Sarah tolerantly nodded her head, then continued with her competition. They'd moved the ceremony onto the porch of the general store, since more than just her students' families attended. She was beginning to realize the mountain people took advantage of anything at all to gather together and visit with each other — a wake, a wedding, or a school competition.
Mandy and Dan were on the porch with her, and Granny Clayborne's wagon, filled with various age folks watching the competition, was pulled up in the spot that appeared to be reserved for it. She would talk to the elderly woman later today and hopefully gain her backing for the mail order wool business Mandy had agreed was a wonderful idea for the mountain women to become involved in. It would give them their own way to make spending money for their families, and with the interest from her female friends in New York, might just prove more profitable than the whiskey.
Wyn was back today, but he hadn't said a word to her. He lingered in the corner of the porch, watching everything that went on. The previous night she had waited until she could no longer keep her eyes open, hoping against hope he would return and come talk to her. But when she heard a horse come in and jumped out of bed to run to the window, it was only Robert. This morning she confirmed with Dan that Stephen had safely made the train.
Finally it was time to give out the prizes for the winners of the competition, and Sarah stepped to the edge of the porch to face the crowd. Sissy had already told her that the mountain people were very proud of what she'd done the previous day — protecting two of their own from the revenuers. For some reason, that didn't matter nearly as much to Sarah as how they were going to take what she did the next minute or two.
"I know you are all proud of your children," she began. "And I suppose just winning and having their names subscribed on the school rolls might be enough for the children. But I prefer for them each to have some tangible remembrance of their wins today."
"Tangible!" Jute hollered. "T-A-N-J-A-B-L-E! Tangible!"
Sarah shook her head and laughed. "Good thing you already won your prize. That's wrong."
Jute's face fell, but then he must have realized that particular misspelling didn't count, because he immediately brightened. "I'll learn it for next time."
"You do that. Now, as I call each child's name, I want him or her to come up and accept his or her prize. First is Jute MacIntyre."
Jute leaped up again, wrapping Swishy around his neck. He swaggered up to Sarah, and she reached behind her, into a large box. Pulling out a smaller box, she handed it to Jute. He recognized it immediately.
"My shoes!" he chortled. "And I earned them all by myself by winning my spelling bee!"
Sarah's look dared anyone in the crowd to protest the award of the shoes, and for just a bit, her stomach heaved in apprehension. Then Granny Clayborne took her pipe from her mouth and laughed more loudly than it should have been possible for a woman a hundred years old.
"She done it!" Granny said around her cackles. She slapped a hand on one knee. "She outsmarted all of us. She figured out a way for the young'uns to earn them there shoes themselves. Ain't nobody got no right to take away somethin' a young'un earned for itself."
Tolerant laughter spread through the crowd, and Sarah's heart lightened in the same aggregate as her stomach unclenched. She knew it was no surprise to the mountain people that each and every child in her class won a pair of shoes, but no one had the audacity to object. Soon each and every child clasped a box holding shoes to his or her chest.
Pride filled Sarah as she concluded the ceremony and tried to hurry from the porch. However, Dan moved his wheelchair to block her way. When he nodded in a movement that left her no doubt she had to stand there and listen to him, she complied, though with reluctance.
Dan swiveled his wheelchair around to face the crowd, then stood with Mandy's help.
"I don't think there's anything I can say here that we haven't all thought about Miss Sarah Channing," he said. "She is the finest and most capable teacher it's ever been our pleasure to attract to Sawback Mountain. She's given our young'uns the desire to learn 'cause it makes them happy, not just 'cause they're afraid they'll get a ruler 'cross their fingers if they don't know their lessons."
He turned to face Sarah. "I wish she would take the job as teacher here in Sawback Mountain permanently, but I know . . ."
"I accept!" Sarah fairly shouted.
Dan's brows lifted, and he seemed at a loss for words.
"You can't withdraw the offer now," Sarah told him. "I accept. I want the job as teacher here permanently, not just on a temporary basis."
A sly grin crawled over Dan's face, and he winked at her. Had she been less observant — or less totally aware of every faint motion Wyn had made ever since the beginning of the ceremony — she would have missed the faint flicker of Dan's eyes toward his eldest son.
"You're hired," Dan said, and the crowd broke into cheers. Her awareness of Wyn let her know he had thrown a leg over the side railing of the porch and leaped to the ground. He disappeared around the side of the store, and Dan said, "We'll discuss terms later. You go talk to Wyn."
She did. She took the shortcut through the store and caught him as he was passing the back porch. He glanced at her as she raced down the back steps, halting and sticking his fingertips into his back pockets as she approached. A warm glow filled her as she saw how provocative he looked in that stance, but she managed to maintain control of her urgent desire to throw herself into his arms.
"You don't have to worry," she said, thinking all the while she was going to be lying through her teeth with her next words. "I won't bother you. I won't embarrass you by following you around like a love-sick calf."
I will. I'll follow you around until you tell me to leave you alone — that you don't love me. And I don't think you can do that. I know you love me, too.
"I probably should go ahead and leave, but I just can't abandon the children. Since I'll never have any of my own now . . ."
They will be our children, not just mine. She bit back what she supposed the books called a secret smile.
Wyn took a furious step toward her. "What the hell does that mean? You're meant to be a mother, and your fiancé came after you all the way here from New York. He even brought the authorities with him to try to force a situation here and make you come back with him. I'm sure he's waiting for you right now."
"You're not listening. I'm not leaving. You heard me take the job Dan offered me."
"You've got a fiancé." Wyn spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
Sarah shook her head tolerantly. "Stephen knows our relationship is over. And he didn't come after me. He came after my money. He got that, because I told him I'd pay his debts this one time, but after that he was on his own. I'll send my attorney a letter to that effect soon."
Wyn shook his head. "He's an asinine fool. Your money isn't nearly as valuable as you are, Sarah."
"Exactly," she said, her lips turning up again in that secret smile — not so secretly this time. "And how valuable am I, Wyn? Valuable enough to love?"
"Oh, God, yes. There's no woman on earth I could love more than you."
"Then I lied to you, Wyn. Now that I know you care that much for me, I'm going to pursue you each and every minute I have free. If I thought it would work, I'd crawl in bed with you some night and seduce you to get you to marry me. I love you, Wyn MacIntyre. And you love me, too. Admit it."
He stared at her with so much yearning in his eyes she felt her knees wobble. But then he shrugged his shoulders. "It won't work. It can't."
"No, not if you're such a damned coward!" She plopped her hands on her hips and inched her nose to a hair's breadth from his. "I guess I was wrong. I guess you don't love me. I guess I've made a fool of myself."
Pulling back, she started to turn away to hide the secret smile again, and he did exactly what she hoped. She actually heard his fingertips pull free from his back pockets, and he grabbed her, jerking her into his arms and claiming her mo
uth before she could say another word.
Not that she wanted to speak. She had her confirmation.
She needed to hear him say it, though, and he complied as soon as he finished kissing her. "I love you, Sarah. We'll make it work. Marry me. Marry me and I'll spend the rest of my life showing you how much I truly love you."
"Yes."
She laughed into his surprised face. "Yes, I said. Did you truly think I'd say no?"
"Uh . . . well, I thought it would take longer to convince you. I thought I'd have to . . . ah, shoot. We'll talk about that later. I love you, Sarah Channing."
He swept her into his arms and strode toward the little cabin. Laughing, she clung to his neck and said, "I'm too large for you to carry."
"The heck you are."
"Where are you going then?"
"I'm taking you into that cabin to seduce you. To start filling your belly with our children, although Pa will probably be ticked as hell that he has to look for a new schoolteacher in nine months. And I'm gonna make sure everyone sees us go inside alone, so Kyle will marry us before he leaves after church tomorrow."
"You don't have to blackmail me, Wyn. We'll get married before Kyle leaves."
He carried her up the cabin steps and pushed the door open with his back. "Yeah, I know we will. Because we're not going to come out of this cabin until after church tomorrow."
He stepped inside and slammed the door with the swing of a hip. The crack of wood hitting wood was loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in front of the store, and Sarah felt her cheeks heat up.
A second later, her cheeks heated from a much more pleasant sensation, and she kissed Wyn back as frantically as he kissed her. She didn't realize they'd forgotten to place the bar across the door until she heard the giggles. Gasping in embarrassment, she sat up on the side of the bed, with Wyn beside her. Numerous heads poked around the doorjamb, but Kyle was the only one who had actually come inside. He carried his open Bible in his hand.
"Dearly beloved," Kyle began.
Trana Mae Simmons
Bio and Contact Info:
Trana Mae Simmons lives in a historical town in East Texas, with her family and pets. She enjoys researching her romances as much as writing them. When not writing, she loves to travel and explore both off-the-beaten-paths and tourist sites. If ghosts happen to be roaming around where she visits, it delights her immensely.
Her web site for her romance writing is http://www.tranamaesimmons.com/.
Readers interested in her ghost hunting and writing can visit http://www.iseeghosts.com/.
For an excerpt from Town Social, another Berkley/Jove Homespun sweet romance, read on after the remaining contact information. Enjoy!
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Town Social Excerpt
Liberty Flats, Texas
July 1879
In the early morning light, Jake scanned the dusty street from one end of town to the other. Silent. Peaceful. Just as he liked it. So what if those two elderly women had grumbled yesterday within his hearing about the town being so quiet they could hear the spiders spin their webs?
He took another sip of coffee and got a mouthful of grounds for his trouble. Grimacing, he flicked the remainder of the liquid into the street, then set the cup on the jailhouse windowsill and pulled the rickety straight-back chair closer to the edge of the walkway. It creaked alarmingly when he settled his large body on it and propped his feet on the railing along the walkway.
Maybe today he'd find the energy to at least add a supporting slat to the bottom of the chair. And maybe not. Why mar the tranquility of the lazy day with work? If the town would hire its own sheriff or Austin would finally succeed in getting a marshal assigned here, the new man could fix his own chair. Tipping his hat down to shade his eyes from the rising sun, he crossed his arms and reconciled himself to spending another boring day in Liberty Flats, Texas.
Heel taps clicked smartly down the walkway, and Jake instinctively tuned in to the sound, not bothering to lift his hat and look. Definitely a woman. None of the men in town were small enough to make that little bit of noise, and the children went barefoot in the summertime. A young woman, since her gait was more sprightly than that of any of the elderly ladies in town. Might be one of Ginny's girls, but he couldn't imagine any of them up this early after a late night.
Her gait faltered, and he heard a smothered gasp. Uh oh. She'd probably encountered one of the unsteady boards on the walkway. She must be new in town. Every other woman knew exactly where those semi-rotten boards were — and bitched pretty vocally to the storekeepers, who claimed lack of money to repair them. He didn't recall any recent arrivals, but then, he hadn't seen any need to interrupt his poker game when the stage came in late yesterday.
The clicking taps drew closer, and he stifled a sigh, still not bothering to raise his hat and look up.
"Marshal."
Yep, definitely a new woman in town. He would have remembered that throaty, feminine voice from anywhere. And someone should tell her Liberty Flats didn't have a marshal. Maybe someone would.
"Marshal!"
A tapping-toe sound accompanied the voice this time, and Jake grunted under his breath in irritation. Yeah, she was addressing him, but why didn't she just get on with it and explain what she wanted? He lifted his index finger in acknowledgment, that brief movement his only response.
The tapping noise continued, accompanied by an indignant huff of breath. "Lazy small-town law officials," she muttered.
Suddenly his hat went flying. Only the rigid discipline he'd honed over the years kept him in place without a muscle moving for a good, long ten seconds. During that time the tapping toe faltered, then ceased the annoying clicking noise.
He slit his eyes open first. The faint scent beside him had to be hers — the dust and horse manure in the street didn't smell like a mixture of fresh lemons and wild roses. He uncrossed his ankles and slowly lowered his feet from the railing. Her skirts rustled — sounded as though she wore at least half a dozen starched petticoats — and she evidently backed away a step or two. Wonder how long she would continue to wear all those underclothes in the Texas heat? Most of the women in town settled for one limp petticoat under their dresses, even though it left some of their more enticing curves open to appreciative male regard as they walked around, especially during the frequent gusts of dusty wind.
The chair creaked as he rose. He caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye — a flash of bright yellow that was her dress — but he ignored her in favor of looking around for his hat. Damn, it had landed in the street, right in the puddle of drying mud where he'd dumped his shaving water a while ago. Shrugging his shoulders in displeasure, he climbed down the two steps and picked it up, turning it over to survey the damage.
Mud stained the sweatband inside the rim. He ran a finger around it, then wiped it on his less-than-immaculate denims. He'd meant to stop by the laundry yesterday and pick up his fresh clothes, but the poker game at Ginny's had interfered. Besides, he'd had one more pair of clean socks left. And it didn't bother him to put on his denims without underwear this morning — much.
Well, the blasted hat would have to dry before he could wear it. He slapped it against his thigh, swearing under his breath in exasperation when it swept through mud he'd wiped on his pants. Drawing in a breath, he held it for a second, then let it whoosh out through puffed cheeks. This was not starting out to be one of those peaceful, lazy days that he had disciplined this town to since he'd drawn the assignment of taming the place so the citizens could walk the streets without fear of being struck by a stray gunshot.
Carrying his hat with him, he climbed back up the steps and headed for the jailhouse door.
"Marshal! I need to speak with you!"
He stopped, shook his head, then continued on his way. "I'm not the marshal," he tossed back over his shoulder. Usually he left the door open in order to enjoy the early-morning air, but this time he closed it behind him with a backward kick of his booted heel.
It flew open again before he could get to the dilapidated desk.
"Then what are you doing occupying the marshal's office and wearing a star on your chest?" the woman demanded. "I've read enough descriptions in dime novels to know what a Western peace officer looks like!"
Jake clenched his fists at his side, then forced himself to continue on to the desk. Tossing his hat aside, he picked up a pile of Wanted posters waiting for his attention and shuffled through them as he said, "Have you read enough descriptions to know what the inside of a jail cell looks like? You're right on the verge of finding out."
"For what?" Her voice rose indignantly. "I haven't done a darned thing to deserve being tossed into jail — except insist that you talk to me, since I'm now a citizen of this town and will be assisting in paying your salary."
Jake dropped the posters and held his hand up to tick off on his fingers the reasons she was flirting with being locked up. "Assault on a peace officer. Damaging another person's property. Disturbing the peace."
"You call my knocking your hat off your head because you were ignoring me an assault? Why, you overbearing, ignorant lout! You try to haul me into court for something like that, and all I'll have to do is stand there beside your big, lanky body and let the jury look at us. They'll laugh you out of town as a coward for daring to admit I got the better of you. As for disturbing the peace, all I did was disturb your lazy morning nap, when you should have been on duty anyway!"
That did it. She'd definitely managed to spoil the entire day. He wasn't going to let a cantankerous female make a fool out of him in front of the town he'd risked his life to tame. She was obviously one of those spoiled, sassy women who didn't realize she could end up with her butt in a whole world of trouble if she antagonized the male population, which ultimately protected the women in the West.
Tennessee Waltz Page 29
