by Kari Trumbo
Lula’s steps slowed, making Izzy stumble. “I want to go back. I want to talk to him.”
Izzy pulled harder. “No. I won’t let you do that. He did well. He ignored you. Take a cue from him and be good.”
That was the hardest thing in the world to be.
The weeks went by, and for Barton they were torture. Lula sat in the back, staying quiet as he called on and talked with everyone else. She’d steadily folded under his lack of attention, like a dying flower, and it was killing him. At the end of the first week, he’d been helping the other students wrote an in-class essay, he’d stopped at every desk and made comments or helped them in some way. Except hers. He couldn’t make himself look into those beautiful blue eyes and just talk. Not after a week of separation. And it felt like a slow death.
Those blue eyes had been hopeful as he’d neared her row, she’d had her paper at the ready. Then he’d walked right by, and he’d crushed her. Her eyes had turned glassy, reflecting the bright light pouring in the windows, and he’d prayed she wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t stand to see her sad, not even when he’d tormented her. Her tears were precious, and no one better make her shed one. Not even him. Her anger, he liked. This…this wasn’t good for either of them. But what else could he do?
The class had fallen back into its normal routine and feel, at least. But he didn’t feel normal. Lula belonged at the front with him. He needed her smile of encouragement. He needed to lose his place in his notes because he thought he’d heard a noise she made. While the distraction of Lula was gone with her in the back, his teaching was more rote, less inviting. Even he could sense it.
His male students had wondered about Lula without asking, but now, after two weeks without incident, they had forgotten about her strange behavior, and his. Though, he couldn’t put it all on Lula. He’d shown so little discretion when the term had started. Frank’s warning of the danger of being dismissed had helped. Being separate from Lula had forced him to be a man and, obviously, his warning to Lula had done the same. It had worked too well. He truly never saw her. Not even in the cafeteria. Where she ate, he had no idea, but it wasn’t where he could catch a glimpse of her.
Christmas break was getting close. Lula hadn’t gone home for break in past years, so she might stay this time, and now he could stay as well. He could get caught up learning lessons from Professor Cook and maybe – if he was very careful – spend some evenings with Lula to tell her he missed her.
But not just them alone. The scene behind the bush was too fresh; he’d pushed things way too far. Pa had warned him that the right woman would not only put a fire in his blood, but a fire in his soul, and Pa was right. Lula made him as hot as the sun and he would burn for no one but her. Yet he had to do things in the right order – finish this year, see how she felt, find out her plan for her future, then speak with her brother-in-law and ask for her hand. First, he had to get through December, to the holidays.
There had to be something he could do for her, some way to let her know how he felt and that he was counting the days until they could be together. Something to bring a smile to her face again… Christmas marked the halfway point in the school year. Once through that, he could get through the other half, he was sure. He just needed a little time with her to tide him over.
That day’s essays lay on his desk and he gathered them all up. Lula had steadily been getting worse and worse. Her focus was off, she wasn’t giving him her best work and, as he’d feared. Furthermore, it was getting difficult to be fair in grading her papers. He couldn’t keep up the act much longer or it would affect her ability once she was out teaching students. If she got that far.
How could he call himself a teacher and not be fair with each student? But this troubled soul was his Lula and her trouble was all his fault. What could he do? The red pencil for correcting sat at the top of his desk in a cutout groove. He went through the first paper in the pile – fine, very few marks needed. The second was boring, but factual, as were the third and fourth. Lester Bullard’s … oh, dear. Lester couldn’t spell to save his life – he’d rendered rhetoric four different ways, all of them wrong. He’d have to talk with the boy. Most of the papers, though, were largely the same, and he worked his way down the short stack quickly, finally getting to Lula’s. He’d grown accustomed to doing hers last.
The words across the top broke his heart.
Just fail me. I’m ready to go home, but I can’t leave without an excuse. I can’t stand that you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me.
Please, just send me home. Lula Arnsby
No. He wouldn’t send her home and he couldn’t. How could she think for a moment that he hated her? Quite the opposite. And she had to stay to fulfill her dreams – and maybe his too. If she went home, she’d never get to teach, and he’d never see her again, since he had no reason to ever go to Deadwood … well, except her. How could she have handed that in to him to force his hand?
There was nothing else on the page besides her note. He picked up the pencil and jotted his own response.
Miss Arnsby, You’re better than this. Please complete the sheet and return it to my office for a grade. Mr. Oleson.
How he hated being so impersonal when it was so obvious she needed him. He said a prayer that he could handle himself and stay behind his desk. Unless she wouldn’t come to see him… Would she continue to force him into failing her by not doing as he asked? He clenched his jaw as he considered telling her that he didn’t hate her. Quite the opposite, his heart ached for her. It was something he needed to tell her in person, not in a note that could be seen by others. He tossed it on his stack. Teaching was never what he’d wanted to do, but even this, that he’d done for Lula, had turned into something that hurt her. Would he ever make things right between them and have her love him?
Chapter 17
Barton wouldn’t fail her. After weeks of sitting in his class and watching him from the back of the room. Seeing his eyes glance to each student and waiting for her turn so she could at least share a moment with him, then having him skip over her. Trying not to cry when he walked past her desk after visiting with every other student. Surely that was even more noticeable than a quick chat about her paper would be?
That’s when she’d given up. Barton hated her, couldn’t even stand to look at her. His lack of attention made her feel dirty for their time behind the bush. It wasn’t his load to carry, he’d given her a kiss, she’d tempted him further. She’d shown him just the kind of woman she was inside, and it must have disgusted him.
Then his note on the sheet she’d gotten that morning, the one where she’d been sure he’d fail her so she could go home, had come back to her, admonishing her. Why couldn’t he just fail her? Didn’t he realize the torture this was? Watching him, knowing she couldn’t trust herself to say a word, wanting to crumple in a pile of tears at the end of every day. And he wanted her to stay.
She read his words again, not sharing them even with Izzy. It had been strange to have him hand back the papers rather than one of the students, but now she knew why. He wouldn’t want anyone else to see that note and know that what should’ve gotten a failing grade, he’d given her another chance … though she didn’t want it.
Lula scribbled a few lines on the sheet and left Izzy in the room. After a week of quiet, Izzy had given up on mothering her. It hadn’t worked anyway. Her constant attention had only made Lula feel worse about what she’d done. Ruby, her sister that had acted as her mother for eight years, would frown at her and be just as motherly. Izzy reminded Lula of what she would return home to. Izzy treated her as if she wore a scarlet A on her chest. She could’ve just as well given herself to Barton; the guilt wouldn’t be any less.
After class ended, she decided to finally face her fate.
She made her way across campus in the growing autumn dark to the Administration building. Barton didn’t have an office to himself, but he did have a desk, and there was a room there where people could talk in pr
ivate to avoid disturbing others. It was late enough in the evening that he wouldn’t be there, and if he was, he’d be alone. Heat built at her center and tingled outward as she approached.
She climbed the stairs to the teacher offices and pushed open the door, letting it close silently behind her. As she’d thought, the room was fairly dark, except for one lamp on a desk in the middle of the room, where Barton sat hunched over his desk. His head was in his hands. He looked so very tired. Her fingers ached to rub his shoulders and soothe away the pain of his day as she’d seen Ruby do for Beau. If only he would let her. But she couldn’t touch him, couldn’t speak to him, couldn’t look at him. Not if she was to act as he’d treated her and as he expected her to.
The paper crumpled in her hands and he started, looking up at her. “Lula…you’re here…”
Hadn’t he asked her to come? Should she hand him her paper and leave. Now that he saw her and had spoken her name, her heart tore, once again, and she wanted to cry. Her jaw trembled under the weight of the emotion. What had she given up, destroyed? She blinked away the tears gathering in her lashes as she strode forward and thrust the sheet at him. His hand reached for hers, but she backed away. If he touched her, she would melt again. She would become the wanton woman within herself she’d grown to hate. The one Izzy had shown her as bad, filthy, evil. The one who had turned Barton against her.
He glanced down at the paper as she steadily backed away. He wouldn’t like that she’d ignored his request, had still turned in the page undone. But only as her teacher, not as someone who cared about her. She’d laid her heart bare for him in her note and he hadn’t bothered to respond. A scholastic response from a teacher was all she should ever expect, but she’d desired so much more.
She’d made it to the door when he glanced back up at her, his eyes full of pain. “Why do you want to leave me, Lula? I don’t understand. I can’t do this, why are you asking me to?”
Did he expect her to bare her soul once again? Hadn’t she done that enough? Hadn’t she told him just how she felt?
“I can’t stay here another minute.” She spun to open the door and strong hands wrapped around her and stayed her hands.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His warm breath on her ear and neck ignited the flame she’d tried so hard to prove didn’t exist in her. Because if it did, it made her a harlot. She’d desired that feeling again and it was wrong.
“I’m trying to go, but you won’t let me.” She couldn’t move; cocooned in his arms with his hands over hers on the door.
His voice tried to sooth her, but it only made her want him more. “Every day I watch you and see you hurting, and I want to hold you and wipe away every tear, and I can’t. But I can’t send you home. What if you cry there and I never know about it? What if I never see you again? What if you leave and never come back? I can’t live without you, Lula.” Every breath fanned the flame, every word a bit of kindling until the inferno inside would consume her.
“You’ve already said you can’t have me. You’re torturing me, Barton. You’re forcing me to stay here to sit and watch you every day when I can never talk to you, never look at you, never touch you, or kiss you, or hold you. Never. I don’t have the strength to keep going. Send me home. Set me free.” Though leaving and never seeing him again would hurt even more, at least she didn’t have to have the fresh tearing of her heart when he passed her by another day.
“I won’t.” He mumbled into her neck. Even against her blouse, his mouth was hot on her shoulder, and she hated herself for not only enjoying it, but wanting more. She could go nowhere. He’d trapped her there of her own will.
“You’ve either got to let me go or let me turn, but you can’t do this to me. You can’t push me away, then kiss me…”
He gently spun her around to face him, his blue eyes soft and warm on her face. How she wanted to kiss the frown lines near his eyes, the lines that, before, crinkled in his smile. He’d asked her to give up her dream to be with him, had hinted that was what he wanted, so what was keeping him from sending her home? If he would just fail her, they could be together.
Still inflamed by his kisses on her shoulder, she knew. Izzy had been right. He would push her as far as he could, then he would turn back into the boy she’d known and laugh at her.
Barton opened his mouth to speak, then leaned into her just a fraction of an inch from her lips. She wanted his kiss, but wouldn’t that lead her down the same path they’d walked just two weeks ago? The one that had led to so much hurt. He wouldn’t push her farther, she wouldn’t let him, and it was his kiss that started it all. She forced her hands to his chest and held firm, stopping him.
“You wouldn’t want to kiss me if you knew my heart.” The leather scent that always surrounded him filled her. His breathing ragged as he closed his eyes.
“I do know your heart. I’ve gotten to know all about you over the last two years. Did you think I would do all of this for some brief lust? I’m not a boy anymore. You’re in my blood, Lula, and I don’t expect I’ll ever be able to separate you from me, and I don’t want to.”
“How can you know anything about me? You spent two whole years tormenting me.” She’d never said a word to him before this year that hadn’t been forced from her lips. He couldn’t know anything about her.
He took a step closer, his mouth so near. “I know that you can’t stand to be the center of attention. You don’t like people watching you, so I always thought you were brave to want to become a teacher. I know that you have a tender heart, easily crushed, and that your tears used to come very easy. You got stronger by your second year. I was so proud of you for fighting back against me, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I never wanted to be the one you hated, but if I could make you think about me, that was all that mattered. I came back this year just for you, Lula. This, teaching, was never my purpose. But I couldn’t let you go. I know that I broke you and keep breaking you, and I’m so sorry that I have to ask you to stay, to keep this up. But I can’t let you go. Maybe I’m not as strong as you, but I’ve done all this, come all this way, for you. I won’t do it.”
She couldn’t listen to another word. Now that he’d opened up and told her how he felt, she wanted to turn it off. He knew her better, knew about her, and she knew very little about him.
“I spent so much time trying to hate you, I never learned who you were, as a man.”
He closed his eyes as a soft groan escaped his lips. Though she couldn’t leave, he was not pressed against her and she wanted the weight of him; solid, strong, reassuring. But if she did, it would be the invitation he was looking for, the invitation that would lead to… Her naive mind couldn’t fill in what would happen.
“I want you too much, Lula. I can’t do this. I can’t meet with you here. You are too beautiful, and I don’t want to hurt you. Not anymore than I already have.” He bent and kissed her cheek, so softly, then his lips brushed hers like the whisper of silk, and she held her breath to keep from bursting. He reached behind her, holding her to him for just a moment, then pulled the door behind her as he stepped back, taking her with him in his dance. Once the door was open, he spun her away from him. “Go. And don’t ask me to fail you again. I’ll quit this job before I do that.”
Chapter 18
Izzy’s parents bustled around, collecting her bags and blankets. They’d traveled to come get her for the holiday, and a few of her brothers waited outside. Lula sat to the side, out of the way. The room was far too small for her to be of much help.
Things between them had been fractured. Though, Izzy was going through something she wouldn’t share with Lula, she suspected Harland was at the center of it. She’d found Izzy crying one night, but her friend wouldn’t share what was wrong.
She’d steadily gotten her assignments done as Barton had asked, but her heart was long gone from the work. She’d never teach, and she knew it. Her family’s expectation, along with Barton’s request, kept her there. Her work was poor, but she didn’t care.
Though he occasionally wrote a personal note to her on the top of her papers, he rarely even looked at her.
He’d stood in front of the classroom week after week, doing his job and doing it well. How could he continue on, do what he needed to do, and not feel the empty hole she couldn’t avoid? He’d thought her stronger than him, but it was a lie. She was weak.
Since he hadn’t wanted to talk with her or see her, she didn’t need to tell him she wasn’t coming back. Beau was coming the next day to get her. She’d already packed her whole trunk when Izzy had been at dinner the day before. She wasn’t going to return to the Normal School. If he couldn’t send her away, she’d make the decision for him.
The letter she’d written to Barton had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and even now, she didn’t want to post it. If anyone saw it but him, she’d be ruined. But he had to know. He had to know that she loved him. There was no other word for it. It wasn’t just lust, she wanted more than the warmth of his touch, she wanted the comfort of his strength, the sweetness of his smile, his leadership. What he’d done to her in the past was gone, redeemed for good, forgotten. In its place now sat an empty hole that Barton couldn’t fill, because he wasn’t willing.
She’d told him where to find her in case he ever changed his mind, but she didn’t expect him to. How could he look at her as a wife, a good and faithful companion, when they’d shared nothing but heat and passion? It wasn’t possible. He’d spoke of wanting, of needing, but not of a future. Not really. They had none. If she left, he’d never follow. If she stayed, it would break her.
