She walked a tightrope every day of her life. Even Betsy didn't know the truth. That was the reason Janice had finally capitulated and let Betsy go with the Hardings to Natchez. A sister would be much more apt to let someone else take care of a younger sibling than a possessive mother would.
But she suffered for it. It had been nearly a week now, and Janice couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't occupy her mind with anything but worrying about Betsy. She had always been the one to see that Betsy got her rest, that she ate right, that she didn't overexert herself, that she took her medicine at all the right times. Betsy had always been too weak to run and play with the other children, so she had always been right there by Janice's side. It was like losing her right arm not to have her here.
But someday Betsy would have to learn to live on her own. Janice knew that was the healthy outlook to take. She just had a hard time accepting it. Ellen at the dry goods store was only sixteen. In six more years, Betsy would be old enough to be married and pregnant too. Janice couldn't bear to think about her life stretching on forever while Betsy went her own way, leaving nothing but this emptiness. But it had to be that way if Betsy was to lead a happy life, and Janice wanted that more than anything.
So she consoled herself that Betsy was happy now. She was with friends who didn't mind that she couldn't keep up with them. She had people to look after her. She had a teacher who could teach her to use the art set she received for her birthday. Janice smiled at the memory of Betsy's excitement upon unwrapping the gift. She had practically danced up the walls. It was worth the extra hours Janice had worked at copying pages of legal text for the lawyer's office.
Her eyes ached from staying up so late tonight finishing the task, but she might as well continue earning the money since she couldn't sleep anyway. Maybe she could save enough to offer to pay James Peyton to come into town regularly to give Betsy lessons. The older man was losing his eyesight and the palsy in his hand prevented him from holding a brush, but he still knew how to teach painting and drawing. His encouragement gave Betsy the kind of confidence she needed.
Janice pulled on her cotton nightgown and braided her still damp hair. Summer hadn't officially begun but the night was hot. She'd never in her life slept without clothing because she'd always lived in a house filled with people and no privacy, but with Betsy gone, she was almost tempted. Maybe as the summer heated up, she would try it. It gave her something else to think about.
She heard a horse whinny outside, and she frowned as she moved toward her narrow bed. There had been some problem earlier in the year with vagrants helping themselves to horses down at the livery and breaking into henhouses for their meals, but none had been seen lately. The sheriff had dealt with the thieves, and word had apparently spread to avoid Mineral Springs. Somebody must have left their animal tied up outside for some reason.
She was just pulling the covers back on the bed when the pounding started on the door.
"Fire! There's a house on fire! Give me some pails!"
Fear jostled Janice's insides: a brush of panic at a strange male voice, the knowledge of what fire could do in a town of wood like this. But she had handled more than her fair share of emergencies in the past. Sliding on her slippers, she grabbed a wrapper and hurried for the water pail on the stove.
She barely noticed the shadowy figure filling her doorway as she threw open the door and thrust the pail out. Obviously, he had to be tall and broad to fill her doorway like that, but other than noting the bristly beard, she had no opportunity to see anything else. He grabbed the pail and ran for the pump, yelling for her to find help.
He didn't have to remind her. She could see the flames leaping from the roof of the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse. Panic really did grab a lungful of air from her then. That was her livelihood, her main source of income, the reason she had use of this house. She set her slippers to running for the fire bell at the end of the road.
Men stumbled from houses and saloons and barns as the bell clanged and echoed and shattered the night silence. A rooster crowed. A donkey brayed. A shout went up from someone who saw the flames. Pretty soon the street filled with running men, most half-dressed and bleary-eyed. The last time there had been a fire, they had almost lost half the town.
Women and children staggered out after them. Boys pulling suspenders over nightshirts galloped down the road, their hands filled with buckets. The pitiful excuse for the town water tank was rolled out from behind the livery by the strongest men in town, and they raced down the street hauling it by the traces that should have held horses. They'd bought the fire engine after the last fire, but the town council had never decided whether to buy horses or ask for volunteers to pull it.
Janice grabbed another pail and washbasin and ran after them. Her house was closest to the fire, the most likely to catch next. The generosity of a trust fund from Jason's stepmother had allowed the school board to build the little house near the school when Janice had arrived with Betsy. Teachers with children to raise had been unheard of until then. The school board had only been willing to accept Janice because she was the only candidate available after a year's search. She'd had to sign a contract to stay on for five years when they offered to build the house. The five years were up, and if something wasn't done to stop the fire, so would be her job and the house.
She handed her containers to two children and grabbed the pump handle away from the man filling a bucket. He didn't argue but took his bucket and ran to where the fire was spreading to the grass around the school. Janice pumped the old handle up and down, filling every bucket and pan and bowl shoved beneath the spout. She was used to the old pump. She'd had to use it every day of her life for the last five years. Her arms no longer strained at the task.
She kept glancing over her shoulder at each shout and yell from the leaping fire. Her heart stuck in her throat as she saw the flames licking along the roof rail. There wasn't any chance of saving it now. They could only try to contain it.
The faces running up with empty containers were black with smoke, but she recognized most of them. She'd lived here long enough to know every man, woman, and child in town. The few she didn't know were most likely traveling drummers coming through town on the stage, stopping off long enough to sell their wares before moving on.
The only one that didn't fit that description was the large man with the beard. He returned more times than any of the others, flying over the field with long strides and quick, incisive movements as he took charge of the most dangerous spots. He lined up women in a water line to the schoolhouse, sending boys to carry water from the women to the men closest to the fire. He was too impatient to wait for the containers to be passed along the line. He grabbed them out of waiting hands to throw their contents on flames licking along the dry grass and up the trees, heading straight for the house.
"A shovel," he demanded of Janice as he shoved a bucket into someone else's hands. He looked braced to run as soon as she gave him directions.
"Tool shed, back there." Janice nodded at the precarious lean-to attached to the privy.
He was off and running before the words left her mouth. Minutes later, she saw him digging a trench across the school yard, flinging dirt on trails of fire while ordering someone else to keep an eye on the cottonwoods. The man knew what he was about. Janice breathed a sigh of relief. It was good having someone who knew what they were doing.
The schoolhouse couldn't be saved. She knew that. The men futilely emptied the water tank on the blaze and succeeded only in sending billowing clouds of smoke into the air, causing them to cough and gag and fall back. The lines of women and children passing containers of water faltered as smoke and exhaustion thinned the ranks. Janice felt her own shoulders and back ache with every pump of the handle. She would be stiff for a week, but she couldn't stop now. There was still a chance to save her house.
The man with the beard seemed to be working toward that goal now. He yelled at the ranks of faltering water carriers to cover the side yar
d between the two buildings. The schoolhouse was on the outskirts of town. The schoolteacher's house was the next closest building. Dry grass and the dry riverbed were all that separated her house from the rest of town. From the river, buildings scattered to the right and left, up and down the main street. They had to stop the fire here, where there was only grass to burn.
More men ran for shovels. Children ran to the puddles in the riverbed to fill their containers. Someone shoved Janice away from the pump and began to beat it with more vigor. She staggered backward, found a pail, and wearily filled it, hauling it toward a new line of flame licking beyond the trench.
She had no concept of time. She only knew the eastern horizon was spreading a red glow that reflected the dying fire before the schoolhouse crumbled slowly into a bed of embers. The wind died with the dawn, and the remaining small bonfires were quickly doused.
As her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of one more bucket of water, a hand reached out to take it from her.
"Go to bed. It's over. I'll bring your pail back when I find it."
His voice was raw from smoke and exhaustion, but the unfamiliar accents sent a shiver down her spine. They were crisp and precise, unlike the slow drawl of the town's inhabitants, more like the voices of her past. She took an odd comfort in that and nodded obediently.
She didn't even turn to look at him as she walked away.
Chapter 4
Hell, some days it didn't pay for a man to get out of bed. Peter Mulloney wiped his sleep-grimed eyes and propped himself on one elbow, trying to focus his blurred vision on the circle of men towering over him.
One kicked his hip to induce him to wake more quickly. "Get up. We got some questioning to do." The voice was rough and authoritative and not in the least reassuring.
Mulloney groaned and tried to sit up without tearing every muscle in his back loose from its mooring. Sleeping on the hard ground after a night of hauling buckets and shoveling an acre of dirt didn't make for much of a massage.
"I'm up. I'm up," he grumbled, untangling his legs from the bedroll. Damn, he stank. He reeked. He could almost feel the fumes rising from his smoke-saturated clothes. He'd been too tired to take them off when he'd collapsed at dawn. The way things seemed to go in this damned town, he was better off keeping them on. Maybe his stench would drive them off after a while.
"Grab his arms, boys. We'll haul him down to the jail. Maybe the sight of iron bars will set his tongue to flapping."
Wondering if this was his reward for trying to save the damned town or his punishment for his lustful peeping, Mulloney disbelievingly allowed his wrists to be tied together as they hauled him to his feet. Maybe it was all just a weird nightmare and he would wake up at any minute. The way his head felt, anything was possible.
At his suddenly upright position, he began to cough. He'd breathed in enough smoke to last a lifetime last night, and it felt as if it were all trying to escape at once. His captors took no pity on him. They half dragged, half lifted him from his feet as they hauled him from the trees and into the glaring sunlight.
Peter's last sight before he blacked out was of a woman appearing in the doorway of the little house he'd saved last night. The hair rippling down her back was a glorious pale yellow that rivaled the sun.
Janice clutched her wrapper and watched the sheriff and his men drag the bearded stranger away. She stepped out of sight the instant she saw them, but she had the uneasy feeling the stranger had seen her. He'd looked right in her direction before he fell and the men had to catch him.
Why had he been hiding in her bushes? Why was the sheriff taking him into town? She pushed her hair out of her face and turned toward her bedroom. She didn't believe in standing idly by and wondering, but she couldn't go into town looking like this.
She'd never slept this late in her life. It had to be almost noon. Still, she hadn't gone to bed until dawn. She grabbed a brush and began to pull her hair into a thick knot at the back of her head. She didn't have time to braid it if she meant to find out what the sheriff was doing to the stranger. Men were such idiots. That man might be another of the vagrants, but he had almost single-handedly saved her home last night. It might not be her home much longer if the school board decided they couldn't rebuild the school, but the bearded man's efforts ought to be rewarded and not punished. The sheriff didn't look like he was handing him a blue ribbon or the key to the city.
She shimmied out of her nightgown and struggled into her cotton combinations. Half the town must have seen her in dishabille, with her hair down, last night. She couldn't afford to let them see her in anything less than proper garb now. She had to be the absolute epitome of the staid, old-maid school-marm today to wipe out their memory of last night. Her job hinged on it now that her contract was completed. They might just go looking for a male teacher who could stay with the families of students and use her little house as a school. It would save the town a lot of money, and soothe the ruffled sensibilities of those who believed only a man could teach their little darlings.
Janice jerked on her freshly laundered waist petticoat and reached for her corset, hastily pulling it around her and fastening the front clips. Thank heavens the laces Betsy had tied off had stayed fastened in back. She didn't want to have to struggle with them on her own.
The plain gray walking dress ought to be stuffy enough. There were days when Janice longed to wear pretty striped silks in cherry-red and apple-green, but they wouldn't be suitable for an old-maid schoolmarm. She indulged her desire for pretty things by adding bits of lace and a draping of nice material that almost made a small train over her bustle.
She straightened the horsehair pad over her petticoat, pulled on the gown, and hurriedly fastened the row of innumerable buttons marching down the front. Without Betsy to help her dress, she would have to forfeit the few dresses that fastened down the back. She might eventually fasten them all herself, but she couldn't guarantee they would all be in their proper holes when she was done.
Checking her tiny dressing mirror, Janice adjusted the drape of the skirt over her bustle, fluffed out the frill of white lace at her throat, and scowled at her hair. It looked like a field of wheat.
She hastily brushed it back and tugged a wide-brimmed hat over it. That succeeded in hiding everything but the thick lump of her chignon in back. She would never be blessed with fine curls to dangle at her nape or adorn her brow, but that suited her image just fine. All she needed now was the spectacles.
With the gold wire rims settled over her nose, she looked the part she played. It wasn't a difficult role. She'd been too old for her age for the better part of her life. After Betsy was born, she had attacked life with a steely determination that had left little time for laughter. She might have needed to disguise herself when she first came here at the age of twenty, but the years since had made her what she pretended to be: an old maid.
Lifting up her heavy skirt, Janice hurried out the front door and into the noon sunshine. She seldom had time to worry about the plights of others, but specks of Daniel's heroism had brushed off on her somewhere along the line, and she did what she could when she was able. There were times she cursed Daniel for ever befriending her, but she wouldn't be where she was now without him. It behooved her to act in a manner that would meet his approval.
Knots of people gathered throughout town, and from the expressions on their faces, they weren't discussing the weather for a change. The way some of them looked away as she approached warned of the topic of conversation. She hadn't made friends of everybody in town. She was much too opinionated for that.
Ellen hurried out of the dry goods store to catch her hands. "Oh, Miss Harrison, last night was awful! Bobby wouldn't let me go out, but he came home all smoky and wore out and told me all about it. Mr. Holt said they might not have the money to rebuild the schoolhouse. How will my baby ever learn to read or write?"
Janice remembered Bobby leaning against the empty water tank, guzzling from a bottle as he watched the schoolho
use burn. No doubt he thought his heroics in hauling out the tank with the help of half a dozen others allowed him to rest while others worked. She'd called him a shiftless skunk in front of his face before, but she wouldn't talk behind his back now.
"You don't need to worry about that for a few years yet, Ellen. You just concentrate on keeping that baby healthy. There'll be someone to teach him when the time comes." She clasped the girl's hands reassuringly, then hurried on. Once she had a goal in mind, Janice didn't like to be distracted.
A few more women drifted in her direction to commiserate with her over the fire or to find out more gossip. Janice tried to smile at them, but she knew Mrs. Danner was one of the more vocal protesters against female teachers. Rumor had it that her husband had been smitten with Evie Monteigne back when she taught here. The randy old goat had tried to pinch Janice a time or two, but she hadn't grown up on the wrong side of the tracks without learning a few things. He hadn't touched her since she used a hat pin on him.
Janice had difficulty prying herself away from the clacking hens, but she finally managed it. Hat ribbons sailing in the breeze she created, she hurried down the street in the direction of the sheriff's office. She prayed the gossips thought she was going to identify the culprit or to press charges or to make inquiries. Surely they couldn't suspect her real intent or tongues wouldn't stop wagging for a month of Sundays.
She had to do this discreetly or they wouldn't stop wagging anyway. Checking her image in the glass of a store window as she passed, she tucked a straying lock back into her hat, straightened her shoulders, and marched into the sheriff's office.
Her friend Evie would have sashayed in. Georgina, Daniel's wife, would have flown through in a flurry of ribbons and curls. Unlike her friends, Janice could only march like a stern soldier. Her prim gray walking dress had the effect of a uniform. She blinked her eyes to adjust them to the dusky light of the interior, ignoring the stares of the men at the desk.
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