Liz Ireland (11 page)

Suspicious.

Purposefully, he sank back down into his chair and folded his arms skeptically across his chest. Thank God he hadn’t completely lost his good sense. Something was up. Cecilia wouldn’t have squeezed herself into her best dress just to come show him, her sworn enemy, her dimples. Now he just had to figure out what her devious motive for today was.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Her blue eyes widened innocently at his change in demeanor. “Why, I was just passing through, so I thought I would take a minute to visit my old stomping ground.”

He stared at her evenly, put on guard even more by this silly explanation. Much as he was enjoying her eye-pleasing display, Jake knew the only thing Cecilia Summertree wanted from him was a resignation. Which she wasn’t about to get, no matter how pretty and sweet she was. She might want this job, but his life depended on it.

Cecilia shifted uncomfortably as Pendergast continued to stare at her with those hard brown eyes of his. That was another odd thing about Pendergast. When he looked at her, it wasn’t with the playful indulgence or breezy interest she’d experienced with men of his class from New Orleans and Memphis. His gaze was too keen, too fathomless, as though he could see right into her soul if he looked long enough. And given the shady way she’d been playing people lately, she’d much rather he look at her dress than her soul.

Anyway, why didn’t he say something? Suddenly, an answer occurred to her. “I keep forgetting you’re a—from the North. Stomping grounds means...” She bit her lip. What exactly would be the Yankee translation?

Jake rolled his eyes. “I think I know what stomping grounds means.”

That flat voice. Somehow, Pendergast didn’t seem as won over by her charm as she expected him to be. He hadn’t even mentioned how nice she looked. In fact, she was beginning to doubt Dolly’s hypothesis altogether. He didn’t appear to be the least bit in love with her!

She decided to take a stab at wheedling her way into his confidence. Shoving aside a battered old geography book, she daintily perched herself on the edge of the desk. Casting her eyes downward, she said demurely, “I’m afraid I have a confession to make, Pend—Eugene.”

Jake raised an eyebrow inquisitively. He couldn’t wait to hear this.

“It’s just...” She let out a light breathy sigh. “I’m ashamed of myself for not being as much a help to you as I could have been.”

“I’ve managed all right,” Jake said.

Cecilia thought for a moment. The man wasn’t bending like a sapling, that was for sure. “But you must admit I could have been more...neighborly.”

Her eyelashes fluttered gracefully before Jake found himself looking into her willfully guileless blue eyes. He barked out a laugh. “So could the rattlesnakes, Miss Summertree, but I’m glad they weren’t.”

Cecilia hopped off the desk and faced the man down, hands on her hips. “If you aren’t the vilest—” She sputtered in anger. “You’re lower than a rattlesnake yourself!”

“And you’re a pretty little piece of work,” Jake said, rising from his chair. He didn’t know what her game was, but he was going to find out right this minute. Circling around the desk, he caught hold of her arms. “What made you put on that fetching little dress and come over here?”

“Get your hands off me—”

“And don’t tell me you came over to apologize for not being helpful enough, because we both know that’s not true.”

Cecilia tugged and tugged, but Pendergast was surprisingly strong and kept an iron grip on her arms. She felt short of breath, both from Dolly’s lacing job and from Pendergast’s sneak attack, and attempted to take several steadying gulps of air. “All right,” she admitted finally, only wanting to get away from his hard, mesmerizing gaze, “I came to spy on you.”

“That’s more like it.” Abruptly, he let go of her arms. “And just what were you expecting to find—that I’d turned your precious school into a gambling house?”

“No.” Cecilia rubbed her arms where his fingers had dug into them. She wasn’t so much a fool that she was actually going to tell him the truth. “I...I just wondered if you’d started work for the harvest pageant.” That sounded like a reasonable explanation.

Jake combed a hand through his hair. Along with the missing schoolbooks, Beasley had been buzzing about this harvest pageant, which was supposed to take place in a few weeks, at the end of October. Bea, too, had been pestering him. Jake hadn’t paid talk of it much mind, since he planned to be long gone by then.

“I haven’t given it much thought yet,” he answered truthfully.

Cecilia’s eyes widened in surprise. “You hadn’t?”

“Is it a big to-do?”

“Why, it’s practically the event of the year,” Cecilia answered. “In fact, it
is
the event of the year. There’s a big picnic, and the children put on a play in front of the school, and then there’s dancing afterward.”

He found it hard to believe that Cecilia could really get excited about such a small-time wingding, but this town
was
hard up for entertainment. In fact, Jake felt a little guilty for giving the pageant short shrift. He might be gone, but he would leave behind a whole town with no play to watch. It didn’t seem quite right, especially given the way the people there had taken him in. Under false pretenses, of course, but...

“A pageant, huh?” he asked.

“The plays are almost always about the Pilgrims...and they’re usually pretty bad, if you want to know the truth.”

Hearing her description, Jake felt a little more confident. He could handle bad. Only Bea hadn’t mentioned anything about Pilgrims...

“I could help you,” Cecilia suggested.

So could Bea. He certainly didn’t want Cecilia poking her nose into his schoolroom all the time. “I think I can manage.”

There was only one word to describe the look on Cecilia’s face.
Crestfallen.
The pretty young woman looked utterly, completely dejected.

Suddenly, he found himself wanting to console her. After all, just as soon as he left town, which was going to be soon enough, she could have her old job back. Of course, he couldn’t tell her that.

Then again, what would be the harm in letting her help, just a little?

Her eyes downcast, she said in a voice laced with self-pity, “Very well...if you don’t want my help, then I guess there’s nothing to say.” She turned to leave, shooting him one last sad-eyed glance.

Jake sighed. “We’d have to meet in the evenings,” he said.

Her face lit up immediately. “Here?” she asked.

“Not here,” Jake said.

Her brows knit together worriedly and her gaze swept about the room. “Why not?”

Good question. “Where does the pageant usually take place?”

She thought for a moment. “Outside.”

“Then that’s where we can meet.”

Cecilia paused, considering his offer. It was better than nothing, she supposed. “All right. We can start this evening if you like.”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

Why was he putting her off? Cecilia wondered. Dolly had to be wrong about Pendergast’s attraction to her. This would be a Saturday night, beneath a full harvest moon—a man in love would take advantage of that.

She tried not to think too hard about why Pendergast’s not being in love with her should depress her. He was agreeing to let her help with the pageant, and that way she would be able to be around him, snooping; she was getting what she wanted.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” she said.

T
hat night, for the first time since coming to Annsboro, Jake panicked. As he lay in bed, tossing and turning from the heat, he couldn’t help worrying about what Cecilia’s sudden visit to the schoolhouse had meant. Moreover, why had she come all dolled up? The woman had a trick up her pretty little sleeve, and not knowing exactly what it was made him very nervous.

She was on to him.

That could be the only explanation. She’d always suspected that he was a fraud, and now, by hook or by crook, she had found herself some evidence to prove it. But how? Maybe through Bea. Jake knew he shouldn’t have trusted that kid. Probably in a little while, when his guard was down, the two of them would confront him with what they knew. Or maybe they would expose him publicly....

At the harvest dance! Of course. Cecilia was setting him up for that event. Or maybe she was just hoping to.... That’s why she wanted to nose around his classroom. Which she would have plenty of time to do, now that he’d taken her up on her offer to “help him out.”

Damn, damn, damn. Was he ever going to get a break?

Jake swung his long legs to the floor and reached over to grab his pants from the bedpost. He pulled them on and stuffed his feet into a pair of boots, cursing his luck. Of all the one-horse towns in Texas that probably needed teachers, he would get stuck in the one that had a busybody woman already entrenched in the schoolhouse.

And that busybody would have to have the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and a lilting feminine voice that stayed on his mind hours after he talked to her. Jake never thought he’d find a woman who would make him regret having to leave a place. His life had been so consumed with dodging Darby that he had given up hope of ever having the kind of domestic life other men enjoyed. But Cecilia, for all her prickliness, made him dream about what it would be like to have a house, with a woman working alongside him...in her figure-hugging dress with the pretty violets all over it.

Shaking his head, Jake let out a cross between a laugh and a sigh of regret. Cecilia Summertree of the Summertree ranch would have nothing to do with him—especially if she knew who he really was. She was a rich rancher’s daughter and he was the son of a sharecropper. All he had to show for his life so far was unfulfilled dreams, and it wasn’t likely that a woman like Cecilia, with her relatively privileged background and New Orleans schooling, would be very impressed with those.

Especially when the only way she probably thought of him at all was in terms of putting him out of a job.

There was nothing for it but to sneak out to the schoolhouse and clear out anything that would look suspicious to the academic eye. Like Pendergast’s books. Bea had said that Cecilia had been particularly interested in the content of the books he read, which probably meant that he shouldn’t be reading them. But hell, what else was there to do in a hot school building all day?

He’d have to worry about that later, he thought as he began a slow creep down the stairs. Right now the most important thing was to cover his tracks.

* * *

Cecilia ached from being cinched in like a prize mare for half the day. It was another hot night, and because Dolly’s lacing job had left her feeling maimed, she just couldn’t get comfortable on her thin mattress. She sat up and stretched, then stood and scooted around the bed to her window.

There was no breeze to push air through the house, much less through her room, but she opened her window as far as it would go and stuck her head out into the night. Not a cloud was in sight—only a bright yellow moon and a few million stars. Cecilia sighed and draped her arms over the sill.

Why did she feel so restless? All day she hadn’t been able to shake Pendergast’s hard gaze from her memory, or the way he had held her, as though he was prepared to shake the truth about her visit to the schoolhouse from her.

Never in her life had a man elicited so many reactions from her. Normally she felt sure about herself and how to handle situations, but it seemed that since Pendergast came to town, she’d been on edge, apt to blurt out inappropriate statements, and overall not her usual self. At night at the boardinghouse, or sometimes when she walked too near the schoolhouse, her heart would trip erratically and she wouldn’t know what to do with her hands.

In short, she was making a fool of herself over a man. But she didn’t know how to stop, unless she could get the man out of her life. For good.

At that moment, she saw a figure moving in the darkness. She hung farther out the window and squinted into the night. Pendergast! She couldn’t believe it. Why was he running around in the middle of the night? When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that his shirt wasn’t even tucked into his trousers properly. Apparently, he’d awakened with an uncommon urge to visit Grady’s. Men and their liquor!

At least, she hoped liquor was what he was venturing out for....

Yet oddly enough, when he came to the main road, he didn’t head for Grady’s, but turned left, toward the schoolhouse. Now this was interesting.

In a flash, Cecilia threw an old work dress over her nightgown and pushed on a pair of boots. She was almost through the kitchen when she stopped. It would be just her luck if someone was to see her leaving the house in the middle of the night. She crept back to her room and, seeing no alternative, began to climb through the window. It was a squeeze, but she finally managed to pop out the other side and dropped about five feet to the ground.

Pendergast had to be heading for the school, and in that case, Cecilia planned to take a more roundabout, shadowed route to get there. There was no use risking someone’s seeing her on the main road, especially him. Whatever Pendergast was up to, she wanted to catch him at it red-handed.

* * *

Upstairs, drawn to her window by the fat yellow moon shining through it, Dolly peered out into the beautiful night. But weren’t all nights beautiful to a woman in love? She smiled, thinking of Buck and wondering where he was, and if he was looking at the moon, too.

Then she frowned. Buck was probably at Grady’s.

Drinking, she hoped.

A loud thud sounded somewhere below, and moments later, Dolly watched Cecilia whip around the corner and head off into the night at a sprint. She held her body slightly bent as she ran, as if she was afraid of being seen. That girl! Now where would Cecilia go in the middle of the night?

The only possible answer came to Dolly almost instantaneously, and she lifted a hand to her mouth in horror as a vision of Cecilia running off to a clandestine meeting with Buck came to her mind. Who else could it be? Pendergast would be the only other candidate for an illicit rendezvous, but Cecilia swore she hated the man. Moreover, lately Cecilia had seemed to become more and more annoyed each time Dolly mentioned Buck.

Probably now that another woman wanted him, Cecilia was seeing what a good man Buck McDeere truly was.

Oh, what a deceitful pair! For weeks Cecilia had insisted she felt nothing for Buck, and Dolly, being the kind, trusting soul that she was, had believed her. Of course she should have known better. What woman wouldn’t be in love with Buck?

Dolly cried bitter tears as she bustled toward her armoire, picked out her nicest dress and hurriedly pulled it over her head. What a horrible thing it was to be betrayed, and by one’s best friend! A woman she had taken in, sheltered under her own roof...employed!

Furthermore, Cecilia had been running off in the direction of the school, a fact that made Dolly pale with mortification. Even if Cecilia was going to steal her beau, she ought at least to have better taste than to choose a public building as her trysting place.

Why, Dolly had donated money in Jubal’s memory just last year to have the school painted!

By the time she was out the front door and was marching down the main road—unlike Cecilia,
she
had nothing to be ashamed of!—Dolly had worked up such a rage that for the first time in her life she feared she would do bodily harm to someone. She dearly hoped she ran into Cecilia first, and not Buck.

Poor Buck. Men were such fickle creatures, so easily led on.

* * *

First he saw Pendergast moving stealthily down the road with his shirt hanging out of his pants. Then, a few minutes later, Dolly appeared, tearful, indignant and barely dressed herself, following him.

Buck sat atop his horse and rubbed his stubbled jaw thoughtfully. He’d been headed back to the ranch, but now he found himself unable to move. Even with a good bit of rotgut liquor in his stomach, he was as clearheaded as ever; besides, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here. That Yankee schoolteacher had taken advantage of Dolly, and now he was trying to skip out on her.

Buck’s blood boiled. Not that he really cared for Dolly...and why should he? The woman never let up! Even so, she deserved better than to be used like she was no better than the women who worked over at Grady’s. And by that darn schoolteacher, too—the one Cici was always so riled up about.

Oh, she said she hated him but he didn’t buy it. Cici couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes. He’d seen it a million times, or at least once or twice. Just because a man like Pendergast talked different and wore nice clothes and came from the East, women couldn’t get enough of him.

Poor Dolly. All these weeks she’d been nagging at him, she was probably trying to turn him into another Pendergast. Well, what did Pendergast have that he didn’t? Just a tight suit and a better job, was all. He didn’t even sound all that educated, truth to tell. Leastways, not any more than most folks. Fact was, the man hardly sounded like a Yankee, and what was the point of falling in love with a Yankee if he didn’t even talk like one?

Buck weaved in his saddle, trying to imagine the little drama that was about to take place in the schoolhouse. Poor Dolly. She really wasn’t that bad. At times during the past few weeks he’d kind of thought she maybe had a yen for him. And Cici was always saying how Dolly thought he was funny, or good-looking. In fact, now that he thought about it, he imagined Dolly probably actually liked
him
more than she did Pendergast. She probably just didn’t realize it yet. Women always got mixed up when it came to love.

That damned Pendergast. Buck hoped Dolly didn’t do anything foolish, like convince the man he ought to marry her or something like that. A refined upstanding woman like Dolly shouldn’t have to beg for a man’s undying love. Especially not when she owned the biggest house in town, and was the best cook, and was pretty, to boot. Why, come to think of it, he’d almost swear that Dolly was at least as pretty as Cici.

His blood was boiling, all right. He had half a mind to show Pendergast how Southern gentlemen behaved, but damn it if he hadn’t gone and left his rifle back at the ranch. Well, hell, he was at least as big as Pendergast. He could take the man bare-handed. Especially when he was good and mad.

Especially when Dolly Hudspeth’s honor was at stake!

He nicked his spurs against his mare’s flanks and streaked down the road at a gallop. The world was a blur, but he could still see Dolly. Poor Dolly. Coming up behind her, he sawed on the reins and came to a jerky stop that nearly sent him flying over the saddle horn.

“I’ll get him for you, sweetheart,” he drawled as his horse pawed the ground menacingly. “I’ll show him how we treat men who abuse a woman’s honor in this part of the world!”

Dolly looked up in shock. “Buck!” When she noticed the state he was in, her surprise quickly turned to anger. “Drunk, no less! You’re a fine one to be talking about
my
honor, when you’re about to—”

Her words were incoherent garble to Buck, but the word
honor
caught his attention. “I’ll show that Pendergast how to treat a woman of honor!”

“Pendergast?” She darted a tearful glance toward the schoolhouse. “But I thought—”

Just at that moment, Pendergast appeared on the front steps of the school with a bundle in his arms. He was about to turn to lock the building when, glancing around stealthily, he noticed Buck and Dolly. The schoolteacher looked guilty, as if he wanted to crawl under a rock.

Which is just where he belonged, Buck thought with rage as he swung down to the ground. Dolly clung fiercely to his arm. His dear, sweet little Dolly.

“Come on out and fight, Pendergast!” he cried.

Pendergast froze in his tracks as Buck came forward. Coward.

“He
is
out, fool,” Dolly hissed, digging her heels into the sand to impede Buck’s progress.

“Well...” Buck puzzled the situation through for a moment. “Just come fight, then!”

Buck, Dolly realized, was as strong as an ox. As he dragged her along, she also began to suspect that she might have misjudged the situation.

Cecilia darted out from the shadows behind a stand of spindly cedars as Buck had almost reached the stairs. “What’s happening?” she cried, skidding to a stop.

“This coward’s going to get what’s coming to him,” Buck said, and before Cecilia could join Dolly in restraining him, he broke free and hauled Pendergast off the stairs. Books flew out of Pendergast’s arms, landing on the stairs and sandy ground below.

Jake didn’t know what was going on, but every survival instinct he’d honed during his life kicked in at once, and as he and Buck fell in a heap to the ground, he gave as good as he got. Physically, Buck was the bigger man, but Jake at least was sober.

“Buck, you must stop this!” Dolly hopped uselessly up and down as the men pummeled each other.

“For heaven’s sake!” Cecilia muttered. She had just picked out a leg to grab on to to stop this insanity when something else caught her eye.
Dancehall Gunfight.

And lying near that book were at least ten others like it. All had illustrations on their covers of various action scenes. As the men brawled on the ground, Cecilia quickly flipped through some of them, amused by their florid language and raucous pictures. She remembered Bea’s one comment about the book Pendergast had read to them and smiled. He did look a little like Two-step Pete.