Liz Ireland (10 page)

At least, he hoped that was the case.

Jake stared down the road at Cecilia and felt a pang of regret. Another time, in different circumstances, maybe he would have carried on an earnest flirtation with her, instead of the two-fisted brawl they were involved in. But then, it was hard to say. He’d been on the lam so long now it seemed years since he’d sparked a decent woman. And now, he reminded himself firmly as he went into the school to collect his things, was no different—except that now, instead of running, he was temporarily stuck.

Stuck living with a woman who hated his guts.

He should never have kissed her. He’d thought that would put an end to the attraction to Cecilia, like scratching an itch. But just the opposite was true. He felt himself doing just what he’d accused her of—seeking her out, watching her furtively, waiting to talk to her again. To kiss her again.

Well, the next time he felt that urge, he was just going to think of Otis Darby and Will Gunter instead of a pert little blonde. That should effectively quash his desires—as well as remind him that he was only in Annsboro killing time until the moment he could move in for the kill.

This time next week, he decided. One more week of cooling his heels, and then his time in Annsboro would be a memory.

C
ecilia was at the boiling point as she neared Dolly’s. Mighty oak, ha! If Pendergast was a mighty oak then she was...exhausted. This business of getting her old job back was taking more effort than she had expected.

“Cecilia!”

Cecilia looked up and saw Beasley almost upon her, his face crimson from bustling through town during the heat of the day. Somehow witnessing his exertion made her feel momentarily less tired herself. At any rate, maybe he would have good news for her—or bad news for Pendergast, which was the same thing.

“Still no sign of those books?” she asked him the moment the man came within earshot.

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. “No, I was just on the way to the schoolhouse to see if they had turned up.”

Good. Cecilia felt only the tiniest bit of remorse for her evil deed. “I was just talking to Mr. Pendergast, and do you know, he didn’t mention it? I’m afraid he doesn’t even seem worried about those beautiful new books.”

“Two years it took to raise that money.” Beasley shook his head mournfully.

She didn’t give a hang about the money. “You’d think a schoolteacher would be more concerned with supplies than that man is.”

Beasley’s mustache drooped with his lips into a frown, and he looped his thumbs in his suspenders. “What are you saying, Cecilia, that Pendergast isn’t up to snuff?”

“Well...” She let the word hang doubtfully in the sticky air.

“He came with the very best credentials,” Beasley said, standing behind his imported schoolteacher from the East.

Cecilia proceeded with caution. “But you know, Mr. Beasley, sometimes practical experience can be just as important.”

He squinted at the schoolhouse for a second, the trace of suspicion in his eyes more resembling that of a horse trader fearing he’s just been rooked than that of a town elder concerned for education. Finally, he shook his head, coming to a firm decision on the matter. “Bea likes him.”

Cecilia’s heart sank. “Bea?”

“Girl can’t stop talking about him. Which reminds me, I’ve got to tell Pendergast how much Bea just said she likes these new spelling days of his. Good afternoon, Cecilia.”

He smiled dismissively and bustled past her, leaving Cecilia heartsick in the street behind him. Wonderful—just wonderful! What was she paying Bea all that candy for if the girl was going to sabotage her efforts by praising the man to the heavens? She might have to rethink expending her efforts on that girl.

In fact, she might have to devise a whole new strategy, Cecilia decided with a sigh, continuing on toward the boardinghouse.

She couldn’t wait to get to her stinky little room and rest until dinner. Because Cecilia was truly abysmal in the kitchen, Dolly usually allowed her an hour of peace before the evening meal. Then she was called in to set the table, then came dinner, which she was forced to endure sitting across from Pendergast, and then came more work getting the kitchen cleaned. How had Lupe, a tiny little slip of a girl, managed? Now Cecilia understood what motives would drive a girl to marriage.

As that thought crossed her mind, she heard shouts coming from the boardinghouse. And the voices sounded like Buck’s and Dolly’s.

Cecilia picked up speed, fast, taking the porch stairs two at a time. Earlier she’d seen Buck coming up the street and had slipped out of the house to go meet Bea. Until just this moment, she’d forgotten all about him.

Buck came crashing out the front door, almost slamming into her. “Gosh darn it all, Cici!” he cried. “That friend of yours is the most nagging, mean-spirited woman I ever bumped up against!”

She didn’t like the sound of Buck’s having “bumped up against” Dolly, whatever that meant. “That wasn’t you yelling at her, was it?” Cecilia asked futilely. Unless Fanny Baker’s voice had dropped an octave since breakfast, who else could it have been?

“Every time I come over, she’s telling me I ought to dress better, or not eat with my hands so much, or talk different. How’s a man not supposed to cuss with a woman like that annoying him all the time?”

This was so unfair! All her life Cecilia had been regaled with stories of women making foolish marriages that they regretted for the rest of their lives. According to Clara, it happened all the time. But when she herself tried to arrange such a disaster, the Fates conspired against her.

“Buck, have you ever thought just once of being nice to Dolly? Maybe bringing her flowers?”

“Why should I? It’s you I come to see, but you always disappear and then I get trapped by that...woman.” He stepped closer. “I don’t know, Cici. I sometimes get the feeling you’re avoiding me.”

“Nonsense,” she lied guiltily. “But I just don’t see why you can’t wait in Dolly’s parlor and carry on a civil conversation. You can really be quite charming, you know.”

“I can?”

“Well...Dolly says so.” This, exasperatingly enough, was the truth. The pair couldn’t sit in a room ten minutes at a stretch without having a blowup, but usually an hour after every visit, Dolly would forgive Buck all his uncouthness and return to her prior state of unquestioning smittenness.

“Huh,” Buck said, obviously as confounded by Dolly’s admiration of him as Cecilia herself was. “Well, I’ll try to come by next week, then. Will you be here?”

“Of course,” Cecilia answered. She’d nip out and go to Beasley’s while Buck was there. She smiled and sent him on his way, then went inside to face Dolly, who, predictably, was in hysterics in the kitchen.

“I don’t know why I bother with that man!” Dolly cried between sobs. “Oh, Cecilia, you must think me a terrible fool!”

Cecilia waited for her to choke down a few more tears before commenting, “Really, Dolly, if you like Buck—”

“I don’t! I swear I don’t!”

“But if you do, don’t you think you should make an effort to be a little more accepting of who he is? You can’t expect Buck McDeere to turn into the man that Jubal Hudspeth was. At least, not overnight.”

Dolly blew her nose and thought this over. “No, I suppose not.”

“You just need to give Buck time.”

“Oh, it’s so easy for you to give advice! You’ve got men fawning all over you,” Dolly complained.

This was news to Cecilia. “Who?”

“Cecilia, please,” Dolly said dismissively. “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way he dotes on you.”

“You mean Buck? But I’ve told you—”

“No, not Buck,” Dolly said testily. “Mr. Pendergast!”

Cecilia howled at the very idea. “The man wants me to drop dead.”

“He can’t take his eyes off of you.”

Cecilia smirked. “Most of the time those eyes have daggers in them.”

“He hangs on your every word at dinner.”

“So he can twist around what I say and use it against me later.”

“He laughs when you make a joke.”

“That’s because he’s a fool. He laughs at everything.”

Dolly sniffed. “He never laughs at my jokes.”

“Well...” Not knowing how else to respond, Cecilia shrugged. “It’s just not true, Dolly. Mr. Pendergast and I are nothing but enemies. Do you think I’m working like a slave here so I can capture some Yankee schoolteacher’s fancy?”

In a motherly fashion that never failed to make Cecilia cringe, Dolly put a hand over one of hers on the table and said softly, “I would think you’d want to capture
some
man’s attention, Cecilia.”

“Not Pendergast’s, I don’t,” she insisted.

“But if you take that attitude, how are you ever going to get yourself married?”

Nothing exasperated Cecilia faster than Dolly when she decided to be condescending about having experienced wedded bliss...unless it was Clara when she spent hours warning Cecilia against the innumerable no-accounts just waiting to weasel her into the obligatory bad marriage.

All Cecilia wanted was a measure of independence—and she hadn’t found a man yet who would give that to her, or who would be worth giving it up for.

She stood up abruptly. “I don’t care about being married. I just don’t want to have to live on a ranch!”

She escaped to her little room, cursing herself for being in such a peevish mood. But how else should she be when she was surrounded by such conflict? First she had to deal with Pendergast, including making sure that Bea Beasley had enough candy to keep her eyes open and her mouth shut, which wasn’t even working. The girl was chatting up the schoolteacher to her father, of all people! And with Buck and Dolly to contend with, along with more manual labor than she’d ever hoped to do in her entire life...well, it was too much.

And now Dolly was saying that Pendergast was actually in love with her! It was absurd, especially when he had just been accusing
her
of being in love with him.

As she lay on her back, looking at the ceiling above her bed, a wonderfully optimistic thought occurred to her. Maybe it was Pendergast who was protesting too much...maybe he was just trying to deflect his own feelings by teasing her. Or maybe he had secretly hoped that she
had
fallen in love with him, and that after a little ribbing she would blurt out a confession!

She tried not to think about the little zip of satisfaction she felt at the thought of the smarmy schoolteacher falling in love with her. The man was impossible! And in spite of the way he shamelessly brownnosed Beasley, Dolly and everyone else in town besides her, sometimes Cecilia would catch a glimpse of his face when no one else was looking, and his face in repose was cold and taciturn—and wary. Underneath the thin veneer of civility lay a man with more than his share of raw, rough edges. Pendergast was hardly a prize.

So why was her heart beating like crazy at the off chance that he might have developed a crush on her?

Now that she thought about it, didn’t Pendergast’s little observations—as though he’d been watching her every movement—indicate a loverlike attention to detail? Like those scorch marks he’d mentioned. He’d probably been mooning over the marks for weeks now, trying to read some romantic meaning into them, like tea leaves. Cecilia chortled with glee at the image. Poor pathetic man.

You can catch more flies with honey...

For the first time in her life, one of Clara’s clichés struck her as potentially useful. She felt her spirits lifting. The possibility of Pendergast’s being in love with her, even just a little, changed everything. Now she would have the upper hand, even if it was a dry, cracked, dishwater-soaked hand.

Open hostility had not intimidated the man. The stolen schoolbooks had only resulted so far in what Beasley obviously thought were innovative teaching techniques. Perhaps it was time to try a little charm.

* * *

Cecilia’s best day dress was muslin with an adorable violet print that brought out the deep blue of her eyes. The scalloped neck dipped just enough to show a glimpse of her collarbone, which, Cecilia noted ruefully, was poking out a little more these days. The bodice fitted her slender figure like a second skin, and the skirt rounded the soft curves of her hips and thighs before flaring gracefully. With a modest bustle in back it looked quite sharp—just right for day wear in New Orleans, where she had brought it back from.

For Annsboro, however, it seemed just on the verge of overdoing it. Not to mention, the material was thick and stiff, and uncomfortably hot. Dolly had laced her up this morning with more than her usual rigor, with the overall effect that, by the time the dress was on, Cecilia felt like a human sausage packed into a violet-sprigged skin.

Nevertheless, an inspection in the mirror assured her that the end result was worth her pains. She looked clean and fresh and stylish, and for the first time in weeks she actually felt pretty. Uncomfortable, but pretty.

“It’s a dream,” Dolly said wistfully as she beheld Cecilia. Then a frown puckered her lips. “But Cecilia, you can’t wear that today!”

“Why not?”

“It’s so dusty out. That beautiful dress will get dirty.”

As if I have to worry about washing my own clothes for once, Cecilia thought. “Don’t worry, Dolly,” she consoled her friend, “I’ll be careful. And I’m not going far.”

Just to the schoolhouse, where she was sure Pendergast would be. School let out at noon on Saturdays, and at twelve-thirty, he would be closing up shop. Perfect.

If she could just get him to open up to her a little bit, she thought on the way over, and learn something damning about his past. Or if she could snoop around his classroom for something she could use to damage his reputation with Beasley...

The schoolhouse door was wide open when Cecilia arrived, a fact that brought a smile to her lips. Pendergast was there. Lysander Beasley, who always overestimated Annsboro’s potential, even when it came to the criminal element, insisted that the school be locked. Especially now that he thought there had been an actual honest-to-goodness theft.

Before entering the schoolroom, Cecilia rapped lightly on the open door, sucked in her stomach and held her head at its best angle to maximize the tableau effect for her victim. Pendergast looked up, and standing, nearly knocked over his chair. So far so good.

“Miss Summert—” As if getting a good second glance at her, he cut himself off and took a deep breath. “Cecilia.”

Cecilia smiled brightly. “Hello, Pendergast.”

Slowly, Jake took in every inch of the woman walking toward him. He couldn’t help it. In her pretty figure-hugging dress she was the most beautiful female he’d laid eyes on since...well, since maybe forever. And when she stopped just on the other side of his desk, he could smell the light scent of flowers. Was it soap? Perfume? He breathed in and felt nearly light-headed. He had the strangest urge to take her into his arms and kiss her rosy lips....

In an instant, the image of a white-haired man and his father-in-law popped into his head.
Remember Gunter and Darby,
a little voice said.
They tried to kill you...soon you’ll have revenge.
If he could just keep his head on straight. If he tripped up and it came out that he was masquerading as the town’s schoolteacher, people all over the area would be spreading his name.

But Cecilia was so tempting, so beautiful, like a single exotic flower blooming in his barren life. And the adoring way she was smiling at him made him feel...