"Have you ever thought, Sarah, that it wasn't that you were plain, but that you were too much for these men who left you decorating the wall? Or at the very least, so smart you scared them? That you were way too much woman for a pantywaist man?"
"Sure," she scoffed. "I . . ."
He turned swiftly and put a finger on her lips to still her words. "When I first saw you riding up to the store in Jeeter's wagon, I had a fleeting thought that you were a somewhat plain woman. That lasted about ten seconds, until I looked into your eyes. And it scared me how I immediately felt about you."
"You'd already had one failed relationship with a debutante." When Wyn tightened his fingers as though in surprise, she continued, "Rose Collingsworth is married now, you know."
"No, I didn't know, but I wish her happiness. She was a nice young woman, although we weren't right for each other. And I'm afraid the same thing is true here. We're worlds apart, Sarah. I've had no business kissing you or . . ." He tried to pull his hand free, but she clung tightly. "Or," he continued in a wry voice, "even holding your hand."
"Tell me about yourself, Wyn."
"You've already been here several weeks. You already know me."
"No, tell me your hopes and dreams. What you want out of life."
"Everything like that centers around Sawback Mountain," he said, a warning tone clear in his voice.
"Tell me," she repeated.
Chapter 19
For the next two weeks, Sarah barely had time to breathe, let alone worry about the fact she'd fallen desperately in love with a man with whom she had absolutely nothing in common — except . . . Well, he felt like the other half of the whole she hadn't even realized was missing in her life. And they both loved the mountain people, wanting to do the best they could for them. And she loved his brothers and sisters nearly as much as he did. And they both reveled in the wondrous mountain air and scenery. And when Wyn dropped in at Mandy's library to help shelve books, they found out they both had read a lot of the same ones and enjoyed them — started several others but never finished them due to boredom.
Plus, there was that feeling she had in his arms, as though her world was only right or complete when he was holding her.
But Wyn didn't make her world right or complete even once during that next two weeks. He didn't avoid her, but he didn't seek her out privately, either. Gosh darn it, she mused while brushing her hair one morning, using the mountain vernacular she was picking up, he hadn't even kissed her that last time they'd been alone together on the front step!
And gosh darn it! She did have time to worry about it! She woke up worrying about it in the mornings — tossed and turned each evening, her exhausted body refusing to drop off into sleep until she'd gone over — and over again — each and every word she'd exchanged with Wyn that day.
She couldn't talk to Mandy, because she and Dan were together every single time she saw the other woman. She would never burden Sissy with her problems now, with all the worry she had over Robert. Even though Leery had assured everyone there wasn't any danger of Robert becoming infected any longer, Sissy still had another problem.
She'd found Sissy weeping out on the back porch one recent evening and hesitantly approached the upset woman. Sissy had confided that Robert was already talking about repairing his still. The young wife had everything she could handle right now, and Sarah couldn't even ease her mind until she heard back from her attorney. No sense raising anyone's hopes and then dashing them.
But despite everything, she felt more at home here in these mountains — more needed — than she'd ever felt in her life back in New York. She didn't feel accepted yet, although she was coming to think the only way to ever be accepted here was to be born and raised in the mountains.
Chewing her bottom lip, she glanced over at the two boxes in the corner of her room. She didn't understand how Jeeter could have left those boxes the day before without everyone knowing about them, but no one had mentioned them to her. She supposed everyone was just busy when Jeeter showed up on his unscheduled trip, bringing a half dozen more boxes of books, also. Or maybe they had just thought Sarah had ordered some personal stuff.
Whatever the explanation, she'd also found the letter from her attorney she'd been expecting propped up on her writing desk when she came in after school. Now all she had to do was discuss a couple things with Dan and write back to Mr. Caruthers.
She glanced at those boxes again. She'd been worried about them ever since her debacle with the books, but surely it wasn't the same thing. Surely she'd figured out a way to get the people to accept these. Why every child she knew in New York celebrated their birthday with a party and received gifts. There wasn't a reason on earth she couldn't have a single birthday party for all her students as a once-a-year event. Was there?
Sarah contained her excitement until a half hour before the school day ended. Then Mandy brought over the cake Sarah had asked her to make, declining Sarah's invitation to stay and have a piece with the children on the excuse she and Dan were cataloging the newly-arrived books. And Mandy hadn't mentioned one negative thought about Sarah celebrating a Birthday Day for every child, which she sure would have done had Mandy thought anything wrong with it. So everything was fine. Wasn't it?
After the cake, which disappeared down to the last crumb, Sarah asked Lonnie to accompany her to her cabin and help carry back the boxes. She had only thought the thrill of the cake and a celebration joyful for the children. Now they truly showed their excitement as they opened the boxes. She was afraid their shouts and exhilaration would draw the rest of the adults to the schoolhouse, but no one showed up. Then she wondered why she even cared and forgot the stab of guilt. She carried the remembrance of the delighted faces of the children to bed with her that night.
Her first substantiation of her gross error in judgment came the next morning, soon after she got dressed and prior to starting over to Mandy's for breakfast. Someone tapped on the door, and she opened it to see Jute and Luke standing there. The twins held a pair of shoes in each hand, one pair of boy's and one pair of girl's.
"Pa says he's sorry," Jute told her, "but we can't keep 'em. He said iffen you gots some chores you need done that we can help you with, mights be different if we earned the shoes ourselves. Same with Mairi and Pris. Carrie will bring hers with her to school."
He set the shoes inside the door, and Luke followed suit.
"I sure hopes you does got some work me and Luke can do to earn them there shoes," Jute said hopefully. "They's sure are nice shoes."
"They were a birthday present!" Sarah insisted.
"Don't matter none, 'cording to Pa." Jute shook his head sadly. "Still smacks of charity, and he says we can't keep 'em."
After one last, longing look at the highly polished set of brown, high-topped children's shoes, Jute and Luke leaped from the step.
"Bye!" Jute called. "See you in school in a little bit."
Sarah suddenly realized she had no appetite for breakfast. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach would probably have her heaving if she even tried to drink a cup of coffee. She pushed the four pair of shoes aside with her toe in order to shut the door, wondering if Mandy would come looking for her if she ignored breakfast that morning.
She ignored breakfast anyway, and Mandy didn't show up to check on her. That made her even more ill, because she assumed the woman whom she'd started to think a friend was upset with her, also. She hid in her cabin until it was time to ring the school bell, then straightened her shoulders and went over to the schoolhouse. The children were uncommonly quiet this morning, and they filed almost silently into the schoolroom.
As she called the roll, each child stood instead of only answering "Here" as on a normal morning. Each one, except the twins, Mairi and Pris, came up to her desk and laid a pair of shoes on it. Without examining the shoes closely, Sarah could tell they hadn't even been worn back to school that morning. They were highly polished and clean, having only been tried on the day before for a
fit and then carried home in each child's arms.
By the time the last child had filed up to her desk and then back to a seat, Sarah's vision was so clouded with tears she'd had to read the last two entries on the roll list from memory. These children hadn't even made the offer that Jute and Luke had of earning their shoes with chores. She had to turn her back on the room for a moment to get control of her emotions, but somehow she managed and finished the rest of the day — after she asked Lonnie and the twins to please carry the shoes over to her cabin.
She hadn't known what else to do, since she'd never have been able to handle her lessons if those shoes stared her in the face all day. But they mocked her as soon as she entered her cabin door that evening.
Slamming the door behind her, Sarah raced across the room and flung herself on the bed. Grabbing the pillow, she buried her face and wailed.
She'd never fit in here! Never!
She pounded one fist on the mattress and stuffed the corner of the pillow into her mouth to muffle her cries. Those shoes were birthday presents, damn it! Not charity!
The curse word flashing through her mind, even though unspoken, shocked her. What on earth was she coming to, cursing like a man and worrying about fitting in with people who would never accept her? At least back in New York she knew the rules. Knew what was expected of her. Knew what she could and couldn't do or get away with. Knew what the penalties for disobedience of the rules were.
The penalties here were evidently much the same — being shunned and ignored — since no one had offered her a bit of sympathy today.
She'd been raised to fit into a certain type of life and the mold of society in New York, the same as the mountain people had been raised to fit the mold of their own, very different community. She'd never be able to change now, no matter what the possible treasure beckoning her at the end if she were successful — the treasure of a life beside the man she loved.
Burying her face even deeper in the pillow, she kicked her legs up and down and wailed.
Not receiving an answer to his knock, Wyn opened the cabin door anyway. He'd seen Sarah go inside only moments ago, but she'd been in some sort of hurry, since she hadn't heard his call from the store porch. The door squeaked loudly — he'd been meaning to get over here and oil it — but the sound didn't gain the attention of the woman throwing what looked like a wall-eyed fit on the bed.
Despite his worry, Wyn hesitated. For one thing, if he approached too close, there was the danger of the heel of one of those hard leather shoes kicking him, maybe in a vulnerable spot, given the exact right height of the bed and the brutal cadence of the kicks. For another, she wasn't sure if Sarah was furious or upset.
From the corner of an eye, he saw something on the floor and turned to survey it. Shoes. There, neatly set in pairs, were pairs of various sizes of shoes lined up against the wall. Boys shoes and girls shoes. Shoes a little larger for young men, possibly about Lonnie's age. Another pair of shoes for a young woman Carrie's age, with another perhaps Patty's size.
There were a few boxes unopened yet, and he silently crossed the floor and opened one of them. Small shoes, Bobbie's size. Fluffy yarn booties for Baby Sarah.
Uh-oh.
Needing to get away for one of his rare evenings of privacy yesterday, and after Robert begged him for three days in a row to go check on his still, he shouldered his rifle and told Pa he was off to go hunting. Shoot, Pa knew this was the wrong time of year for hunting — that he could never shoot an animal when it probably had young in its den — but he didn't protest. He could get himself in and out of bed now, and Mandy was there for a lot of the things he depended on Wyn for previously.
Everyone had been in bed by the time he got home last night, and this morning he was too busy watching for a private moment to report his suspicions to Robert to pay much attention to anything else. Now he recalled a sort of quiet uneasiness in the atmosphere.
He started realizing something was definitely wrong around noon time, when he didn't see Sarah go over to Mandy's for lunch. He hadn't ever realized he set his watch by her every day around that time until Sarah broke her pattern. But a customer kept him too busy for the moment to follow up on whether something was wrong or not.
There was no doubt right now. Something had broken Sarah's spirit and demeanor, and he would bet it had something to do with the lonely line of shoes setting against the baseboard. Surely she hadn't tried to give them to the children without checking with his pa first.
He thought he understood what the twins had meant when they asked him after school how many hours a body would have to work to earn a pair of shoes like in the Wards catalogue. Maybe his pa offered to let them earn their shoes instead of accept them as a gift.
He heaved a sigh, tucking his fingers in his trouser pockets and glancing at the bed again. Knowing Sarah, she probably thought of some shrewd idea of how to get the children to accept the shoes and not think of them as charity. She didn't take the parents into consideration, though.
Or perhaps she had and thought her way to trick them into accepting the shoes foolproof. He was coming to know Sarah very well. Although she would never deliberately hurt anyone's feelings, she was stubborn enough to want her own way.
As he cautiously approached the bed, Sarah's sobs slackened, and her legs stilled. He moved around to the foot of the bed, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. Her hand relaxed, those wondrously long and delicate fingers, which felt so pleasant in his hair, falling away from their clutch on the pillow. She hiccupped once, and he got ready to explain his presence in here. But she snuggled down into the pillow, and her breathing eased.
Her long, golden-brown lashes fluttered once, then stilled. Her cheek was flushed and wet with tears, and his heart gave a lurch of sorrow at the dejected picture she made. He wanted to lie down beside her and gather her in his arms, but she probably needed sleep and relief from the agony of the past few minutes more than any comfort he could give her.
Silently he walked away from the bed, stepping on the rag rugs scattered on the floor rather than bare floorboards. He looked at the line of shoes again, his stomach a hollow pit of sadness for the woman he'd realized he had fallen in love with. She must have been so excited when she got those shoes, and so devastated when they refused her gift.
In the same corner of her room set the little writing desk one of the parents had donated when they built and furnished the cabin. Right smack dab in the middle was an over-stuffed envelope, which must have several pages inside. The paper of the envelope was of extremely fine quality, with even an engraved name in the upper left corner — Charles Caruthers. Probably her attorney, Wyn mused.
He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't felt an urge to pick up the envelope and read the letter. But he resisted the temptation with very little willpower, settling for only running a fingertip across the envelope to confirm the linen-looking superiority of it. No one in the MacIntyre family would ever think of invading another’s privacy — no mean feat with the crowded living quarters they shared. He didn't even enter the twin's room without a preliminary warning and a few seconds wait.
He couldn't stop the other feeling invading his senses, however. The fine quality of the envelope was at the different end of the spectrum from the thin paper letters Jeeter brought for the mountain families. Rare and far between, the families would have to save up postage money to afford to reply to the relatives who had left Sawback Mountain.
Wyn saw several other envelopes stuck in the holes along the top of the desk. Sarah evidently kept in close contact with her friends back there. Probably each and every one of them knew her plans and when she would return to New York — to the life more suited to her.
He wondered how many of those letters had come from her fiancé, stifling that thought the best he could. Jeeter usually had at least one letter for Sarah on each mail run, but most of the time there were no return addresses — or at the best, only a last name. He didn't recall ever hearing her mention any name wit
h regard to that jackass except Stephen.
He should leave. Another glance at the bed, though, told him that he could no more walk out of Sarah's cabin right now without finding out why she'd been crying than he could deny he'd fallen in love with her. Or than he could deny the hopelessness of that love.
He sat down at the tiny table, determined to wait until Sarah woke — to be there for her.
She began stirring only about fifteen minutes after he sat down, and he rose immediately. Moving over to the side of the bed, he waited patiently for her to wake completely.
She turned her head on the pillow, giving him a view of her other profile and her mottled cheek. Wisps of gold-brown hair scattered on her forehead and cheek, and her usually neat twist on the back of her head had pulled free. That glorious mane of heavy tresses covered her shoulder and upper arm. As heavy as water and as luxurious to his touch as the finest silk, it beckoned his fingers. That was one urge to which he could give free rein.
He reached out and tangled a finger in a curl. The feeling swelled his heart in the same way as when Baby Sarah closed her tiny fist around one of his fingers. The only thing he could imagine giving him more heartfelt pleasure would be seeing Sarah hold a child the two of them had made together.
But that would never happen. She was probably already making plans to go back to New York.
Her eyelid fluttered and opened. He could tell she didn't see him yet, since she didn't react to his presence. Instead, she put a hand over her face, her breath catching on another sob.
He sat on the side of the bed, and she gasped, her eyes flying open.
"Sarah," he murmured. "Tell me what's wrong."
She shifted over on to her back, rubbing the heels of her palms beneath her eyes. "How . . . how long have you been here?"
"Long enough." He pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. "Here. Wipe your eyes."
She sniffled, took the handkerchief and complied. Without looking at him, she handed it back.
Tennessee Waltz Page 24
