Cat saw the wariness cloud her usually clear eyes and read it as fear, and therefore as guilt. She knows, he thought. She knows she’s been found out. He walked toward her and tossed a sheet of paper on the desk.
Abby watched it settle slowly on the stack that was already there, then looked up at him. “What’s this?” she asked.
“The school board got a check for five thousand dollars from the BLA to buy a computer and a typewriter and some other equipment for the school, but this letter says they can’t spend it without your approval. I’m here to find out why that is.”
Abby took up the letter, rapidly scanning it and getting angrier with each line. “Damn!” she swore unconsciously. “Who the hell wrote this garbage?” She ran her eyes down the page to the signature of an unknown bureaucrat, then sighed with relief. “Thank God, I knew it couldn’t be Arthur.”
She held out the letter, but Cat ignored it. “It’s a mistake, Cat. I’ll get it straightened out and have this...what’s- his-name’s head.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
It was a seemingly harmless question, but it was delivered with such menace that a message sped to Abby’s brain and adrenaline began to pump through her system, quickening her heartbeat and sharpening her senses. She banished the memory of the way he’d made her feel that night only weeks ago, the way he could make her feel by simply walking into the room, and focused on the danger he embodied at this moment.
“Back off,” she commanded, her voice cold and unyielding. “I won’t have you throwing your weight around with me.”
“Don’t tell me what you will or won’t have, lady. I’m here to tell you you’re in big trouble, and you’d better start giving me some answers.”
Suddenly Abby needed to meet him as an equal; she rose from her chair, careful to keep the desk between them, and met his angry glare head-on. “Are you getting paid for this inquisition, or does it fall into the category of fun?” There’s that flash of the tiger, he thought with familiar, perverse pleasure. She won’t fold.
“It falls into the category of getting to the truth. And so far I’ve heard nothing to convince me you’re not running some sort of scam.” He took a step forward. “How come you have control of the money?”
Her eyes widened and her face went pale as the meaning of his words registered. “Is that what this is about? You think I’m trying to steal the money? My God!”
She went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing, feeling a roar of anger in her ears, wanting to scream out that anger. Instead she turned to him and explained with a calm she did not feel, “I wrote to Arthur asking for money to buy equipment for the school. He said the board would get a check and would be instructed to consult with me as to what we needed. I was merely to give my recommendations; I assumed that the decisions would be theirs.” She glared at him. “I have no idea why that idiot Holdings wrote what he did.”
“How come that letter says part of the money goes to you? Aren’t you satisfied with what the school board can pay you?”
“If you’re trying to provoke me,” she snapped, “you’re succeeding!”
Her eyes went stormy again, and Cat saw something there that he’d never associated with Abby--hatred. His stomach lurched violently at the thought, but he persisted. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The man is relentless, she thought, and rebelled. “I’m not answering any more of your questions,” she muttered, and made for the door. He grabbed her arm as she went past and pulled her toward him, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes blazed with golden fire, and color stained her cheeks. Her body stiffened as she fought his restraining hands on her arms, but he pulled her closer, holding her against his body with her arms trapped between them. Grunting with rage, she tried to lever herself away from him, but his hold tightened. One arm held her crushed against his chest, and the other lifted as his fingers twined themselves in her dark, tousled curls and held her fast.
“Don’t,” she protested as his mouth came slowly closer. She pushed against him again, demanding angrily, “Let me go!”
He heard her protest, but some maddening impulse sought to turn her anger to passion, wanted her trembling in his arms, her heart beating wildly, her lips parted beneath his. He lowered his mouth to hers, moving his lips gently, sweetly wooing her, wearing down her resistance until a soft whimper sounded in his ear and he realized that he was no longer holding her captive. Her arms were around him, and she clung to him as if to keep from drowning.
He felt her breasts against his chest. His hand went to the waistband of her slacks and loosened her silky blouse from its confinement, then slipped beneath it to feel the warm pulsing flesh that rose above the confines of her bra. He cupped the lacy roughness and felt a hardened nipple thrusting against his palm. She moaned against his mouth and tangled her fingers in the thicket of hair at the nape of his neck. He knew that he wanted her. She was manipulative and a phony, and a lot of other things he didn’t want to consider, but God, how he wanted her.
He pulled back and took her face in his hands, watching as her eyes opened and the passion faded from their depths. He knew he could have taken her, that she would not have denied him. But he knew just as surely that she was as wrong for him as he was for her. He tightened his hold until a worry line appeared across her forehead and a hint of fear replaced the last remnants of desire.
“Answer me,” he insisted.
“I don’t know why the letter says what it does,” she spat. “I never asked for money for myself, only for the school.” She tore herself out of his grasp and went to the desk.
He watched her pick up the letter. “Where are you going?”
She brushed past him. “To the phone.”
They walked to the council building in angry silence, heedless of the warm evening breeze and the setting sun. Once they were inside the big meeting room, she searched the letterhead for a phone number, then dialed while Cat watched. When the operator responded Abby asked for Arthur and gave a mental sigh of relief when he answered. Her voice shook as she spoke to him.
“Arthur? It’s Abby. Cat has some questions about this check. Will you speak to him?”
Without waiting for Arthur’s answer Abby shoved the phone into Cat’s hand. As she left the room she heard him saying, “Arthur? The board asked me to check into this letter they got with the check. We’ve got some problems.”
Outside, Abby took large gulps of air in a futile attempt to regain her composure, then stepped into the street. Though blinded by the tears she could no longer restrain, she made her way unerringly through the gathering darkness to the school building. At the front door she hesitated for a moment, then turned and headed for the “teacher’s house” and entered. Night fell as she stood by a window, feeling miserably alone and friendless, and as vulnerable as she had ever been in her lifetime.
Some things never change, she thought. And people are the same everywhere... afraid to trust, unable to accept good, quick to suspect evil. She sighed. You taught yourself to live without the approval of others, to do what you thought was right and be satisfied with that. What had changed? Ah, countered a small inner voice. What indeed?
Just then she heard the door open. She stepped back, away from the window, seeking the shelter of a shadowy corner.
“Abby?” Cat called out. “You in here?”
She groaned inwardly, but remained silent. He called again, more softly, as if he knew she was hiding from him. “Abby? Answer me.”
“I'm here.”
He heard the hurt in her voice, and in spite of his resolve, something twisted inside him. He cursed himself for a fool, but stepped inside and closed the door. Abby turned toward the sound, just barely making out his massive shape in the rising moonlight from the window.
“I don’t think I want you here.” Her voice was heavy, lifeless. “I want you to go away.”
“We need to talk first.”
She turned back to the window. “Maybe
you need to talk. I don’t.”
“All right, then. Just listen.” He came and stood beside her. “There’s no easy way to say this but straight out. I misjudged you, and I’m sorry. We’ve been tricked and cheated so often that it was easier to believe it was happening again than to trust you. But everything was exactly as you told me.”
Abby stared out at the darkness for a long time before facing him once more. “It obviously never occurred to you--any of you--that if I were interested in money I wouldn’t have come here in the first place.” Her voice sounded tired and bitter, even to her own ears.
“Not until after Arthur nearly burned my ear off,” he answered.
“Did he say why he had earmarked some of that money for me?”
Obviously embarrassed, Cat cleared his throat, and Abby took pleasure in his discomfort. “He said it was to pay you back for what you laid out of your own pocket on those trips, and to have some for the ones coming up.”
“What about the jerk who wrote the letter?”
“Arthur didn’t use all his ammo on me,” he said with a small laugh. “That guy’ll get his.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied.”
Her sarcasm pricked his hide. He hated being wrong, and somehow, her knowing made it worse. He just wanted to put the whole thing, and her, out of his mind. “Look,” he retorted, “let’s call a truce, okay?”
Abby’s voice lashed out at him. “A truce? After the things you implied about me? That you accused me of doing? The way you... manhandled me?” She shook her head in the darkness, and her short, bitter laugh echoed in the space between them. “You’ve got nerve, I’ll say that for you.” She walked over to him and faced him nose to nose. “Get out of here. Now.”
The next day, over Martha’s protestations, Abby gathered together her belongings and moved into the teacher’s house.
Chapter 6
Benjamin came to school one day in a drunken stupor, and Abby was forced to eject two of his friends who’d invaded her classroom while providing an escort for him. She and Richie manhandled him into her shower, where they doused him in cold water, and then Abby filled him with enough coffee to keep a sober person awake for a week.
As she offered him another cup of coffee he pushed her hand aside and dropped his head back on the edge of the sofa. His skin was sallow, and dark shadows rimmed his eyes.
“Do you do this a lot?” she asked.
He stared at her through half-opened eyes. “Don’t start on me. You don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.”
She reached down and picked up a container of household disinfectant, holding it where he could see it. “If you mean mixing this stuff with soda and killing my insides with eighty-percent alcohol poison, you’re right. But there are other ways. Your generation doesn’t hold the patent on self- destruction.”
They talked for hours. Through Abby’s patient urging and calm acceptance of what he was saying, Benjamin discarded his sullen mask and was for the first time just a kid in trouble and in need of understanding and love. He seemed to have gotten some of what he craved and, as if in return for the help she’d given him, he said, “You shouldn’t have took on them guys back at school. They’re mean suckers.”
“Then why do you hang around with them?”
“One of them, the tall, thin one, he’s my cousin. He lives down in Hungry Dog with a whole bunch of other dudes. The two of us, we grew up together, but his mother died and he moved down there, and we don’t see each other much anymore.”
“Why did he come to the school today?”
The boy shrugged. “Just messin’ around.”
Just then the door opened and Cat stepped inside. “I came to take a look at Benjamin.” He nodded to Abby. “Is that all right with you?”
“Of course,” she said coolly.
After a brief examination he pronounced Benjamin alive, if not well. “I want to see you tomorrow at the council building,” he ordered.
The boy looked at him suspiciously. “What for? I didn’t do nothin’.”
Cat put a hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. “Be there,” he said with quiet emphasis, then unceremoniously showed him to the door. When Benjamin was gone Cat turned to Abby.
“The kids told me what you did. Not too smart, lady. Not smart at all.”
She gave him a blank look, and he snorted derisively. “Don’t play innocent with me, Abby. What the hell’s the idea of facing down two toughs like that?”
She shrugged. “They left, didn’t they?”
“Damn it, woman, they can come back. And they probably will. What will you do then?”
Cat watched her expression as she unconsciously squared her shoulders and jutted her chin pugnaciously. A street fighter, he thought, who’ll never back down.
“I’ve come up against tough kids before,” she said. “I’m not afraid.”
“I know,” he responded with a frown. “That’s what worries me. Sometimes I think you’ve got more guts than brains!”
Abby smiled. In spite of everything that had happened between them, she knew that his concern was sincere, and she took no offense at the backhanded compliment.
“Thanks a lot,” she teased.
He took a step forward and put his hand out, then stopped. Don’t get involved with her, he told himself. Don’t... care. “You know what I mean,” he said. “Doing what you did just doesn’t show good sense. You’ve got to be more careful.” She nodded. “Face ’em down if you have to, but send for backup while you’re doing it. Okay?”
She nodded again, and he left her. Afterward she stood there in confused silence, trying to make sense of the strange man who’d just left. When she found no answers, she turned off the lights and went to bed.
One evening only a few nights later Abby left school after a long session reviewing book reports. The sky had been swept clean of clouds by a wind from the north, and the stars shone clear and icy bright. A stiff breeze whistled around the corner of the school building as she went by, and she pulled up the collar of her heavy sweater.
As she approached her house a hand reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into the shadows and pinning one arm behind her back. She felt cold steel and a sharp edge at her throat, and a man’s warm, beer-laced breath on her cheek.
“Evenin’, teach. We came back, only this time our business is with you.”
She tried to free herself, but the knife edge pressed harder. “Don’t do that,” the soft voice warned. “It won’t take much to draw blood.”
Suddenly a voice called frantically from the street. “Cutter! Don’t! She’s family!” Her attacker’s grip tightened for a moment, then the voice came again. “Cutter? Stop!” Abby felt her captor falter, and in a swift move she jammed an elbow into his middle and kicked backward in a solid blow to his shin. As his grip loosened she used all her body weight to slam him back against the building, then ran to Benjamin.
“Be careful, he’s got a knife.”
“He’s my cousin. He won’t use it on me.” He shoved her behind him. “But you go inside the house and stay there.” “I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
He turned to her. “I listened to you the other day. This time, you listen to me.”
“Do as he says, Abby.” She spun around at the sound of Cat’s voice in the dark. “Get inside the house.”
“But...”
“Please,” Benjamin begged. “If you leave, maybe I can get through to him.”
“Go on,” Cat ordered. “We’ll handle things out here.” Abby acquiesced, waiting in the darkened cottage, hearing in her mind the gritty texture of Cat’s words in her ear, and the tremor of...what? She wondered. Anger? Fear? Certainly not for himself, or even Benjamin. For her, then?
As she stood by the window in her front room the sounds of a fight filtered through to her, but she could see nothing. Finally the night went silent, and she turned on a small lamp. A knock sounded.
“Open up. It’s us,” came Cat’s voice through the door
. As she opened the door he herded the two boys into the room. Benjamin was the first to speak. “Cutter and me had a little talk. He wants to apologize.”
Abby looked at their battered, bloodstained faces. “Did you have to beat him to a pulp first? And get yourself mangled in the bargain?” Then she turned angrily to Cat. “And you were supposed to ‘handle things.’ Where were you?” Cat grinned, and for a moment he looked as young as the two boys. He’s enjoying this, she thought with amazement.
“As it turned out, Ben didn’t need my help at all,” he said. “He’s a pretty good convincer.”
Benjamin gave them a shy smile. “Yeah, well, Cutter can be stubborn sometimes, but he got my message all right.” Abby looked from face to face and finally settled on Cat. “Are you going to administer first aid?” she asked resignedly. “Or shall I?”
“I’ll do it,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “And then I’m turning Cutter over to the sheriff.” He put an arm around Benjamin’s shoulders and led him into the bathroom. “C’mon, Ben, you first.”
Wondering how Cat knew where to go, Abby gave Cutter the smallest shove into the kitchen and ordered him to sit down at the table. She wet a towel and began gently swabbing the various cuts and bruises he’d acquired. He winced occasionally, but bore her ministrations silently. Finally he said, “You fight good, teach.”
“I warned you the day you came into school.”
“Yeah, you did. So why you bein’ so nice to me?”
“Feeling guilty?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s why I’m being so nice.” She chuckled as she turned her attention to his battered knuckles. “Works every time.”
“I’m sorry.”
They looked at each other squarely, Abby waiting for the rest, the boy searching her face for something he could trust.
“I’m really sorry for what I did. I was mad and jealous. . .and stupid.”
“Mad and stupid I can understand, but jealous? What of?”
“Ben kept talking about you, and I was afraid.” He lost heart and went no further.
Colton's Folly (Native American contemporary romance) Page 8