In Your Arms (Montana Romance) (9 page)

“No.”

Her answer was as hard as diamonds. She held his gaze for half a second more before pivoting and marching back to her desk.

“No?”
He followed her, towering over her as she sat and scooted her chair in, locking herself out of his reach. “I don’t know if you noticed this, Miss Singer, but you just kissed me. Thoroughly.”

“It was a mistake,” she mumbled.
“A terrible, terrible mistake.” She reached for a pile of workbooks and plunked them in front of her without looking at him.

“I don’t
believe it.” He leaned over, resting one hand on the back of her chair and one on her desk. “Have dinner with me.”

She hesitated.
Her chest was still rising and falling, as if she’d run all the way to the school from town. Her cheeks were rose-pink and he could feel the heat pouring off of her.

“Why not?
You know you want to.”

She twisted to glare at him, her nose inches away from his.
The force of her fury should have knocked him off his feet.

“You are an arrogant bastard,” she whispered.

“And you like me that way.” He grinned. He could kiss her again. She would let him. All he had to do was lean in.

She
tore away to face her school books. “I can’t stand arrogance, Mr. Avery, especially in men. Please leave.”

He hesitated, hovering near her.
She probably did hate arrogance, but she didn’t hate him. He knew that as certainly as he knew that he’d have far too much explaining to do if her students returned to the classroom and found him in the state he was in, and he was not ready to teach them about the birds and the bees.

He straightened.
“You can turn away all you want, Singing Bird, but I’ll still be there when you turn back.”

Slowly she turned to face him.
Her expression was so vibrant it unnerved him. The memory of her taste, the thrill of her body clinging to his, her breath against his lips, left his body buzzing.

“
Do your worst, Mr. Avery,” she said, point blank.

He would
. He absolutely would. He would win her and that was all there was to it.

Chapter Eight

She had kissed him. There was no denying the truth. Christian Avery had provoked her to distraction…and she had kissed him. Thoroughly.

The knowledge
had stuck with Lily all week, keeping her up at night and ruining her focus during the day. She would have been able to wave the whole thing off, consider it the heat of the moment, but for the fact that Christian was at the school every day. He had hovered like the tune of a love song she caught herself humming before she was aware of it.

She
had kissed
him
.

And now she would have to pay for it
, starting with the academic games.

The lobby of the Cold Springs Retreat was humming with excitement.
Students and their families were already arriving. The hotel staff was dressed in their best. Roy LaCroix greeted the new arrivals with a list in hand, directing each student where they should go to meet up with their team for a last-minute practice.

And here Lily was, faced with Christian
.

“Good evening, Miss Singer.”
He swaggered up to her, arrogant smile firmly in place. He was dressed in an exquisitely tailored suit—one that looked as though it would be more at home in Baltimore than Cold Springs. He’d shaved for the occasion as well. His eyes glittered with heat and mischief, just as they had when he’d caught her at the door to her classroom and attempted to ask her to dinner every day for the past week.

She almost
greeted him with a curt “No” out of habit.

“Mr. Avery.”
She nodded, facing away and focusing on the door. She couldn’t look at him. The memory of his arms tight around her, his lips pressed against hers, was still too fresh, too hot. She had kissed him, and she wanted to do it again.

“Fine hotel, isn’t it,” he said.

She kept her mouth shut and her hands clasped behind her back in spite of the tempting scent of cedar and tobacco. It was laced with the cool, fresh tang of soap tonight. Images of him naked and lathering up what was certainly a fine, fit body invaded her mind.

“Delilah put a lot of work into the place and Roy and Sarah run it well,” he went on as if he didn’t notice her reddening face.
“You know, they have a fine dining room over on that side. We should really take advantage of it one night.”

“We are here for the children, Mr. Avery.
Kindly remember that,” she said. As if she didn’t remember the taste of his lips, more luxurious than any hotel dinner.

“Well, all right then.”

She cursed herself for being disappointed when he didn’t go on. She craved the rich bass of his voice, in spite of the fact that everything he said was nonsense.

When she couldn’t take the captivating sound of his silence for another moment, she asked, “Sh
ouldn’t you be with your team?”

His
sheepish grin was worse than any arrogant answer. “I would be if I could find them.”

“Ask Roy to—”

“Miss Singer, I hope your team has packed their bags.” Samuel Kuhn dashed her attempts to get rid of Christian. He swaggered up to her with his wife and Isabella in tow. “We’ll be glad to see the back of them after they’re defeated tonight.”

“Good evening, Isabella, Mr. Kuhn, Mrs. Kuhn.”
It was the only reply Lily trusted herself to give.

“Why don’t you just shut your trap and wait to see how Miss Singer and her team do?” Christian came to her defense.
Lily tensed.

Samuel chuckled, lips curled in a sneer.
“We all know what you think on the subject, Mr. Avery, and I must confess, I’m disappointed. I was under the impression you had more sense than that.”

“I’ve got enough sense to tell the difference between a teacher and a jackass.”

Alicia Kuhn gasped and slapped her hands over Isabella’s ears. Lily fought not to roll her eyes. Samuel just laughed.

“The U.S. Army is just a telephone call away, Mr. Avery,” he said.
“I would have thought you’d be glad to see them come in, since you yourself have been so vocal about banishing her lot from our school.”

“My aim is to keep everyone in this town safe, including the Indians,” Christian fired back.
He shifted his weight. “I’m beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to move the whole lot of them smack into the center of town and enroll all the kids in the school. Then maybe ignorant bigots like you would get used to seeing people as people and not colors.”

Lily’s breath caught in her throat.
Her skin prickled. She glanced at Christian out of the corner of her eyes. Could he be changing his mind?

Her pulse raced.
She fought the implication. She was a teacher. Her livelihood depended on her distancing herself from him and from that reckless kiss. How dare he undermine those efforts by something as devious as seeing things her way?

“You see, this is exactly what I was talking about,” Samuel said to his wife.
“They’re a corrupting influence. Cunning in the extreme. They play off of people’s sympathies, and the next thing you know they’ll overrun the place and we’ll all be living in teepees eating raw meat.”

“I’ll have you know—”

“Strange, Mr. Kuhn,” Lily spoke over Christian, outwardly maintaining her calm while boiling on the inside. “Just the other day you were saying that Indians were dull and ignorant. Tonight they are cunning?”

Samuel’s face hardened.
He stared at Lily with venom in his eyes. His wife sniffed and turned up her nose. Poor Isabella looked miserable, caught between the two parties. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes went glassy with anxiety as she glanced to the door.

Lily saw in an instant what she saw.
Red Sun Boy and the other Flathead children had arrived. The entire family was with them, from Sturdy Oak to Two Feathers to Snow In Her Hair and River Woman and all of their children. Conversation in the hotel lobby ground to a halt as the family made their way across the room. They wore their finest clothes, which consisted of traditional beaded tunics and jewelry combined with tailored trousers and dresses.

A beat after their entrance, the r
oom buzzed with gossip.

Snow In Her Hair spotted Lily and pointed her out to her father.
Sturdy Oak nodded and the group switched directions to walk toward them.

“This is insufferable!” Samuel said.
“I’ll not be waylaid by a bunch of redskins. Come on!” He took his wife’s arm, laid a hand on Isabella’s shoulder and marched them on into the ballroom.

Lily only had time to
clench her fists before Sturdy Oak greeted her and Christian with, “Hello, my friends.” He wore a comfortable smile that seemed impervious to the whispering and pointing that filled the lobby.

Not all of his family was as at ease.

“We should not have come here,” Two Feathers murmured, meeting the stares of the people in the lobby with a challenging scowl. “We are not wanted.”

“Yes you are,” Lily contradicted him.
She forced herself to smile and reached out to lay a hand on Martha’s shoulder. “You are all very much wanted here,” she reassured the girl.

Martha smiled at her words, but more than that, Snow In Her Hair and River Woman
seemed relieved as well. They exchanged a look laden with thoughts and opinions. Lily’s unsettled heart twisted in her chest. They probably thought she was a fool for endangering their children. But no, those were not smiles of discontent.

“We should move into the ballroom,” she said to hide her emotion.
“The teams have all been given meeting spots throughout the room so that they can practice one more time before the competition. We should meet with the rest of our team and practice as well.”

“And so should I,” Christian added.

Lily’s usual irritation at the way he seemed to finish her thought was tempered by the sudden anxiety of being without him. He touched her arm then nodded to Sturdy Oak and the children.

“May the best team win,” he said before smiling at her and walking off to the ballroom.

He’d left her alone, adrift and over her head with people who would laugh at her if they had a hint of the emotions he stirred in her.

“This way,” she directed Sturdy Oak and his family, voice shaky.

The grand ballroom was awash with sound and light. It had been decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, and strings of electric light bulbs had been run across the front of the room. The effect of that technology alone lent the room a feeling of progress. Lily led Sturdy Oak and his family up the side of the room to a spot to the right of the dais that had been set up for the competition.

A plain door stood open next to the dais and several smartly dressed hotel workers passed in and ou
t, bringing chairs into the main ballroom and onto the dais. Sarah LaCroix organized the workers and pointed them on their way. One of the young men flinched at the sight of the Indians and dropped his chairs. Sarah, on the other hand, lit up with a smile when she saw them.

“Welcome to our hotel,” she said, leaving her position and crossing to meet them.
“My name is Sarah LaCroix, and if you need anything, just let me know.”

Sturdy Oak and the others smiled at the unexpected welcome.
Before they could reply, Sarah went on with, “Folks all over town have been talking about you lot. They say some of you robbed the station office and Mr. Kuhn and who knows what else.”

Deep shame froze Lily to her spot, prickling across her skin.
Two Feather’s face darkened into a scowl.

“But I don’t believe it,” Sarah went on.
“None of you all has ever done anything to hurt a flea before, whereas between you and me,” she leaned closer, “I know some men from back in my saloon days who are nothing but mean. If folks around here knew half of what I knew, they’d stop all their clucking about you fine folks and look for the real thieves.”

She stood straight again,
her smile as bright and innocent as the children flooding into the room. “Anything you need, you just ask me,” she finished.

“Thank you, we will,” Snow In Her Hair answered.
She exchanged a knowing glance with Lily.

Lily didn’t know what shocked her more, Sarah’s outrageous speech or the camaraderie that Snow In Her Hair was showing her.
Both left her speechless.

“You see, we are not wanted here,” Two Feathers repeated.
“I’m sorry, Miss Singer, but I will not stay where I am not wanted.”

“But, Two Feathers!”

The young man turned to storm out of the room before Lily could stop him.

“Let him go,” River Woman rested a hand on her arm, her smile sympathetic.
“My son is full of fire these days, as many young men are at that age. Let him walk in the snow to cool off.”

Lily sighed and dropped her arm.
She met River Woman’s sage expression with doubt.

“I suppose we should get started with last minute reviews,” she said, forcing herself to focus.
“Sturdy Oak, if you would care to sit over here, I’ll start gathering the children over there.”

At the far end of the room, a well-dressed woman shrieked as Two Feathers marched past her and out the door.
It was going to be a long night.

Christian kept one eye on Lily as the students on his team arrived and found him in the vast ballroom. She was ill at ease. It was difficult to watch. He couldn’t blame her for being jumpy with all the gossiping morons worked up about Indians and thieves, but it was plain to him that she was equally nervous amongst the Flathead themselves. As if she was afraid they would turn on her the same way half of the rest of town thought she would turn on them.

He should have stayed by her side.
Prickly as she was, she needed him there. And damn him, he needed to be there.

“Mr. Avery, do you like my dress?”

Christian blinked his focus back to the students gathering around him to find Samantha standing beside him in a frilly blue thing, her hair tied up in ribbons. It took him a moment to remember who she was and why he was there surrounded by children. Anxious children at that, all looking for him to tell them what to do. Except maybe for Lionel Twitchel, who stood picking his nose and staring at the Indians.

“Yeah, it’s pretty.”
Christian breezed over Samantha’s question. “All right, kids. Are you ready for this?” They blinked up at him. Lionel wiped his picking finger on his trousers. “We’ve been practicing all week and I’ve never seen a smarter bunch of kids in my life.”

It was the boost they needed.
Worried frowns shifted to pleased smiles. Christian peeked across the room to Lily. If he could only think of something that simple to say to bolster her.

He turned back to his students and started counting.

“Where’s Laura Copecki?”

“Her pa wouldn’t let her come,” Mason, one of his eighth graders answered.

“What?”