Daisies In The Wind (21 page)

So why does he keep kissing me?

More to the point
, she asked herself
as she tossed the brush down, blew out the candle, and crawled
beneath the soft eiderdown quilt,
why do I keep letting
him?

During the next weeks Rebeccah’s life in
Powder Creek settled into a surprisingly pleasant routine. She
began teaching school at the clapboard-roofed schoolhouse, learning
the children’s names gradually and their ways more quickly. Her
students ranged in age from tiny five-year-old Laura Adams to
strapping sixteen-year-old Toby Pritchard, Waylon’s younger
brother. Some could read and count, others could do neither well
enough to mention. Some were friendly and eager to please her,
others stared at her rebelliously as if waiting for the new teacher
to do or say something wrong so they could try to get her
fired.

Rebeccah found that teaching the young people
of Powder Creek was completely different from teaching the arrogant
young women at Miss Wright’s Academy. She actually enjoyed it.

She quickly became fond of the little ones
with their trusting baby faces and eagerness to learn, the way they
chanted out the alphabet and brought her shiny apples and cut-out
paper hearts. She also took a fancy to the middle children, like
Billy and Joey, and young Mary Adams, who was one of six children
and worked at the Bodine house before and after school helping
Caitlin. At this age the youngsters had a great many questions
about the world outside of Powder Creek, and their minds were still
young enough to imagine great adventures. And the older ones were
strangely dear to her too—serious and uncertain about the lives
awaiting them as they reached the threshold of adulthood. They
absorbed her enthusiasm for the novels of Dickens and Cooper, for
Byron’s poems, and for the fascinating picture book she had found
at a Boston book shop containing photographs from all over the
world. She planned spelling bees and geography bees; she had every
student writing stories about their hopes for the future and the
places they’d like to visit; she told about the cities and rivers
and lakes she pointed to on the large map of the United States at
the front of the classroom, listened to endless recitations of
multiplication tables, and answered every question as thoroughly as
she could.

Her days were full and busy and stimulating.
And at night she returned alone to the cabin, fixed herself a
simple supper, and prepared the next day’s lessons, always keeping
her guns loaded and handy in case another desperado after the
silver mine paid her a visit.

She had accomplished much to make the cabin
homier, but there was still more to do. With the help of the
Pritchards’ hired hand she had weeded out her yard and prepared the
way for a spring flower and vegetable garden. Everything was swept
and scoured and spotless. The porch steps had been repaired and
painted, as well as the barn, and Rebeccah had used a portion of
her first week’s teacher’s salary to buy fabric from Koppel’s
General Store. She’d sewn new curtains for all the windows, lovely
blue lace curtains to match the blue rag rug she’d splurged on for
the parlor floor. And she was working on a pretty blue-and-white
floral slipcover for that old horsehair sofa—when that was
completed, the parlor would have an entirely fresh, new look. With
her watercolors brightening the walls, her piano music and a bowl
of wildflowers displayed on a crate she’d covered with a doily and
was using as a tea table, and a few other homey touches, she had
actually made the bleak little cabin quite comfortable.

She had almost managed to put out of her mind
the danger from Neely Stoner and others like him who believed Bear
had left her the deed to a rich silver mine. Almost. But sometimes,
in the blackest soul of night, she would waken and feel cold,
pounding fear at some creak of a floorboard or the moan of the
wind. It was lonely out at the cabin with only the meadowlarks and
an occasional bobolink for company. Yet she was content. She found
herself growing strangely peaceful, quietly happy in her teaching
work, and deriving satisfaction from fluffing and feathering her
own little nest.

Yet as the first week passed and the second
week drew to a close, a certain restlessness came over her. She
found herself thinking about Caitlin Bodine and her many
kindnesses. Not wishing to neglect the budding friendship Caitlin
had tried so hard to nurture, Rebeccah thought of paying a call on
her one evening before sunset, but one thing held her back.

She had no desire to chance a meeting with
Wolf. It had taken days of serenity here at the cabin all alone to
drive away the chaos in which his kisses had left her—she had no
wish to stir up all those feelings again. Besides, she told
herself, Wolf Bodine was completely different now from that young
man with the kind eyes whom she’d met in Arizona, the one who had
prompted a thousand sweet imaginings. He was older, ruder, meaner,
and far more dangerous to her heart than she could ever have
dreamed. Before, his image had haunted her sweetly, gently,
unforgettably, but now, not only his image, but his words, his
voice, and the sharp male electricity of his touch stayed with
her—biting at her, she decided irritatedly, like a pesky mosquito
who won’t go away.

So she stayed clear of the Double B, though
she wrote Caitlin a friendly little thank-you note for the fine
dinner and asked Billy to deliver it for her. Billy was the only
Bodine male she felt confident to handle. Because of the obvious
crush he had on her, she recognized the importance of treading
lightly with him. Hadn’t she, too, been smitten at an
impressionable age, on the verge of adolescence? And with Billy’s
own father! Perhaps if she would have seen Wolf every day, she
would have outgrown her romantic illusions about him, just as she
expected Billy would about her. Instead she’d had her romantic
illusions dashed by the present-day Wolf Bodine, who bore
absolutely no resemblance to the tender, ardently smitten suitor
who had pursued her through a girlhood of fantasies.

Pursued her? Hah! She hadn’t seen hide nor
hair of him in nearly two weeks—and that was just fine with
Rebeccah. Who needed a lawman bothering her with his questions and
insinuations when she could have blessed isolation and quiet?

She had deliberately pushed away all thoughts
of the town dance, despite the fact that it was fast approaching.
But when she left the schoolhouse Friday afternoon, she did stand
in the doorway for a moment and picture how it would look with the
desks all pushed up against the walls, with people dancing and
stomping and clapping, with fiddlers on the dais and music filling
every corner of the room all the way up to the rafters.

Just so they put everything back when
they’re done and we don’t have to waste time moving furniture on
Monday morning
, she thought grumpily.

On Saturday she drove to town in the new
buckboard the town was providing her. The autumn weather was
turning cooler, there had been frost on her windowpane yesterday
morning, and she would need to stock up on food and provisions
before snow and wind and freezing temperatures prohibited regular
trips to town. This was only her second visit since her arrival—the
first time, when she’d bought fabric and a few more staples, she’d
come bright and early, before many shoppers were about, and had
only encountered the store clerks. Rebeccah tried not to feel
nervous as she guided the team onto Main Street beneath a pale,
lemony sun.

The citizens of Powder Creek had accepted her
as their schoolteacher, so perhaps there would be no further
hostility over who her father was and what his gang had done in
this town. But if there was, Rebeccah tried to reassure herself,
she would deal with it. The same way she had always dealt with
people who didn’t want her.

The gentle sense of peacefulness that had
enveloped her over the past weeks faded away as she entered the
bustling general store, bracing herself for whatever slings and
arrows might come her way. With her shoulders squared, her spine
straightened, and her eyes flashing cold fire, she marched beneath
the wooden archway.

“And when I told Emmy Lou Boswell that her
son’s dog had torn up my yard and dug up all my potatoes and
completely muddied a whole day’s wash that was hung up to dry—”

The woman speaking, a birdlike matron attired
in starched blue gingham, broke off abruptly and snapped her lips
shut as Rebeccah sailed into the store’s brightly lit interior. As
a matter of fact all conversation in the store ceased. The short,
apple-cheeked clerk and the half dozen women gossiping and
selecting goods all paused to stare at the dark-haired young beauty
in the ruffled gingham dress who swept in while a tiny little bell
tinkled above her head.

They all knew who she was. That was why they
were so keenly interested.

Rebeccah pretended not to notice the stares.
She began to browse the crowded countertops, studying the shelves
crammed full of goods, the yards of sateen and woolens and muslins,
the cooking utensils and frying pans, the fragrant coffee tins and
barrels of cheeses and flour and pickles and potatoes, the
open-mouthed jars of penny candies with their delightful flavors:
peppermint, cinnamon, orange, and licorice. No candy had been
permitted at Miss Wright’s Academy, but Bear had secretly sent her
parcels of it from time to time, stuffed into the fingers of a pair
of kid gloves or inside a fancy new reticule some shopkeeper or
other told him was the latest rage in New York or Chicago.

“Excuse me,” a firm voice boomed as she
reached for a tin of canned milk.

Rebeccah turned to see an imposing woman with
broad shoulders; stern, ruddy features; and swooping eyebrows above
piercing toffee-colored eyes. “I’m Abigail Pritchard and I believe
you are Miss Rawlings. There’s something I would like to say to
you, young woman. My boy, Toby, has come home lately with all sorts
of notions about going to college in a year or two—to study
medicine, he says and I think you are the reason behind it, Miss
Rawlings.”

Rebeccah braced herself for the
tongue-lashing to follow. The riveted gazes of the other women who
were crowded into the store seared into her from all sides.

“Well, I can’t thank you enough, Miss
Rawlings,” Abigail Pritchard continued, beaming. Her broad,
handsome face creased into a hearty smile. “Toby’s always been good
at patching up cuts and bruises and using herbs for poultices, and
when folks around here can’t reach Doc Wilson, Toby’s the next one
they call on, but he never thought of actually becoming a real
doctor before. He says you told him about that college in Boston,
and now he’s got a hankering that maybe he could go there and
become a regular doctor himself. I’m right proud of him. Before, he
was afraid of the thought of leaving the Montana Territory, but now
all he talks about is saving up money to go east and take entrance
exams for medical school.”

Rebeccah blinked, so stunned by this turn of
the conversation that for a moment she thought the floor beneath
her feet was shifting like a seesaw. “I didn’t realize,” she
managed at last.

Yes, she had talked to Toby Pritchard about
Harvard’s Medical School, but she had never realized that her words
had had such an effect. “That’s wonderful,” she murmured.

Abigail Pritchard bobbed her head. “Yes, it
certainly is. My husband, Culley, and I are great believers in
higher education and in bettering oneself. We own the Triple Star
Ranch, you know—it’s the largest spread in the territory. That’s
not bragging, either, Miss Rawlings, for all these ladies will tell
you, it’s just the plain, simple truth. Culley’s ambitious, and he
works hard, and he’s earned every penny we’ve put into that ranch.
And we did it so our children could prosper and make the most of
themselves. Well, it’s just plagued me to death that we’ve gone so
long without a proper schoolteacher, and that’s why my Culley stood
up at that town meeting when Sheriff Bodine spoke on your behalf,
and my Culley said, ‘Give the girl a chance.’ And I’m so glad folks
did. Do you have an escort for the dance tonight?” she asked
suddenly.

Rebeccah wondered if all those women’s heads
really craned closer in order to better hear her reply or if it was
just her imagination.

“No, I—”

“Good. My oldest boy, Waylon, whom I believe
you’ve met, will come by to pick you up. We can’t have our pretty
new schoolteacher dashing around the dark countryside herself, now,
can we? You look out for him about seven o’clock.”

“But I’m not planning to attend the dance,
Mrs. Pritchard,” Rebeccah spoke up firmly, as firmly as one could
before this forceful tornado of a woman. “It’s nice of you to offer
your son’s time but—”

“Oh, Waylon will be pleased as punch. He told
me himself that first day you came to town that you were pretty as
all get out, except you had the devil of a temp—well, never mind
that. Of course you’ll come to the dance now that you have an
escort. Have you met Lillian Duke, the mayor’s wife? And this is
Gussy Hamilton—her husband owns the feed store. And my neighbor’s
daughter from the Crooked Bar Ranch, Nel Westerly....”

She droned on with other names attached to
other faces, but Rebecca’s attention focused solely on Nel
Westerly. And Nel Westerly locked upon her with equal
intentness.

She’s quite beautiful
, Rebeccah
admitted with a pitiful sinking of the heart. She fought to keep a
smile pasted on her face. Nel Westerly reminded her of a painting
she’d once seen of the goddess Aphrodite emerging from the sea. She
was tall and slim and graceful, with pale, silvery hair that flowed
loosely over her shoulders. Her features were lovely: wide-set
hazel eyes, a small, daintily uptilted nose, the slightest dusting
of freckles across smooth cheeks, and perfectly proportioned lips.
Her well-endowed figure was attractively displayed in a dark-green
serge riding skirt, white blouse, and dark-green vest fastened with
jet buttons.