Lacy Williams (3 page)

“These are some of my students. Cecilia and Susie Caldwell. And...I’m sorry. I don’t remember your little sister’s name.”

“Velma,” the middle girl answered in a whisper. “Miss Hansen, we was just watching the picnic.”

“We
were
just watching the picnic,” Sarah corrected softly, absently.

The older girl, Cecilia, glanced back toward the blankets and people past the wagons. Her dark-eyed gaze had a wistful quality.

“Where is your father?” Sarah asked.

“Stepfather,” Cecilia answered belligerently, jiggling the baby when it gurgled. “He’s at home. But he said we could come and so we walked.”

“All right. Well, Mr. White seems to think you shouldn’t be playing here in the wagons, not if it’s scaring the horses.”

Now the younger girl glanced longingly at the picnicking people. Oscar had a sudden insight—they were hungry.

“We’ve got plenty of food from that basket Miss Hansen made. Why don’t you girls join us and then you can go off and play with your friends?”

The two dirt-smudged faces lit up, but both glanced up questioningly at their teacher. The woman herself stared at Oscar with a drawn brow, again as if she didn’t know who he was.

“Can we really eat with you, Miss Hansen?” the younger girl asked softly.

“Yes.” Sarah seemed to shake herself from a daze, then led the girls back to their picnic blanket. Once, she glanced back questioningly at Oscar in the rear.

With the girls added to their party, Oscar was edged almost completely off the blanket. Sarah fixed the food so that the girls could use what had been serving platters for their meals, then accepted the baby from Cecilia, holding it on her knee.

As the girls ignored the utensils and ate hungrily with their fingers, smacking their lips and with crumbs flying, Oscar had a flashback to what Penny’s first meal with his family must’ve been like. The thought was bittersweet. He missed his adoptive ma, too.

“Miss Hansen,
you
cooked this food?”

An intriguing blush bled into Sarah’s cheeks, piquing his curiosity. She ducked her head and those infernal flowers fell into her face again. “I had help,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” He directed his question toward the older girl, who’d spoken in the first place. He guessed her to be about the same age as his sister Breanna. Ten or eleven.

“Um...just that everyone knows Miss Hansen doesn’t—”

“She cain’t cook,” the younger girl, whom he guessed to be about eight, broke in around a mouthful of half-chewed food. “Some of the boys in our class say that’s why she cain’t get a man to marry her.”

Oscar stifled the smile that wanted to escape. A glance at Sarah revealed her face was downturned almost into her lap, but he could still see the bright-red tip of her nose from under that hideous hat.

The baby reached up with one soggy hand and tried to grab the frilly fake flowers hanging from Sarah’s bonnet, but she grasped the baby’s hand and began to play pat-a-cake.

She was gentler with the infant than he expected. From what little he remembered of her back in Bear Creek, she hadn’t been particularly patient with her younger sisters. And she certainly hadn’t been a picture of kindness since he’d arrive in Lost Hollow. Not that he’d deserved it after he’d teased her. But watching her with the infant...something gentle, almost motherly had come out, and she was smiling a real smile.

Maybe she really did have a heart.

The babe reached for her hat again.

“Miss Hansen, did you wear that hat to match your basket?” Susie asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” Sarah answered absently. “Your sister seems to like it. What about you?”

The young girl wrinkled her nose.

Oscar finally did what he’d wanted to do since he’d sat down across from her. He reached out and tweaked the flimsy flowers, sending them into a quiver. “It’s been driving me crazy all afternoon. Those flowers are awful.” He chuckled when the girls dissolved into peals of laughter.

Sarah reached up with one hand and deftly took out a pin. The ugly flowers tumbled to the blanket and Sarah glared up at him, making him chuckle even more. Her eyes flashed fire. If she had been one of his brothers, he would’ve expected retribution in the form of a prank, just when he wasn’t expecting it.

“At least I’ve a bit of style. Your poor hat looks as if it’s been stomped by a bull even more than you have.”

He took off the item in question and examined it as if he’d never seen it before. The brown felt was dented in some places, faded and sweat-stained. It was his favorite hat, and he’d had it for years. He shrugged, and plopped it on Cecilia’s head. The girl giggled.

“Here. I’ve finished. Let me hold the baby while you clean your plate.” He didn’t wait for Sarah to answer, just reached out and plucked the baby from her arms.

Maybe this lunch wasn’t a total loss. With the girls surrounding him and Sarah and forming a buffer, he almost felt right at home.

* * *

Sarah couldn’t decide whether to get up and leave—she’d have to hide in the nearby church until the Allen family was ready to leave, as she’d ridden with them in their wagon—or to stay and receive more of Oscar White’s teasing. The man obviously had no solemnity in his personality.

But the Caldwell girls had certainly fallen for his charm, even the baby. She billed and cooed at him, waving her hands and squealing with delight when he made faces at her. Sarah knew the girls weren’t fully accepted by the other children or families, due to their heritage. Their birth father, now deceased, had been an Indian, and there was some prejudice in town against them. But Mr. White seemed to neither notice their darker coloring, or to care.

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that he had a natural manner with children, not when he’d grown up as part of such a large family. And he’d charmed Sally, at least for a while. If he weren’t so irresponsible, perhaps Sarah would find him charming, as well.

When she’d noticed the horses start to get restless, her stomach had clutched. And while he’d headed right for the trouble, she’d wanted to run in the other direction. It had only turned out to be her students, but still...what if it had been someone up to no good? What if the horses had bolted and Oscar had run right into the situation?

He was reckless at heart, not someone she should be attracted to.

But that didn’t stop her pulse from reacting to his nearness.

She just needed to control her reaction to him. She corralled a classroom full of children each day. Surely she could find a way to ignore her feelings and continue working on a plan to find a husband who would be good for her.

Chapter Three

“M
iss Sarah?”

On Wednesday morning, several days after the calamitous picnic, Sarah jerked her gaze up from where she’d been unconsciously staring at her desk. “Yes, Amelia?”

“I’m done with my assignment,” the girl said shyly, chin tucked down into her chest. How long had she stood quietly beside Sarah’s desk at the front of the classroom, waiting to be acknowledged?

“All right. I’ll come to your desk and review it.”

A glance across the twelve desks in the classroom revealed all heads bent over their work, save one. Miles, a frequent daydreamer, stared out the one dingy window. Sarah really needed to clean it.

She needed to get her muddled thoughts straightened out. Ever since the fiasco at the picnic, when no one save the horseman had bid on her basket, she’d been considering the need to expand her horizons, so to speak. If none of the men—at least the men she was interested in—in Lost Hollow wanted to court her, maybe she would have to look elsewhere.

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking of herself and her plans. She had students to teach.

She was crossing the room, striding between the desks as she spoke, when she heard a peep from the Caldwell girls’ cloth-covered lunch basket, tucked beneath their seats.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone had brought a kitten or a bullfrog or a lizard to school, but it always caused a major distraction, and Sarah was surprised that these two sisters would do something like that. Susie and Cecilia were usually quiet and attentive, almost active in
not
seeking attention.

When she moved to the small space behind their desks, she noticed the large reed basket wasn’t the normal pail in which they usually carried their lunch. She braced herself for what she might find and placed one hand on each girl’s shoulder.

“Girls, do you have something other than your lunch in that basket?”

Susie looked up at her with terrified eyes, but Cecilia, the older, showed defiance with her tilted chin. “No, Miss Sarah.”

A cry rang out. A baby’s cry.

Beneath her hand, Sarah felt it as Susie sucked in a breath. Sarah quickly knelt and drew back the cloth covering the basket, and a startled little blue-eyed gaze met hers, much like she imagined Moses had looked when the Egyptian princess had found him among the rushes.

“Girls,” she whispered. “I think you’d better come up to the front of the room and talk to me.”

Cecilia scooped up the basket and followed her sister to the front of the room, Sarah trailing. Whispers from the other students crossed the room, and Sarah tried to combat them with a stern glance and a reminder to focus on their tasks.

Behind her desk, she sat in the chair while the two girls stood at the corner of her desk. Cecilia had taken the baby from the basket and settled her on her hip. Baby Velma clung to the shoulder of Cecilia’s dress and stared at Sarah with a wide-eyed gaze the same as her older sisters.

“Susie. Cecilia. What is the meaning of this? You know we can’t have a baby in the classroom.”

“Miss Sarah...” Susie whispered, chin now bowed to her chest. “Are we...are we in trouble?”

Tears trembled on her bottom lashes, and Sarah’s heart constricted for the girl. But as the teacher, she had no room to offer comfort, not until she got to the bottom of this situation.

“Can you tell me why you brought Velma with you this morning? Does your father know you have her here?”

Susie glanced at her sister. Cecilia stood with chin still jutted out, belligerent eyes on Sarah. The baby stuck her thumb in her mouth.

“Stepfather,” Cecilia reminded her coldly. “He knows we got her.”

When Susie’s cheeks reddened, Sarah had to wonder if the older girl spoke the truth. She waited, letting the silence stretch, a technique that her own mother had used on Sarah and her two sisters successfully.

Finally, Susie relented, glancing tearfully at her sister. “F-Father can’t keep Velma today.”

Cecilia hissed at her sister, glaring balefully at Sarah for good measure.

“Girls, I just want to help,” Sarah said. “Is your father—your stepfather at home?” She was disappointed that the girls had tried to keep having a baby in their basket a secret, instead of coming to her. Didn’t she inspire trust from her students?

Susie nodded, again with a glance at her sister.

“But he can’t watch your sister? Is he ill?”

“Not—not really.”

Sarah touched the girl’s arm, trying to get more from Susie, who seemed willing to talk. “What does that mean? Is he ill, or isn’t he?”

“He’s drunk, all right?” Cecilia’s voice rang out loudly, the opposite of Susie’s whispers. “Is that what you wanna know? He can’t watch Velma because he might forget to feed her all day or let the fire die and it’s plenty cold today.”

Titters and whispers spread over the classroom again and Sarah had to silence them with a rap of her ruler on her desk. “Children, please.”

This time, she laid a hand on both girls’ shoulders again. “Velma can stay with you today. She seems like a very good baby.”

Of course, if she got hungry or had an upset tummy, that could change in an instant, but what could Sarah do? It
was
cold outside today. The girls would be better off in the classroom than at home, if their stepfather was that bad. And Sarah couldn’t leave a classroom of children to attend the girls at home.

“Is there no one else that can help you?” Sarah asked softly, compassion tightening her throat. She knew what it was like to have a father you couldn’t count on. Knew the shame, the fear that perhaps the next meal wouldn’t come. “What about relatives? Do you have any aunts or uncles? Or a grandmother, perhaps?”

Cecilia stared at her with glittering eyes—tears that refused to fall? Sarah couldn’t tell, but the girl only kept her jaw clenched and shook her head.

“No, Miss Sarah,” whispered Susie. “It’s just us.”

Sarah remembered how the girls had been on the outskirts of the basket auction, none of the other families inviting them to share the noon meal. She’d even seen some of the women in town shepherd their children the other direction on occasion. Did the entire town view them as outcasts due to the slightly darker color of their skin? It was a question for another time.

“Well, we’ll figure out a solution later, girls. For now why don’t you let Miss Velma sit with me and return to your lessons? Try to concentrate.”

Sarah spent the rest of the day teaching with a baby on her hip. She had to admit that Velma had to be the most relaxed child she’d ever met, content to be held and watch the other children. The baby took a long nap in her basket after lunch, and Cecilia fed her mashed vegetables and some goats’ milk late in the afternoon, unobtrusively as possible in the back corner of the classroom.

At the end of the day, Sarah got caught up with another student and the Caldwell girls managed to slip from the classroom before she could speak to them further. Disappointed, she knew she would have to talk to Mr. Allen. Hopefully the school board could find a way to help the girls.

But what if the town held the girls’ heritage against them?

Later that evening, before supper, she still couldn’t forget the girls’ ashen faces and their humiliation as they’d spent the afternoon struggling with their lessons. It was a reminder of how her own home life had been after her father’s accident. That one incident had changed the lives of her entire family, and not in a good way.

Sarah sat at the small desk wedged between the bed she shared with the Allens’ daughter and the wall. Out the room’s only window, she had a view of the corral. As the sun made its descent, Oscar worked with Mr. Allen’s prized horse.

She’d seen him there almost every day since he’d come. Tonight he had one long line attached to the animal’s bridle and what looked like a whip in his other hand. The horse was moving in slow circles around the fenced area.

She hadn’t meant to watch him, but every evening her eyes strayed to the corral. He seemed overly patient with the horse. It surprised her. She’d expected something more dangerous, like him throwing a saddle on the animal the first day and riding it until the bucking and snorting stopped. But so far he hadn’t seemed to lay a hand on the horse.

Now he released the horse and moved slowly into the barn. Sarah tried to shake off her distraction and focus on the letter she was writing to her sister, but she began thinking about the disastrous picnic again. She’d been putting off taking further action to finding a husband, but if she wanted to get married, she needed to move forward.

And she had an idea how. She sifted through the papers on her desk. She’d bought a newspaper in town before the basket auction...where was it?

She sank into her seat as realization dawned. She’d left it in the wagon. In the barn.

She waited as long as she could, hoping the horseman had gone. It was near to suppertime when she slipped out of the house and headed for the barn.

She peered into the dim interior of the barn, first looking for any animals that might be outside their stalls or without a rope. Then, she glanced around for Oscar White. He was nowhere to be seen, either.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she slipped into the barn, wrinkling her nose against the smell of animals.

She moved quickly to the unhitched wagon, hiking up her skirts to climb in the back. She searched through the box for the newspaper she must’ve left behind.

“Where is it, where is it?” she muttered, looking through the discarded flour sacks and a couple of empty crates.

“Looking for something?” a familiar drawl called out. She whirled, nearly losing her balance, and was forced to grasp the side of the wagon box to steady herself.

A lazy hand waved the folded newsprint above one of the stall walls. That was all of him in sight. The hand disappeared.

“I wondered why the page had been opened to the marriage ads.”

Face flaming, Sarah hopped from the wagon bed, intent on getting her paper, even at the cost of her humiliation.

“Let’s see what we think, girl.”

Who was he talking to?

“‘Bachelor seeks wife who can cook and clean house.’ Hmm. Sounds like that one wants more of a housekeeper than a wife.”

She peered around the edge of the stall; it was blocked by two boards, but not a full door. Inside, Oscar sat on a round barrel in one corner, the paper propped on one bent knee and slicing an apple. The horse that had almost run her down that first day stood against the opposite wall, its head not far from the opening. As she watched, Oscar sliced a piece of apple and offered it to the horse, which ignored him completely. He shrugged and crunched into the piece of fruit.

Sarah ducked behind the stall proper in case it decided it wanted out. Two flimsy boards weren’t likely to hold a beast like that inside.

“May I please have my newspaper?”

“What about this one? ‘Widower with six children seeks helpmate.’ Hmm. Six children is a lot. I should know. Perhaps that one isn’t ‘the one,’ either.”

“Mr. White.” She put all the authority she’d ever used in the classroom into her voice while extending a trembling hand into the open stall door.

“You really can’t find anyone in Lost Hollow?”

Instead of the paper, something small and moist plopped into her palm. A slice of apple. Had his childhood teachers had as much trouble with the man as she did now?

“Mr. White.” She kept her hand outstretched, hoping against hope that he would replace the apple with her paper and leave her be.

“There’s no one you like around here? I’ve heard some talk in the bunkhouse...there are a coupla cowpokes who’d come around if you’d give ’em a look.”

Affronted, she whirled, temporarily forgetting her fear of the horse inside the stall. The animal bobbed its head but otherwise didn’t move.

“My private life is no business of yours,
Mr. White,
but I’m not interested in a cowboy.” She stretched her hand out, daring to reach into the stall, with the chunk of apple still in her palm. “May I have my paper, please?”

He considered her, eyes appraising. “Why not?”

She sucked in a breath of air, the last of her patience gone. She opened her mouth to order him to give her the paper, when the horse took one step forward and snuffled the apple right out of the palm of her hand, the tiny hairs on its nose tickling her palm.

Sarah froze, ready to bolt and leave the paper behind, but Oscar said, “Wait!” in a low, urgent voice.

He quickly sliced off another piece of apple and extended it to Sarah, moving slowly and steadily. “Will you try to feed her again?”

Sarah nearly choked on her fear. “I can’t.”

“Please,” he breathed. “I’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour and she’s ignored me the entire time. And she just ate out of your hand.”

“What if—what if she charges at me? This panel won’t hold her back.”

“She won’t. She’s calm and as long as you don’t shriek or do something to frighten her, she’s going to stay that way.”

Hand shaking, Sarah felt him press an apple piece into it. As he settled back onto his barrel in the corner, the horse again nibbled the fruit from her hand.

Fear still racking her entire body, she turned and fled.

“Sarah, wait!” She heard a plank slide back and his footsteps behind her. “Sarah—”

The barn door flew open in front of her, sending the last of the evening sunlight spilling onto the dirt floor. She couldn’t catch her breath. Trembled all over.

“Sarah!” came an unwelcome bellow.

* * *

Oscar watched as his boss, Paul Allen, filled the barn doorway. He came alongside Sarah as she hesitated, probably gauging the man’s anger by his flushed face.

Oscar could see her hands still shaking. He hadn’t meant to frighten her so badly, but he’d been ecstatic when the mare had responded to her.

“What’s this that Junior tells me about some girls bringing a baby in the classroom today?” Allen demanded.

Oscar knew the man was a hard boss from the tales the cowboys told, but he couldn’t believe he’d approached and spoken to a woman that way. Oscar’s hackles rose and he took a step nearer to Sarah, coming even with her elbow.