Beverly Jenkins (9 page)

“Fated. But she is a fine woman. Make some man a good wife.”

“Don’t look at me that way. I don’t know a damn thing about marriage—and I plan to keep it that way.”

“Then why all the questions?”

“Curious, that’s all.”

“Your curiosity could cost her her job. I heard about you kissing her over at the school.”

Chase stood. “Well, that’s between me and her.”

“And between you and me. I have to tell you I’ll shoot you with your own Winchester if you break her heart. She’s a schoolteacher, not some woman in a cathouse.”

It was the second time he’d been warned off Cara, and it didn’t sound any better coming from Sophie than it had from the sheriff. “I do know the difference, Sophie,” he replied tightly.

“I’m not trying to make you mad, Chase Jefferson,” she scolded. “But you remember that she is as inexperienced as she looks.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He walked toward the door. As he reached for the knob, he looked back. “Any more advice?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I was in the man-and-woman business for a long time, and one of the things I learned is this—for every man in this
world, there is a woman somewhere who will make him sell his soul for just one of her smiles. Be careful where your curiosity takes you.”

He nodded and left.

In her room, Cara undressed and slipped into her nightgown. As she walked past the mirror, she caught a glimpse of herself. She touched her mouth hesitantly. The memory of Chase’s kiss still burned, and she relived the trembling wonder of it all. She’d never been called beautiful before. She been called stubborn, opinionated, and, by a few people, unladylike, for her penchant for playing baseball with the children every Friday, but beautiful? She stared at her reflection. The glass confirmed what she already knew; her features would not stop a clock, but they didn’t qualify her as a great beauty, either. She shook herself free. Then, musing that the man probably called every woman he met beautiful, she picked up the hairbrush.

The light offered by the turned-down wick of the small lamp beside her bed barely pierced the soft shadows. Seated on the edge of the mattress, Cara brushed, then braided her hair. A soft knock on the door startled her. She slid off the bed and walked the short distance, pulling on her robe as she did. “Who’s there?” she called quietly.

“Chase.”

Cara went weak against the door. “Sergeant, go away, please. Unless the house is on fire, it will have to wait until morning.”

“It can’t,” he called back.

Oh, dear heaven, Cara thought. What could he possibly want at this late hour? Surely, he didn’t think the kisses they shared were an invitation for a midnight tryst in her bedroom? “Go away.”

“Cara, if you don’t hurry up, somebody’s bound to see me out here.”

Cara hesitated. Did she dare let him in?

“Either open up,” he said, “or everybody’s going to know the schoolteacher’s having a midnight visitor.”

She thought about the other boarders and the children sleeping upstairs in the attic room while their parents were at Virginia’s. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I’ll pound on this door so hard, they’ll hear it in Houston.”

Cara quickly undid the bolt, but only opened the door wide enough to see out, hiding behind it. “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

Looking at him, Cara could think only about his kisses—and someone seeing him in the hallway.

“Well?” he prompted. “The longer I stand out here, the better the chances I’ll be seen. Please, Cara, this will only take a minute.”

He was right about the percentages, of course, Cara realized. She stepped back and he slipped in.

It took Chase’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness. Once they did, he drank in the sight of her. Just looking at her made him hard as granite.

“What do you want?” she asked, already feeling drawn to his mustached lips.

“A truthful answer to your questions involves my seducing you, schoolmarm . . . and I’ve promised myself that won’t happen.”

Cara swallowed hard and pulled her robe more tightly about her.

“I really came to make a date to see your students. How about day after tomorrow?”

“That sounds fine.” She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth. Her hands itched to slide up the
muscles of his arms and to feel his touch in return. She turned away from temptation and moved across the small room, hoping it would help them both to keep from falling into each other’s arms.

Chase grinned, mentally applauding her perceptiveness. Yes, he wanted her. He wanted her very badly, especially after tasting her sweetness earlier. “Scared of succumbing to my talents, Cara?”

“Frankly, yes!”

Her answer pleased him. “Well, then, I’ll try to be good. Have you read all of these books?”

“Yes, I have.” She still felt the wild magic and was valiantly trying to set it aside.

The books were stacked and piled everywhere: on the two needlepoint chairs, on the shelves that took up one wall, beside and under the dresser and its companion table. She watched as he picked a book from one of the two-foot-high stacks atop the trunk at the foot of her bed. He glanced at the title, flipped through the pages a moment, then set it back before choosing another.

Cara wished she’d turned up the lamp. She’d toyed with the idea upon his entrance but had chosen not to. She hadn’t wanted the action to be misconstrued as an invitation to prolong his stay.

Only now did she realize her mistake. She couldn’t handle the man in full light, and tonight proved she couldn’t handle him in the dark. How could she have ever thought softly lit shadows would offer her any better control? At that moment, he looked up from the book in his hand and his gaze was so bold her heart seemed to lodge in her throat. “How much longer do you plan on staying?” Her voice came out in a nervous croak instead of the nonchalant tone she intended.

“Long enough to kiss you again.”

The frankly spoken statement, coupled with the husky, bold tone, put a trembling in Cara’s knees and a shuddering in her soul. “I think you should—should go,” she stammered.

The wavering light of the lamp directly behind her turned her thin nightgown and robe nearly transparent. The peaked curves and inviting hollows of the bare body beneath were displayed in a startling silhouette that Chase found highly arousing. His eyes were taunted by the dark, shadowy circles of her nipples, and the equally tempting dark patch above her slightly parted thighs. Her positioning was an age-old female trick, but he felt certain Cara did not know. Her innocence made the tableau that much more erotic.

“I can’t go anywhere as long as you’re standing in front of that lamp. . . .”

It took Cara a moment to grasp his meaning, but his vivid look, accompanied by the thoroughly male smile playing beneath his mustache, set off an inner warning that caused her to glance down at herself.

The sight widened her eyes. Scandalized, she jumped away from the light like a surprised jack-rabbit.

“Much better.”

Cara did not think it better at all! Her breathing could barely keep pace with her furiously pounding heart. “Sergeant, please leave.” He had her shimmering like heat on the horizon.

He set the book down and walked to the door. Cara sighed with relief. In truth, however, her feelings were divided. A part of her wanted his kiss, wanted him to stay, to talk. She realized she wanted to know this man—could know that man, if she let herself go. But he would be riding away
soon and she would probably never see him again. All the more reason to hold back.

“Good night,
mariposa.
”

The unexpected and huskily spoken word rolled over Cara with a trembling warmth. She had no idea what it meant, but she was determined not to succumb. “That a standard good night for the women who let you into their bedrooms at night?”

“No, but it will be for you, sassy woman. Do you know what
mariposa
means?”

“No.”

“It’s Spanish for butterfly. That’s how your lips feel when I kiss you. Soft, fluttering butterfly wings.”

A second later he was gone.

It took Cara much longer to recover, and even longer to get to sleep.

T
welve-year-old Issac Brock, the Goliath of the Free Public School of Henry Adams, and bane of those smaller than he, chose eight-year-old Frankie Cooper as his victim of the day. The saber Frankie had worn the night before in his role as buffalo soldier mysteriously had disappeared after the performance. Frankie, proud of the saber he’d cut and sanded himself, had been devastated by the loss. He’d lain awake most of the night up in Sophie’s attic room worrying over its fate.

This morning, as the children were filing into the schoolroom, Issac Brock slyly let on where the saber might be found. Frankie and his best friend, Willie Franklin, ran out of the school ignoring Cara’s repeated calls to return. When she asked the other students if they knew what the boys were up to, no one offered an explanation.

Twenty minutes later, Cara, reciting the lesson, looked up to see Frankie and Willie reenter the room. Their faces were the angriest eight-year-old faces she’d ever seen. Their fists were balled tightly at their sides. Frankie had tears in his eyes. In moments it became apparent the two friends where advancing on Issac Brock. Upon reaching his target, Frankie attacked like an enraged terrier. The startled Issac yelled and tried to shake free of
the punching, kicking, and crying dervish Frankie had become. Willie jumped on him, too, adding more weight to the fight. Issac, pummeled high and low, began spinning in an effort to break free. He probably would have succeeded had not Frankie’s nine-year-old sister, Faye June, launched herself across the room to aid her baby brother. All hell broke loose then. Child after child, threw himself into the fray—on the side of Frankie and Faye June. Issac had played nasty pranks on nearly every child in the school over the past two years, and Cara knew he deserved what he was getting, but she was the teacher and had to act as peacemaker.

She waded into the tornado that had spilled out of the small class and into the dust in front of the school. She pulled off a child here, grabbed one around the waist there, and peeled away the top layers. She sifted through the middle layer. Some pretty serious fighting was going on at the eye of the storm, and Cara caught a small fist in the eye. She instantly curled up, hand to her tearing eye. When the stars finally ceased whirling in her head, she shouted, “All right, stop this
now!
”

The children had heard her use what they called “The Voice” only a few times during the two years she’d been their teacher, but they recognized it, and every one of them froze. She peered through the watery eye and saw that they were now lined up and waiting, all thirty-five of them. She heard a deep male chuckle, and turned slowly. A mounted Chase Jefferson and a few of his men were watching from the street. Her glare dared him to laugh again, and he quickly composed himself.

“Do you need some help, Miss Henson?”

She ignored him. She also ignored the other
townspeople who’d stopped running errands to watch. But she didn’t ignore the children who looked as if they wished she would. “Now,” she said softly, “Frankie Cooper, you may begin.”

He told her about his saber.

“Where’s the saber?” she asked crisply.

Willie Franklin, holding a hand to his bleeding lip, went over to the grass next to the school’s outer wall and brought it to her. She took the hilt but wanted to drop it when she noticed the saber’s filthy condition.

“He threw it in the church privy!” Frankie Cooper screamed, enraged all over again. He lunged at Issac. Cara grabbed him by the shirt and glared at Issac.

To Willie she said, “Go around to the pump and put some water on your lip.” She sent one of the children who hadn’t been involved in the brawl to get some rags to help clean up Willie and the others with cuts and scrapes. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of Chase’s men dismount, grab a small bag from his saddle, and head around to the back of school. She assumed he’d gone to help, and she gave thanks for somebody who seemed to have a little sense.

She returned her attention to the slime-covered saber. It had a note tied to it with a gnarled piece of wire. Cara read: “I got yu good Franke Koopr an if yu tel mis hisen or enybody els yu r a babe.”

“Issac did you write this?” She had no doubts he had. His spelling had always been . . . distinctive.

“Yeah.”

“Detention for two weeks.”

“Aw, it was just a joke!”

“Frankie Cooper, Faye June, one week. The rest
of you, detention, one day. Now, everybody inside!”

Chase dismounted and was standing a little ways off, legs slightly spread, arms resting behind him. An army stance, Cara supposed. She hadn’t forgotten his snickers. “Yes, Sergeant?”

“Sorry I laughed. Let me buy you a steak.”

“No, thank you. We’ll be eating with the ladies of the A.M.E. Church tonight, or didn’t Sophie tell you?”

“Not to eat, schoolmarm. For your eye.”

In full view of everybody on the street, he tilted up her chin and peered at her hurt eye. It was nearly shut. “It’s going to be a beauty.”

She backed away from his hand. “I’ll see if Sophie has a steak.”

“You should probably go lie down.”

“Have you ever been told to lie down because of a black eye?”

“No.”

“Then why are you suggesting I should?”

“What are you so mad about all of a sudden?”

“I’m not a hothouse plant, Chase Jefferson, and I do not like being laughed at.”

“I did apologize, remember?” Chase found it difficult to keep his mustache from giving away his mirth. If she could only have seen herself wading through the children. He would never laugh at the sight of her being hit deliberately by anyone, even a child. But seeing the battling children tumble out of the door, then watching her emerge from the school like an angry mother hen to pull children off the pile, yelling the whole time, had been too comic. She’d looked so startled by the accidental blow that he’d chuckled in spit of himself. Thinking about it now brought another round of chuckles—a very unwise slip, judging by the angry
expression on Cara’s face. She strode away, and he was hard-pressed to stifle his laughter.