Willodean’s hand rose again. “Ready, Miss Bracey?”
“Yes.” Abby beckoned the little girl to the spindled chair perched beside the teacher’s desk. Abby sat in the larger chair at the desk, rubbing her hands together. Here in the corner, she was farthest away from the wood-burning box stove in the center of the schoolroom. After the first day of instruction, she’d used her meager savings to purchase a blue rag rug to place beneath her desk in an effort to stave off the chill, but neither they nor the blue gingham curtains she draped over the windows did anything but add a sense of cheeriness to the space. Ah, well. It was too late in the day to add more fuel to the stove, so she would be patient. “Willodean, what would you like to say about your parents?”
“Pa’s name is Bynum Elmore.” Willodean pointed to her slate, where she’d already written a large B. “He’s a farmer.”
Abby well knew the fact, since she’d lived with them near on a week now. She spelled out Bynum’s name and the word farmer. “And your mother?”
“Her name is Hildegard and she’s a mama.”
Abby spelled those. “Let’s practice some other words you might want to include.” Abby showed her how to write corn, oats, and cow, as well as the name of her three-year-old sister, Patty; Patchy Polly, the calico cat; and baby, for the little one coming into the family sometime soon, gauging by Hildie Elmore’s prominent midsection.
While Willodean practiced with the tip of her tongue caught between her lips, Abby rose to check on the others. Curly-haired Zaida had already finished a page and had started on a second, even though she was ten and not required to write more than two paragraphs. Her parents kept the dry goods store, and oh, she was describing her father’s technique for keeping his mustache trimmed and waxed. “Very nice.”
Kyle hadn’t written a single word yet. “What’s so intriguing out the window, Kyle?”
“It’s snowing.”
So it was, a gentle, picturesque, pretty snow. “Perfect for playing in … after school. Please focus on your sentences. You too, Coy. These are due before you go home for the day.”
“Aw.” It was Coy’s favorite refrain. “Can’t I take it home to finish it?”
“Coy Johnstone, are you requesting homework for you and the class?”
Beside him, Josiah glared. “No you ain’t, Coy. I don’t want any.”
Coy let out a deep sigh and picked up his pen. “No ma’am, I’ll do it now.”
She couldn’t help glancing at the eight-year-old-boys’ work. It would be a miracle if any of them mentioned having a father named Fletcher, but perhaps there would be something helpful. Hmm, not yet. Micah’s neat script described his seamstress mother as pretty, smart, and brave. Bud’s large scrawl didn’t reveal much of anything yet. Kyle’s sentences listed the items his mother baked at the Wells Café, from muffins to pie.
“Miss Bracey.” Micah’s hand floated above his head, his gaze fixed on the floor.
“Yes?”
He pointed. Redheaded Almos Sweet’s green canvas book bag slithered—there was no other word for it. Then went still. She stared at the bag, propped against ten-year-old Almos’s skinny shins, willing it to move again.
It did.
“Almos?” She swallowed down the panic squeezing her voice box and making her sound like a toddler. “There’s a mouse or … something in your book bag. I’m going to take it outside and set it free.”
One of the girls shrieked. The scrape of feet on wood planks told her everyone was on his or her feet, but she didn’t dare take her focus off that canvas bag for a moment. What if it wasn’t a mouse? Mice were far preferable to rats, like the yellow-toothed horrors that kept her up at night in Chicago, scratching their way through her walls. Why, oh, why did God create vermin like that?
Stop it. You’re the teacher here. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the bag.
Almos snatched it away. “I’ll do it, Teacher.”
“Let me,” Coy begged.
“No, boys. Rats—rodents—can bite. Where are my gloves?”
“I wanna watch.” Oneida pushed Jack out of the way, so Josiah lifted his little brother up for a better vantage.
“No one move.” Abby used her strongest authoritarian voice and hurried to the vestibule at the rear of the schoolhouse, tugging her leather gloves from the pocket of her coat. “Almos, the bag, please.”
“No, ma’am.” He clutched it to his chest. Almost lovingly.
“Oh Almos, this is your pet, isn’t it? Not a wild creature that found its way into your bag?”
He nodded. The sack wiggled against his hold, the ripple too large to be a small rodent. Abby’s stomach swooped to her toes and up to her throat in less than a second. Snakes? No, it was winter … they hibernated, didn’t they? Every zoological fact she possessed fled as her shaking hands dropped the gloves.
Please, God, don’t let it be something with fangs.
She hadn’t prayed for years, and that’s how she started again? Abby picked up her gloves and donned them with more confidence than she felt because the entire classroom watched her. “Almos, what is in that sack?”
The redheaded boy turned pink as a peach blossom. “I don’t want to say.”
“I reckon it’s a cat,” Kyle suggested.
“A cat!” Willodean squealed in rapture. “Mine is named Patchy Polly because she’s a calico.”
A cat. Abby’s muscles relaxed in relief. Sweet paws and whiskers and purring throats. But cats did not belong at school, and it was time to put an end to this spectacle. She led Almos to her desk. “You’ve kept a cat in a sack all day? That’s not fair to any creature, Almos.”
“I had to.” Almos lowered the squirming bag atop her grading papers. “He’s injured.”
“Then he should be resting at home. Let him out now for a few minutes of fresh air before you take him home.”
Although once she said it, she realized not a single child would do any work with a cat loose in the schoolroom. Not to mention, it might be difficult for Almos to catch the long-cooped-up cat to take home once it was out. But it couldn’t be helped, for the words had been spoken and Almos had already loosened the knot holding the canvas closed. A black snout poked out of the opening, fur sleek and black as ink.
Cats did not have snouts.
Nor did they have white triangles between their eyes that extended, thick and bright, down their spines in a stripe down their tails.
One of the girls shrieked. Abby hopped back from the skunk investigating her desktop. It delicately sniffed her pencil jar and then hobbled to her teacup, one forepaw wrapped in neatly tied white muslin.
“Return it to the sack, please, Almos.”
“You said to take him out.”
“Almos Sweet, do as I say. I didn’t know it was a wild animal.” It seemed mild now, but it could be rabid. Vicious. Or ready to unleash its odiferous spray.
“Stripey’s a good skunk. He don’t stink.” Almos scooped the skunk into his arms, cradling it like a baby.
“Doesn’t stink. Yet. But he could well spray me or this class or you.”
“His tail ain’t twitchin’ like he’s fixin’ on it, but he could, if you scare him.”
He was right. The children’s noisy exclamations weren’t going to keep the skunk disinclined to spray them. She lifted her hand. “Quiet, everyone.”
“He’s just a young thing. His paw got caught in one of Pa’s snares.” Now that every eye was fixed on him, Almos lifted his chin as well as his voice. “I’m tendin’ him.”
“You have a kind heart to care for, er, Stripey, but skunks are not welcome in class.”
“Can I pet it?” Vernon Johnstone reached out.
“No, boys, no.” Abby waved down Vernon’s hand. “Almos is about to put him back in the bag.”
“Aw,” Coy groaned.
Almos’s shoulders slumped, but he obeyed, and when the last bit of inky black fur disappeared into the sack, Almos cinched it closed.
Relie
f shot through Abby’s limbs. “Does your mother know Stripey is here?”
His face pinked again. “She thinks he’s in the barn.”
Several small hands reached to touch the canvas bag. Abby shooed them away from her desk. “Resume your seats and finish your assignment, class. Almos, are you close to finished?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She hurried to his desk and glanced at his paper. He’d ended his report midsentence, but it was close enough, and the school day was almost over. “You may be excused early to take Stripey home. If you bring Stripey back again, I’ll have no choice but to send you home again and inform your parents.”
“But he gets hungry, and his paw’s hurt.”
Her stomach flipped at the thought of what Almos had been feeding the creature all day, outside of her notice. “Other arrangements must be made. Are we understood?”
He stared at his shoes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m finished with my assignment, Miss Bracey.” Almos’s older sister Berthanne raised her hand. “May I go with Almos? Mama wants us to walk together.”
At Abby’s nod, the two children moved to the vestibule.
“I wish I could go home too,” Coy lamented.
“Then do your assignment instead of complaining about it,” Zaida said, giving Coy a matter-of-fact look. Zaida had the makings of a future teacher.
Abby grinned and followed the Sweet children to the vestibule, a small area the perfect size to accommodate a coatrack and a stack of split logs. She assisted them with their coats and retrieved the empty tobacco tins they used for lunch pails. “Almos, I meant what I said. I admire your heart for animals, but Stripey stays home from now on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She opened the door to let them out, bracing against the cold. She should have braced harder. Dash Lassiter stood on the schoolhouse steps, hand on his hat as if about to remove it.
Her heart gave a powerful thump before coming to a halt in her chest. Dash said he couldn’t come to Wells without drawing suspicion, yet here he was at the school, where he’d undoubtedly draw every curious juvenile eye. Back in Chicago, he’d also promised he wouldn’t check on her, contact her, or even see her again. A telegram was all there was supposed to be remaining between the two of them. So why had he come?
She had literally just traded one skunk for another.
“Good afternoon, sir.” Perhaps if she spoke to him as if they were strangers, he’d take the hint and reciprocate. Already the children would be talking about the stranger visiting the schoolhouse. “How may I help you?”
He glanced behind her. “We need to talk, Abby.”
He’d used her Christian name in the hearing of her pupils. There went all hope of pretending they weren’t acquainted. “This is not a good time, sir.”
“It’s important, ma’am, else I wouldn’t be here.”
Oh. Of course. Something had happened regarding the investigation. She softened a fraction, like a handful of snow in a mitten, but at once whispers erupted behind her.
Whatever Dash had to say would be overheard if she didn’t go outside with him and shut the door.
But if she did that, every mother in Wells would hear how she went outside with a man during school hours. No matter how innocent an encounter, it could be twisted, questioned. She’d signed a contract promising unimpeachable behavior. If she was perceived to have entertained a man during class time, she would be called upon to explain herself.
Dash had humiliated her six years ago. Regardless of the reason for his visit, she’d be humiliated once again if she spoke to him right now. The matter would have to wait.
“This is not a good time.” She widened her eyes to send him a message.
One he clearly didn’t understand, because he touched her forearm, right there in front of the entire student body of Wells.
This teacher would now be forced to give him a lesson he’d not soon forget.
Dash was accustomed to operating in shadows, not on schoolhouse steps in front of a rapt audience of miniature people. Shouldn’t that tell Abby how important this was? Hopefully his hand on her arm was making the point clear.
Their touch made another point clear—to him. This was Abby, in his life again after all this time. He’d been shocked to see her in Chicago. Then guilt-ridden as he reflected on what his choice to leave had cost them both. He’d shoved his emotions aside, however, to focus on the investigation. Catching Fletcher Pitch was too important.
But touching her now, long-forgotten heat jolted up to his arm socket. He’d loved her, loved the girl he could still see in Abby’s brown eyes.
But she was different now too. Six years ago, she was a carefree sprite with fuller cheeks and a ready smile. Maybe she still had a smile for everyone but him, but she was clearly not free of care. Faint pouches beneath her eyes testified to her bearing more burdens now than she once had.
Nor was she adorned in fancy frocks or fripperies like she used to be, the majority of which were pink, her favorite color. Now, her clothing was neat but utilitarian, and not even a simple gold cross on a chain dangled beneath the tiniest of lace collars at her throat. Aside from that scrap of lace, everything she wore was sparrow brown, as if she hoped to go unnoticed.
But he’d notice her no matter what she wore or did or said. He’d noticed her when they were knee high to the carriage horses, and had never been able to tear his gaze away.
Until he left, that is. Hurt her. Maybe the Lord had allowed their paths to cross so he could ask forgiveness for hurting her.
What good would it do now, though? She’d lost her father and mother, her home and friends. He’d be opening old wounds. Nevertheless, fresh guilt kicked him in the gut like a hoof.
“Don’t touch me.” She twisted so his hand slid off her arm. “You didn’t used to be so thickheaded,” she whispered.
She might as well have slapped him, the way he recoiled inside. “Sure I did. Couldn’t read to save my hide.” Literally.
Her eyes clouded. “I didn’t mean that.”
Didn’t she? Dim-witted Dash. How could he forget what her father said? What everyone said? That’s why he’d left Chicago. Had he stayed, her life would have been even worse than it was now.
Reminding himself of that simple fact made this bit of business easier. He’d come because he had something to say, and he couldn’t say it with a dozen or so pairs of little eyes peeping at him. “Come out for a second.”
“I cannot.”
“But everyone’s watching.”
“Precisely. And the school day is not finished for another ten minutes.”
“You sent home two children already.” The gawking girl and the boy with the canvas sack.
“A disciplinary matter. And I really must return to instructing the children. It is not proper for me to leave my class unattended for any reason. Unless you want me to lose my job and any hope for a recommendation in the future.”
“Fine.” He shoved his hat back on his head. “I’ll wait.”
“Fine.” She shut the door in his face.
He stared at it for a full three seconds before tossing back his head. What else could he do but laugh?
Lord, what am I supposed to do? Aside from not touching her again. His hand on her arm had stirred up emotions he’d banished years ago. No, he needed to focus on the job. Ten minutes, she’d said. Not much time to do anything but get bored, so he did what he always did: look around to glean information.
There wasn’t much to learn. The schoolhouse was located just east of town, the site probably chosen to accommodate farming families as well as town children. Snow-blanketed fields abutted the school on either side and across the road, and cottonwoods stood as silent sentries between the properties.
At one of the adjacent farms, a bearded, broad-shouldered man replaced the Virginia rail fence that divided his land from the school with barbed wire, but he wasn’t getting much accomplished, the way he watched Dash. Maybe his children
attended the school and he didn’t like the looks of a stranger loitering on school grounds. Dash had never given the idea a moment’s thought before. The only thought he’d entertained today was getting to Abby as fast as possible. But maybe he should have waited until the children were gone for the day so as not to draw interest, as he’d clearly done.
The man was still staring, so Dash held up his hand in greeting and strode toward him. “Afternoon, sir. How’s the barbed wire treating you?”
The man dropped his tools and extended his gloved hand over the fence. Faint lines rimmed sharp blue eyes, and a heavy brown beard covered a square jaw. “Afternoon. Yeah, working with wire takes some getting used to.”
“You’ve done a fine job.” The wire was taut, the fence line neat. It looked as if the man had years of experience. “Those barbs look downright mean.”
“It’s worth it to protect what’s yours.” The man tipped back his hat to better look at Dash.
“Your spring crops? Or animals?”
“Beef. Come spring I’ll be building a herd.” The man rubbed the back of his neck.
“Best wishes to you, then. I know little of cattle, but this seems like good land for it. I’m more of a horse fellow. I learned at my father’s knee and always thought I’d have a breeding ranch on a fine spread like this.” Dash hadn’t intended to chat, but he had nothing else to do while he waited for the school day to end, and this fellow seemed affable enough. “You have young’uns at the school?”
Blue eyes flashed. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I do not have children, no.”
“Then what’re you doing out here?”
“I need a word with the teacher.”
The man glanced at the school with a knowing smile. “I see.”
“Not like that, no. So …” He changed the subject. “Have you been in Wells long?”
“Handful of months now. And to answer your earlier question, no, no family. Yet. Just me rattling around in there.” He indicated the neat farmhouse several yards behind him.
“Well, when you do have a family, you can keep an eye on your young’uns when they’re here in school.”
The Blizzard Bride Page 3
