She was still admonishing herself to come back to earth when she entered the classroom and found Dr. Griffin at the front of the room putting the last layers of plaster on Zoe Kastain’s arm. Charlotte came to an abrupt halt and glanced from the enraptured students to Flynn and Zoe.
“And that, children, is how you plaster an arm.” Smoothing the last piece of plaster-coated linen over Zoe’s arm, Flynn lifted one hand in a flourish like a grand master at a traveling circus.
The kids all laughed and clapped their hands in delight.
Flynn must have caught sight of her from the corner of his eye, because he spun to face her, his eyes lighting with pleasure. “And look who has finally decided to show up for school! None other than your teacher, Miss Brindle!” Flynn grinned in an obvious bid to put the children at ease, but his searching eyes and lifted brow contained volumes of sympathy and a question as to her well-being.
Charlotte strode purposefully to her desk, whispering to him on the way past, “I’m fine. Thank you for filling in.” But his presence here had just given her a wonderful idea, so now she turned to face the class. “Did you enjoy Dr. Griffin’s short medical lesson, class?”
A chorus of yeses greeted her.
“Wonderful. Perhaps I’ll be able to talk the doctor into coming back from time to time to teach us some practical medical tips. How to clean and bandage a cut, for example, if you are out hunting and happen to injure yourself.” She lifted her brows at Dr. Griffin, who was cleaning up his medical supplies from around Zoe’s feet, and he smiled, giving her a covert nod of acceptance. Charlotte turned her attention back to the classroom, dropping her hands on Zoe’s shoulders. “But I hope none of the rest of you will have to be an actual patient of the doctor’s for our lessons.” She leaned to one side and grinned down at Zoe.
Chuckles filled the room, Zoe’s loudest of all, which gave Charlotte a sense of relief over the child’s health.
Charlotte turned all her attention on Zoe then, squatting down in front of her. She lowered her voice. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Zoe shrugged. “’Tweren’t your fault.”
Charlotte gently squeezed the girl’s uninjured hand. “How are you feeling? Do you think you need to go home and rest for the remainder of the day?”
Zoe shook her head emphatically, biting her lower lip. “I’ve been waiting to get to go to school for a long time, Miss Brindle. I’d like to stay, if it’s all the same to you.” She lifted her cast slightly. “This don’t hurt near as much as the time I laid the inside of my arm against the stove door when I was loading the fire with wood.”
Charlotte winced and cast another look at Flynn. “We better add burns to our list of medical topics to teach on.”
Another round of laughter filled the room as Charlotte stepped out of Zoe’s way and motioned her toward the tables that would serve as their desks. “All right, please take any seat for now. After I do some testing, we’ll have assigned seats, but for today everyone is allowed to sit wherever they want. And do let me know if the pain gets to be too much for you, please.”
Flynn appeared to be done cleaning up and heading out the door now.
“Class, please say thank you to Dr. Griffin.”
“Thank you, Dr. Griffin,” they chorused.
Flynn smiled and lifted a hand of farewell, and then Charlotte was left alone with her students.
The day passed in a flurry of tests and assessments as she tried to determine the closest levels of placement for each child. Too low and they would be bored. Too high and frustration with difficult assignments would set in. At lunch she was pleased to see that all the children seemed to play well together, and before she knew it, she had dismissed the last student from the room that afternoon and it was time for her shooting lesson with the sheriff.
All day he had sat near Dixie’s desk in the lobby, reading a book. Every once in a while she had seen him walk past the door, and then each window, and she knew he was checking the perimeter. And not once during the school day had she felt nervous or fearful for her life or her students.
As she stacked the last of the day’s tests and placed them in her satchel so she could grade them in her room this evening, she tucked her lower lip between her teeth. The man’s presence might make her feel safe, but he simply couldn’t be her round-the-clock guard. As she’d worked with her students, she’d managed to put aside her concerns, but what happened the next time he had to be called out of town? Would more of her students be injured because of her?
Maybe learning to use a weapon would help her protect the students if the sheriff or Joe couldn’t be around. Then again, what if he taught her to shoot and then was counting on her to protect her students and she failed?
“You ready?” The very man of her thoughts pushed his head through the doorway.
She glanced up, feeling too much pressure. “What if I learn to use a weapon but then do something wrong if I ever need to use it? What if another outlaw comes into my classroom and I accidentally…I don’t know…shoot one of my students while trying to protect them?”
He strode over and stopped before her. “Part of learning to handle a weapon is learning to use it safely.” He touched her chin, urging eye contact. “You can do this.”
She thought about the students and how eager they had been to learn today. Even Belle Kastain had been attentive and good natured. And she’d had a chance to grade a few of the tests. Zoe was still reading at a first-primer level, and she was nearly twelve years old! Perhaps more reasons why the Lord had directed her here.
Charlotte threw up her hands. “I’m willing to try.” She massaged circles at her temples. “I’ve never been one to back down easily.”
He smirked. “I never would have guessed.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I know the children here need me. But Zoe was hurt today because of me. What if I stay and that puts more of the children in danger?”
The sheriff cupped his chin in one hand. “If there is one thing I’ve learned, Miss Brindle, it’s that evil men can always find an excuse to perpetrate their foul deeds on a community. No matter who comes or who goes, there will always be evil men. The one difference we can make is in standing up against that evil. As you already mentioned, learning to use a weapon—wisely and with purposeful control—might be the very thing that will allow you to protect your students.” He paused as though hesitant to say the next words but then went ahead and said them anyway. “I get the feeling you think this is all your fault, but if it hadn’t been you Lenny attacked today, it could have been someone else.”
“I suppose that’s true. And yet…much as it pains me to say it, I’ve wondered, after all my stubborn insistence on staying, if maybe you weren’t right all along and I should go back home.”
“I think you and I both know you have a heart as big as the Cascade Range and you’ll never feel right about retreating to Boston.”
Charlotte sighed and picked up her satchel full of tests. He was right about that last. She’d forever wonder if anyone had arrived to replace her, or if her return to Boston had sentenced all the children of Wyldhaven to live forever uneducated. “Very well. I will come out and let you teach me to shoot. But I must say…” She couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “You have renewed my faith in miracles, Sheriff.”
He frowned. “I have?”
She smiled and led the way toward the foyer, tossing over her shoulder, “Indeed. I do believe you have twice today encouraged me to stay in town, when only last week you would have stood in the street and sang like a lark if it would have enticed me to return to Boston.” She paused just inside the doorway and turned to see the expression on his face. “It’s a miracle, wouldn’t you say?”
He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and chuckled softly. “Well, you do have a way of growing on a man, Miss Brindle.” Humor danced in his blue eyes, but slowly his expression transformed from humor to something much more intimate and serious.
C
harlotte swallowed and stepped back. She lifted her satchel. “I just need to run this up to my room. I’ll be down in only a moment.” She spun around to make her escape and ran straight into the doorframe. Her brow smacked against the wood with a loud crack. A groan of pain slipped free, and she cradled one palm over the injury.
Before she could take another step, the sheriff was right there crowding her in the doorway. “That sounded like it hurt. Let me see.” He tugged her hand away from her eye, tilted her head to better capture the light from the window, and examined her closely.
All the oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the room, and it had nothing to do with her asthma. The sheriff’s face hovered just above hers, so close she noted the small white scar that disappeared beneath his hat line, the smooth slash of his blond brows against sun-browned skin, the almost impossibly dark lashes lining those silvery-blue eyes of his—eyes that had quit examining her brow and were boring straight into her own now, while his hands remained wrapped around either side of her face.
Charlotte saw his throat work. “Doesn’t seem to be cut, but you’ll have a good-sized knot, it looks like.” His voice rasped, and he tucked one corner of his lower lip between his teeth.
While his grip had been purposeful at the outset, now she realized it had gentled, and she felt one of his thumbs graze over her cheek. Heaven’s mercy, she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and lean more fully into his touch. Instead she forced out, “Clumsy me. I’ll be fine, I’m sure.” The words emerged as more of a whispered plea than a statement of fact.
His focus dropped to her lips.
Her eyes widened. “I’ll be right back.” She brushed past him before she could give in to the temptation to discover what it might feel like to have the man’s lips pressed against her own.
Chapter Twenty
Reagan clucked to the horses to urge them over the last rise before the river bend where he’d decided to teach Charlotte to shoot. The ride out had been mostly quiet.
While they had both tried to make conversation, each time it had been stilted and fallen flat. For his part, every time he glanced at her he couldn’t help but wonder how she had managed to usurp his focus so thoroughly. Only two weeks ago he’d been content to take each day as it came, and not much had captivated his thoughts except for doing his job, and doing it well. But now every time he laid his head down at night, enchanting green eyes swam in his memories, invaded his dreams, filled his first waking thoughts in the morning.
He let the horses have their heads, remembering the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers, the way her eyes had widened when she’d noticed him watching her, the way her tongue had darted across her lips.
“Sheriff!” Charlotte squeaked from beside him.
He jolted alert and yanked the horses to a stop just before they plunged headlong into a field of succulent green grass next to the road.
Reagan gave Charlotte a sheepish look. “Sorry about that. I must have let my mind wander a touch.” A touch? He’d been in a whole other galaxy. And he was a sheriff! He couldn’t afford to let his mind wander like that. The slightest moment of inattention could mean the death of him or one of his citizens. He clenched his jaw. He really needed to get a grip on the crazy turmoil this woman had thrust upon his well-ordered life. “Almost there now.”
He had picked the bluffs upriver from Wyldhaven to teach her to shoot. First, they were made of soft limestone, and he figured she could use some of that as chalk until Jerry could get her order shipped in. And second, the cliffs made a perfect backdrop for shooting into.
A few minutes later, he rounded the bend and pulled the team into the shady spot at the base of the cliffs. Setting the brake, he wrapped the reins around the handle and hopped down to assist Miss Brindle to the ground.
Much as he would have enjoyed lingering over the task, he very deliberately set her loose as soon as her feet were on the ground. Business, Callahan. Strictly business.
Her pistol and bullets were in a small wooden box beneath the wagon’s seat, and he pulled them out now. First things first. “Let me show you how to load this.” He opened one of the cartridge boxes and showed her how to insert the bullets into the cylinder. Then he looked up and met her gaze to ensure she heard his next words loud and clear.
“Never point this at anyone unless you intend to shoot them. Understood?”
She looked a little nervous when she nodded.
“Nothing to be afraid of. You’ll be a top-rate markswoman in no time.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she only swallowed and clenched her hands into her skirts. He pressed on. “Now when you go to shoot it, you are going to line up the front sight here, with the rear sight here. You want a straight line between those and your target.” He looked over at her to make sure she was taking in his instructions.
She nodded.
“All right then. Your hand is going to wrap around the grip, like so. And you slip your finger inside the trigger guard here.” Another glance confirmed she was still focused and listening. “Your thumb levers back the hammer, like so. And after that, all that’s left to do is aim and pull the trigger.” He cocked an eyebrow to see if she had any questions.
She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “I think I’m following.”
“Good…” He carefully released the hammer, then tucked the pistol into the back of his belt. “Now let me set up our target, and we’ll get started.” From the back of the wagon, he hauled down the old wooden barrel he’d brought and carted it over to the base of the cliff. Taking up a piece of the soft sandstone from the ground near his feet, he quickly scratched out a circle within a circle on the side of the barrel and then set the target on a flat-topped rock to bring it up to about chest height.
Back by her side, he pulled the gun from his belt and handed it to her.
She took it with two fingers like she might have lifted a dead rat by the tail. And the look on her face portrayed a fear that the thing might explode in her hands at any moment. He couldn’t help but grin.
“Don’t laugh at me, Sheriff. I’m really rather terrified.” She hadn’t taken her eyes off the pistol that still dangled from her finger and thumb.
Reagan swiped a hand over his mouth to bring it back into stoic submission, realizing a more drastic measure was going to be needed. “All right, well… Let’s talk about grip.” He stepped over behind her and reached around to guide her hands into the right position. He felt her stiffen, but continued as though he hadn’t noticed. “You take this hand—”
“Sheriff, I’m sorry!” Charlotte thrust the pistol back at him. “I just don’t think this is the right thing for me.” She paced away from him and threw her hands into the air. “I was so certain I could do this. I’ve never backed down from a challenge in my life, but this”—she gestured toward the pistol dangling at his side—“and Wyldhaven”—she swept an indicator back toward town—“and outlaws, and outhouses, and a dismal lack of supplies!” Her shoulders drooped. “And Liora…” Tears pooled, and she dashed them away. “I’m still not certain if I could have done any more to reach her, or what that might have been.”
He wanted to fold her in his arms and absorb all the pain and frustration she was feeling, but he held his ground. “Liora’s pain started long before you came to town.”
“I understand that.” She folded her arms and paced a few more round trips from a rock to him and back before spinning on one heel to pin him with a look. “I just…I really think that the best thing for me would be to return to Boston on Thursday’s coach.”
She pulled in a breath as though the words had physically pained her, and there was such sorrow in her eyes that he knew she would regret the decision the moment the coach lost sight of Wyldhaven. But what could he do about it? This was partly his fault. He’d planted doubts that had now sprung to action.
He thrust the pistol into his belt once more, then strode over to fetch the wooden target. He gathered up two small stones and shoved them i
nto his pocket, then hauled the barrel over and tossed it into the bed of the wagon. After that he paused by the bench and held one hand out to Charlotte. “I’ll see you back to town.”
The return trip was even more silent than the trip out had been. When Reagan pulled the wagon to a stop in front of Dixie’s and helped her down, he once more tucked her pistol into the little wooden box with the bullets and handed it to her. “Listen. I know I’ve hounded you from the outset to return to Boston. But here’s the thing. If this is where God wants you to be, then this is where you ought to be… Only you can answer that. But…would you read the first chapter of James before you make a final decision? Just the first few verses really.”
She smoothed her slender hand over the lid of the box. “All right. What does it say?”
“Just read it.” He gave her a nod and started to round the wagon but then stilled. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He dug the rocks from his pockets. “I don’t know if you’ll still do classes for the next few days, but if you do, I thought you could use these as chalk.” He dropped the pebbles of sandstone into her palm.
She rolled the rocks between her fingers and didn’t look up till he’d already regained his seat on the wagon. Then she lifted the hand holding the stones. “Thank you.”
He tugged at the brim of his hat. “My pleasure.” And then with a slap of the reins, he left her standing there, and hang it all if he didn’t feel like he’d handed her a piece of his heart instead of two stupid rocks.
Liora woke and opened her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of where she was and why so much pain pulsed from so many spots. First she remembered the beating she’d taken from her last client. That explained some of the pain.
And then full memory flooded in.
Despite the fact that she hadn’t moved or even tried to, she felt a swirl of dizziness. Had she really tried to kill herself? Her whole body quavered. What if she’d succeeded?
Not a Sparrow Falls (Wyldhaven Book 1) Page 26
