Cecilia And The Stranger
Liz Ireland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Suzie, also known as Budro—equestrian, geneology freak and master of slang and hyperbole.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Prologue

G uthrie, Texas 1886

The man raised his head off the greasy bar just long enough to lift a sagging eyelid and make one last definitive statement.

“I ain’t going,” he announced with his strange Philadelphia cowpoke inflection just before his head again hit the wooden surface with a thud.

“You said that already, schoolteacher,” Jake Reed said.

“Don’ call me sh-schoolteacher,” the man slurred. “The name’s Pendergast. Eugene W.”

Jake tried not to weave on his bar stool as he looked at the slumped form. The Yankee’s newly bought Western duds, twill work pants and a plain cotton shirt, which had appeared comically pressed and new to Jake before, now seemed to have been worn just from hours of sitting in this smoky, smelly, dusty place. Even the black leather traveling bag at the man’s feet now had a fine layer of grime coating it.

Was he that drunk? Jake wondered. He hoped not. The sun was finally peeking in through the windows now. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down.

What he needed to sober up was another drink. He poured himself a generous slug from the sticky, near-empty whiskey bottle he and the other man had been sharing. “Well, aren’t you a schoolteacher, Pendergast?”

“Not in this godforsaken place!” the man hollered, so loud that it echoed through the empty barroom, almost rousing the snoring bartender in the corner. “I ain’t going to proceed to Annsboro, or any other destination in this whole damn hot, dried-up, uncivilized state. Soon as I can get my money back on these clothes, I ain’t goin’ anywhere but back to Philadelphia.”

No doubt the heat wave they’d been having had colored the Yankee’s opinion. Amused, Jake quirked an eyebrow. “Do all teachers in Philadelphia talk like you do?”

“Huh?” Pendergast regarded him through half-open bloodshot eyes. A curly black lock of hair fell lazily across his forehead. “Oh, you mean the cussing,” he said, reaching for the splash of liquid left in the glass Jake had just poured. “I learned to talk this-a-way from my books. Nobody says ain’t or cusses in Philadelphia. Everything’s perfect in Philadelphia.”

A beatific smile played across his whiskey-numbed lips as his head once more descended to the bar. He was out. Jake took off his hat and laid it across the man’s head. A person deserved some privacy while he slept, after all. Shortly thereafter, a gentle rumble emanated from Pendergast’s still curved mouth.

Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love. Maybe that’s where he should be headed, Jake thought. He tried and failed to remember where he was now; Annsboro was the only name he could come up with. He’d never heard of the place before meeting up with Pendergast sometime after three in the morning. The schoolteacher had spent the hours since then alternating between romanticizing the little town he’d not yet seen and grouching about what he had viewed of Texas so far. Now Jake knew more than he ever wanted to about what sounded like just another little Western town the railroad had missed.

Annsboro probably had a lot in common with Redwood, where he’d grown up and been deputy for a short time. He had thought he’d found his calling when Sheriff Burnet Dobbs pinned that little piece of metal on his chest. It wasn’t much of a job, really, in a sleepy place, but it had given him the opportunity to get what he’d most wanted in life since the age of ten—revenge on Otis Darby, the rich-as-Croesus rancher who muscled Jake’s family off their land, and in so doing killed his father.

Jake frowned bitterly at the memory. Some revenge. After years of trying to get something on Darby, he had discovered that the man and his son-in-law had been stealing horses. The two had been found guilty, but some fool judge let them out of jail after only two years. Even though Jake had given up the lawman’s life by that time and was working as a ranch foreman in the next county, Darby and Gunter were out to get him.

Jake had been dodging the man and his crazy son-in-law ever since. It seemed as if all he’d done was run for over a year now. But never fast enough. Otis Darby would always send his henchman Gunter to find him, and Jake would hit the road two steps ahead. They had harassed employers he worked for by burning their buildings, or killing livestock, although Jake could never prove it. He just knew, like a sixth sense—just as he knew what would happen if he dared to pursue his own dream of trying to start up his own ranch. The place would be burned to a crisp within a week.

Once upon a time he could have gone to the law. Maybe Burnet Dobbs would have helped him out, but in the beginning Jake hadn’t wanted to drag his old friend into the mess. Jake fought his own battles. Sometimes he thought he might as well get it over with and face Gunter and Darby down; then, at least, he would have evidence of what they were doing. Of course, the proof would probably be his own carcass.

His mouth a grim line, Jake took another slug of the rotgut in front of him and ruminated as it burned its way down his gullet. They would find him here, too, in this tiny little railroad whistle-stop town, and the chase would start all over again.

Maybe in a place like Philadelphia he could get lost. He wouldn’t mind melting into a crowd and becoming somebody else, someone who wasn’t always either running or looking over his shoulder, or both. As long as he could become somebody Otis Darby wasn’t looking for.

A short sharp crack rang through the air, followed by the sound of glass breaking in the window. Reflexively, Jake collapsed to the ground—surprised, really, that he had any reflexes left. He scooted around the corner of the bar for cover. As his knees hit the floor, the large bar mirror and several bottles above his head shattered. For a split second it rained alcohol and shards of splintery glass.

“What’s going on!” the roused barkeep cried.

“Get down, you fool!” Jake hollered, not stopping to watch as the man dived behind the bar.

Damn, damn, damn! The timing was all wrong. Belatedly, Jake reached for the gun that hadn’t left his hip in what seemed like a lifetime. Another shot sounded.

“Who the hell’s out there?” the bartender yelled.

Sweat broke out across Jake’s brow, and he mopped his sleeve across his forehead. He knew who was out there. It was Will Gunter, Otis Darby’s son-in-law, although Jake had heard the daughter had died while her father and husband were in prison. Seeing a flash of white-blond hair through the window before a third shot rang out confirmed it.

A familiar venom surged through him, the anger of the trapped animal ready to make yet another last stand. He focused on the window, lifted his Colt revolver and took aim. This time he would kill the man. At the very least, he would wound him, leaving a souvenir of their encounter that would be proof of the man’s guilt later on.

His eyes narrowed on the small opening in the glass. His finger itched as he waited for just a glimpse, just a hint of movement. But there was only silence.

And then he heard hoofbeats. Retreating hoofbeats. Gunter had fled.

Jake’s legs straightened cautiously. Something was not right. Thirty seconds had passed, if that much. Three shots. Jake hadn’t fired. It wasn’t like Gunter to hightail it just when he had his target cornered.

Shouts sounded on the street as Jake’s eyes alit on a disturbing sight. Pendergast. In the few moments of excitement, Jake had forgotten about the sleeping schoolteacher. His stomach clenched. A dark crimson patch was spreading across the side of the man’s shirt. On the other side of him, a pool of blood was gathering on the floor from another wound. Pendergast wasn’t sleeping anymore.

“They got him!”

Jake glanced over at the now-standing bartender, whose face was filled with curious revulsion.

“I reckon it was some sort of vendetta,” the man continued breathlessly, wiping his hands anxiously on the apron at his waist. “Man said he’d been a deputy!”

Jake froze as the man’s words sank in. Slowly, he turned back to Pendergast and saw his own hat still perched on the dead man’s head. There wasn’t much difference in their sizes, or even their clothes for that matter, if one didn’t stop to consider the newly bought appearance of the dead man’s. Gunter had made a mistake. A fatal one for Pendergast.

Three men burst through the door of the saloon. “Lou! What the hell happened!” one of them cried.

A skinny, grizzled old fellow with a tarnished star stuck on the breast pocket of his work shirt pushed through the others to look at Pendergast’s slumped form. His eyes bugged. “This man’s dead!” he pronounced, shocked. “We ain’t had but one dead person in town all year!”

“That’s so,” another man said. “And old Mrs. Grizwald was ninety-three.”

“This here looks like murder to me!” the sheriff announced.

The men remained congregated around the dead man while the bartender recounted what had happened. As Jake shuffled closer he just barely heard the words deputy and vendetta. The bartender had been asleep since the small hours, so it was no wonder he’d gotten his facts confounded.

Jake’s head was swimming. Gunter thought he’d killed him, that Jake Reed was dead. After five years of dreaming about it, and nearly two years of actively trying, the snake probably felt triumphant. More than likely, he was on his way back to Redwood right now to tell Darby the good news.

“I’d better find out the name of the deceased,” the sheriff said, beginning his official investigation.

Jake’s head snapped up. Four pairs of eyes were peering at him anxiously. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated, glancing down at the suitcase at his feet. Why not? Darby and Gunter would stop looking for him now. Becoming someone else would make him free—free to hunt them when their guards were down.

“Reed,” Jake said, surprised at how easily the lie came to his lips once he’d made up his mind. “Jacob Reed, I think he said his name was.” If he was going to be buried, he wanted the formality of his full Christian name.

The men shook their heads. “Guess we oughtn’t even to call Doc,” one of them said.

“No, it’s like Arnie here says. This man’s dead.”

The sheriff shot glances at both Jake and the bartender. “Don’t reckon either of you recalls where Reed came from.”

Jake shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

“You didn’t see who was shooting, did you?” the old man asked.

“Nope.”

“He was tight-lipped, that one,” the bartender piped up, nodding at Pendergast, the man who had talked until he’d passed out. “I had the feeling he was running from something.”

“That’s it, then,” said the sheriff, wiping his brow tiredly. “Maybe somebody around here saw something, but I doubt it.” In the sheriff’s mind, apparently, the investigation was now officially closed.

The bartender looked up as Jake picked up Pendergast’s suitcase and slammed some money on the bar. “Good luck to you, mister. Sure sorry this had to happen, with you from the East and all.”

“Could have happened anywhere.” For all he knew. This sad excuse for a town was as far east as he’d ever been.

“Where’d you say you were going?”

Jake stopped for a moment. He’d need to lie low for a while, and Pendergast had given him the perfect opportunity. “Annsboro,” he said.

The men nodded, then turned back to the more interesting matter at hand.

Annsboro. He didn’t know where it was, but he’d heard enough about it. Lucky town, really. Pendergast had been on his way back to Philadelphia. Now it looked as though Annsboro would have a new schoolmaster, after all.

Chapter One

Even in late September, Annsboro was cloaked in a dry haze. What few patches of buffalo grass there were in the town itself had long since withered and yellowed, their scorched leftovers, as well as the occasional scrubby mesquite or cedar, lending the place its only landscaping.

Jake pulled one of Pendergast’s white starchy handkerchiefs from his coat pocket. No wonder the schoolteacher had picked up new clothes, Jake thought as he raked the stiff cotton across his brow. The wool suit he had found in Pendergast’s suitcase, which was a snugger fit than Jake had first thought it would be, was so hot it felt like he was walking around with a brick oven on his back.

“If you’ll look to your left, you’ll see not only Annsboro’s mercantile, but also the sight of our future drug emporium.”

Lysander Beasley, Jake’s self-appointed guide to this wretched place, gestured grandly toward a squat brick building and the empty lot next to it. On a large wooden sign above the store, the word Beasley’s was spelled out in red curlicued letters.

“Owned and run by yours truly.” Beasley pinched proudly at one end of his pointy mustache. His neatly greased hair, parted down the center, created a pulled-back curtain effect, as though his forehead were a stage. The loud check print of his expensive-looking suit was showy, too—a flashy display of wealth, like his shiny new gold watch chain that glinted in the sun. Pudgy, florid and fatuous, Lysander Beasley appeared every inch the prosperous model citizen—the kind Jake remembered from his deputy days who would rave for hours about law and order. Then, when one of their own, like Otis Darby, happened to land in jail, they would discover compassion.

But even putting his own feelings aside, Jake couldn’t see much to be smug about in Annsboro, although one glance down the town’s dusty main street confirmed that the mercantile was probably the town’s most successful enterprise, except perhaps for what looked like a saloon clear over on the other end of town. That would make sense. If Jake lived here, he was sure he’d want to do more drinking than buying.

You do live here, fool, he thought, shaking his head in disbelief.

Incredibly, Lysander Beasley mistook his discouraged amazement for awe. “Oh, it’s a fine little town, all right. Why, I’d bet that in two years we’ll have a courthouse!”

“You don’t say,” Jake said, striking what he hoped was the appropriate note of wonder. He was rewarded with a hacking chuckle from his companion.

“But I’m sure you’re more interested in the schoolhouse than in buildings that don’t even exist yet.” Beasley guffawed again. “This way, Mr. Pendergast.”

Jake was staring at a dilapidated brick building directly across the dirt road from the mercantile. The place proclaimed itself to be a blacksmith’s, but the windows were boarded up. And other than some scattered houses, that was it as far as the town went.

“Mr. Pendergast?”

Startled, he looked at Beasley and they continued walking. If he didn’t get used to answering to the name of Pendergast, he might find himself with a heap of explaining to do.

The schoolhouse, set down a rutted road from the rest of the town, was in considerably better shape than the other buildings. A new coat of paint made the white wood-frame structure a standout against the dusty terrain.

“On Sundays Parson Gibbons comes in and holds services in the school. Other than that, the school will be quite your domain,” Beasley explained. “Cecilia Summertree has been overseeing the children since our last schoolteacher left us. Wonderful girl, Miss Summertree.”

But his disdainful tone conveyed the fact that he meant just the opposite. “Her father’s quite a cattleman. The Summertree ranch is one of the biggest in the region.”

So Jake had heard. It was impossible to have passed through this part of Texas without having heard something of Summertree and his vast spread. Jake had dreamed of having a ranch that would be even a fraction as successful. He couldn’t imagine why a daughter of such a man would want to teach school in this barren place, though. “She’s a local girl?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. She’s not a professional academician like yourself, Mr. Pendergast. Mercy, she doesn’t even have a certificate. Sometimes out here we’re forced to bend all these new regulations, you know. She did spend five months at a school for young ladies in New Orleans this year.” Beasley stopped and raised a speculative eyebrow. “She was supposed to have been gone for a full year...” He left the sentence dangling tremulously between them.

Kid probably got homesick, was Jake’s first reaction...if a body could get homesick for this patch of dust. But what he thought wasn’t at issue. “Hmm,” he murmured suspiciously for Beasley’s benefit, knowing the man probably expected his Philadelphia schoolteacher to be loaded with moral superiority.

“Precisely,” Beasley said, pleased to have indoctrinated the new teacher in one of his own personal prejudices. He continued walking. “Now I wanted to tell you about my daughter, Beatrice. She’s quite the little student.”

As they approached the school, Jake only half listened to the litany of Beatrice Beasley’s accomplishments. Undoubtedly any child of Lysander Beasley, formerly of Louisville, Kentucky, would be nothing less than a prodigy. Jake was more interested in the laughter and periodic high-pitched whoops coming from the schoolhouse. It was late afternoon already—just finding the town had taken Jake the better part of a day after disembarking the train in Abilene that morning—and school was definitely out.

Noticing his companion’s distraction, Beasley broke off and cocked his head to the side, listening. “Hmm. Sounds as if Miss Summertree’s in her usual high spirits today.”

“It would seem so,” Jake answered, injecting a hint of disapproval into his voice.

“I might add that my daughter’s true genius would seem to lie in the area of literature,” Beasley droned on. “Her dear mother, God rest her soul, started her early. Why, Beatrice could recite Shakespeare by the age of three!”

Jake nodded at this impressive tidbit, but at that moment, his attention was completely derailed. Through a window, he saw a young man—a cowboy—and woman cavorting around the teacher’s desk. The woman, a pretty blond creature, let out a laughing cry and hopped nimbly on the high desk, revealing a glimpse of shapely leg.

“C’mon, Cici,” Jake heard the man saying. “You know you want to.”

“Not if you were the only man in Texas, Buck!” The woman’s bright blue eyes sparked with a mix of amusement and annoyance.

“But I am the only man for you, sweetheart.”

“You crazy—”

The cowboy reached for the woman’s waist. She attempted to back away, but was thrown off-balance and regained equilibrium only by allowing herself to be hoisted high in the air. She rolled her eyes in distress, and as she did, caught sight of movement outside.

As her eyes alit on Beasley, dread crossed her face. Then when she glanced over to Jake, her expression changed to one of complete mortification.

Jake couldn’t help it. He smiled.

Even caught slack-jawed with surprise, this Cecilia Summertree gave him hope for his short stay in Annsboro. Her figure, so easily held aloft by the rustic youth, appeared lithe and sturdy at once. It was encased in a blue muslin frock of practical design, but she wore the gown with a dash that would have made the cowboy’s forwardness with her person humorous, had not her own reaction to seeing a stranger peeping in the window—and catching sight of such a spectacle—been comical in itself.

After the initial shock passed, Cecilia Summertree’s eyes swept over him with feminine curiosity, making Jake groan at the memory of his ill-fitting brown suit. Not that he was normally a lady-killer...well, maybe he had made a few pulses flutter in his day. He instinctively tugged down his tight herringbone vest.

But the smirk that crossed the young woman’s face halted him in mid-preen. Obviously, she found nothing heart-stopping about his appearance. And she couldn’t even see that his pants nearly reached his shins! Jake silently cursed his suit as he watched her expression change yet again—to guarded anticipation.

“Put me down, fool!” the woman whispered urgently to her companion.

Beasley, beyond the sightlines of the window and therefore ignorant of the drama awaiting them inside, hurried his straggling companion into the building with a wave. Jake sobered his expression and eagerly stepped over the threshold ahead of Beasley, into a small hallway that held a coatrack. Suddenly, the subject of Miss Summertree’s early return from finishing school, or anything else about the woman, fascinated him.

Before he could step through the door, the man named Buck had set her down, and she was giving the bodice of her dress a firm straightening jerk. When their gazes met again, her brilliant blue eyes were narrowed on him suspiciously.

Jake was irked that he wasn’t able to make more of an impression. Not that what this woman thought made any difference, he reminded himself. He was just here to lie low, not to spark the local schoolteacher. Ex-schoolteacher.

“Mr. Beasley,” she said in a high feminine voice whose energy enchanted him immediately. “What did you bring me?”

“Looks too old for a student,” the cowboy joked, eyeing Jake with genial curiosity.

“Good heavens!” Beasley said sharply, as if the offhand comment had done grave insult to their guest. “This is Mr. Eugene Pendergast. Mr. Pendergast, this is Miss Summertree, who I was telling you about. And this is...”

“Buck McDeere,” Cecilia supplied. That Beasley wouldn’t know the cowboy’s name came as no surprise to Jake, or apparently, to Cecilia.

“Mr. Pendergast is our new schoolteacher, just arrived from Philadelphia.”

At the word schoolteacher Cecilia Summertree’s mouth dropped open. Once again her blue eyes assessed his person, this time without mirth. She stiffened her spine and jutted her jaw forward. “Philadelphia, you say?” she said disbelievingly.

Jake bit back a laugh. No curtsy, no how-do-you-do. Just a question about his origins and another scathing once-over. Maybe Miss Summertree expected men from Philadelphia to have better tailors.

In spite of the cool reception, he bowed politely. Trying to think of a way to respond, Jake remembered his uncle Thelmer, from St. Louis. The one time Thelmer had visited his relatives in Texas, it was clear he had considered himself to be hands-down more civilized than his poor relations. And to give the man his due, the ladies had been impressed.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Summertree,” he said now in his best impression of Uncle Thelmer’s sophistication.

Cecilia Summertree pursed her lips. “You sure took your time getting here. We’d begun to think you weren’t coming.”

“I’m afraid I was detained.”

“Detained where?” Cecilia demanded sweetly.

“Now, now, Cecilia,” Beasley interjected, agitated by the girl’s curiosity. “It’s true, Mr. Pendergast, we’d expected you last week. Nevertheless, we’re simply glad that you had a safe trip.”

Jake breathed a sigh of relief at Beasley’s interruption. He hadn’t expected to meet with such skepticism. Obviously Miss Summertree wasn’t happy giving up her post to a stranger. He managed a weak smile. It helped to remember the reason he was late—the real Pendergast had apparently been on a week-long toot. What would Beasley have said to that?

“I’m certainly glad to be here.”

Cecilia’s eyes narrowed to fiery little slits. “He doesn’t sound like a Yankee.”

“Cecilia!”

“My parents were from Alabama,” Jake retorted sharply. The woman was beginning to make him nervous. Besides, his parents were from Alabama.

“There now,” Beasley said, as if Pendergast’s parentage settled everything. “I expect you’ll be a marvelous help getting Mr. Pendergast acclimated to his new surroundings, Cecilia. But all that’s left for you to do today is to hand over the building key.”

Cecilia crossed her arms. The young woman was at least a foot shorter than Jake, but that didn’t seem to intimidate her any. Nor, apparently, did the fact that Beasley was going to stand by him. Jake took in her honey blond hair and bright blue eyes with admiration and annoyance. She didn’t look as if she would be much help.

“I suppose you went to college,” she said sharply.

Jake grinned. “Of course.” Pendergast had looked like the college type. Soft, sheltered.

“Where?” she pressed, surprising him.

Jake’s smile froze. “You want to know where?” he asked inanely, fingering the hat he held in his hand with stiff, sweaty fingers.

“The University of Pennsylvania!” Beasley cried, angered by Cecilia’s inquisitiveness.

Jake’s gaze shot to the obnoxious man in gratitude. “Yes, that’s right.” He grinned broadly at Cecilia.

“Same as Watkins,” Beasley added.

“Yes, Watkins,” Jake agreed. Who was Watkins? “Good old Watkins.”

Beasley chuckled anxiously. “There. Now that’s settled...” He held out his hand toward Cecilia. “The key?”

“The key is on the desk,” she said proudly, nodding toward it. Then, impulsively, she glared at Jake and added, “But I wouldn’t trust it to this—this fraud!”

Jake felt the blood drain from his face as her accusation hit its mark. Yet fraud though he was, he hadn’t narrowly escaped death to let his future be snatched away by an ornery little rich girl. He clenched his fists at his sides and prepared to speak in his own defense.

But this time, chiming right in with Beasley’s shout of outrage was a mumbled warning from Buck. “Cici, I’d watch my words...”

“But it’s true!” she cried. “This man isn’t a schoolteacher any more than I’m a...a—”

“Lady?” Jake couldn’t resist drawling.

Her blue eyes flew open in shock. “How dare you!”

“Hey, now...” Buck said, as if he’d never heard a man speak unkindly to a woman before.

“He couldn’t even tell you what college he went to,” Cecilia argued.

“The University of Pennsylvania!” Beasley again cried out in exasperation.

“Like I said,” Jake said, smiling at her smugly.

Cecilia pushed past Buck and came forward menacingly, in spite of Beasley’s ineffectual sputtering. Before setting foot in this little classroom, Jake hadn’t given much thought to the difficulties of assuming another person’s identity. Having spent two years one step ahead of an assassin, he couldn’t imagine much danger in pretending to be a schoolteacher.

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!”

Dolly’s face fell. “Oh, no, Cecilia.”

“I could even have some of my things sent home—I’ll tell Buck to take my trunk this very evening!”

“Absolutely not,” Dolly said, shaking her head. “That room is for the laundry girl. I’ve always done the wash for my boarders. And if I pay the girl room and board, I don’t have to come up with as much cash money.”

She was right, Cecilia realized, her spirits plummeting fast. About the only thing to hope for now was that Buck hadn’t left the saloon yet. What a miserable day this was turning out to be!

Dolly giggled.

Annoyed by the other woman’s laugh, Cecilia lifted her head slowly and caught her doing it again. “I fail to see anything amusing about this situation,” she snapped.

Dolly shook her head and then laughed outright. “I’m sorry, Cecilia,” she said, breathing hard to hold back a chuckle, “it’s just...” A rumbling laugh exploded from her chest, cutting off her words. “Oh, it’s too silly!”

Cecilia bit her lower lip and waited for Dolly’s laughter to subside. “What is?” she asked impatiently.

The other woman wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, Cecilia, I just had this picture in my head of you leaning over a washboard.”

Cecilia laughed along heartlessly for a moment—until she was struck, rather violently, by the obvious. She snapped her fingers and turned joyfully to Dolly. “That’s it!” she cried, circling the older woman in a playful little jig. “Dolly, you’re a genius! When can I start?”

Dolly wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oh, no, Cecilia, I was just joking you.”

“Joke or not, I’ll take the job.”

“But I can’t offer it to you,” Dolly countered firmly. “Your father would have my hide, not to mention yours, if I hired you to do the wash. Do you even know how to do wash? The idea!”

“What’s wrong with my doing a little work? Father didn’t mind me teaching!”

Dolly sent her a wry look that made it clear she wasn’t buying into that line of thinking for one second. “There’s a whopping difference between teaching and being a washerwoman.” She laughed again. “Imagine if your father found out you were rinsing out my boarders’ underclothes for a living!”

“He won’t find out,” Cecilia said, her usually merry voice dropping an octave. Having seized on this improbable solution, she was not about to budge.

Sensing that she was moments away from hiring the Summertree heiress into a position of manual labor, Dolly’s eyes widened in alarm. “There are no secrets in Annsboro, Cecilia.”

“I know,” Cecilia said, more brightly. “But Daddy doesn’t live in Annsboro, does he?”

Chapter Two

Because her new quarters lacked the generous wardrobe of the teacher’s room, during the next few hours Cecilia weeded out what essential items she would need for the next weeks, packing the rest to send home with Buck, who was under a strict oath of secrecy. Once Pendergast was gone, and it was her intention to make sure his departure was close at hand, she would send for her things again and be comfortably reinstated into her old room.

Dolly filled her in on her other duties; apparently, the “laundry girl” was also the cook’s helper, maid and woodcutter. But Cecilia didn’t mind hard work—not that she’d had much experience in that area—as long as it had some reward. In this case, the prize was her little room behind the kitchen.

The room, which had originally been built as a pantry, consisted of a tiny bed, a table for a washbasin and a half window overlooking the privy. Despite the heat, Cecilia immediately shut the window. So much for fresh air.

By the time dinner was served, she also discovered that the situation of her room actually put her in a double bind. The kitchen’s wood stove was not ten feet away, which, without the window for ventilation, turned her bedroom into something like an oven itself. After taking only ten minutes to freshen up for the meal, Cecilia felt a kindred spirit to the baked chicken lying on the center of the table.

When all was ready, Dolly looked proudly at her spread. She’d used her best china, which had been her mother’s, and had put little cordial glasses by each plate. “For after dinner,” Dolly explained in a prim low voice. “I thought we should welcome Mr. Pendergast properly.”

“Everything looks fine,” Cecilia said without enthusiasm. Greeting this particular guest properly, to her mind, would have entailed meeting him at the door with both barrels loaded.

Steps sounded on the staircase, as well as the ker-thlump footfall of Fanny Baker and her cane coming from the parlor, where the elderly widow spent most of her days. Jubal’s spinster cousin, Lucinda, quietly made her way in, her nose wrinkling nervously at the sight of the china. Lucinda was shy.

At the sound of approaching heavy footsteps, Cecilia hastily straightened her clothing and ran a smoothing palm over her hair, which she’d pulled in a high bun, much like Dolly’s, away from her neck. If only it wasn’t so hot! She would have felt much more confident meeting her adversary if she wasn’t half-wilted.

When Pendergast finally appeared, she was glad to note that he was wilted, too. Dust still showed on his brown suit, although it was obvious he’d made an effort to brush it off, and his hair was damp with sweat. He’d changed his shirt underneath that awful herringbone vest, which served to work Cecilia up to the proper level of annoyance.

More laundry.

“What a beautiful table, Mrs. Hudspeth,” Pendergast said with a gusto that surprised Cecilia. “I had no idea you were planning a feast for this evening.”

In Dolly’s modest parlor, Eugene Pendergast appeared much taller than Cecilia had remembered, and as much as she hated to admit it, he was nearly handsome. His thick brown hair had a rakish curl at the brow, if the word rakish could be used in context of the schoolmaster. Not only that, but his build was much more impressive than Cecilia had noticed before. This made her more suspicious still. A person didn’t develop muscles like that by reading books!

But more than anything else, his dark eyes captured her attention, eyes as dark as two glistening coals. Their gaze was intense, wary...and very much interested. A little shiver of awareness worked its way down her spine, but Cecilia wasn’t so overcome that she overlooked the tiny lines in the man’s weathered face, especially around those dark, fascinating eyes. Up close, it was clear the man had spent a great deal of his life in the outdoors.

In a dither over her big dinner, Dolly blushed and smiled and showed Mr. Pendergast his place as Fanny Baker entered the room and went directly to hers. Cecilia stood behind her own chair, anticipating the moment when her foe would address her. They awaited Mr. Walters, who, other than working at Beasley’s store and taking his meals at Dolly’s, was rumored to be something of a recluse. This label never failed to confuse Cecilia, since practically all of the man’s waking hours were accounted for and spent in public.

“I suppose you don’t think much of our town, Mr. Pendergast,” Cecilia said, irritated further that the man had yet to greet her.

“Ah, Miss Summertree.” He looked upon her as though she was an annoying little gnat that had landed behind a place setting. “I had thought you would be back on the ranch by now.” Pendergast kept his expression veiled, but his words made it clear that he had hoped not to see her.

She smiled in triumph. It was obvious he’d assumed he had turned her out. Good. “Not at all. You see, Mr. Pendergast, I’m very resourceful.”

“Then how lucky for myself and all of Annsboro to be graced with your lovely presence for...how long, did you say?”

Cecilia looked at him squarely. “Indefinitely.”

The word went down like a bitter pill. It took all the fortitude Jake could muster not to let out a weary sigh. He’d finally guessed that the man named Watkins, Pendergast’s old school chum, didn’t live in Annsboro. At least the man hadn’t made an appearance, and no one else had mentioned his name again. Maybe he was the old schoolteacher. Jake had hoped that Cecilia Summertree wouldn’t live in Annsboro much longer, either.

“So you see,” Cecilia said, smiling wickedly, “I’ll be able to help you along, just as Lysander Beasley instructed.”

He knew that nothing would have pleased Cecilia more than seeing him squirm, so Jake kept his disappointment to himself. The woman had him up a tree, but maybe it was for the best. As long as she was around, his guard would be up. Her presence reminded him that he couldn’t afford to lapse into his old self. Not for a while, at least, until he was no longer a stranger in town, or even better, when he actually left Annsboro.

Already he was praying for that day.

Uncomfortable chitchat followed until Walters finally arrived. The balding man nodded mutely when presented to Pendergast, and finally the company sat down to devour the chicken, snap beans and rolls that Dolly had prepared. Jake was happy to eat the tasty meal in silence, although he should have known such good fortune couldn’t last.

“I wish you’d tell us about your home,” Cecilia said, not two minutes into the meal. She primly wiped her lips with her napkin. “I’m sure Annsboro is a far cry from Pittsburgh.”

“Philadelphia,” he corrected.

“That’s right.” She smiled, though Jake could have sworn she looked disappointed that he actually remembered the city he’d supposedly come from. “Still, it must be a far cry from here.”

Even without having come within a thousand miles of Philadelphia, Jake knew her words to be an absurd understatement. Annsboro was a far cry from any town he’d ever been in.

Pleasant, you have to be pleasant. Buying time, he cleared his throat and swallowed. “The chicken is wonderful, Mrs. Hudspeth,” he said, enjoying both Dolly’s warm smile and Cecilia’s expectant fidgeting across the table. Before she could pounce on him for not answering, he said, “All I can say about Annsboro is that it seems a...one-of-a-kind sort of town.”

Dolly nodded eagerly. “You wouldn’t believe how much development we’ve seen here, Mr. Pendergast.”

No, he wouldn’t have believed it. “I heard Beasley’s building a drugstore.”

“And just in time, too,” Dolly said enthusiastically. “We have nearly thirty families in Annsboro now.” She darted a glance toward Cecilia, who couldn’t keep a frown off her face at the blatant lie. “Well, in the environs, anyway,” Dolly explained.

“Dirt farmers,” Fanny Baker said flatly. Fanny had been among the first ranching families to settle the area over a decade before, and although the Bakers had since lost their land, she still retained her rancher’s snobbery toward the late-arriving farmers. “Most of them probably won’t last through the winter, but there will be more to replace them when they leave. Everyone wants their own land, even if it’s just a parcel of dust. Only the really large ranchers, ones whose lands encompass enough water, can survive out here.”

“I suppose that includes the Summertree ranch.” Jake couldn’t quite keep all the sarcasm out of his tone as he turned on Cecilia. He’d known big ranchers, and worked for them. He’d also sent one to jail, and was paying highly for it.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that some of us don’t sympathize with the smaller farmer,” Cecilia said, bristling. How dare he attempt to insult her! What did this man from Philadelphia, if he truly was from there, know about this world?

Now more than ever, she hoped to make short work of getting this man out of town.

Dolly laughed nervously in an attempt to calm her feuding diners. “I’m afraid we’re all very opinionated here, Mr. Pendergast.” She frowned at her young friend. “Even the women.”

Jake smiled warmly. “It’s a very interesting town. I’d like to learn more about it someday.” Once again, he raised the false hope that he would be able to eat in peace.

But before he’d managed another bite, Cecilia piped up. “Well, maybe we should tell him about the Indian massacre, then.”

“Oh, Cecilia!” Dolly’s hand flew to her mouth. “Not at the table, please!”

Jake bit back a smile. Cecilia had gotten his attention, and he could tell by the way her eyes danced mischievously that she was pleased with herself. He almost enjoyed putting on an anxious Pendergast frown for the company’s benefit. It wouldn’t do to have a Philadelphia man hear about Indians without quivering in his too-tight boots. “Indian massacre?” he asked nervously.

Mr. Walters put down his fork, as did the other boarders, as if one couldn’t eat and hear about Indians at the same time. Bowing to local custom, Jake also put his fork down. Lucinda and Mrs. Baker shook their heads sadly in unison.

“This was Comanche country,” Cecilia began.

“Oh, Cecilia!” Dolly moaned. “Must you?”

“Comanches are Indians,” Cecilia explained to Pendergast, ignoring her friend. Painful as the tale was, it would be worth the telling if only she could scare the man back to Philadelphia.

“Comanches? I believe I’ve heard of them,” Jake said, straining to sustain a fretful expression.

“Right after the first ranchers came here the Comanches tried to run them off. They attacked in the morning, while the people were about their chores. Three people died, slaughtered, and several of the women had been set upon by the savages.”

Jake translated the delicate phrase to mean that the women were raped. Lucinda nearly swooned.

“One girl, twelve years old at the time, was taken captive and has never been seen again.”

“Oh, my,” Jake breathed. The scenario was all too familiar, but still chilling.

“Cecilia, enough,” Dolly entreated.

Cecilia was flushed from reliving the tale, which had always fascinated and horrified her in equal measure. “The settlers decided to name the town after the little girl, so that if she ever managed to escape, she might find her way home.”

For a long moment, the diners simply sat, staring at their plates without expression. Clearly, the girl named Ann hadn’t yet returned. Jake knew that the Indians hadn’t been banished from this land long enough for the pain and fear of raids to have subsided completely, and especially not with such a wound as Annsboro had left open. Comanche raids were brutal. Those lucky enough to live through them rarely forgot. Or forgave.

“Such a sweet girl,” Fanny Baker announced, clucking her tongue before lapsing back into silence.

“What a terrible story!” Dolly exclaimed. “Cecilia, you should be ashamed for bringing that up. Mr. Pendergast will get the wrong impression of our town!”

Suddenly, Jake remembered who he was supposed to be. Across the table, Cecilia sent him a flat, humorless smile. “I hope I didn’t frighten you, Mr. Pendergast.”

“Oh, my,” he said, rewarding her storytelling with a fretful cough. “There aren’t any more of these Comanches around, are there?”

Before Cecilia could speak, Dolly exclaimed, “Not in years! It’s been seven years since we’ve had real Indian trouble around here.”

“Thank heavens for that.”

“I still lock my doors at night.” Cecilia looked him square in the eye with a deadly earnest gaze, and strangely, although he knew she was only trying to scare him, Jake believed her. If Eugene Pendergast hadn’t been gunned down in a bar the week before, he would certainly have died right here at this dinner table, of fright. Cecilia’s strategy couldn’t have been better, but unfortunately, she had the wrong target.

After a pause, Jake gave his plate a little shove forward. “I’m afraid my appetite for this lovely food has disappeared.”

Dolly let out an exasperated sigh. “See what you’ve done, Cecilia?”

Her big blue eyes widened innocently. “But Mr. Pendergast said he wanted to know a little bit of our history.”

Their gazes met and held for just an instant. In that moment, Jake understood that Cecilia meant what she said about being resourceful. There was defiance in those innocent eyes, too, aimed just at him. No matter how long it took, no matter how many people she offended, she was determined to have his job.

Damn. Why, of all the schoolteaching jobs in all the world, did Cecilia Summertree have to covet the one measly position he needed? He had to stay put for at least a few weeks, until Gunter and Darby were assured he was good and dead. Unfortunately, during those weeks he was apparently going to be harassed by this tenacious blond vixen.

Jake never denied having as many frailties as the next man, but he’d never considered women to be high on his list of weaknesses. Now he wasn’t so sure. Mesmerized as he was by those alluring blue eyes, he could well imagine Cecilia Summertree being his downfall, his own Delilah. He would have to be very, very careful.

“Goodness, I’m full,” Dolly said with a giggle, trying to shrug off the disturbing tension at the table. “Let’s try the blackberry wine, shall we?” She walked over to get a bottle that was on the small side table in the corner. “I put this up year before last.”

The people around the table perked up a bit as she poured the dark liquid into their small crystal glasses, which even Fanny Baker, who’d been with Dolly the longest, had only seen once before.

“You sure can get high tone when you want to, Dolly,” the older woman said.

Dolly raised her glass. “To our town’s newest citizen, all the way from Philadelphia.”

Even in a room full of immigrants from other parts of the country, Philadelphia sounded impressively far. Jake bowed, and the rest of the table smiled before swigging down their unfortunately modest portions of wine. The beverage was fruity, not at all unpleasant, and had a definite kick to it.

Jake licked his lips in appreciation. “Very flavorful, Mrs. Hudspeth,” he said.

Dolly acknowledged his compliment with a blush and a smile. “Do have another glass,” she said, offering him the crystal decanter.

Cecilia looked at the schoolteacher sharply as he poured himself a hefty drink. “Are you a wine connoisseur, Mr. Pendergast?”

Jake managed not to smile too openly. What she really wanted to know was whether he was a lush. “Everyone enjoys a fine glass of wine every now and then, don’t you agree?” he answered evasively. When Cecilia’s lips turned down in the frustrated pout he’d expected, he downed the liquid, bade everyone a good night and made his exit.

He just stopped himself from looking over his shoulder as he left the room. This morning it had seemed his troubles were coming to a close, but it looked as though he’d simply traded one enemy for another. Now Cecilia Summertree was gunning for him.

* * *

Upstairs, Jake cozied down into the bed. The pressed linens felt incredibly rich, making him realize how long it had been since he’d stayed in a real house, with a woman tending it. Dolly’s cooking had provided him with the best meal he’d had in months, which was certain to be a benefit to his hopefully short stay in Annsboro. Mostly he didn’t mind the independent life, but there were times when a woman’s touch was refreshing.

The homey feeling reminded him of the small house his family had owned, before Otis Darby had gotten into his head that their tiny spread had a coal deposit. Always a speculator, and with the railroads expanding all the time, Darby had decided to get the Reed land by hook or by crook. Preferably by crook. Rather than making an offer, Darby attempted to trump up a charge that Jake’s father had filed claim to the land illegally. The ensuing battle had killed Jake’s father, and though Darby’s accusations were proven false, Jake and his sick mother weren’t able to manage the land on their own.

Jake frowned, swallowing back his bitterness. Darby got his land, all right—land that never turned up an ounce of coal or anything else. The bastard had probably forgotten all about it. But his trying to get that land had hastened the death of both of Jake’s parents, and that was something Jake would never forget.

He took a breath and tried to think of something else. Something pleasant.

The room held the scent of a lingering perfume, which, now that he thought about it, probably was Cecilia’s. She had lived here, slept in this bed. A vision of brilliant blue eyes and pouting pink lips danced in front of him, making him ache for another feminine touch he hadn’t partaken of in a long time. But that was best not to think about right now, either.

He had some unhappy business to tend to—namely, the bundle of letters he’d found in Pendergast’s things that he’d been avoiding reading for a whole week. Luckily, he’d also found some rather entertaining reading material—a stack of cheap flimsy books about sheriffs and outlaws and other infamous frontier characters.

The silly tales had probably been fodder for Pendergast’s fantasies, fueling his disappointment with the true frontier. They surely explained the man’s half Yankee half gunslinger way of talking. During the past few days, Jake had been thankful for the books, since reading the stories had allowed him to put off the inevitable.

He dreaded the thought of having to write the dead man’s grieving wife, or sweetheart, or worse, his mama, and explain Pendergast’s messy—not to mention confusing—death.

It was an easy guess that the letters were from a woman. The lilac stationery still had a trace of flowery smell to it, probably the scent favored by the sender, and the graceful handwriting across the envelopes could only belong to a female. Thankfully, all the letters were written by the same hand. There would be only one person to write to.

There weren’t many letters, either, and as he opened them, he saw that the dates were all recent. He took the one with the oldest date and with a sigh began reading.

Dearest Brother... So it was his sister. That had been easy enough to figure out. I wish you had not felt the need to leave us so soon, although I understand perfectly your restlessness. You would probably be shocked to know that I, your quiet older sister, also have dreams of travel. Though I would have chosen an area other than Texas, surely a wilder place than those of my fantasies. But you are a man, and younger... Jake skimmed the remaining paragraphs to the signature. Your loving sister, Rosalyn.

All the remaining missives struck a similar chord. This Rosalyn was not one to dwell on the tedious details of everyday life, preferring a more philosophical tone. Fortunately, Jake was able to glean a few facts. First, that Rosalyn was still living in Philadelphia, where she gave lessons and lived in the home of a not-too-well-loved hypochondriac aunt, to whom she gave most of her earnings. Not a happy life, Jake gathered, and it had probably been stifling for a young man.

As for Pendergast, Jake discovered that he’d been gone for some months, choosing to travel to Texas at a snail’s pace, visiting every relative and friend he had along the way. He didn’t think he would return to Philadelphia, apparently, or ever make enough as a country schoolteacher to afford to travel again.

He’d been right on both counts.

The most disturbing aspect of the letters was Rosalyn’s obvious intent to join Pendergast when he was settled—as if Pendergast would have lasted that long! Small chance, considering the fact that the man was already hotfooting it back to Pennsylvania when Jake ran into him. Nevertheless, Jake needed to nip this plan of hers in the bud, fast.

It was taking a risk, but Jake decided to simply tell her the truth—after a fashion. There was no reason the woman should know that the bullet her brother took was actually meant for him. Just that it was an unfortunate mix-up, and her brother had met a brave end.

What more would a woman want to know, after all? Jake would of course enclose the money he found in Pendergast’s satchel, a tidy sum that she could squirrel away from her aunt. Probably the woman would write back, requesting Pendergast’s things. He would just have to plead ignorance on that score. There was no way he could explain that he couldn’t return them because he needed to wear them himself.

After that, she would probably be satisfied...or in any case, by that time his charade would be over. Then, with any luck, Jake would never have to hear the name Rosalyn Pendergast again.

* * *

Mr. Pendergast was written in large, neat letters across the top of the blackboard at the front of the classroom. The children were all in their seats, working busily. Pendergast himself was seated at the teacher’s desk, helping twelve-year-old Wilbur Smith, normally the rowdiest one in the class, with a mathematics problem.

Cecilia, peeping around the corner at the back of the room, could have cried. Her hands were red and chapped from scalding water, and she still had the linens yet to do. She’d come over to the schoolhouse in hopes of buoying her spirits, but this was not the chaotic scene she had anticipated.

The eighteen pupils in the small room were all perfectly behaved, bent over their books and slates, their faces studies in concentration. Here and there a whisper would break out, only to be silenced moments later, voluntarily, by the offender. What on earth had the man done to these children, Cecilia fumed, mesmerized them?

They had never behaved so well for her!

Maybe he really was a teacher, and all her suspicions were just so much wishful thinking. If that was the case, then there was no point to her being in Annsboro, working her pruny scalded fingers to the bone. At least at home, even under the disapproving eye of her father, she had Clara, their wonderful housekeeper, to cook and wait on her.

Of course, Clara, who was concerned about Cecilia’s motherless state and took it upon herself to warn her of the many pitfalls in life, especially when it came to men, was not the most scintillating companion. Mostly, she criticized Cecilia’s penchant for trouble and handed out advice on how to behave around the male sex.

This time next week, she’d probably be up to her ears in platitudes....

As Cecilia began to back dejectedly toward the door, her boot heel scraped against a knot in the floorboard, throwing her off-balance. She pitched forward and grabbed onto the coatrack, grasping for dear life. Unable to get a steady handhold or regain her footing, Cecilia pawed frantically at the knobs holding a variety of caps, hats and bonnets. She did an awkward little dance downward with the stick of wood until her rump unceremoniously hit the floor.

Eighteen bodies swiveled in their seats, then jumped to attention. During her short tenure, she’d tried to teach the children to stand respectfully when an adult entered the room. Naturally, after a day under Pendergast’s stewardship, they actually did it.

“Ah, Miss Summertree,” Pendergast said, scurrying down the room’s center aisle. “How nice of you to come for a visit.” As he loomed over her, his dark eyes danced with speculation. Gallantly, he offered her his hand. “Although I could swear you looked as though you were spying on us.”

“Spying? Spying?” Cecilia asked, unmoving. She felt the strings of a sunbonnet dangling by one of her ears. “Of course I wasn’t spying!”

Muffled giggles broke out among the children who’d gathered around. Seeing their former schoolmistress literally brought low was obviously irresistible.

Jake wanted to laugh himself. He’d seen Cecilia nosing around and wondered if she was going to announce herself. Apparently, she’d hoped to find him completely inept, which of course he was. Fortunately, his dealings as a deputy had taught him about seedier ways of getting what you want—namely, through bribery. For his class’s performance this day, he was nearly a dollar down in candy payments. Yet it was worth every penny to see the distress in his beautiful adversary’s liquid blue eyes.

Cecilia ignored his outstretched arm and pushed herself up. “I just wanted to see if you were having any difficulties,” she said hastily, dusting herself off. “I thought you might need some help on your first day.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Jake said, frowning distastefully as she swatted at her clothing, sending dust flying into the air. He pulled out a handkerchief and limply waved the cloud away.

She forced a smile. “But I can see you don’t need my aid.”

“Heavens, no,” he said. “No more than you would need mine hanging out the laundry.” He smiled back, a triumphant show of gleaming white teeth that let her know she hadn’t fooled him about her real purpose for dropping by. “This is wash day, isn’t it?” He couldn’t resist rubbing salt in her wound.

Cecilia’s smile dissolved, as did the thin veneer of politeness she’d been putting on for the children. She didn’t savor the idea of being this man’s servant, even indirectly. “Watch it, Pendergast, or you might find ‘Ode to the West’ on that blackboard one of these mornings.”

Startled, he raised an eyebrow questioningly. What was she talking about?

Cecilia grinned mischievously. “The poem I found in your shirt pocket, Mr. Pendergast.”

Oh, hell! He should have expected that, after reading all those stupid books, Pendergast wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to put pen to paper. “Oh, that...that was probably something I just jotted down.”

Cecilia crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes on him in a posture that he was beginning to find touchingly familiar. “I’d take more care to check my pockets if I were you. Or it might just get around town that—” She cleared her throat to prepare for her recitation. “‘Your heart yearns to rest in the bosom of the old prairie.’”

Several titters came from behind them, and Cecilia warmed to her audience as she noted Pendergast’s face reddening. Perfect. “Or how about this—‘The sky ‘tis like a lover’s eye, it twinkles upon me nightly.’”

The children jeered openly now. “Give us some more, Cecilia!” Tommy Beck howled.

“Yeah, more bosoms!” shouted Wilbur.

Pendergast’s surprisingly strong hand clamped down on her arm. Cecilia was momentarily thrown off by the buzz of excitement she felt at the contact, but recovered in time to dimple at him sweetly. “Why, Mr. Pendergast, your beautiful verse about caused me to swoon over my washtub.” She batted her eyelashes dreamily at him, bringing whoops of laughter from her former students.

Damn Pendergast, damn, was all Jake could think. And damn Cecilia’s pert little nose and saucy smile. She’d managed to throw the kids into a rowdy mood. It would probably cost him another dollar’s worth of candy to quiet them all down again! He began propelling her toward the door.

“Thank you, Miss Summertree, for your little visit,” he said stiffly, feeling hampered by the manners he was supposed to possess. If he wasn’t supposed to be Pendergast, he would have let her know exactly what kind of a minx she was.

Having never been dismissed from anything but a girls’ school and the houses of her snooty Memphis relatives, Cecilia couldn’t quite comprehend what Pendergast was doing. Only that her performance was being received well. “I had no idea Philadelphia men were so brawny. You must spend your time lifting some heavy schoolbooks, Mr. Pendergast.”

More jeers came from the pupils.

“Of course,” Pendergast said, giving her a final little shove over the threshold. “How else could I toss out impertinent young women from my schoolroom?”

Tossed out? Was that what was going on here? Cecilia thought. But he had no right to do it! She didn’t even want to go into who her daddy was and where her family came from. She was a person to be reckoned with in her own right...at least, in Annsboro, she was.

At least...until now.

She fought against the sagging sensation in her shoulders. Yesterday she’d been Cecilia Summertree, the town schoolteacher, with the best room in Dolly Hudspeth’s boardinghouse. Now she was nothing but a washerwoman, Lupe Viega’s replacement, with a squat room overlooking the biggest privy in town.

Her mind whirred, and then she caught sight of the many sets of eyes fastened on her. None of them seemed to truly appreciate the desperation of her plight. Not even Tommy, who moments before had spoken as her ally. Although, God bless him, the boy was still chewing mesquite gum against school rules.

Suddenly, she became self-conscious. This building, which she’d so recently considered her own, was no longer a welcoming place. Not while Pendergast ruled there.

Before she could voice a response, Jake stepped forward, locked on to her elbow and steered her down the steps. Cecilia sputtered at his manhandling, but he no longer cared what she thought or how angry she became. Her being there was making him nervous.

As he deposited her on the first step, she pulled away and whirled on him. “You—you brute!” she spat angrily.

“Brute?” Jake asked, feigning wonder. He puffed out his chest and tugged at his vest in mock pride. “No one’s ever called me that before. I rather like it.”

What a horrid man! Cecilia thought. And to think that even last night she had toyed with the idea—ludicrous now—that he was actually rather attractive.

“Stay out of my way, Pendergast,” she warned.

“Out of your way? Just yesterday you indicated you were going to be my shadow. Perhaps you should take your own advice.”

Her blue eyes flashed with ire. “That wasn’t advice, Pendergast, it was a warning.” After sending him a final glare, she spun and beat a hasty retreat.

Jake smiled lazily as he again watched Cecilia huff toward town, relieved to have survived the encounter so successfully. He was getting to her. Soon her better sense would prevail—Cecilia would tire of doing chores for Dolly Hudspeth and run back to Daddy’s ranch, leaving him in peace.

But until that time, he would have to be very, very careful—and pray he had enough money to keep these students good and bribed till he was ready to beat it out of town.

Chapter Three

Eugene Pendergast would rue the day he came to Annsboro, Cecilia vowed. He’d actually humiliated her in front of her former students, dismissing her as if she was a—a nobody! Of course, she had to admit that she had behaved rather disgracefully herself, standing on the schoolhouse steps ranting about warnings—but he’d provoked her!

She clenched her fists at her sides as she marched down the dusty street, passing right by the turnoff to Dolly’s house. With all the pent-up frustration inside her, she would probably be able to get the wash done in no time, but she couldn’t face Dolly just yet. Her friend would sense something had happened, and Cecilia didn’t want her to know that she had designs on Pendergast. Designs to get him fired, that is.

But how?

At her frantic pace, she’d nearly covered the entire length of the town when she spotted Buck reeling out of Grady’s saloon. He was supposed to have taken her trunk full of clothes back to the ranch the night before, but by the looks of him the man hadn’t made it home at all.

“Buck McDeere, get over here!” she bellowed.

Although the street was practically deserted save for the two of them, the slow-moving cowboy looked muzzily in her direction before appearing to focus on her. Woozily, he shaded his eyes with his hand and stumbled forward. God only knew what he’d done with his hat.

“Buck, have you been in that place since last night?” Cecilia demanded.

“Have not. Just since this morning.”

“This morning?” That was strange. “Did Daddy send you into town for something?”

“Yep. You.”

Cecilia gulped.

“He heard about the new teacher, Cici. He doesn’t like the idea of you staying with Dolly now. ‘Imposing’ is how he put it.”

“Damnation!”

“He’s been stomping around all day, saying you think you’re too good for the rest of us.”

Cecilia puffed up with indignation. “That’s a lie!”

“I know that, but your father’s been bent out of shape ever since you left the ranch.”

“He’s been bent out of shape since I came back from New Orleans.” Which is why she hadn’t spent much time at home. Of course, she could understand him being mad about her being tossed out of school, but what did he care if she stayed cooped up on the ranch with him or not?

Buck hesitated, then told her, “He says you ought to get married and learn your place.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Have you ever heard anything so infuriating?” Marriage!

“I knew you’d be mad.” He clasped his hands in a pleading gesture. “Please, Cici. I’m just the messenger.”

“Oh, bother.” Some days it just seemed as if the whole world was plotting against her. Cecilia stamped her boot and held her breath against the dust she’d just kicked up. “I’ll have to think of something. Meantime, Buck, you shouldn’t have been so nervous that you had to spend the entire morning with a whiskey bottle. If you aren’t careful, you’ll end up like poor old Dooley Hodges.”

Both of them shook their heads sadly. Dooley Hodges had been a crackerjack ranch hand before he’d had the misfortune to fall in love with a woman at Grady’s. When the girl had said she wouldn’t marry him, he’d decided to stand sentry at the bar, effectively cutting off her clientele. Unfortunately, the girl moved on and Dooley didn’t. He became a permanent fixture on his bar stool, until finally he just collapsed in an alcoholic funk. His people, from Fort Worth, had come for him, and Dooley was never heard from again.

“Poor Dooley,” Buck said, still shaking his head. “Bet he’s working in a store, or some such.” As if that was a fate worse than death.

“But of course, if his family hadn’t come for him, the temperance ladies probably would have run him out.”

Buck nodded. Some of the farmers’ wives deeply resented the presence of the bar—not to mention brothel—in Annsboro. Their husbands barely scratched out a living anyway, so it was a small wonder women begrudged cash money going to the consumption of women and alcohol, when some of them couldn’t afford to make decent winter clothes to send their children to school....

School!

A tantalizing vision of Eugene Pendergast being run out of town, with several large, outraged farm women on his heels, hurling rocks at his swiftly retreating back, flitted titillatingly through Cecilia’s imagination. Her lips curled up in a wide smile. Could she manage it? she thought, wondering whether Lysander Beasley had given Pendergast the same pompous morality lesson he’d given her.

It just might work, she thought, her heart racing. All she needed was an accomplice. “Buck, listen to me. I promise I’ll explain my extended stay to Daddy, in person, if you’ll just do me one tiny little favor.”

Buck regarded her through suspicious, bleary eyes. “Aw, Cici, why don’t you just come on home?”

“Because my home is right here,” she lectured sharply. “And if you liked me half as much as you’re so fond of saying you do, you’d understand that.”

“I do, but I don’t understand—”

“I’m a lady, Buck. What’s the point of being a lady if you’re stuck where nobody ever sees you?”

Buck rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah, but your mother was a lady, and she lived out there.”

“And died there,” Cecilia snapped.

He winced at her piercing words and shrugged in obeisance. “Okay, okay. What am I supposed to do now?”

“I want you to get that new schoolteacher rip-roaring drunk.”

Buck let out a sharp, surprised laugh. “No, really,” he urged, then saw the earnest, withering look on her face. “You’re not jokin’ me?”

She paused a moment for effect. “I am not.”

And while Buck was inebriating her nemesis, she would get to work on her own line of sabotage. And she knew just where to start. For years, Lysander Beasley had stumped around the county trying to raise money for new school readers—because, of course, his daughter at six could read better than most adults. Finally, with generous contributions from Cecilia’s father and some others, he’d been able to purchase fifteen new Gibson readers. It would be too wonderful if anything happened to those precious books during Pendergast’s short tenure.

Buck was having trouble accepting her orders. “But I don’t even know the man. He might not be the kind to get liquored up.”

“Last night I saw him gulp down two glasses of Dolly’s potent blackberry wine like it was water. He drinks, all right.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Cecilia said in her firmest schoolmarm tone. “Buck McDeere, if you don’t do this for me I’m going straight home tomorrow to tell Daddy I saw you reeling out of Grady’s at half past eleven. Don’t forget who Dooley Hodges worked for. Daddy’s sensitive when it comes to workers and the bottle.”

“Aw, Cici, that’s...that’s—”

“Blackmail.” Cecilia smiled. “Same as you’ve done to me since we were kids.”

Buck shrugged helplessly and Cecilia knew she had him. Mentioning their long history never did any harm, since he considered that to be one of his best selling points as a suitor.

“All right,” he said. “I guess I’ll try.”

In her triumph, Cecilia beamed a smile at him and reached over to squeeze his arm. “Buck, I’m sorry for thinking you’re such a good-for-nothing.”

Buck grinned back happily. Although he was a bit nervous about his mission and suspicious about Cici’s motives, maybe she’d appreciate his efforts. He’d been trying to rush her for five years now and frankly, he was beginning to feel a little discouraged.

* * *

Pendergast took her hand and gazed deeply into her eyes. Cecilia remembered thinking that his dark eyes had a smoldering quality, and that was the word that came to her now. Lit by fire, they were, and desire for her alone.

They stood by the pond near her house, almost dry now since August. Still, the trees there provided shade, and a very promising privacy. With only a quick glance to confirm that they were alone, perfectly alone, he pulled her into his arms. Before Cecilia could react, his lips covered hers, warm and persuasive...

And then he started singing.

Cecilia bolted upright in bed, gasping for air. Pendergast had kissed her!

No, no, he hadn’t. Fuzzily, as she attempted to gain her bearings in the dark, her mind began to make sense of what had happened. She’d been dreaming—but surely, it had been more like a nightmare! Her labored breathing certainly indicated that something traumatic had occurred.

And yet, as she strained to remember the dream, her recollections were not at all unpleasant. First she’d been captivated by his coal dark eyes, which had drawn her closer to him without his even touching her. But how could that have happened?

Of course, the answer was that it hadn’t happened. But the scene was so vivid—his lips, his voice, singing...she could hear it even now. That truly was strange. She could make out the tune quite clearly. He was singing “Lorena”!

Cecilia pushed back her coverlet and hopped from the bed. Standing on tiptoe, she craned her neck out the window to hear the mournful ballad. Someone was singing down the street, but it didn’t sound like Pendergast. It sounded more like...Buck!

A light breeze brought with it the ripe smell of the side yard, causing Cecilia to duck her head back inside. She groped through the darkened room for her robe, then remembered that it was one of the items she’d sent home. Letting out an exasperated breath as the singing neared the house, she left her room in her nightgown and bare feet to meet the roving minstrel.

The evening was unseasonably warm as she stepped outside through the front door, but she crossed her arms over her chest instinctively as the fresh air made contact with her scantily clothed body. Narrowing her eyes toward the road, she caught sight of Pendergast and Buck, draped over each other so that she could hardly tell where one ended and the other began. They weaved off the main road toward the house.

As they came closer and Cecilia’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight, it became clear who was who. Buck, staggering and singing, was on the left, and Pendergast on the right, was practically dragging him along—cold sober!

She couldn’t believe how miserably Buck had failed her. Her only comfort was that she had had a successful evening. After the boardinghouse residents had gone to bed, Cecilia had sneaked over to the schoolhouse, climbed through a window and tossed out the readers. Unfortunately, she had to toss herself out the window, too, and had done a belly flop in the dust. But in so doing, she had discovered the most ingenious hiding place for the books—on a ledge in the crawl space beneath the schoolhouse steps.

Which only proved that if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.

Regardless of her state of dress or who might see her, Cecilia sped off the porch and sprinted across the dry grass of Dolly’s yard to meet Pendergast and Buck. The sharp splintery blades poked at the soft pads of her feet.

“Buck, you idiot!” she said under her breath, coming to a quick stop in front of the pair. “Do you want to wake up the entire town?”

“And the next county.”

Cecilia looked at Pendergast, who seemed none the worse for drink. How had he managed it? In fact, his eyes were clear, almost twinkly, as they regarded her state of undress.

“Buck wanted to see you,” Pendergast said, grinning madly. “Said something about a man named Dooley Hodges and camping out on your porch until his relatives hauled him away.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Cecilia frowned. This was a terrible mess. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”

“He insisted,” Pendergast explained, and then his gaze again swept her from head to toe, making her feel nearly naked, which of course she was. “Now I can understand why.”

A vision of her dream by the pond flashed through Cecilia’s mind. She felt her face burn and was glad there was only a quarter moon’s worth of light illuminating her embarrassment.

“What am I supposed to do with him?” she asked fretfully.

Seeing her distress, his expression softened. “Honestly, Cecilia, I couldn’t send him off to your father’s ranch. He’ll stay in my room for the night.”

Suddenly, Cecilia relaxed a bit. As much as she hated to admit it, this was her fault, and Pendergast was at least being decent about it. And he was right. She wouldn’t want Buck to have attempted the ride home, or risked her father’s wrath when he got there.

“All right,” she agreed, then bent her head toward his companion. “But Buck, you’ve got to try not to wake up Dolly or Lucinda.” Mrs. Baker slept like a rock.

“Dolly or Lucici—cinda,” Buck slurred loudly.

Cecilia looked doubtfully at Pendergast. “I’ll help you get him upstairs.”

He nodded, and Cecilia ducked underneath Buck’s other armpit. His crazily limp body was terribly unwieldy, and by the time they made it inside and to the stairs, bumping and thumping all the way, Cecilia had lost all hope of not waking the others.

“Shh,” she entreated, and Pendergast nodded.

Backfired. She couldn’t believe her little scheme had blown up in her face. What had she done to deserve this?

Oh, well. At least she had managed to set a trap for Pendergast. Beasley would stroke when those expensive books turned up missing, and Pendergast would bear the brunt of his wrath. She smiled already in anticipation.

“You know,” Pendergast whispered seriously, “the man probably wouldn’t be driven to drink if you didn’t tease him so unmercifully.”

“What?” Cecilia almost shrieked.

He ducked his head and pressed a finger to his mouth in warning. “Shh.”

“Don’t shush me, Pendergast,” Cecilia said, spitting the words over Buck’s practically unconscious head. “How dare you deign to tell me my business after spending all of three days in this town?”

“Fine,” he answered. “I won’t mention it again. I reckon it’s none of my business if you choose to ruin this man’s life.”

Cecilia’s eyebrow shot up in alert. “You reckon? Is that one of your Philadelphia words, Mr. Pendergast?”

“No, actually, I picked it up on the train.”

“I’ll just bet you did,” she replied.

“You know, you ought to consider going to Philadelphia someday. Maybe you’d pick up some manners on the train.”

“Oh!”

“Shh.” This time, a smile touched his lips. “We don’t want to wake the ladies, now, do we?”

If it wouldn’t have meant dropping Buck on his head, she would have slapped the man. “Why Lysander Beasley had to look all the way across the country just to find a schoolteacher, I’ll never know.”

Jake had been wondering that himself. Yet, at this precise moment, he was enjoying teasing Cecilia too much to worry about it. Her honey blond hair appeared almost white in the faint light, and her blue eyes were two dark, flashing pools. For a moment, as his eyes fastened on her full lips, he regretted that they were adversaries.

Nevertheless, that’s what they were.

“I should have thought that was obvious,” he said at last. “Yankees are smarter.”

Her mouth dropped open at his audacity, making Jake unable to hold back a chuckle. The lady wanted to belt him. Fortunately for him, they were approaching his door. Getting Buck in the room was going to take some fancy maneuvering.

Gingerly, he shifted his weight so that Buck was propped on his shoulder, which freed Jake’s hand for the doorknob. The entrance was too narrow for three people abreast, so they shuffled through one at a time, swaying in a jerky little dance.

Finally, the trio arrived at the bed.

“Pull down the covers,” Cecilia said.

“What for?”

She gaped at him as though she couldn’t believe her ears. “We just can’t throw him on the bed. Pull down the covers.”

Only a woman, Jake thought, shaking his head. “That’s crazy. But if keeping your sweetheart warm means so much to you, you pull them back.”

“He’s not my sweetheart!” she snapped. “Besides, you’re closer.”

A quick glance toward the bed confirmed she was right. But this was silly. “You can’t hold him up by yourself.”

It was the wrong argument to make. “Who says?”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Let’s not bicker. If you insist, I’ll turn down your damned covers.”

“There’s no need to resort to profanity, Mr. Pendergast,” she said haughtily, “just because you’re faced with ceding your meager but typical male show of strength to a woman.”

Jake relinquished his hold on Buck and stepped away, watching Cecilia stagger under the sudden burden. “Is that what I’m doing?” he asked innocently.

She weaved and leaned precariously for a moment before getting Buck’s bulk under control. “For heaven’s sakes!” she cried. “I almost dropped him, thanks to you.”

“Thanks to the loss of my meager strength, you mean?”

Cecilia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Yes.”

From Dolly’s room across the hall, Jake heard stirring. He looked anxiously at Cecilia, who was glaring at him. Suddenly, an idea struck him.

Why not? he thought.

“Well,” he said, in his primmest Pendergast tone, “I am glad to know that you’ll thank me for something. And now I suggest you put this man to bed.”

Cecilia frowned, but followed his very logical suggestion. Her bent frame was about to snap in two from Buck’s weight. With Pendergast lifting not a finger to help, she shuffled closer to the bed.

“You need to turn the other way,” he said, calculating.

Cecilia puffed out an exasperated breath. She should have just pulled back the damned covers and left Pendergast to do the lifting. “But that doesn’t make sense,” she said. “That would put me between him and the bed.”

“Trust me,” Pendergast said.

Foolishly, but just wanting to get this all over with, she did. Gathering her last vestiges of strength, she pivoted herself and Buck around so that the backs of her thighs were pinned against the mattress.

“I told you this was all wrong,” she said.

Pendergast smiled, and behind him, Cecilia heard the opening of a door, then approaching footsteps. Dolly! “Oh, no!” she whispered, looking at him entreatingly. “Do something!”

He nodded obligingly, and then, with an evil little grin, put two fingers to Buck’s back and gave him a gentle but firm shove. The slight pressure was enough to throw Cecilia completely off-balance, and she yelped helplessly as she felt herself falling, falling—and saw Buck poised to land right on top of her!

They hit the cotton batting and down mattress with a dull thud just as Dolly scurried into the room.

“What is happening!” she cried, trying to make sense of the mass of arms and legs entangled on the bed. Cecilia let out a winded moan, and Dolly’s eyes widened.

“Don’t, Mrs. Hudspeth,” Jake urged, enjoying himself immensely as he took her arm to steer her toward the door. “Don’t look on it.”

Dolly dug in her heels. “But that’s—that’s Cecilia under that man!”

Cecilia let out a muffled cry and began to struggle to free herself.

“I’ve never witnessed such a scandal,” Jake said in a low voice. “I never dreamed such things went on in respectable houses!”

Dolly’s hand flew to her mouth, her friend forgotten momentarily at the mention of the word scandal. “They don’t!” She looked at Cecilia, puzzled. “But who is that on top of her?”

“Dolly, for heaven’s sake!” Cecilia yelled, poking her head free. “It’s just Buck. Get me out of here!”

Jake’s hopes faltered. If only he’d had time to think this through better...

Dolly paled. “Buck?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Buck McDeere?”

“Yes!” Cecilia said. “What other Buck is there?”

Jake began to worry when Dolly swayed, high color returning to her cheeks in a sudden rush. The woman looked drunk herself! Tears appeared in her eyes, and her mouth twisted in an attempt to hold back a cry.

“Mrs. Hudspeth?” he said, concerned, grasping her arm more firmly.

She shook her head mutely, lifting her hand to her mouth. The tears she’d been attempting so valiantly to hold back gushed forth. Without a word, she pivoted on her slippers and ran from the room.

Jake looked after the woman in silence, wondering what on earth had happened.

Sputtering, Cecilia finally extricated herself and flew off the bed in a rage. “You planned that!” she accused sharply.

Jake crossed his arms and faced her squarely. “And you sent that man to try to get me drunk.”

Her jaw dropped open, then popped closed. “You can’t prove anything.”

For his money, she might as well have admitted her guilt outright. Jake smiled. “All right,” he said. “We neither of us have behaved very well tonight. I think we should call a truce.”

She pressed her lips together and glared at him stubbornly. “Truce, my foot! My best friend is terribly upset, my reputation is on shaky ground, and I’ll probably be sent home because of this.”

To Jake, her words were like a balm.

“And as for you,” she continued, “what do you have to complain about? You aren’t even tipsy!”

Jake nodded toward Buck’s sleeping form and shrugged. “Your friend was rather transparent in his designs.”

Cecilia crossed her arms. “I should have known I needed to handle this problem myself.”

“I don’t think getting loaded up on hooch at Grady’s would have done your reputation any good, either.”

“Very funny,” she said with a scowl.

Now that he had the upper hand, Jake was much more relaxed. Cecilia Summertree had learned her lesson; the woman would probably stop deviling him. Which led to another happy thought—they would no longer be adversaries, after all.

He took in her pretty, pouting mouth, the lips a luscious pink from where she had worried them with her teeth. Her arms were crossed over her chest. Although her nightgown came up to her neck and was perfectly proper, its snowy white folds, and the womanly curves they covered, were as inviting as a warm bed on a cold night.

Jake swallowed hard as he looked into her blue eyes. She appeared likewise mesmerized, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but no longer from anger. He reached out, and she stepped back.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said, taking another step forward.

“About what?” Her voice came out in a wary, squeaky whisper.

“I do have something to complain about.” He continued toward her, and she continued backing up until she backed right into a table.

“Wh-what?”

“No bed.” He nodded lazily in the direction of Buck, never taking his eyes off her. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

A little shiver tremored through Cecilia. She’d gone too far this time. Why hadn’t she left as soon as she’d untangled herself from Buck? Innocuous words like bed and sleep sounded woefully intimate when you were alone with a man in his room. His dark room. Especially when your only champion was out cold.

Looking into his eyes had been the big mistake. She glanced at him, and then remembered that troublesome dream. Nightmare, she corrected. She’d remembered those smoldering eyes, and then that kiss, and...and then he’d started prowling toward her like a prairie wolf stalking a rabbit.

She was trapped, she thought, reaching back to steady herself. Her hands bumped against something hard and smooth. The washbasin! Heart beating rapidly, she felt around and found what she was looking for.

Jake smiled. Cecilia looked up at him, her eyes shy and a shade coy. She was beautiful. He understood why Buck was so smitten.

“Do you have any suggestions?” he asked, bending closer.

Her eyes widened when he touched her arm. “Oh, you mean to solve your little problem?”

“Uh-huh.” He nibbled at the soft lobe of her right ear.

“Yes, yes, I think I do,” she answered, gritting her teeth. She would never have taken the schoolteacher of yesterday, with his tight vest and floodwater pants, to be such a slimy lecher. But then, neither would she have guessed that she would find herself tempted by him in the least. Yet looking into those dark eyes, she could almost imagine allowing herself to find out if the man kissed as well in real life as he did in her dreams....

Almost.

He pulled back to look into her eyes, and she broke out in a wide grin. “What is it?” he asked.

“Just this.” Reaching from behind, she produced a white pitcher and flung half its contents in his face.

Jake let out a muttered curse as the water hit him, then dripped down his shirtfront. Reflexively, he stepped backward, shaking the water from his hands.

“I suggest you sleep on the floor,” Cecilia said. Then, with a last disdainful glance, she turned and ran from the room.

Chapter Four

Cecilia swept the kitchen with long, energetic strokes. She had known Pendergast was going to be trouble, she’d just underestimated how much.

At breakfast this morning he’d been the soul of courtesy. The man hadn’t cracked a smile or even looked at her funny, nothing to indicate he was the wolf who had cornered her in his bedroom the night before. The closest he’d come to communicating anything at all to her was to compliment her ironing!

After Pendergast left for school, she’d run up to his room to check on Buck, who was nowhere to be seen. Which was good, since he needed to get back to the ranch. Unfortunately she was dying to know what had happened last night—before she’d heard him singing.

She prayed Buck would make up something to tell her father, any excuse for her not coming home. Sooner or later she would have to tend to placating him herself; she couldn’t rely on Buck forever. But for now, it was necessary to watch Pendergast like a hawk. If her suspicions were true and he wasn’t a schoolteacher after all, he was bound to slip up.

And even if he didn’t slip up on his own, he was bound to catch hell when those readers were discovered missing. She practically rubbed her hands in glee at the thought. Where finances were involved, Beasley wouldn’t care who had actually been responsible for the theft, he would just want to have someone to blame. Pendergast was doomed.

But she would have to keep her wits about her. Last night she’d almost let the man kiss her—for no reason other than some silly little dream she’d had! Never in her life had Cecilia considered herself fickle, and now, with the enemy at her gate, was not the time to start behaving like a complete ninny.

The front door opened and closed, and Cecilia braced herself. What if this was Pendergast? She was alone in the house, except for Mrs. Baker, who couldn’t hear anything anyway. What if he tried to corner her like he had last night?

Footsteps sounded in the kitchen doorway and Cecilia jumped with a startled intake of breath. Dolly stared at her oddly, then sniffed, raised her head proudly and continued on in.

Cecilia sighed. Of course it wasn’t Pendergast! Why would a schoolteacher be home before midmorning?

Besides, as she watched Dolly pointedly ignoring her, she realized she had other problems to tackle. It seemed just about everyone in town had a beef against her. She walked to the small table and picked up the wrapped package from Beasley’s that Dolly had put there.

“What’s this?” she asked, attempting to break the silence between them. Dolly hadn’t spoken a word to her since fleeing from Pendergast’s bedroom the night before.

“Yeast.”

And that, Cecilia gathered, was all Dolly intended to say about that. “Are you going to bake something?” she persisted.

Dolly continued to ignore her, but made an abundance of noise as she gathered things she would need. “Bread.”

A wave of dread went through Cecilia. Given the positioning of her little room, baking bread in the oven meant she baked, too. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked, trying to keep her voice chipper.

The lighthearted tone appeared to be her friend’s undoing. Suddenly, Dolly’s shoulders sagged, then trembled, and she clasped a hand over her mouth. She shook her head as she leaned over the sink, and Cecilia could tell by the way the muscles in her jaw clenched and twitched that she was in the final throes of fighting back tears.

“Dolly, what is it?” she asked, scurrying over. She put an arm around Dolly’s shoulders, but the woman shrugged it away. “Is it me? What have I done?”

Red faced, chest heaving, Dolly turned on her. “Done?” she asked, her voice steely. She dashed an errant tear from her cheek. “I think you know, Cecilia.”

Cecilia stared at her, stupefied. “If it’s about last night—”

A sharp accusatory laugh erupted from Dolly’s chest.

“I know it looked strange,” Cecilia said, but Dolly stopped her by holding a hand toward her, palm out. “I can explain,” Cecilia insisted. “Well, most of it.”

“Don’t,” Dolly said. “I’m going to have to tell your father the next time I see him, Cecilia. I don’t think you ought to stay here.”

A flush suffused Cecilia’s cheeks. She was being thrown out. Thrown out. Just like yesterday, when Pendergast tossed her out of the schoolhouse. How the mighty had fallen.

“You can’t, Dolly,” she pleaded. “It wasn’t how it looked. And you know how my poor father would react. It would kill him, or else he would kill me.”

Dolly’s mouth remained set in a firm, taut line. And then Cecilia detected a quiver. And then another. And then a cry erupted, a sad little moan. Dolly barely made it to one of the woven-backed chairs around the table before she collapsed.

“Oh, Cecilia,” she wailed, “you wouldn’t understand!”

At this rate, Cecilia feared she never would. She hurried over and put a comforting hand on Dolly’s shoulder. “You must explain to me what is wrong. Maybe there’s something I can do to set things right again.”

Dolly’s head shook to and fro. “You’re so pretty and young, you’ll think I’m foolish.”

“For what?” asked Cecilia, astonished.

“For hoping that...” She let the sentence trail off, leaving Cecilia still mystified. “And then, seeing you together...”

Slowly, understanding dawned. Somehow, Dolly must have sensed that there was something going on between her and Pendergast. Of course, there wasn’t, nothing besides animosity, nothing at all. What a horrible misconception!

“Oh, no, Dolly, you’re wrong.” As Dolly’s eyes peered at her in hope, Cecilia shook her head decisively. “I have no interest in him whatsoever, nor he in me. Not the kind you mean, anyway.”

She didn’t know what to say next, but she felt in her heart of hearts it was her duty to dissuade Dolly from pinning her hopes on Pendergast. True, he was a bachelor, of a marriageable age and arguably attractive after a fashion, but Cecilia had serious misgivings about his character. Overall, they knew very little about this man. Also, if she had her way, he would soon be a man with no means of employment.

But before she could speak further, Dolly said, “That’s not true, Cecilia. Perhaps you don’t like him, but he’s been flirting with you for five years.”

“Five years!” Cecilia said, astonished again. “But Mr. Pendergast just got here a few days ago!”

Dolly gaped at her. “Mr. Pendergast? What has he to do with any of this?”

“But that’s who you mean, isn’t it?” Cecilia asked, perplexed. “Who else—”

An unbelievable possibility occurred to Cecilia, cutting her sentence short. She felt herself go pale as the blood drained from her cheeks. “Dolly, you can’t mean...”

Fresh tears spilled freely down Dolly’s face, and she nodded miserably. “Yes!” she cried.

“But you can’t possibly...” She hardly knew how to put it into words.

Dolly did it for her. “It’s Buck! I love him terribly!”

How else? Cecilia stared at her friend in horror. And disbelief. “Buck?” she asked, unable to keep the amazement out of her voice. “Buck McDeere?”

“When I saw you two together, Cecilia, I felt something die inside me,” Dolly said, wiping her eyes with a wrinkled soggy handkerchief.

“But, Dolly,” Cecilia said, still trying to cope with her friend’s initial pronouncement, “Buck?”

“You’re just a snob, Cecilia,” Dolly said harshly. “You think he’s unsuitable because he works for your father!” Cecilia took offense at those words. True, she had her faults, but this wasn’t one of them. “You’re wrong, Dolly. I wouldn’t condemn a man for doing honest work. But, think. When you saw him last night, he was passed-out drunk!”

Dolly shot her an accusing glare. “That obviously didn’t deter you from playing fast and loose with him while he was vulnerable.”

Cecilia’s mouth popped open in astonishment. “He fell on top of me!” she defended. “Truly, Dolly, that’s absolutely all there was to it.”

Suddenly, Dolly’s eyes cleared. For a moment she gazed doubtfully at Cecilia, as if the news was too good to be true. “Honestly?” she asked, blinking.

“I swear it,” Cecilia said. “But nevertheless...Buck? Dolly, he drinks, and goodness knows what else. He spends half his life at Grady’s.”

Dolly smiled radiantly, as if Cecilia’s words had conjured the image of a saint for her. “You’re wrong, Cecilia. No one is a lost cause. I’m sure, deep inside, Buck McDeere has it in him to be a great man, if someone would just set him straight.”

Cecilia released a frustrated breath. “I’m not certain about that....”

“I know what you’re really thinking.” Dolly looked at her sharply and sniffed. “You think I’m too old.”

“The thought never entered my mind.” Which was the truth. Cecilia had been too stunned to think things through even that far. “But now that you mention it, wouldn’t you prefer someone more...mature?”

Dolly lifted her chin proudly. “I’m not yet thirty, after all, and Buck is nearly twenty-four. If our sexes were reversed, no one would blink an eye at the difference.”

Everything she said was true. Still, Cecilia had serious misgivings. She was so used to thinking of Buck as a clown, or a pest, like a fly persistently buzzing around that needed to be swatted away. Considering him as a serious marriage partner—for anyone—was a stretch. But especially one for Dolly, who always seemed overly concerned with appearances and having things done properly.

What couldn’t be denied was that Dolly was still young, and pretty, and had endured four lonely years of widowhood. She deserved love in her life, but men, good ones, were scarce—at least in Annsboro, which hadn’t become the boomtown people like Lysander Beasley had hoped. And so Buck had become a serious prospect by default, especially since lately he was coming by more often to see Cecilia.

“I suppose I can see where he might be molded into marriage material,” Cecilia allowed grudgingly, feeling half-responsible for the catastrophe.

Dolly shook her head emphatically. “I wouldn’t want to change him.”

“You’d take him as he is?” If so, Dolly had gone bug crazy.

“Well...”

Cecilia breathed a sigh of relief. At least her friend hadn’t gone completely over the edge. Oh, but what a mess. She had no idea what Buck thought of Dolly—if he thought of her at all. But what difference did any of this make to her? She was about to be packed off to the ranch, never to gossip again, except on the occasional revival day. It was too pathetic.

And then, miraculously, an idea occurred to her through the murk of her despair. If she played her cards carefully, she just might hold disaster at bay for a precious while.

“Oh, how terrible,” she gasped, sounding an alarming note.

Dolly’s eyes snapped open wide. “What is it?”

Cecilia worried her lip to calculated effect. “Oh, nothing.”

“Yes, it is so something,” Dolly said. “Is it about Buck?”

Cecilia spoke her next words carefully. “I feel so sympathetic to your plight, Dolly. But unfortunately, once I go home, Buck probably won’t come to town so much. Really, I’ll be helpless to give you a hand.”

Dolly straightened alertly.

“I might hint to him about you,” Cecilia reasoned, “but I’m sure you wouldn’t want him to know the extent of your feelings. Not before you know his.”

“Oh, no.” Dolly looked horrified at the thought. “He can’t find out what I just told you!”

“Hmm.” She wrinkled her brows thoughtfully. “With me back at home, this might be hard to maneuver.”

“Oh, Cecilia!” Dolly’s eyes were pleading, the set of her shoulders contrite. “If you’ll just do this one thing, I swear I’ll never tell your father about last night. I was only going to because...I was jealous.”

Cecilia felt a pang of guilt for manipulating her friend this way. If her livelihood and her liberty weren’t at stake, she wouldn’t have stooped to such conniving. “If you had just asked me, you would have known there was nothing to be jealous of.”

Dolly’s face reddened with shame. “It was foolish of me, but I was afraid you would laugh if I told you how I felt about Buck.”

Cecilia swallowed. “Not at all.”

“Then you’ll do your best to bring Buck around?” Dolly asked.

“Of course.”

Dolly clapped her hands together. “I want to make a new dress, and I saw the sweetest little pattern at Beasley’s! I’ve got the perfect material for it upstairs—I’ll get it and show you.”

She flew out of her chair and bounded up the stairs, leaving Cecilia still sitting in a stupor. How on earth was she going to manage to get Buck to fall in love with Dolly? She chewed her lip in deep thought. If she didn’t manage to succeed, she wondered, would Dolly exact some kind of revenge?

She would have to get busy—both on Buck and on Pendergast. Because if she didn’t bring Buck around, she might well end up on the ranch anyway. And then she’d never be able to oust the suspicious schoolteacher from his job!

* * *

Ten-year-old Beatrice Beasley sat on the topmost schoolhouse stair, waiting for her teacher. Two nut brown braids fell over her yellow checked pinafore, neat as you please. Generous freckles dotted her face and hands, made darker by a summer exposed to the sun. Nevertheless, she held her hands primly in her lap atop her schoolbook. Her big brown eyes, magnified by round spectacles, were focused adoringly on Mr. Pendergast, who was just shutting the building for the day.

At her feet was her dog, Mr. Wiggles, an old yellow hound that was treated by the entire town as if he was a queen’s precious lapdog. The faithful animal roamed Annsboro all day until it was time to fetch his mistress home from school. Though the dog was sometimes known to be troublesome, Lysander Beasley, who because of his social status was always fearful his daughter was at risk of abduction, wouldn’t allow a word to be spoken against the animal.

Catching sight of Bea and her hound, Jake let out an exasperated sigh. The child tormented him. Just seeing her bespectacled little face made him go clammy with fear. Of all the children in school, Lysander Beasley’s daughter was the smartest. Smarter than her teacher, which gave Jake nightmares. Sometimes he imagined that even Mr. Wiggles could see right through his ruse.

The trouble was, he’d only finished seven years of schooling himself. When his father had had the ranch, Jake couldn’t be spared once he was grown enough to work. Then, when his family had lost their farm due to Otis Darby’s greed, he’d had to work even harder trying to do enough odd jobs to keep him and his mother going.

Burnet Dobbs had saved their lives by offering him the deputy job. It didn’t offer much as far as pay went, but it gave him a sense that he was working for right, for justice. Sending Otis Darby up the river had been one of the high points of his life, like vindicating his father’s death. But that had been before justice had backfired on him.

The upshot was that he hadn’t ever expected to step inside a school again, except maybe for a town meeting. Now he was forced to dredge up memories of lessons he’d learned nearly twenty years ago. The school had few books, just enough math primers to go around. Jake spent a lot of the day on spelling, because the school did boast a new dictionary. Besides, he’d always been a good speller.

Saturday, when Jake had first arrived, Beasley had touted some newly bought readers, but Jake hadn’t been paying attention, and now he didn’t see them. For lack of any other inspiration, he’d brought out one of Pendergast’s books, Dancehall Gunfight, and read it aloud today. Perhaps it wasn’t great literature, but the children’s faces had been rapt as he’d read the story of Two-step Pete, desperado turned federal marshal, and Willa the dance hall girl. Some of the girls had even cried at the point when Willa thought Two-step Pete had been fatally wounded.

Bea Beasley had cried. And now, as she looked at him as lovingly as Willa had gazed at Pete, Jake felt a shiver go down his spine. If the kid used her noggin, she’d have no trouble figuring out he was an impostor. All she had to do was tell her daddy that the new schoolteacher wasn’t up to snuff—and just like that, he’d be out of a job. Maybe he should be thankful for her schoolgirl crush, he reasoned. Better she see him as a hero than a deputy turned ranch hand doing a poor imitation of a teacher.

He smiled at Bea, put his hat on his head and hurried down the stairs. Bea fell into step beside him with Mr. Wiggles right at her heels.

“Are you going to read us more about Pete and Willa tomorrow, Mr. Pendergast?”

“I suppose so,” he said. “Do you like that story?”

“Oh, yes! I’m going to ask my father if I can grow up to be a dance hall girl, just like Willa.”

“Don’t do that!” he said too hastily. Imagining what Lysander Beasley would think of that book put him in a panic. Mr. Wiggles growled and Jake stared at Bea’s surprised face. “Uh, I mean...stories lose their magic when you tell other people about them.”

Bea looked shocked. “They do?”

“Absolutely.” Jake winced at how easily the silly lie had jumped to his lips. Nevertheless, he breathed easier when he saw she was falling for the line. “You have to keep them to yourself.” Lord, he prayed that would make the pesky kid keep her lip buttoned!

“Oh.” Bea appeared worried. Probably thinking about all the stories she’d demystified through the years, Jake guessed.

Just then, he caught sight of Cecilia and Buck across the street, in front of the defunct blacksmith’s shop. Cecilia had the ranch hand practically pinned against the storefront and appeared to be working him over about something or other. Jake felt his spine stiffen at the sight of the two of them together. Undoubtedly, it meant more trouble brewing.

Didn’t Buck ever go home?

Without thinking, Jake veered so that he was walking straight toward the blacksmith shop. Bea and her dog did the same. He just couldn’t shake that kid.

* * *

“Aw, Cecilia, why?” Buck’s expression was petulant.

“Because, Dolly’s one of the best cooks in town. Why, Mr. Walters pays to eat there!”

“I know, but...but isn’t it more fun to walk around and talk on the street?”

Cecilia put her hands on her hips, took one step forward and glared at him crossly. “I’ll thank you to show the decency to at least pretend to care about my reputation.”

“What reputation?”

“Precisely,” Cecilia snapped. Trying to convince Buck to visit her at Dolly’s was harder than she’d thought it would be. Even the promise of better chow wasn’t bringing him around. “I won’t have a reputation left if you continue to chase me around the great outdoors like you do. So you can either come for a nice sit-down dinner at Dolly’s or just leave me alone entirely.”

He took on a kicked-puppy appearance, leaned against the blacksmith’s wall and stubbed his toe in the dirt. “But Dolly’s so—”

“It’s no wonder you’re intimidated by her,” Cecilia broke in. “I’ve always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the county.”

“Dolly?” Buck asked, astonished.

“And the funniest.” As if to demonstrate, Cecilia looked at the empty September sky and chuckled merrily.

“What is it?”

Cecilia shook her head. “Oh, I was just thinking of this story Dolly told me the other day.” She put a hand to her mouth. “But I forgot. You were in it.”

“Dolly was talking about me?” He cocked his head first in surprise, then in wonder.

“She talks about you all the time.” This, at least, was the horrible truth. Now that the matter was out in the open, Dolly used every free moment to drag details about Buck out of Cecilia.

“Really?” Buck rubbed his chin thoughtfully and glanced around, as if Dolly was going to pop around the corner of the building any second now.

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