Where else?”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I suppose now is a terrible time to propose,” he told her, suddenly rueful. She looked at him in wonder. Truly, he had no shame, wooing her as he did when he could see she was in a dither. It took all her nerve to return his flirtatious banter and say, “Your timin’ needs work, Simon. But elopin’ might sit better than my quittin’. ” He grimaced. “I doubt it. I’d hate to stare down your pa’s gun barrel once we jumped the broom. Besides, I can’t marry someone I ain’t never courted or even kissed.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“I don’t think scalpin’ is what Captain Jack has in mind.” Lael looked up. “We’ve seen no sign of him or any of them since the beads and the blanket.” “Oh, you ain’t seen ’em, but they’ve been by all right. Your pa says Shawnee sign crisscrosses your place like a buffalo trace.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Lael Catherine Click, save every dance for me. Simon Henry Hayes.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Run away with me—tonight.” Above them the brilliant moon beckoned, promising to light their way. Her voice sounded queer and far off, weak with longing and despair. “No runnin’ off like Ma done, Simon.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Across the way there lies a wee lass, no’ yet five years old, suffering from a fever. Her name is Sadie Floyd. I want you tae go with me tae see her.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“Lael.” Her hands stilled at the sound. The name was spoken like a caress, so soft she was certain only she had heard. When she turned, Simon grabbed her wrist. He was lucid now, looking up at her from his mattress on the floor. “It is you. I heard—” He winced from the sudden movement, and his shoulder began to bleed afresh. “I heard—but I misdoubted you’d stay—but you come back—to me.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

“You are still a very loosome lass, Lael Click.” “Loosome?” “Lovely. But you need tae regain your strength. I canna wed and bed so wee a fairy.”
― Laura Frantz, quote from The Frontiersman's Daughter

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