Beverly Jenkins (6 page)

The sheriff’s vow of discretion notwithstanding, Henry Adams was a very small town, and Cara knew that before the week was out everyone within fifty miles would hear about her being caught kissing Chase Jefferson. Damn that man. If Chase weren’t so outrageously forward, she wouldn’t be the subject of gossip. She got out her mop, pulled the buckets with their still-cold water from the stove, and set to work with a fury.

By late afternoon, Cara had cleaned the school-house from top to bottom—and had almost forgotten about the incident with Chase. She looked around proudly. The old converted church served well enough as a schoolhouse, and she kept it up to perfection. After Asa found the time to patch the roof, it would see them snugly through another winter. But how Cara yearned to have a real school with enough space to accommodate all who wished to attend. Thirty-five students, their desks and chairs, bookcases, the stove and kindling box, cabinets for materials filled every inch of the one-room building.

When Cara reported on cramped conditions and asked for a new building, the school board cried poverty. Everyone in town agreed that educating the younger generation was one of the highest priorities, but they also agreed that there wasn’t enough money for a new school. For months Cara had been writing to aid societies back East imploring them for donations to improve their existing
school, if not build a new one. She wished with all her heart that the letters she received in return had been filled with a lot less praise and words of support and a lot more bank drafts. To date, she had not been able to procure a penny for her project. Cara put away her cleaning tools and got ready to leave. Her hands were red and sore from all the scrubbing with harsh soap, and she’d split yet another nail. She wondered what Chase would say now if he saw her hands. She’d wager that Laura Pope never scrubbed floors on her knees. Chastising herself for even thinking about Chase, much less Laura, she closed the door behind her.

Cara carried the tray Chase had left back to the kitchen where Dulcie presided. Dulcie had come to Kansas with Sophie and Asa, and modestly proclaimed herself the best cook west of New Orleans.

“So, Miss Cara, what is this about you kissing a Yankee soldier?”

“How’d
you
hear about it?”

“Frank Cooper. I’ve known Chase since he was little boy. You could do worse, you know.”

“You’re as bad as Sybil Whitfield. She said pretty much the same thing yesterday.”

“Then you should listen to your elders. You’re a very special woman,
chérie,
and you deserve a special man.”

Cara groaned. “I’m leaving. Is Sophie around?”

“She’s in her office. Chase, too.”

Cara groaned again as she pushed on the door to let herself out. She definitely wouldn’t see Sophie now.

Every available bit of space in Cara’s room was crammed with books—packed in crates, stacked in piles, and neatly arranged on shelves. Only Sophie
and the women folks lovingly called “the Three Spinsters” had more books. Sophie had one whole room whose walls were lined with bookshelves holding beautifully bound leather volumes. The Three Spinsters had so many books, they’d turned a portion of their home into the town’s first lending library.

Cara was in the process of searching through her library for a book on plants she’d promised to loan to one of her students. She used an old saw-horse as a stepladder to access high places. It was not the most sturdy thing, and Sophie had warned her many times about the dangers of using it, but if Cara balanced herself well, she could reach the crated books on the top shelves Asa had put up for her. A knock at her door interrupted the search. Balancing on the sawhorse, she called out, “Come on in.”

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

Cara teetered on her precarious perch at the mellow sound of Chase’s voice. After the briefest of glances at him she returned her attention to the crate of books. “Go away. The kissing booth is closed.”

She heard him walk farther into the room.

“Sorry to hear that.” He chuckled. “Real sorry to hear that.” Chase liked the view, slightly above eye level, of Cara’s hips in the flowing green skirt. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for a book for one of my students.”

“Well, come down before you fall.”

Cara ignored the advice. “Why are you here, Sergeant?”

“Had a talk with your sheriff about you. He says unless my intentions are honorable, I should keep my distance.”

Cara looked down from her perch. “And are they?”

“Suppose I said they were?”

How many women had fallen victim to his fatal smile? From the rakish face to his knee-high boots, he was every woman’s temptation. “Sergeant, though I hardly know you, I doubt I’d be wrong in saying that you probably don’t have an honorable bone in your body where women are concerned.”

To her surprise he laughed. “I thought schoolteachers were supposed to be timid little things.”

“Not this one. Timid doesn’t jibe real well with opinionated.”

“You are something,” he said with soft admiration.

His heated gaze made every nerve in her body come alive. She felt her limbs go weak and decided she’d better climb down. When she’d dusted her hands on her skirt, she looked up at him. “I hope you will take the sheriff’s words to heart.”

“And miss the most fascinating campaign of my career? I’ve never been one to go against the law but—” He reached out and brushed away a cobweb clinging to her cheek. “How’s this for a solution? I won’t touch you again unless you ask me to.”

Cara shuddered as his knuckle grazed her skin. The gesture almost became her undoing. His words were as innocent as the look on his handsome face, but she realized he was challenging her. For someone who claimed to have been warned off by the sheriff, Chase did not appear to be the least bit wary. He seemed to know she wanted nothing less than to feel his kiss again. Despite the treacherous softening of her will, she said, “You
can rest assured, sir, that I won’t be asking for your touch.”

Chase smiled. “You never know, Miss Cara Henson. Time has a way of changing things.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Paying me so much attention?”

Chase wondered if being frank was also one of her gifts. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

He had her there, and she knew it. She also knew she was certain how she felt. “It’s flattering, but I think this is just a parlor game to you. A way to pass the time while you’re here.”

“I find you attractive Cara, very attractive, and, yes, I would like nothing better than to spend my time here in your company. But it’s not a parlor game. If it were, I’d win very easily.”

“Oh, really? You’re very sure of yourself, Sergeant.”

“Some of us are gifted in other ways, too, schoolmarm.”

“Modest, too, I see.”

He grinned. “You doubting my abilities?”

“No. I just think no other woman has ever told you no before.”

“And you plan on being the first?”

“It might do you good to be denied once in a while.”

“Do I hear a challenge?”

Cara had no idea how she’d gotten to this point; she should know better than to toss words with him. “Yes. You hear me saying that this is one woman who can resist your legendary talents.”

“You think so?”

I’m certain.”

He smiled again, the mustache twitching. “All
right, schoolmarm, you’re on. Since I’m not the marrying kind, we’ll stick to kissing, how’s that?”

The audacity of the man. And the charm of him . . . He was wildly attractive, his challenge exciting, stimulating—and totally out of line with the morality clause in her contract. “You’re going to leave town a frustrated man, Sergeant Jefferson.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Especially since you’ve already promised not to touch me.”

“Granted, that might have been a mistake, but it’ll make the prize that much sweeter.”

“What prize?”

“The kisses I’m going to get.”

“My lips are not going to touch yours.”

“It’s not your lips you should be worried about. A woman can be kissed in a thousand places . . .”

Cara blinked against the dizzying effects of his husky voice saying those shocking words.

“I’ll see you later, schoolmarm.”

He tipped his Stetson and started toward the open door. At the threshold he turned back. “Oh, by the way, I’m in the room next door.”

The news caught her by surprise. “That’s good to know, Sergeant.”

He left then, and Cara spent quite some time just staring at the space where he’d been, wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

The next morning, Cara sailed out of her classroom and over to the Liberian Lady with a glare in her eye and mayhem on her mind. Previously she had stopped by the sheriff’s office, but was told he was in Nicodemus on business. The Liberian Lady, the town’s combination saloon and whorehouse, was owned by the nineteen-year-old son of Virginia Sutton.

When Cara barged through the swinging doors, the hands of the man playing the piano froze above the keys. The sudden quiet drew the attention of the nine or ten patrons seated at tables and those standing at the bar.

“Why, hello. If it isn’t our little schoolteacher.”

Cara turned and looked into the wintry gray eyes of Miles Sutton. He’d come to town six months before and opened the Lady, much to the anger of every church member in the Valley. In those six months, Cara had yet to find anything about him that she liked.

“What can I do for you, love?”

Cara found it difficult to conceal her dislike, especially when he dared to use such an intimate term in addressing her. She started to tell him she was not, nor would she ever be, his “love,” stopped herself, and asked brusquely, “Was Issac Brock in here earlier today?”

Miles, drying a glass with a none-too-clean rag, made a show of mulling over her question. “Let’s see, Issac Brock. Fess Brock’s boy?”

“Yes.” She gritted her teeth, then with a false smile added, “Fess Brock’s boy.”

“Maybe. Why?”

“Because he was late for school this morning.”

“What’s that have to do with my establishment?”

“He was drunk.”

Miles smiled at her and continued to dry the glass. “If he’s got money. Cara, I have to serve him.”

“The boy’s twelve, no more than a child.”

“That’s not what my girls say. Hey, Aria,” he called to a woman seated at one of the tables. “Schoolteacher says Fess Brock’s boy is no more than a child. You agree with that?”

Aria looked up from her glass and let out a knowing laugh. “That
child
sure taught me a thing or two.”

Embarrassment scalded Cara’s cheeks. Arla was one of the three women Miles employed as “hostesses.” None of them would ever be mistaken for beautiful, but the men who patronized the Lady didn’t seem to care. The knowledge that Miles allowed Issac not only to drink, but also to cavort with the whores, made Cara all the more angry. “Sutton, if I hear about any more of my children being in here, I will have Sheriff Polk close you down. If he can’t I will write the Federal marshal in Wichita, and then the governor.”

“Whoa, whoa, love, take it easy. The last thing I want to do is get you riled at me. I’ll keep the Brock boy out of here.” He smiled. “In exchange, how ‘bout letting me escort you to the party my mother’s giving for the soldiers?”

“There is no exchange for being a decent human being.”

“Now, Cara, sooner or later, you’re going to realize you and I are fated.”

“Miles, you are fated for territorial prison if you serve any more children in here.”

“I won’t be put off forever, love.”

“Good day, Miles.”

Issac had come to school retching from the effects of too much of the Lady’s cheap alcohol. Cara had put him on the cot in the back with a wet cloth on his head and an old pot nearby to catch his misery. She’d also sent one of the children out to the Brock homstead to fetch his parents. Now, as she returned to the school, the children looked up from their studies. “How’s Issac doing?” she asked.

“His ma came and got him. She said to tell you
that she’d whip him as soon as he quit throwing up.”

Cara nodded, while wishing fervently that someone would take a whip to Miles Sutton.

That evening, Cara sat at her small dressing table brushing her hair. She stopped in mid-stroke as her thoughts floated back to Chase. He made her feel so reckless, so . . . so alive. No man had ever kissed her passionately before. She’d been nearly incoherent when he released her. The mere memory sent a rippling response through her body. She admonished herself for dwelling on his “talents” and vowed to push thoughts of him aside. No matter how he made her feel, she knew he would be around only ten days and then ride away. She meant nothing to him beyond dalliance, and she just had to keep reminding herself of that fact—or endure the consequences.

Cara gave a final pat to her hair and got dressed. Tonight her students were putting on a skit for the Tenth. Later she, Sophie, and other invited guests would ride out to the Sutton spread for Virginia’s dinner.

Cara was not looking forward to that part of the evening.

While waiting for her students to arrive, Cara moved about the empty classroom, setting out the costumes and props for the performance, then paused a moment as her mind played back over other classrooms in her past. She’d been teaching for several years, and although none of the positions up until now had worked out, her drive to bring education to the children of her race had not diminished. One woman was most responsible for placing her on the path to teaching—Mrs. Rosetta
Sterling. Rosetta and her dear friend Harriet Bat, the orphanage’s other staff member, insisted on educating every child who entered their doors, even if the child—due to limited intellect—could grasp only the basics. To supplement the orphanage’s books, kept in crates in nearly every room in the old plantation manor, the women wrote North for materials from relief organizations and churches. Writing paper had not always been available after the war, so lessons in penmanship and ciphering oft times had been conducted in the hard-packed earth. The daily lectures held in the mornings after chores had been serious undertakings. Mrs. Sterling allowed no slackers. Both she and Harriet had spent many years lecturing on the abolitionist circuit and loved to debate. Cara remembered spending many nights studying newspapers and pamphlets for the facts needed to do well in the formally conducted weekly Sunday contests.