In Your Arms (Montana Romance)

by Farmer, Merry

  “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?”

  “Said he didn’t want her coming around no thieving redskins.”

  Christian sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “And what about Rachel Turner?”

  “She’s over there.”

  Christian turned to look where Mason pointed. Bo Turner had his family pinned up against the wall near the entrance door. His wife, Rebecca, and their children, including Grover, stood in a line—eyes wide, faces expressionless—as Bo growled something at them. Judging by the fury on Bo’s face and the clenched fist he used to gesture at them, trouble was in the air.

  Christian was halfway to deciding to intervene when Bo finished whatever speech he was giving and walked out of the room. He was as relieved as Rebecca and the kids as they let out their collective breath. Little Rachel spotted him and skipped away from her family to join his group.

  “You all right?” Christian asked when she reached him.

  She only had time to nod, face pale and eyes miserable.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Michael announced from the podium on the dais, “if you could please take your seats. Students and coaches, we have places for you up here and at the sides of the stage.”

  The room erupted into a swirl of activity that left no one any time to worry about abusive blockheads or oddly dressed Indians or anything but finding the right chairs and sitting down. Christian followed Lily’s lead, shepherding his team onto the dais and into a group of chairs across the back. There were no assigned places for the teams, so he did his level best to land his team in the cluster right next to Lily’s mixed group of Flathead and town children. When she took her seat, he sat down next to her.

  “Fancy us meeting like this,” he teased.

  She ignored him. Worry was sharp in her eyes. He reached his hand to brush hers. Sense abandoned him and he closed his hand over hers, squeezing. Her back was rod-straight, her jaw tight, and her eyes fixed straight forward, but in spite of all that she twisted her palm up and squeezed his hand in return. A heartbeat later, she yanked her hand out of his grasp.

  Christian went dizzy with desire. She wanted him. He knew it. That kiss on Monday, the way she’d stared fire at him all week, and now this hint of vulnerability.

  And they were on a stage in front of most of Cold Springs, surrounded by children.

  “…will be asked a question appropriate to their grade level,” Michael was in the middle of explaining when Christian’s focus came down from heaven. “At the end of each round the number of correct answers per team will be added up and the team with the lowest score will be eliminated.”

  “What was that?” Christian mumbled to Lily, using it as an excuse to lean closer and breathe in her lavender scent.

  “Pay attention, Mr. Avery.”

  He sat straight. On second thought, she could just be using her charms to disarm him for the competition. She was playing dirty. Smart woman! His pulse pounded and he adjusted his jacket over his trousers to be sure it hid the evidence of what she was doing to him.

  “We will continue with questions until two teams are left,” Michael went on, “at which point the final two teams will go head-to-head. Students? Coaches? Are you ready?”

  A disjointed chorus of “Yes, sir”, “Yes, Mr. West”, “We are” echoed from the stage. Lily shifted to the edge of her chair, leaning over to speak a few last minute words of encouragement to her youngest student.

  Christian followed her lead, twisting to find Lionel. Instead he found Samantha sitting glued to his side, eyes shining up at him. The effects of Lily’s touch deflated in an instant.

  “Then we will begin round one,” Michael said.

  Part of Christian had expected disaster. It seemed inevitable with the rag-tag bunch of students he’d been given. Their practices all week certainly hadn’t been the stuff of legend, and that was when he was able to give them his full attention. But as Lionel stood to answer the first question—what is three plus five—he answered immediately with a bright smile and “Eight!”

  Things got even better from there. His team made it through the first three rounds without breaking a sweat. A strange, floating sort of pride filled him as child after child took their place at the front of the group and answered the question put to them correctly. He smiled and congratulated each one of them as they made their way proudly back to their seats.

  After a couple more rounds he forgot about the humming crowd in front of them, forgot about the risk of having the Flathead there. He even forgot about Lily now and then as one of his team members answered a question he thought would sink them. He even hopped up to shake Mason’s hand when the young man was able to correctly identify the location of the Battle of Antietam, name the commanding generals on both sides, and state the outcome. No wonder Lily loved teaching so much. No wonder Michael was so eager to sire a whole clan of children. If this was what it felt like to be a father, he was ready to sign up.

  He glanced to Lily. She glowed as Red Sun Boy correctly identified the elements represented by the letters C, S, Mg, and Br as Carbon, Sulfur, Magnesium, and Bromine. She was a good teacher. He’d known that from day one, but now he knew it. Samuel Kuhn was full of himself and other things for even hinting that she was a bad influence. It wasn’t just teaching. Lily would make an excellent mother. Heat spread across his skin and through his bones.

  As the competition advanced, the excitement in the room grew. Five teams had been eliminated, then six. They there were only five left, then four.
Somehow his scrappy team of farm and town children managed to hold on. Better still, Lily’s team of brown and white was holding strong, along with the team Alicia Kuhn was coaching.

  Christian noticed with a start at the end of the round that the Flathead children sat in and among the town children in Lily’s group and that they all had their heads together, smiles of confidence in their eyes. Exactly as Lily said they would. The children all worked together, unconcerned with what the others looked like.

  When Michael announced the team with the lowest score for the round and Lily’s team wasn’t it, her mix of children hooted in excitement and hugged each other.

  Dammit, but Lily was right.

  She caught him staring at her with an expression as moony as the one Samantha had for him as the youngest student in each group stepped forward for the start of the last round before the head-to-head. The victorious smile that spread across her rose-pink lips and into her dark eyes was enough to make him fall at her feet and beg her to keep him close forever.

  “Spell ‘grasshopper,’” Michael asked Lionel.

  Christian dragged his attention away from Lily in time to hear Lionel say, “G-R-A-S-S-H-O-P-E-R.”

  He cringed as Michael gave Lionel a sympathetic look and said, “I’m sorry, that’s wrong.”

  Lionel moped his way back to his chair.

  “It’s all right, son,” Christian told him, giving him a pat on the back as he passed.

  But it wasn’t all right. Rebecca Turner missed her third grade question and beribboned Samantha failed to name all of the Great Lakes. Even Mason, his team anchor, couldn’t calculate the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre that had a perimeter of 640 rods within the given time. Christian stood to congratulate him on his effort though, then took his seat, awaiting the inevitable announcement.

  At the finish of all questions in the round, the judges put their heads together. The audience whispered as they calculated how many wrong answers each team had. Christian glanced across to Lily. She perched on the edge of her seat, color high, breath coming in short gasps. Her eyes flickered to the side to meet his. She’d beaten him and she knew it, but her other battle had just begun.

  Michael cleared his throat and stepped back to the podium. “Mr. Avery’s team has been eliminated. Miss Singer and Mrs. Kuhn’s teams will face off in the final round.”

  A ripple of applause filled the room. Christian had never felt so satisfied to be defeated.

  “Good show,” he congratulated his students as they stood and took their final bow amidst the clapping. “I’m proud of you all.”

  His defeated team smiled as best they could. Lionel even hugged him as they walked off the dais. Samantha tried to do the same, but Christian slipped out of her reach, keeping Lionel between them.

  There was a pause as the stage was reconfigured for the final round. The chairs were all removed and the two remaining teams lined up in order of age on either side of the stage. Lily leaned close to her team members, murmuring her final words of wisdom. She was too far away for Christian to hear what she said as he took a seat in the front row with the other defeated competitors, but confidence shone from her.

  Samuel Kuhn, on the other hand, was close enough to him that Christian could hear everything.

  “Show those savages who is in charge here,” he told his wife’s team from the side of the stage. Alicia nodded emphatically at his every word. “Don’t let them scalp you,” he went on.

  Christian had half a mind to get up and drag him back to his seat.

  “You win this and those thieving Indians will be gone for good. Do you hear me?”

  To Christian’s dismay, at least half of the students on Alicia’s team nodded or grunted their approval.

  “Go get them!” Samuel gave his wife’s team one last order.

  The overexcited children shuffled their way back into a line, facing down Lily’s group of determined warriors.

  “Let me remind you of the rules for this round,” Michael said. “Both teams will send their student for each age group forward to answer the same question. I’ll read the question, and when you know the answer, raise your hand, but do not speak the answer out loud! If you blurt it, you’ll be disqualified and the other team will win the question. Wait until the judges tell you that you may answer to say anything. If you’re correct, you win the question, if not, the other team has a chance to answer correctly. If neither team gets the correct answer, neither gets the point. In the case of a tie-breaker, each team can choose whomever they would like to answer the tie-breaker question. Are you ready?”

  Answers of “Yes!”, “We’re ready!”, and a “Let’s get on with it” from the audience followed. The audience laughed at the heckler, each team’s first grade student came forward, and the real competition began.

  “First question,” Michael said. “Who was the first President of the United States?”

  Christian held his breath as the two tiny competitors shot their hands into the air. He glanced to Lily. She stood beside the line of her team, hands gripped behind her back, her whole body rigid with anticipation. She was beautiful, strength and power and so much intelligence it made his head spin.

  “Sees The Clouds raised his hand first,” Amelia Quinlan spoke on behalf of the judges.

  “Sees The Clouds,” Michael turned to the tiny Flathead boy, “who was the first President of the United States?”

  Christian leaned forward in his chair. Lily swayed towards Sees The Clouds.

  “George Washington,” he answered.

  “Correct!”

  The race was on. The audience applauded the correct answer, some freely, some grudgingly. Samuel scowled and crossed his arms tight, moustache quivering. Lily hugged the boy as he returned to his place in line. Christian caught Snow In Her Hair and River Woman whispering animatedly to each other and nodding toward Lily.

  “Next question,” Michael went on as the two second grade students met in the center of the stage. “What is five hundred twenty-three less three hundred sixty-four?”

  Both students tensed, faces pinched in thought. Christian could hear his heart beating in his ears. He watched Lily, her lips mumbling silently.

  At last the student from Alicia’s team raised her hand. It was a clear decision.

  “Veronica?” Michael prompted her.

  “One hundred fifty-nine.”

  “Correct.”

  The audience burst into applause again. Samuel grinned like a stuffed cat, his wife catching his smugness. Lily gave her defeated student a squeeze on the shoulder, then zeroed back in on the competition. Her eyes were alight with excitement and challenge. Her third grader won his question, but Henry Otter lost his fourth grade question. The uneven ages of the children meant that a fourth grade girl from Lily’s team was up against a third grade boy from Alicia’s team, but Lily’s girl won.

  Tensions in the ballroom mounted as the fifth grader from Alicia’s team gave the wrong answer to his question, but Lily’s fifth grader was unable to come up with the right answer either. There were two sixth grade students on each team. Isabella Kuhn correctly named the eight parts of speech and gave an example of each before Martha could, then Red Sun Boy named the five longest rivers in North America. The seventh grade question went squarely to Alicia’s team. The eighth grade question looked as though it would be the decider, but when the boys from both teams were unable to describe the location and function of the pancreas in the human body, the two teams were left tied at the end of the round.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we will have a tie-breaker round after all!” Michael announced to the delight of the crowd.

  The room buzzed as the two teams gathered into huddles on the stage to pick their representative. Christian squirmed in his chair, half standing, only to sit down again when he realized it was none of his business. He watched Lily like a hawk. In spite of the glares thrown at her by Samuel, in spite of the pressure piled on her as she fought to prove herself and her
theories to the town, she had all the grace and bearing of a goddess. She was magnificent.

  At last the huddles broke up and the students resumed their lines.

  “Miss Singer, who has been chosen to represent your team?” Michael asked.

  With a broad smile, Lily said, “My team has unanimously decided that Red Sun Boy will be our representative.”

  The crowd gasped. Red Sun Boy stepped forward, pride written on every line of his face. Too much pride for a sixth grader, as far as Christian was concerned. What had Lily been thinking? Alicia Kuhn had two students older than Red Sun Boy to choose from. Those two students knew it too. The eighth grade boy from Alicia’s team grinned like a wolf about to devour its prey.

  “Mrs. Kuhn?” Michael asked. “Who will be representing your team?”

  “Mama!” Isabella Kuhn chirped before Alicia could announce her competitor.

  Isabella skipped to her mother’s side and whispered in her ear. Alicia—her cheeks pink with excitement—leaned closer to whisper to her daughter. When she straightened, both mother and daughter looked to Samuel.

  “Mrs. Kuhn?” Michael prompted her.

  A sly grin spread across Samuel’s face. He sent Christian a scathing sideways look and narrowed his eyes at a calmly waiting Lily before nodding to his wife and daughter.

  Alicia perked up and announced in a breathy voice, “We will be represented by Isabella Kuhn!” Her eyes had the glassy look of someone fevered with competition.

  More murmurs spun through the audience as Isabella glided her way to the center of the dais to face Red Sun Boy.

  The moment Red Sun Boy met Isabella’s eyes, Christian wanted to laugh. The cunning little vixen! Red Sun Boy’s cockiness dissolved. His shoulders dropped and he swallowed. Isabella stared back at him, her big, blue eyes wide with admiration and something far, far deeper. It was exactly the kind of look he would have paid good money to see Lily give him—and he had the itching feeling that the flush of utter adoration in Red Sun Boy’s eyes was exactly the look he wore every time Lily was in the room.