Читать книгу Christmas Kiss From The Sheriff - Kathryn Albright - Страница 10

Chapter Two

It took the rest of the day for Gemma to calm down from Sheriff Parker’s visit. He rattled her. That’s what he did. Keeping things peaceful indeed! Where was he when the fight broke out between Billy and Duncan?

It was an unfair thought, but she thought it just the same. He couldn’t have known it would happen. The fight had taken her by surprise herself.

She’d thought over their conversation at least twenty times and come to the conclusion they had both been concerned about Tara’s well-being and that was a good thing. They simply went about it at odds with each other.

It hadn’t helped that his appearance happened right in the middle of Moira’s reading. It was the first time the Bishop girl had actually read more than one sentence without stuttering! She had gone on for nearly four sentences! Gemma had been so excited that she was holding her breath, afraid to break the spell, afraid that the least little wind would blow Moira back to her old pattern of refusing to read aloud at all. Even the other students realized something different was happening and were quietly amazed.

And then enter Sheriff Parker. Tall, blond, imposing Sheriff Parker.

Most of the men she had been introduced to in Clear Springs were married and fathers of the children she taught. Oh, she had met a few single men in church—a few miners, ranchers and cowboys. She had been careful not to be overly friendly. Actually she had quickly discouraged them, admitting truthfully that she had too much to do with this being her first year of teaching to entertain thoughts of a social nature.

It was only a half-truth.

But Sheriff Parker hadn’t approached her after the first and only time she’d been introduced to him—when he had arrived on Molly’s doorstep with her good friend Elizabeth. Since then in the course of walking to and from school, she had seen him about town. His office stood on the northernmost point of Main Street—the same road that led out of town and passed the school.

He had kept his distance. Only a tip of his hat brim or a brief nod indicated he’d even noticed her. It should have been a relief to her in a town where the men so unevenly outnumbered women. Unfortunately, all it had done was make her more aware of him. She told herself that it was because he held the office of sheriff and considering her past, that was a worry in itself.

It couldn’t be that he stood head-and-shoulders taller than other men, even though he did. He must be at least three inches over six feet. And it wasn’t that his square, strong jawline, and perfectly straight Roman nose made him more handsome than the others—which they did. He was just so...male. Even in his dealings with others, she had noticed that his deep voice and spare words held more import than if he’d spewed out the entire dictionary. He was manly, composed, dignified. And it was so very unsettling to know that her thoughts dwelled on him more than they should.

Today, he had said he was just making his rounds. Making sure everything was quiet. But all his lurking had done for her was kick up some very unquiet sensations. She had come West to leave certain things of her past in her past and start anew. She couldn’t afford to have a sheriff snooping around. If he found out the truth about her, he might send her back to Boston...and to jail.

While she washed off the large slate board at the front of the room of the lessons and examples she had posted, she kept an eye on Tara. After the girl had donned her heavy sweater and hat along with the other children gathering their coats, she watched them head out the door to their homes while she returned to sit dejectedly on the first-grade bench. Her small shoulders were slumped as she swung her legs back and forth and stared out the window. Gemma was halfway through sweeping the floor when a sharp whistle sounded.

Tara jumped from her seat and ran to the door. She looked back up at Gemma. “That’s my brother. Can I go?”

“May I go,” Gemma corrected.

“May I go?” Tara repeated.

Gemma leaned the broom against the wall and then walked to the door, wanting to make sure it really was Billy. Billy—who had never returned to class. At the edge of the woods, Tara’s brother sat astride the old mule. He didn’t dismount or attempt to come any closer, but stared at her, an obstinate expression contorting his face along with the bruise that had blossomed into a swollen purple discoloration closing his right eye.

He wouldn’t be persuaded to come talk to her. Not now. His anger was too fresh. If only she’d stopped the fight sooner. There might have been hope then to talk things through. She felt terrible that she hadn’t been paying attention more to what was happening outside while she wrote out the daily lessons on the board. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. What had caused the fight? Should she even make the attempt to discuss things with him? By the stubborn scowl on his face he wasn’t in any mood to talk.

Well, truth be known, she wasn’t either. It had been a trying day. Perhaps it would be better to put some distance between everything. Emotions were still raw, but in another day things would blow over. Things always looked better after a good night’s sleep. Always the next morning she was more clearheaded. “Go ahead, Tara. I’ll see you and Billy tomorrow.”

Tara’s little forehead wrinkled up. “Ain’t you comin’ to my house?”

“Not today. Let your mother know that I’ll be there Saturday.” She could only hope time would put everything in better perspective for them all.

Tara rushed down the steps and ran across the clearing to her brother. Once they’d disappeared down the lane, Gemma went back inside to finish her daily chores.

After stacking her papers and anchoring them with an iron paperweight, she grabbed her heavy blue coat and slipped into it. All that remained was to bring some kindling from the shed so that the stove would be ready come morning.

She walked around the side of the building to the shed. As she cracked open the door, a loud angry hiss sounded from the deep dark inside. Suddenly the door slammed outward and crashed against her shoulder. She lost her balance and tottered backward. One step. Two... And then she fell, going down hard on her derriere. Before she could think to move, a large furry ball raced out through the open door and scrambled frantically over her legs, its long claws scratching through her heavy woolen skirt as though it were thin paper.

“Aagh!”

The varmint raced toward the creek and disappeared.

She sat there stunned, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps. By its size and coloring it was a raccoon. She hoped it was a raccoon. She shivered, hoping it wasn’t a groundhog or badger or some other dirty animal. Did those even exist in this part of the country?

Nothing like this ever happened in Boston! She dragged in a deep breath, trying to calm her racing pulse when suddenly her eyes started to burn. She was frustrated and discouraged at the same time. She didn’t like feeling helpless...frightened. And that’s just how the scare had made her feel.

Shakily, she gathered her wits about her and rose to her feet. She dusted herself off, straightening her coat.

How had the raccoon trapped itself in the shed?

Stepping up to the shed, she worked the latch on the door. She had heard that raccoons were smart, but were they smart enough to work this latch and open the door in order to enter on their own? Even then, the latch was fairly high off the ground. And with no food, nothing to bait it, why enter? It didn’t seem likely.

Unless, someone had put it there.

The image of Billy Odom’s angry glance before heading to the stream filled her mind. Was this his way of getting back at her for interfering with the fight? Maybe he had thought she slighted him when she sent him to the creek and didn’t require Duncan to go too. She had just wanted them to stay separated until their tempers cooled.

Perhaps it was simply a prank to garner excitement. After ten weeks, the newness of coming to school had waned for most of the children. With Christmas coming, it was much more difficult to keep their attentions. Likely, teasing the teacher was considered fair play about now.

But not fair at all by her book. She didn’t like this type of teasing. She didn’t care to be startled out of her wits.

Inside the shed a few remaining logs were strewn over the floor from the short, stacked pile. Either the raccoon had done that in its unsuccessful attempt to escape, or whoever put the animal inside had. Either way, she would soon need more wood. She made a mental note of the fact and picked up two small logs to take into the school. Still a bit wobbly and shaken, she shut the door and latched it securely.

Inside the school, she prepared the stove for lighting in the morning. Then, because of her scattered thoughts of raccoons and badgers, she pulled out her chair and climbed up onto her desk, searching the crux of the crossbeam with her hand. After a moment of patting along the beam, she touched on the box that held her father’s gun. She breathed a sigh of relief. Still there. It was good to know she and the children had protection but she hoped none of them ever learned of its hiding place.

And she hoped she never had reason to use it.

Sheriff Parker always had a gun strapped down at his hip. Had he had reason to use his in his position here in Clear Springs? The man’s holster and weapon fit to his hips like it was a part of him. He would look odd without it. She shuddered. Was it the thought of him firing it from a low, crouched stance? His jaw tight and his eyes squinting the way she’d seen it on the cover of dime novels? Or was it the image of that weapon riding low and casual on such a trim, broad-shouldered form that made her extra aware of him as a man and stole her breath?

He could be waiting outside right now. He had said he would return to escort Tara home. Gemma climbed down from her perch. She picked up her empty lunch pail and stepped outside. There was no sign of him in the schoolyard. Perhaps something had come up. Perhaps he’d seen Billy arrive with the mule. Whatever his reason for not showing himself to her, she was glad of it.

After making sure to lock the door behind her with her skeleton key, she headed to town.

* * *

Molly Birdwell’s lips twitched at the end of Gemma’s tale of the fight at school and then the raccoon. She slipped the supper dishes into the tub of warm water and soap and began to wash them. “Boys can be mischievous. I wouldn’t put it past my two young’uns to do something like that once upon a time.”

The woman hummed as she washed. Molly was broad in her hips and had a round face topped with fluffy white hair that reminded Gemma of a sweet Mrs. Claus. The woman’s husband had passed on four years back and she’d opened up her house to boarders to make ends meet. Gemma also suspected, with as much as the woman liked to talk and bake, that she enjoyed having company.

“Are you saying I should have handled it differently? That it’s a case of boys will be boys?”

“Oh, I ain’t saying that at all. Their pa would have walloped my boys good if he’d heard tell of them causing a ruckus at school. No—you did the right thing there. You couldn’t let them keep a-fightin’.”

Gemma rose from the table and grabbed a cloth to dry the dishes. She valued Molly’s advice. The woman had been through good times and rough times and had a commonsense approach to life that reassured Gemma.

Molly eyed her skeptically. “You ain’t never run into a situation like that?”

Gemma shook her head. “I didn’t fight with my tutors.” Just the thought of stern Mr. Allen rolling in the dirt in a bout of fisticuffs produced an unexpected giggle. She slapped her hand over her mouth.

Molly chuckled. “No...guess you wouldn’t, at that.”

“And what about the raccoon?”

“Now, that you can’t let them git away with. They’ll only try something worse next time.”

Next time? Gemma swallowed. “What do you mean...worse?”

“Oh, likely you got nothing to worry about. They was just trying to get a rise from you. ’Course, if it was mean-spirited, that’s another thing entirely.”

It could have been mean-spirited. She hadn’t gotten on well with Duncan or Billy for the past few weeks. Maybe she was pushing them too hard. They both had so much potential and she had encouraged their competition, hoping it would spur them even further in their studies. She hadn’t counted on it being quite so adversarial as an out-and-out fight.

“Then you don’t think the raccoon could have found its own way into the shed and the door just happened to slam shut?” she asked hopefully. She really didn’t want it to be because of a student.

Molly shrugged and kept right on washing. “Guess you’ll have to talk to your class and figure that out.”

“Molly, they are not going to confess to something like this. No one would.”

“No, but you might be able to tell something from the way one of the kids acts. And though I don’t hold with squealin’ on your neighbor, one of those children might feel a need to tell on his classmate.”

Gemma contemplated the woman’s attitude and wondered if she would ever feel that self-assured. An education in Boston sure didn’t translate to real life in the back country. People here set more stock on common sense and survival than they did on head knowledge.

“I learned one thing from today. I’d better make sure the shed has a way to open it from the inside. I wouldn’t want one of my students to get trapped in there like the raccoon.”

Molly nodded. “That’d be hard on a young’un for sure.”

“Let alone trying to explain to the school board how I let it happen.”

“Could be something that would leave a soul scar.”

“A soul scar?” Gemma asked. She’d never heard of such a thing.

“Something that hurts a body. Something you can’t see with your eyes. It ain’t on the surface like a limp or a burn that puckers the skin. It’s deeper than that. It’s something real hard to heal from. Something that’s always there inside you for the rest of your life.”

Like her reason for leaving her home. She understood Molly perfectly now. “I wouldn’t want to inflict that on any child.”

She stacked the last dish on the shelf before speaking again. “I had a visitor today.”

“Other than the raccoon?” With her grin, Molly’s round spectacles rose up on her apple cheeks.

“Tara Odom decided to go looking for her brother after the fight. The sheriff found her by the creek and brought her back to school.”

“He’s earning his pay then.”

“He didn’t care for the way I disciplined Tara. It’s just...she’s so far behind the other children and I know she has it in her to do so much better. I was...strict with her. And I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to the sheriff.”

“Now, don’t let that bother you. You have to handle things as they come and as you see fit at the time.” Molly wrung out the dishrag and turned to wipe down the kitchen table. “He’s new in town himself. Just been here six months or so. That’s barely enough time to get settled into the place and know what’s what.”

“It’s just...”

“Just what, dear?”

Gemma sighed. “I don’t know. He’s so...big and...and...”

Molly raised her brows, this time tilting her snowy white head. “I’d think that would be a good thing for a sheriff.”

The thought of Sheriff Parker had her insides twisting into a knot. What was it about the man that set her senses so off-kilter? She probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything to Molly. From all she’d heard of the man, people thought he was doing a solid job as sheriff. They only had good things to say about him—Molly included. But still...

“Is he married?”

The woman eyed her with curiosity. “Heard tell he was engaged. Some young woman from his hometown up north of here, but I ain’t never heard of her coming to visit.”

Gemma should be breathing easier by the minute. The Sheriff had a sweetheart. “Well, that has to be the best news I’ve heard all day. Perhaps once he marries he’ll stop coming by the school and criticizing me.”

Molly chuckled. “Oh, he was likely only trying to help. My Mort was the same. Men always think we gals need answers like we can’t figure things out for ourselves. We just go about it different is all.”

“I didn’t like it,” she said stubbornly, unwilling to give the good sheriff an inch of grace.

“Well, seems you had quite a day, all told.”

Gemma snapped out the wet dishtowel and then took her time spreading it out to dry over the back of the kitchen chair. “Yes,” she murmured. “Quite a day.”