Oklahoma kiss (2 page)

      
Although angry, Blair started to turn away, then determination swept over her. She could not allow the old battle-axe's statements to go unchallenged. Whirling about abruptly, she added, "Apparently you have a faulty memory though, because you are mistaken about the other things you said. Warren never begged you to accept me as a student in your school. He isn't the sort of man to ever do anything as demeaning as that. Undoubtedly, you must have been extremely persuasive to convince him to enroll me in the Preparatory when you came to our hotel suite that day. So, if there was any begging, you must have done it!"

      
"That is an outright lie!" the headmistress protested indignantly, glancing nervously at Darlene and Judith to see their reaction.

      
"No, it isn't a lie and you know it! I sensed you never liked me, so I often wondered why you were so anxious to have me for a student. Later, whenever you conveniently found an excuse to call me to your office or to introduce me to a prospective student's parents or guardian, my curiosity became piqued even further. I began asking questions. It was amazing what I learned," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Tame Indians are thought of as pets; no different from a dog or a cat. In fact, elite society women have read so much exaggerated nonsense about the savage heathens, they practically clawed each other's eyes out to procure an invitation to a party given in honor of a delegation of chiefs who were visiting here in this area. That happened about a month before Warren and I arrived. I imagine your having an Indian registered at the Preparatory has been a feather in your social cap!" She tossed her head haughtily. "If I have behaved uncivilized through the years, that particular fault must have come from my white ancestors instead of my Cherokee blood, because I have never seen an Indian who would use someone the way you have used me to improve his or her social status!"

      
Blair clenched her hands into tight fists. "I'd like to tell you where to take your remarks about keys, locks, and dungeons, and me being a filthy Indian— but I am too much of a lady. And I believe you have another item wrong.
I refuse to spend another night under this roof!
The train will not run fast enough to please me. And when I reach home, I pray to God that I never meet anyone like you again!"

      
Blair closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath.
Home
. How often had she mouthed that word with heartsick longing over the past four years? Just the silent sound of that word echoing
      
through her mind comforted her. The brief time she had not been homesick was when she thought Albert had loved her. But that had turned to disaster. Perhaps now, she would be able to stay where she belonged. But until she could explain to Warren her version of what had happened, that might be easier said than done.

      
Squirming uneasily, the homely young man wiped sweaty palms on his trouser legs then flicked the reins, gently urging the horses onward. Perspiration dotted Bobby's brow and rivers of sweat had wormed down the ridge of his backbone until his shirt clung to his back. It was not the weather that made him so uncomfortable, it was the presence of the young woman sitting beside him. Blair Townsend unnerved him something fierce, but it was hard to recall when she didn't affect him.

      
He supposed he fell in love with her the summer he was seven and she was ten, and everybody in the area was attending the church's annual picnic. Several of the older boys had dared him to scare Blair with a garter snake they had found while playing chase through the woods. He had jumped at the chance to show the older boys how brave he was. He had crept up behind her and tried to put it down the back of her dress. Instead of screaming and running for her life the way any normal girl should have done, she whirled about, looked him straight in the eye, laughed, took the snake away from him and chased him with it. Even though the boys laughed and poked fun at him about it, secretly he admired her bravery and harbored no ill feelings. Even as the years passed, whenever the older boys teased him — which was quite often —she always came to his defense, and he admired her for it.

      
And now, having her sit beside him after so long a
      
time, looking so pretty and smelling so good —sort of like flowers or the bar of fancy perfumed soap he'd bought once for his ma—was enough to make him feel like a schoolboy again. And shucks, it had been years since he'd been in school. He was a man now, sixteen and full-grown—just had a tad bit more filling out to do. And regardless of what his pa said about his whiskers just being peach fuzz and that all he needed to do was put cream on his face and let the cat lick it off, he really did have to shave twice a week now.

      
However, ever since Blair had stepped off the train at Doughtery, and he had loaded her trunks onto the wagon, it had nagged at him that she gave no signs of recognition. Not only that, she had not spoken a word for the two hours they had been on the road to the Bar 4, her brothers' sprawling ranch that ran north of the foothills of the Arbuckle mountains all the way to the Canadian River.

      
Memories began flitting through his mind as he wondered if she had become high-flutin' while attending that fancy eastern finishing school. Then he quickly discarded that notion. Blair wasn't that sort of a person, not the way she always took up for him. Either she didn't recognize him, or else she didn't remember him. But boy-howdy did he remember her! The fact was, no one could ever forget Blair Townsend.

      
She was wilder than a Comanche Injun back then. Of course, she was an Injun—half-blood Cherokee, and supposedly they were civilized. But there was nothing civilized about her—leastwise not female civilized. She could ride better, run faster, jump higher, and spit farther than any of his friends or the boys her own age. And that girl was always into mischief. If only she hadn't stampeded Mr. Harper's cattle, maybe her brothers wouldn't have sent her away to that school back east. After that happened, even as tolerant as his ma was toward Blair's shenanigans, she said something had to be done. His ma did say though, it wasn't Blair's fault. The girl couldn't help it that her parents died when she was just a baby and she was raised by four brothers, a doting grandpa, and a housekeeper she could wrap around her little finger. But then that was his mother's nature, always looking for the best in folks. But his pa was different, he didn't like the Townsends a bit.

      
Bobby suspected if the truth was known, what rankled his pa the most was the fact that Blair and her brothers were breeds—except for Warren. His pa claimed it wasn't natural for Injuns to be more prosperous than white folks, that they weren't nothin' but red-niggers and should stay in their place. Bobby was not one to argue with his father, but from what he learned the short time he went to school, the Injuns were driven from their lands in the east and in the south and were forced to resettle here in the Nation. It was raw land then and it probably wasn't easy to get by. It seemed to him, if some of them prospered, it was by the sweat of their brow and they fairly well made their own place.

      
Bobby shook his head, clearly annoyed with himself.
Just goes to show that I sure ain't thinkin' straight, worry in' about such foolishness when I'm sittin' right next to the girl I've always dreamed about. She was pretty before, but now she's downright beautiful! Don't think I've ever seen a woman with such black hair—black as a raven. And her eyes, the color sure ain't Injun. They're so green, they remind me of new spring grass. Maybe I'm bein' a mite foolish havin' notions about her this way, but I am a man now and it's high time I started thinkin' about gettin' me a woman. 'Sides that, the white girls look down their noses at me.

      
A shadow of anxiety crossed Bobby's face when he realized they were less than an hour's drive from the Bar 4. If he didn't say something to her soon, he would miss his chance.

      
It took a few minutes to build his courage. Finally, tilting his broad-brimmed hat back until it perched precariously on the back of his head, he cleared his throat and breathed a silent prayer that his voice wouldn't squeak as it usually did when he was nervous. "I'll say one thing, Blair, you sure look different than when you left these parts —how long have you been gone now, four years?" It was no guess how long she had been gone, he knew to the exact minute and day when she left.

      
The wagon leaned slightly when they started across the shallow crossing of Angel Creek. That, and the young man's grating voice jarred Blair from her troubled thoughts. Turning her head toward him, and now that he no longer had that oversized hat crammed down on his head, recognition finally gleamed in her eyes. "Bobby? Little Bobby Baker?"

      
"Little!" Bobby's huge Adam's apple bobbed in his throat, his face turned the same color as his hair and freckles, and his lips tightened in a grim line. He thought he looked so grown up. Maybe he shouldn't have shaved this morning.

      
Blair realized she had hurt his feelings, although it had been unintentional. From what she remembered, he'd certainly had enough of that as a child. Not only was he slightly simple-minded, too many people judged him to be like his father. Riley Baker was white trash; a shiftless, loud-mouthed, bigoted man who hated Indians. Why he preferred to live here in the Indian Nation she would never know, nor why the Indian Council allowed him to live here, unless it had something to do with his expertise at making corn whiskey.

      
She attempted to smooth over her slip of the tongue. Fluttering her thick lashes, her lips split into a coquettish smile. "Forgive me for not recognizing you and for referring to you as ‘little.' Why, you have grown so tall, everyone must call you ‘Big Bobby.’ " She fluttered her lashes again and, well remembering Miss Pettibone's many lectures on how to discreetly flatter men, she murmured in a husky voice, "Or, does everyone call you Robert now?"

      
Grinning broadly, he squared his shoulders and replied, his voice breaking with excitement, "No, but I think it's high time they started to."

      
Blair wondered why she had not immediately recognized him. After all, people seldom forgot a nemesis in their life and no one could dispute the fact he had been hers. The way he had followed her around like a lovesick puppy had made her miserable. Suddenly recalling how everyone used to tease and torment her about him, she cringed, hoping it would not start all over again now that she was home.

      
She studied him with growing consternation. He still displayed the same slacked-chin expression and awe-struck gleam in his eyes that she had loathed. Quickly averting her face so he could not see her expression, dismay slipped over her like a shroud. She wanted to bite her tongue for brazenly flirting with him, but it had been an automatic reaction — one no doubt that she would soon regret.

      
Be polite, Blair, she mentally chided herself. This serves you right for being so open and friendly. Perhaps one of these days you will learn your lesson. Maybe the next time you will think of the consequences before fluttering your eyelashes and smiling coyly at a man. Ugly memories of Albert flashed through her mind.

      
Knowing he had to sweet-talk her before he could ask to come calling, Bobby quickly decided to lead up to it gradually. What better way than by discussing the weather and the changes that were taking place. "We sure had a harsh winter this past year."

      
"Yes, I know."

      
"Really?" He glanced at her in surprise. "How did you know? You've been back east."

      
"Coy wrote to me regularly," she answered coolly, though still maintaining her resolve to be polite.

      
"Coy . . . ?" Bobby questioned slowly as though trying to recall whom she was referring to, although he knew each of her brothers by name and sight. "He's your youngest brother, ain't he?"

      
"Yes."

      
He wiped his sweaty palms again and took a deep breath. "Spring seems to have taken a-hold right nicely."

      
"Yes, so it appears."

      
Bobby flicked the reins while he chewed relentlessly on his bottom lip. This courting business was a lot harder than he had imagined. "Look yonder at that peach orchard. Those blooms sure are pretty. Hope it doesn't come a late freeze, it would kill 'em for sure."

      
"That's true."

      
The silence hung heavily between them. He drew another anxious breath. "Well, what do you think about the changes in these parts? Doughtery sure has grown, hasn't it? It is a real town now that the railroad has come through!"

      
Thinking of all the stores and shops that had sprung up around the train depot whereas there had only been a general store and stage line when she left, Blair shrugged and muttered noncommittally, "I suppose it makes it more convenient." Then her brow dipped into a frown. In his last letter, Coy had mentioned that the Indian Council had been granting more land permits to the whites than usual, so Doughtery's growth came as no surprise. However, now that she thought about it, there seemed to be an unusual amount of activity at the depot and on the streets that morning — after all, it had been just past dawn when the train pulled in. If she had not been so concerned about Warren's reaction, maybe she would have overheard why so many people were milling about.

      
I’ll say it is convenient and it's my opinion that we owe it all to the railroad! Doughtery is still growing, too! Last time I counted there were twenty-three businesses in town. And from what I've been readin' in the newspaper, it's gonna get bigger and bigger."