Liz Ireland (2 page)

He was wrong.

When Cecilia spoke, she punctuated her sharp words by jabbing a slender pointy-nailed finger toward his chest. “I’ll be watching you, Pendergast, and following you like a shadow. You might be able to fool the likes of the Bucks and Beasleys of this town, but you can’t fool me.”

By the time she finished, mere inches separated them. Jake had to give her points for bravery, as well as keen insight. Nevertheless, he smiled. This little performance of hers had Beasley so distressed that the storekeeper would probably stand by him even if it turned out that he was Sam Bass resurrected.

Even so, if he didn’t try to settle this now, this little slip of a woman would try to harass him right out of town. Keeping in mind that he was a mild-mannered schoolteacher, Jake took a slight step forward and looked straight into Cecilia’s eyes.

“If a beautiful flower such as yourself cares to stay close to me, how could I be anything but thrilled at the prospect?”

In a gesture that would have done Uncle Thelmer proud, Jake clasped her hand and gallantly hoisted it to his lips. Letting loose a startled gasp, she attempted to yank it back all the while, so that when he did suddenly let go, the loss of resistance propelled her backward.

“Oh!” she cried, colliding with a desk. Her eyes were wide pools of blue as she stared at him, a furious blush rising in her cheeks. Jake was prepared to be slapped, spat upon or shouted at, but Cecilia remained immobile, for the first time—blessedly—at a loss for words.

Beasley quickly stepped between them. “How nice! Now that you two have settled your little differences, I’m sure that I won’t have to mention your unfriendliness to your father the next time I see him, Cecilia.”

“My father?” Cecilia pivoted toward Beasley.

The man grinned again in that smug way that made Jake’s skin crawl. “Cooperation, you know,” Beasley blustered, “it’s what makes little communities like ours flourish.” He obviously thought he had her over a barrel.

And apparently he did. Cecilia aimed one last glare at Jake, then turned with a flounce and stomped toward the door. Before crossing the threshold, she sent Jake a final warning. “Don’t forget—I’ll be watching. Come on, Buck.” Her companion mumbled something to the two men, then shuffled after her.

When the door closed behind them, Beasley smiled stiffly. “Like I said, a wonderful girl. So...wealthy,” he added, as if this explained exactly what made her wonderful. Most likely to Beasley it did.

“I see.”

Beasley wasted no time in launching into another monologue, this one mostly about the moral standards expected of the schoolteacher by the community. Once he realized Beasley was one of those blowhards who was only interested in the big picture and not in details that might actually prove helpful, Jake only half listened. Instead, through the window he watched Cecilia Summertree’s slim, alluring figure in retreat.

She was beautiful. Strange, Jake thought, that it seemed like years since he’d noticed a woman. Of course, never before had a woman demanded his attention in such a way. But he liked that about her, too. Cecilia Summertree was the most tenacious, forthright woman he’d ever met. He had no doubt that if she set her mind to do something, she’d do it.

Like run him out of town on a rail.

Jake frowned. That woman could mean trouble. Big trouble.

* * *

Cecilia barreled toward Dolly Hudspeth’s boardinghouse as fast as the heat would allow. But it wasn’t only the temperature that caused her to flush red. She couldn’t wait to ensconce herself in the privacy of her spacious room and start plotting her revenge. That slimy hand-kissing Alabama Yankee wasn’t going to get the best of her.

“Cecilia, wait up!”

At the sound of Buck’s voice Cecilia stopped and turned, her arms akimbo. “Buck, why are you following me?”

He came up short a few feet away, his face a mask of confusion. “You told me to.”

That’s right, she did—but then, she hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. With a limp wave, she attempted to shoo him away. “Well, never mind. Go home. And don’t you dare whisper a word of this to my father!”

A wide smile broke across Buck’s face. It was a handsome face, bronzed from the sun. His hair was colored a light brown and his blue eyes were open and friendly. Too friendly, Cecilia thought. The man hadn’t stopped pestering her since she’d come home from New Orleans in disgrace.

“Don’t you think it’s time you came back to the ranch, Cici?” he asked. “Not much keeping you in town now.”

Not much, Cecilia agreed, except the thinnest thread of civilization, which incidentally meant everything to her, although she couldn’t expect the heathens she was surrounded by to understand. There was no way she was going back to that ranch. She’d go out of her mind with boredom, and the tension there between her and her father was thick enough to cut with a knife. No, thank you. That house had seen too much sadness.

Cecilia had watched her poor delicate mother languish for years on that blasted ranch, fretful and depressed. Not that her father had cared. He’d allowed his wife to return to her people in Memphis for visits to her family, but she’d inevitably come back ahead of schedule, unable to stay away from that mournful place. When she’d finally died of scarlet fever, her parting words to Cecilia had been instructions on where not to live, and Cecilia had taken the advice to heart.

Even so, before Evelyn Summertree’s eyes had closed that last time, she’d been watching out the window, waiting, her eyes scanning the hated barren landscape.

“I’m staying in town,” Cecilia said firmly, fighting against a familiar ache in her heart that came with thoughts of her mother.

Buck ambled closer, one thumb looped at his belt. “Aw, c’mon, Cici. You don’t really believe the man’s not a schoolteacher, do you?”

“Didn’t you hear him call me a beautiful flower? What kind of snake-oil salesman talks like that?”

“But you are,” Buck responded with a grin that made Cecilia puff in exasperation. “Besides, he looked just like a regular fella to me.”

“That’s just the trouble, Buck. Everyone looks nice to you.”

“Especially you, sweetheart.”

She ignored the flirtatious comment. “Besides, he looked
too
much like a regular fellow—not a teacher. He was staring around the place as if he hadn’t been in a classroom before!”

“Maybe it looked different than the ones up North.”

Cecilia bit her lip thoughtfully. No, there was something else....

Before she could finish her thought, Buck took another troubling step forward and then pulled her to his chest. Cecilia freed herself with one firm shove.

“Buck, go home,” she repeated. “I’m staying here.”

He crossed his arms, growing petulant. “How are you going to pay for your room?” he asked. “Your father won’t give you money for that.”

“Leave my father out of this. As far as you’re concerned, the new schoolteacher still hasn’t arrived. I’ll figure out a way to pay Dolly.”

“Your father’s going to find out sooner or later, you know,” Buck warned sensibly, “and he’s going to be madder than a hornet when he finds out you didn’t come back to the ranch first thing.”

“I know, I know.” First she was kicked out of Miss Brubeck’s, now this little deception. When he found out, her father would probably lock her in her room till the turn of the century. Well, she’d cross that tedious little bridge when she came to it. At least locked in her room she wouldn’t have to deal with randy ranch hands.

“Let me worry about my father,” she said with finality. “If nothing else I’ll tell him that I still have work at the school. You heard what Beasley said about helping Pendergast get settled.” As if anyone would need help running that ragtag little school—and as if she would actually do it!

Buck looked away, trying to think of an argument to dissuade her. Not surprisingly, nothing came to him. “It’s your funeral,” he said at last. Smashing his hat more firmly on his head, he turned and ambled away. Toward Grady’s saloon, no doubt.

Freed from that appendage, if not from her worries, Cecilia continued full steam toward Dolly’s. Oh, she had known it would be hard to give up her teaching job—though during the past week, when the man failed to show up, she was beginning to hold out hope that he would never arrive. Now his breezing into town late made losing her position all the more agonizing.

Eugene Pendergast! She didn’t know why he struck such a chord in her, but something about the man wasn’t right. He didn’t look right. He didn’t talk right. His clothes fit funny.

Damnation! This temporary teaching job had been such a godsend. After being sent home from New Orleans in disgrace, she’d desperately needed a way to get out from under her father’s disapproving glare. She and her father had clashed ever since she’d been old enough to wear long skirts. He thought her only purpose in life was to get married, preferably to a rich rancher, and since her mother had died when she was twelve, there was no one to take her side.

No, it was always Cecilia against the world. Convincing her father to send her to New Orleans had seemed such a coup, so freeing. Then, due to her own stupidity, she’d been sent home for “rowdy behavior.” Just because she sneaked out one night—just that once! But what was the point of being in New Orleans, she’d insisted, if you could only see a tiny, well-manicured portion of it, and then only during the daytime with a fussy old chaperone?

Her father had been livid. She’d jumped at the opportunity to move into town and serve as schoolteacher until the real one came along. A room of her own in Dolly Hudspeth’s boardinghouse wasn’t like living in New Orleans, but it was as close to it as she was going to get in the foreseeable future. Now the schoolteacher
had
arrived—supposedly—disrupting her life yet again....

But she wasn’t willing to admit defeat yet.

Cecilia marched up the dirt path to Dolly’s, the only two-story house in town. Dolly’s husband, Jubal, had been the first blacksmith in the area, so they had been prosperous before his untimely death. Now Dolly made do by renting out the extra rooms in the generous house her husband had built for her.

Grateful to finally have some privacy to think through her troubles, Cecilia headed straight for the stairs. Maybe she’d prepare herself a bath, she thought. No, that was too much trouble. Her imagination settled for a quick wash, then a leisurely afternoon nap on her soft mattress.

“Cecilia, is that you?” Dolly’s head poked out from the parlor.

“Hello, Dolly,” Cecilia said, only slowing as she single-mindedly headed for her haven of a room. “I’m bushed. Will you call me for dinner?”

“Oh, dear...”

Cecilia heard a rustling of skirts behind her and stopped. Dolly Hudspeth was still a young woman, not yet thirty, and the closest thing to a confidante Cecilia had. Her light brown hair was swept back from her face and pulled into her usual economical bun. As she caught up with Cecilia, she looked as put-together as always, except that her high forehead was wrinkled in dismay and her bow-shaped mouth puckered into a frown.

“Is something wrong?” Cecilia asked, continuing up the stairs. Dolly was always in a snit about something.

“Oh, I do wish I’d had some warning!” Dolly said, keeping one pace behind her friend.

“Warning about what?” Cecilia asked.

“I’m sure we could have handled this better.”

Confused, Cecilia walked to her door and turned the knob. “For heaven’s sake, Dolly, you’re not making any sense. What is the matter?”

She threw wide the door and saw immediately what was wrong—her things were gone!

“What happened!” she cried, surging forward. Her trunk, her clothes, even her silver comb set that had been on the washbasin stand—all were gone.

“Now, Cecilia,” Dolly began. “You know that this is my best room. It’s always been reserved for the town’s schoolteacher. Always, even when Jubal was alive.”

Cecilia’s gaze narrowed in on the black leather valise on the floor next to the bed. It belonged to Pendergast, that snake. He’d usurped her job, and now her room.

But not for long, she vowed.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she turned to Dolly with a warm smile. “Of course,” she said, even managing a gay little laugh as if she didn’t care a fig about losing her prized accommodations. “How stupid of me to forget. Just tell me, Dolly, where
are
my things?”

Dolly looked at her anxiously, not quite trusting Cecilia’s sudden change of mood. “Well, I stowed them downstairs. I imagined you’d probably ask Buck to give you a ride home this evening.”

“Home?” Cecilia asked, blinking innocently. “With Buck? Whatever for?”

Dolly put her hands on her hips. “Cecilia,” she said sternly. “Now, you know how things are. I have three rooms to let. One to the schoolteacher, and Miss Fanny’s been here since you were in school yourself. And I couldn’t put Jubal’s cousin Lucinda out. He’d come back to haunt me for sure.”

Panic began to seize Cecilia. Home. She was being sent home, back to the ranch, when she had so much to do right here in Annsboro. If no one would believe her suspicions about Pendergast—who she was willing to bet money wasn’t a schoolteacher at all—then she needed to stay close by and gather her own evidence. In the end, the town, even Beasley, would thank her for her pains.

But there was no way to stay if Dolly didn’t help her. She wouldn’t be able to spy on Pendergast. She’d never get her job back, or her independence. She’d be trapped on the ranch to wither away until she finally gave in and married some rancher who would take her off to another patch of dirt. And then she’d still wither away, just like her poor mother.

She practically threw herself at the older woman’s feet. “Oh, Dolly, you must have a place for me somewhere! Anywhere!”

Dolly shook her head worriedly. “I can’t think of a thing. The house only has four bedrooms, Cecilia, apart from the tiny room off the kitchen for my laundry girl, and that’s no bigger than a cupboard.”

Laundry girl? Cecilia remembered Lupe, the young woman who’d been doing laundry before she’d married one of the poor farmers in the area. Her heart surged with hope. “Cupboard?” she asked excitedly. “I can sleep in a cupboard, I don’t mind!”