Finding out if Mary Gray was given a job at the local schoolhouse wasn’t something he needed his mother to do. He planned to find out all by himself and if she was there he intended to have some fun. It was on that thought that he got to his feet and walked in the house. His father glanced across at him, but he played the petulant brat and put a scowl on his face as he deliberately ignored the older man. He saw the irritated shake of the head, but waited until he closed the door of his room before clearing the scowl away and letting a smirk spread across his face.
Lying down on his bed, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander back to the fun he used to enjoy with a sexy 40 year old neighbor at his old home. She liked playing games with him and it gave him the taste for them. There was no stopping the arousal taking hold in his body as he remembered her teasing and what it usually led to. Thinking about the glimpse of smooth white thigh or rounded breast that she used to give him made his erection come to life and he squirmed as it strained against the front of his thick denim pants. He was quick to undo the buttons to get more comfortable and his fingers gripped tightly around hot, hard flesh as the memories of being taught about the delights of a woman’s body played out in his mind. It wasn’t all that he learned from his neighbor and he shuddered as he remembered the other things she liked to do to him.
That was gone from his life now though and eventually his thoughts turned to an eighteen year old school teacher. He wondered if she would like teasing him too. The idea of enticing Mary to play a sexy game only got him harder and he closed his lips tightly together as the urge to stroke his fingers along his stiff shaft became too much for him to resist. His buttocks clenched tightly as the familiar rush of pleasure rippled through his body and it encouraged him to work touches along his full length with firmer strokes.
The sound of movement from outside unnerved him and he quickly released his grip, buttoned up his pants and rolled on his stomach to hide the evidence of his arousal. There was a frustration to not having an outlet for his youthful lust, but there was little he could do in the house to get the relief her needed. The chances of being heard or worse still having his mother or father walk in on him was something he wasn’t prepared to risk.
The sound eventually stopped and he tried to turn his mind to something else to calm himself down. It worked to an extent and he eventually stripped his clothes off and washed at the basin in the corner of the small room before lying on his bed again. As much as he tried to think of work on the farm, it was the idea of a meeting with Mary that came back in his mind and the rush of hot blood it caused made his erection swell under the bedcovers.
“Fucking hell Tom,” he cursed himself quietly at his inability to fight it off. “You really are going to have to do something.”
There was no doubt in his mind what that something was going to be. Playing a game with a pretty young school teacher was going to be a thrill he couldn’t resist. It was that idea he was thinking about as he lay in the darkness until he finally managed to calm himself down enough to drift off to sleep.
Chapter 7
Mary was out of her bed, washed and dressed before dawn even broke on the day she was due to start working at the school. She was already in the kitchen making herself some breakfast when Mrs. Lester came through.
“Couldn’t you sleep dear?” the elderly lady asked.
“Not really,” Mary admitted. “The thought of my first day of teaching at a new school woke me up and there seemed no point in lying in bed.”
“Is it making you nervous?” Mrs. Lester went on as she stepped over to the coffee pot.
It was already full and all she needed to do was pour herself a cup then make her way to a seat at the table.
“I’m not really nervous,” Mary said. “I enjoy teaching a lot. It wasn’t what I expected to be doing when I arrived in Oakford, but it will be good to get back to it so soon after leaving my job in Boston.”
“Will you be working every day?” Mrs. Lester asked.
“No,” Mary told her as she made her way across to the table to sit down and eat. “I’ll be covering for Annie on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next few weeks, but that will likely lead to more in the next couple of months. She wants me to take over when the baby is born, but I guess it will only be for a few weeks until she is ready to come back.”
“And after that?”
A rueful smile passed over Mary’s face and she shrugged her shoulders.
“That’s a good question,” she said. “And I wish I knew the answer to it. Unfortunately what happens isn’t just up to me and I’ll need to see how things work out.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Mrs. Lester said in a positive tone.
“I wish I had your confidence.” Mary replied. “My first meeting with Jenny Addison didn’t exactly go as planned, but we’ll see how things pan out in the next few weeks. For the moment all I can do is concentrate on the job at the school and see if the circumstances change at the Addison farm to let me go there.”
“Well, I’ll let you know if anyone comes to see you here today.”
“Thanks,” Mary said.
The ensuing silence allowed her mind to tick over and she couldn’t stop the annoyance welling up at the situation she was put in. She wondered if Jenny Addison or someone else from the family would come calling to see her again soon, but there was no way of knowing. Worrying about it wasn’t going to change a thing, but she couldn’t help herself doing just that as she sat eating. In the end she knew there was little she could do. If Mr. and Mrs. Addison wanted the marriage to go ahead, it was up to them to arrange a meeting between her and their son to get things started towards that. Mary didn’t consider it was her place to force the issue and she intended to just get on with working at the school. If things progressed to the point where Annie returned to work after having her baby and nothing was resolved, she could decide what to do to move on then.
“That’s for the future,” she let out a bit louder than she intended.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Lester said.
“Oh…, I was just saying that I should get going,” Mary said. She quickly got to her feet and picked up her plate and cup to wash them. “I’ll see you later,” she went on before looking at the clock on the wall to see it was twenty minutes before seven.
She walked out the kitchen and returned to her room to get her coat. It was still early and she knew she would get to the school before seven if she left, but she didn’t want to sit in her bedroom so made her way to the front door and stepped out to the morning sunshine.
The gate in the picket fence was still closed when she got to the schoolhouse, so she knew that Annie probably wasn’t there. It didn’t stop her walking up to the door of the building and trying it, but that only showed her it was locked. She moved back to the gate to wait and it was around five minutes later that the sound of approaching horses came to her.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” Annie asked with a cheeky grin when the wagon came to a halt.
“I didn’t want to be late on my first day,” Mary replied and smiled.
Annie turned to her husband.
“This is the pretty girl I told you about,” she said before looking down from the wagon. “Mary this is my handsome rancher husband Walter.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Mary said.
“It’s nicer to meet you,” he replied as he tipped his hat. “I’ll say thanks now for helping out. I keep telling her to slow down and rest more, but it’s not like she listens to me.”
“I do so,” Annie protested in a loud voice. “Well…, sometimes I do,” she added and let out a cheeky laugh.
Walter shook his head as he got down from the wagon and made his way around to help his pregnant wife get down from the seat.
“Come back at nine,” Annie told him. “I should be ready to go home and rest then boss.”
“Yes Miss,” Walter said with a grin.
He moved around the wagon to get back up and whipped the reins to
get the horses moving.
“Is Walter from Oakford?” Mary asked as they walked towards the schoolhouse.
“No, but he is from around this area originally,” Annie answered. “He’s traveled a lot working on ranches to earn some money over the years. After we met and decided to settle down together, the cheapest land he could find to buy was close to Oakford. The chance for me to be the schoolmistress came up when we checked out the town and that sealed it. Our ranch is a few miles past the outskirts and we have around thirty horses now.”
“Didn’t you want to work on the ranch?” Mary asked.
“We originally lived in town while Walter was building the ranch house,” Annie said. “It was just sensible to work at the school as it got us some more money. The plan is for me to help out on the ranch eventually, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
They got to the door and Annie got out a set of keys to open it. She then removed one of the keys from the ring they were on.
“That’s the spare for the schoolhouse door,” Annie said. “It will allow you to lock up tonight. The hours are eight until twelve. There is an hour for lunch and the afternoon classes last from one until four. The children usually disappear quickly at the end of the day as you can imagine, so just lock up and close the gate in the picket fence when you leave.”
“Sure,” Mary said when she took the key.
The pair of them went to the table at the front of the room and began going through the lessons for the class that day. Mary listened as Annie explained the information she needed to know, but it was similar to the system she used at the school in Boston and she was sure she could cope with it. She asked a few questions, but by seven thirty everything was in place for her to start her first day of teaching.
The sound of the children arriving came to her and when it got to eight o’clock, it was her that rang the bell to get them inside. She immediately took control of the class. Annie did little more than sit watching at first and she could see that Mary knew what she was doing. It gave her confidence that she was leaving the children in good hands.
Once the lessons were under way she joined in helping to answer questions as they arose, but that ended when the wagon appeared in front of the schoolhouse at five minutes before nine. Annie finished dealing with a query from one of the children then moved to the door. She waited to catch Mary’s attention and signaled for her to follow before moving outside.
“Come and see me tomorrow morning and let me know how things went,” Annie said when they were standing together at the front of the building.
“I will do,” Mary replied and smiled. “Have an enjoyable day of rest.”
“Some rest sounds good,” Annie said and let out a cheeky laugh before lowering her voice. “My husband isn’t the only one that’s glad you’re here. Usually I’m too tired to keep him happy at the end of a working day. Maybe today he’ll get some fun after I have my rest.”
The slight blush rose on Mary’s cheeks and she understood even more what Mrs. Lester meant by the free spirited comment. It appeared that seven months of pregnancy wasn’t about to stop Annie giving her husband a treat and her cheeky laughter sounded out again as she turned to walk towards the wagon.
Mary shook her head as she watched Walter help his wife up to the seat then get back up himself and take hold of the reins.
“Must be nice to be in love,” she said as she watched them head off and disappear around the corner at the end of the dusty street.
The silence from inside the schoolhouse showed that the children were getting on with the work they were set and it was apparent they were when she walked back in. She closed the door carefully so as not to disturb them then walked to the table at the front of the room and sat down. The quiet continued for the next five minutes or so, but was finally broken by the sound of a giggle. Mary looked up to see one of the girls at the rear of the class raise her hand.
“Yes Sally,” she said.
“There’s someone looking in the window Miss,” the girl replied.
Mary frowned as she turned to look, but she saw no one at first. That changed when a face leaned in to look inside the room then moved back again. The sound of Sally’s giggle sounded out again.
“Just keep on with your work,” Mary said as she got to her feet.
Moving back across to the door, she opened it to walk outside and was confronted by the sight of the young man looking in the window again.
“Umm…, can I help you?” she said.
The man turned to look at her and the wide smile that spread across his face slightly unnerved her. It lit up a handsome face that was topped by a shock of unruly blonde hair. He moved back from the window and straightened up and Mary could almost see the ripple of his muscular physique through the checked shirt he was wearing. The flicker of attraction was unexpected and she immediately tried to shrug it aside.
“Are you the teacher here?” he asked.
“For today I am,” Mary answered. “My name is Miss Gray.”
The mention of her name appeared to make the smile spread wider across his face and she watched as he lifted a hand to brush the blonde hair back from his forehead. She was unable to stop the quickening of her pulse, but still tried to get control of her emotions.
“You don’t work here every day then?” the young man asked.
“For the moment I’ll be working Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Mary answered before going on. “Look, who are you and what exactly are you doing here?”
“My name is Tom…” He originally was going to admit his name was Addison and pretend he was a cousin of the family, but for some reason at the last minute he changed his mind and came up with another name. “Tom Saunders.”
“And you are here because?” Mary encouraged him.
“I want to learn,” he said.
“What age are you?” Mary asked.
“Nineteen,” Tom replied.
“And you want to come to school,” she went on skeptically.
Tom stepped closer to her and she was all too aware of his physical presence. His muscular physique dwarfed her petite frame and her pulse raced a little faster at just how close he was to her. The flicker of attraction became stronger and she needed to force herself to keep eye contact with him. She was sure he could see the effect he was having on her as the smile continued to play on his lips.
“Life on the farm didn’t always give me the chance to attend school,” he said, which was the truth although he’d been to enough classes in his younger years to learn to read and write competently. “Now that I have the chance, I wanted to take it and learn some more.”
Mary narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. Her gut instinct was that there something more to him being there than simply wanting to attend school. She couldn’t be sure though and it was no reason to turn him away.
“OK,” she eventually told him. “But if you plan to come to school here you need to abide by the rules we set.”
“Yes Miss,” he replied.
The words were spoken in a normal voice, but she was certain she caught a hint of playfulness in his eyes as he said them. She ignored it to go on.
“That means turning up at the correct starting time of eight in the morning. You then need to do exactly as you are told during the lessons until four in the afternoon when the school day ends.”
“Oh you can be sure I’ll do anything you tell me,” Tom replied.
There was something about the way the words were said that sparked a flush of embarrassment to show on her face and she couldn’t hold eye contact any longer. She dropped her gaze as she tried to regain her composure and saw that Tom was still staring at her when she looked up again. His deep blue eyes shone and his obvious interest brought out her nervousness. It wasn’t the way a teacher pupil relationship was supposed to be, but his unwavering gaze almost mesmerized her for a second or two before she forced herself to look away.
“Well, you can come in,” she told him. “But try not to disturb the othe
rs.”
“Yes Miss,” Tom said.
She was sure there was a hint of teasing in his voice and puffed out her cheeks when she turned away to lead him inside.
“Remember why you are in Oakford,” she muttered, but it quickly became obvious she said it too loud.
“Did you say something Miss?” Tom asked.
He was enjoying the game already and his mind was galloping ahead to what it might get him. His mother had been right when she said that Mary was pretty and it wasn’t just her face. She might be petite, but Tom was in no doubt there were some delicious curves hidden below the dress she was wearing. A hint of her figure showed through the material and he knew he wanted to explore every inch of it. Hopefully the chance for that to happen would come and he wondered if she would betray a husband she didn’t know for a school pupil she did. That they were one and the same man was his secret for the moment and he smiled at Mary as she turned to look at him.
Bent Over A Barrel Bundle: Western Cowboy Romance (Full Length Novels) Page 6
