Three squirrels erupted from inside, chattering and screeching. They whirled through the kitchen, across the top of the counter and over the stove, fluffy tails flying, then made for the door. They disappeared outside and up the nearest pine tree where they sat, rudely scolding the humans who had dared to evict them.
Alexis rushed across the kitchen and closed the door firmly, then looked back at Jace who was examining the cabinet. Daylight shone through the back. “They chewed a hole through the outside of the house,” he said. “Then set up housekeeping in here. They left plenty of middens behind, so they’ve been here a while.”
“Middens?”
“Trash. Piñon and other nutshells.” Jace closed the door. “I’ve got some supplies in my truck that I can use to patch the hole, but you may not want to use this cabinet until we get it cleaned out, patched and painted.”
Alexis doubted that she would ever want to use it. She shuddered at the thought. “All right.”
Before he headed out to his truck, Jace paused and gave her a searching look. “Are you okay? You know, living in these mountains isn’t for everyone, especially for people who are accustomed to a certain level of comfort.”
“In other words, it may not be for a wimp like me?” she asked, her voice testy.
He held up a hand. “Now I didn’t say that. I only asked if you’re okay.”
“Yes.” She knew her voice sounded a little too thready. “I was surprised, that’s all. I assure you that I don’t usually react that way. I simply don’t like unpleasant surprises.”
Jace’s grin twitched once again. “You mean like having someone show up in the middle of the night, set fire to your yard, then announce they’re staying?”
Alexis forgot about the squirrels and her embarrassment for her overreaction to them. She straightened, prepared to defend herself, but when she saw the teasing light in his eyes, she relaxed and answered, “Something like that, yes.”
She offered a tentative smile, and for a moment, there was a tenuous thread of understanding between them, a friendly acceptance they hadn’t known before in their short, rocky acquaintance.
It didn’t last long because Jace seemed to recall what he was doing and who he was talking to. He straightened suddenly and said, “I’ll see to those repairs.” Quickly, he walked out and she heard the screen door close behind him.
Alexis felt a flutter of disappointment. For her, it was a pleasure to get to know someone, even someone as prickly as Jace McTaggart, on a strictly personal basis. He had no idea who she really was, or where she was from. She had the opportunity with Jace, and with the people of Sleepy River community, to prove herself as a person and as a professional. It was vitally important to her that they see her as an individual and not be influenced by any tabloidlike stories about her.
With a shrug of acceptance, Alexis returned to work. Now that the squirrels were gone, she could finish cleaning the kitchen, starting with the cupboard where the former stowaways had lived. She found a small whisk broom in a utility closet and swept out the trash they’d left, then returned to the living room to find her purse.
She pulled out a pad and pencil and began making a list of supplies she would need. Unlike most new teachers, she didn’t need to pinch pennies until payday. She had plenty of money from the allowance the Inbourg national council gave her. However, she knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to appear too well-off, either, in case people started asking questions about her. She would buy only what she needed immediately. She found it ironic that even here, in an area so far removed from home, she still had to be conscious of the perceptions others had of her.
As she was making her list, Alexis became aware of the sound of approaching vehicles. She glanced out the window to see Jace standing by his truck with his hands full of tools, watching as a small caravan of cars and trucks made their way into the clearing before the school and teacherage.
The vehicles stopped and women and children began pouring out. One woman, a tall, rangy redhead, called out, “Jace, Martha called to say the new teacher’s here. I can’t believe you let the new teacher go into that place. It’s a disgrace. We were going to clean it up.”
“I told her that,” he answered mildly, then cocked his head toward Alexis as she came out on the porch. “She’s got ideas of her own.”
Alexis realized he didn’t necessarily think that was a good thing, but she gave him a smile.
“We went by your place to meet Miss Chastain, but you’d already gone,” the redhead continued cheerily as she helped a little girl out of her truck. “What in the world happened to your mailbox? And did you have a fire?”
Alexis froze, and her gaze flew to Jace. This was his opportunity to tell everyone how she’d arrived and the disasters she’d caused. His dark eyes met hers briefly, but she couldn’t read his thoughts.
He gave a small shrug and answered, “Just a little accident. We took care of it.”
Alexis gave him a grateful look and he lifted an eyebrow at her as if to ask what did she think he would say about her? The problem was, she didn’t know. She still couldn’t read him very well. Giving up, she walked down to meet the community members who had arrived. The redhead introduced herself as Carol Saunders, mother of two of her students, one of whom, Billy, had a markedly wicked twinkle in his brown eyes. Alexis instantly decided she would need to keep a careful watch with him.
“Oh, Jace,” Carol called out. “Billy returned the quilt okay, didn’t he?”
Alexis saw Jace’s swift glance go from mother to son. Billy glanced away. “Yes. I thought it was going to stay on display at the historical society a little longer.”
“They needed that space for a display of mining equipment, as if we haven’t seen enough picks, shovels and miners’ lamps in this county. We had to clear out our textiles.” Carol seemed to become aware of her son’s averted gaze. “Jace? There wasn’t a problem with it, was there? I know how your mother treasured that quilt so I told him to ride over and bring it to you. If I thought anything had gone wrong with it…”
“It was fine. Billy left it on the porch and we found it there.” Jace’s voice was smooth and reassuring but he lifted his eyes to Alexis’s stricken face and she didn’t feel the least bit reassured.
Carol nodded, smiled at her son, who then scampered off, and turned to Alexis with a smile. “Come meet everyone else,” she invited.
One of the other women was Stella Kramer, another member of the school board who welcomed her warmly and introduced her three little girls who would be Alexis’s pupils in the primary grades.
There were a couple of other families represented, but the most memorable person was an older woman, dressed in a man’s oversize shirt, jeans and boots, who marched up to Alexis, handed her a quart jar of a warm golden liquid, and said, “I’m Hattie Fritz. I keep bees. That’s honey. What needs doing around here?”
Alexis barely had a chance to blink and form an answer before Jace walked past on the way to repair the hole made by the squirrels. The rest of the crew took their signal from him and streamed around Alexis into the house. Within minutes, they’d dragged all the furniture and rugs outside and set the children to beating out the dust with brooms, though they were more interested in getting inside the schoolhouse and playing with the computers. However, they soon discovered that getting to beat furniture was fun, too, so they set to work. The adults then went back inside and began scrubbing every surface in sight.
Alexis quickly lost any awkwardness she felt with this good-natured bunch as she pitched in, as well. It amused her, though, to realize that, as they worked, she was very gently being grilled about what had become of Rachel Burrows and what her own qualifications were for teaching the children of the community.
Faced with this energetic group of women and children, Jace left after repairing the squirrel damage and Alexis felt guilty that she hadn’t thanked him for his hospitality of the night before and his help today. He was her nearest neighbor, so she knew she w
ould be seeing him again. Her biggest hope was that when she did, it would be under better circumstances. It wouldn’t do for him to think she was in habitual need of help from her neighbors.
She smiled to herself. At home, they had no neighbors. The palace was in the middle of a huge estate populated by employees and their families. Alexis couldn’t even imagine the shock that would erupt if she ran next door to borrow a cup of sugar from Mrs. Schroeder, the wife of the landscape architect her father had recently hired. No, she would do whatever was necessary to depend only on herself and to present herself as being completely competent and professional at every meeting she had with Jace from now on.
It wasn’t long before the entire house was thoroughly clean, even the curtains hanging at the windows. When all her helpers prepared to go, Alexis thanked them profusely and watched them leave with the grateful feeling that she’d passed their inspection. She unpacked her suitcases, wrote up her grocery list, and drove back through the mountains to buy her supplies in Morenci. While there, she went to the county seat of Clifton to register her teaching credentials with the county school superintendent’s office. She held dual citizenship thanks to her American-born mother, so there was no question of her right to work in the U.S. She headed home elated that she was recognized, at least by one of the smallest counties in the state, as being qualified to teach in Sleepy River. She only hoped she could convince Jace of that.
The sound of scuffling on her porch told Alexis that someone had stopped by for a visit. The strong scent of men’s cologne breezing through her house told her it was the Patchett brothers.
She had only been in her house for three days and they’d already visited four times, always together, always watching each other as if they were each afraid that one of them would find an advantage the other didn’t have, causing Alexis to prefer one of them over the other. The truth was, they were nice boys, but they most certainly had romance on their minds, and she most certainly didn’t.
With a sigh, she stood up from the piles of papers on her small kitchen table and went to invite them in. Impeccable manners had been drummed into her from the moment of her birth and she wouldn’t even consider telling them to go away because she was busy on lesson plans for the first weeks of school.
“Evenin’, Miss Chastain,” Gil said as soon as he saw her. He swept his hat off his head and clapped it over his heart. “I was wondering if there was something you might need.”
Rocky shuffled his brother aside. “I was wondering that, too.” His unruly black hair was parted down the middle and slicked down on both sides. Alexis stared at the thick, coarse strands in amazement. Any second, she expected tufts of it to start flinging themselves skyward. She reminded herself not to get too close.
His dark eyes took on a worshipful expression. “Anything you need? Anything at all?”
Peace and quiet, Alexis thought wistfully, but she smiled softly and said, “No thank you. I’m quite all right.” Instead of inviting them in, because she had learned on the night of their first visit that she would have trouble dislodging them, she opened the screen door and slipped through to stand with them on the porch.
Their faces fell so tragically that she immediately reconsidered her plan to hurry them away. She knew she was too softhearted, which was why she’d never been a good spokesperson for the Chastain family. Reporters could almost always get her to answer their questions and they’d loved her blunt answers, which was one of the reasons she’d learned to avoid them.
“Why don’t you sit down for a while, though, before you head back home?” Alexis quickly sat herself in the old Adirondack chair so the two of them wouldn’t try to help her into it, get in each other’s way, and then into an argument.
Both boys then perched on the porch railing and looked at her expectantly. Alexis sighed inwardly, ruing the careful schooling she had received at Miss Devereaux’s Academy for Young Ladies. She could converse on almost any subject and always carried the majority of any discussion with Gil and Rocky. She couldn’t decide if they were always this tongue-tied around women or if they were simply dazzled by her.
She glanced down at the faded jeans and white cotton top she wore as she recalled that she had washed off her makeup and brushed her hair out of its braid when she had cleaned up after a day spent dusting and arranging shelves in the schoolhouse.
No, she didn’t think they were drawn to her glamour. They simply liked being around a single woman near their own age.
She folded her hands in her lap and asked, “So please tell me what you’ve been doing today. I know the life of a cowboy must be very challenging. I’m sure you must need many special skills to do the job.”
What the devil were they doing? At the edge of the clearing, Jace sat atop his horse, Hondo, and squinted through the twilight. For the third night in a row, Gil and Rocky had disappeared right after dinner. He’d heard them drive off in their old truck, and suspicious that they were going to visit Alexis, he’d quickly saddled Hondo. He had followed the trail of dust hanging in the still air which had turned in at the drive to the schoolhouse. Circling around to the edge of the clearing, he waited in the shadows.
Back straight, legs modestly crossed at the ankle and drawn to one side, hands folded neatly in her lap, Alexis was sitting in that crummy old chair like a queen holding court. Gil and Rocky were seated on the railing in front of her, gazing at her much like supplicants begging for her favor.
Disgruntled, Jace glared at them. He’d hardly been able to get a lick of work out of them since she’d arrived. Having her so close by was turning out to be a major distraction. The boys, together and individually, thought of a dozen things a day they needed to do for her. Jace usually managed to head them off, but once the chores were done and dinner was over, they were on their own.
“Damned cozy scene,” he muttered, spurring Hondo into an easy walk across the baseball field. He knew Alexis was busy. He’d been receiving daily bulletins from the moms who’d been over to help her. They reported back about the work she was doing, the clothes she was wearing, the full carat diamond earrings that sparkled in her ears even when she was dressed in jeans, as she was now. The women were all very impressed with her, and so was every man who had met her.
“Including me,” Jace murmured. He’d spent more time thinking about her the past three days than he had about his ranch. It seemed that there was no job that could distract him from thoughts of the mysterious Alexis. He was as pitiful as Gil and Rocky, he groused to himself as he spurred Hondo forward.
When he was about ten feet away, he could hear Gil regaling Alexis with some story of a near-encounter they’d had with a wolf the previous spring.
“That’s the way, boys,” he said, cantering up to them. “Scare her to death.”
The three of them had been so engrossed in the story that they hadn’t heard them. The effect of his voice was electrifying. Gil shot to his feet and whirled around, bumping Rocky, who was precariously balanced on the porch railing. Rocky keeled over backwards, arms and legs windmilling, to sprawl in the weed-choked flower bed below.
“Yeow!” he yelped. “There’s goatheads in here!” He scrambled to his feet and began picking the spiny thorns out of his backside.
“Good,” Jace said unsympathetically. “What are you two doing over here, anyway, besides bothering Miss Chastain?”
“Hey,” Gil defended. “We’re not bothering her. We came to offer our help.”
“Oh, has she run short of windy stories?”
Alexis rose to her feet to face him. “We were having a friendly chat, Mr. McTaggart.”
He gave her a disgruntled look. Three days ago, when she’d run to him to escape the squirrels, she’d called him Jace. Now they were back to Mr. McTaggart. She didn’t like that he’d interrupted her little rendezvous.
“Yeah, well, these guys have work to do.” He nodded toward Gil. “Did you know your horse threw a shoe today?”
He saw Gil shoot Alexis a quick glance. �
�Of course I knew.”
“Have you replaced it?”
“I’ll do it in the morning, Jace.”
“Okay, but tonight you’ll go rub liniment on the stone bruise she got after she threw it.”
Gil gave him a stormy look, as if he was ready to argue, but Alexis made a soft sound of distress. “Oh, the poor thing. Do you think she’s in much pain?”
“Oh, no,” Gil began, turning to her. “She’ll be fine, if…” Something in her expression stopped him. He stared at her as if entranced. Jace was amazed to see that somehow, her expression conveyed the feeling that if he went and doctored that poor injured horse, she would think he was a king among men. Gil puffed out his chest. “I’ll go take care of it right now. We don’t want a poor, helpless creature to suffer.”
Alexis beamed at him as if he’d just invented sunlight and Jace rolled his eyes. “That’s good of you, Gil,” she said.
Jace could see that it was a mighty effort, but Gil managed to tear his gaze away from her. “Come on, Rocky,” he growled. “Let’s go.”
“Go? I can’t even sit down. I’m still trying to get these stickers out of my butt,” Rocky whined.
“Well, you stand up in the back,” Jace instructed. “And I better be able to find you two when I get home. We need to have a little talk.”
Both young men turned and gave him a look of dread, but Jace hardened his heart. Their father was his lifelong friend and he thought the world of their mom, but he hadn’t hired them on to play nursemaid to them, or chaperone.
After the boys had roared away in their beat-up old truck, with Rocky standing in the pickup’s bed, wide-legged to maintain his balance, Jace turned and looked down at Alexis.
Gazing at her, with the last rays of twilight turning that chestnut hair of hers to red-gold, and her green eyes watching him with some kind of unknowable wisdom, he could understand why the Patchetts couldn’t stay away. In fact, he felt an unfamiliar catch in his gut as he looked at her.
The Runaway Princess Page 5
