In Your Arms (Montana Romance)

by Farmer, Merry

  “You look lovely,” Jessica whispered, bright with excitement.

  Christian knocked again. Lily forced her expression to neutrality and stiffened her back. It was only when she reached for the door that she realized how foolish the whole scene was. She should be grave with concern, not prickling with anticipation.

  A cold blast of air pushed into the house as Lily opened the door. There was Christian, tall and fine in his long, fashionable coat and hat. His face was pink with cold. He hadn’t shaved. His hazel eyes flashed to match the smile that revealed his straight white teeth. Lily’s breath caught in her throat, her body tightening in expectation. She cursed the intensity of her reaction.

  “Good morning,” Christian greeted her as if nothing was wrong, touching the brim of his hat. He glanced past her shoulder to Jessica. “Good morning to you too, Miss Bunsick.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Avery. Nice to see you. I have to drink my tea before it gets cold. Good-bye,” Jessica babbled. As she scurried off, she caught Lily’s eyes and whispered, “Good luck!”

  Lily shut her eyes, her mouth pressed in a tight line. It was the fastest disaster she’d ever encountered.

  She opened her eyes. Christian leaned against the doorframe with a grin on his face that was so smug it could sink a ship. He radiated humor and authority and everything that Lily hated so much about him…and found so irresistible.

  “Your buttons are off.” He nodded to her chest.

  She glanced down to find she’d skipped over a button in her haste to put her coat on. She huffed—disgusted with herself as much as him—and fumbled with her mittened hands to set it right.

  “Here, let me.” Christian straightened and reached for her coat.

  “No, I am perfectly capable of – ouch!”

  He slapped her hands away when she tried to fend him off and worked the buttons of her coat anyhow. The wry grin on his lips and the quiet chuckle simmering up from his throat made her knees unstable at the same time that it made her want to slap him in return.

  “How can you laugh at a time like this?” she hissed.

  “Because, sweetheart,” he said, far more seriousness in his eyes than on his lips, “if I don’t laugh about something right now I might end up shooting someone.”

  She let out a breath, her shoulders dropping. He was right.

  “There,” he said, touching her top button. “Much better. Of course, I would prefer no coat at all. No dress either for that matter.”

  “Ssh!” she scolded him, glancing over her shoulder into the house. “Are you trying to make things worse?”

  “Things are not that bad,” he said. He leaned closer and spoke softly. “The Indian in jail is innocent. As long as he stays there with Kent watching him, no one can get to him. And we’re going to make sure Sturdy Oak and his family are safe. It’s under control.”

  Lily swayed towards him, tight with frustration. His arrogance raised her heart rate. His confidence put her at ease. It was the last thing she wanted.

  She stepped to the side to retrieve the satchel she had packed for the village.

  “Whoa, whoa, let me carry that. It looks heavy.” Christian swiped the satchel from her as she stepped out onto the porch. He slung it over his shoulder as though it was a pillow. “It is heavy!”

  “It has books for the children,” she said, marching past him and down the porch stairs.

  Her attempt at haughty grace was foiled as she slipped on a patch of ice at the bottom. She yelped and grabbed hold of the stair railing to stop herself from falling.

  “Careful there,” Christian hopped down the stairs after her, smile too broad. “Should I escort you to the wagon?” He held out his elbow.

  Lily glared from his elbow to his eyes. “No.”

  She tipped her chin up and marched down the garden path to where his wagon was parked just on the other side of the gate. It was a blessing that she was able to make it up onto the seat without Christian’s help.

  His smile didn’t falter for a moment as he climbed up into the driver’s seat and tucked her satchel behind him. The wagon bed was full nearly to overflowing and covered with old blankets. A few barrels lined the back of the wagon bed and some shapes looked as though they could be crates.

  Lily spent a full second wondering what it all could be before Christian had his arms around her.

  “Christian, stop!” she yelped and braced her hands against his shoulders.

  “What?” he demanded, just as loud. “You want to freeze on the drive out?”

  She blinked. He had laid a blanket, the same one as the weekend before, across her legs and was tucking it around the small of her back.

  “Oh.” His lips twitched with mirth when he caught on. “Did you think I was trying something inappropriate?” His chest shook with swallowed laughter.

  “Be serious,” she grumbled, pushing him firmly away. “These are serious times.”

  “All the more reason,” he said in a low growl. He squeezed her waist with a completely non-utilitarian gesture before straightening and reaching for the reins.

  “I don’t know why I asked you to drive me,” she muttered as he urged his horses to walk on.

  “I do,” he said with an insufferable grin.

  Lily was glad that Miss Jones’s boarding house was on the far edge of town and that Sturdy Oak’s homestead was on the same side. If she had had to drive through town or anywhere near people who would see her with Christian and start whispering, she would have called the trip off and found another way out to the Flathead. As it was, she stayed as far to her side of the wagon seat as she could and hunched under the blanket.

  “Let’s talk about something cheerful, all right?” Christian suggested when they were a mile along the rough road leading to outlying farms and Sturdy Oak’s place. “The academic games were a rousing success, weren’t they,” he started off.

  Lily cleared her throat. “They were.”

  “I’ll confess, in the end I enjoyed working with those kids far more than I thought I would.”

  The unsettling burr in her chest grew. “I’m glad. The children like you. Especially Samantha.”

  He had the good sense to laugh at her low blow.

  “That Samantha has ideas way ahead of her age,” he said. “Made me nervous.”

  “Samantha is at an impressionable age,” Lily reminded him. “Girls that age will be sweet on any attractive man that pays them attention.” Girls of any age, if she was being honest.

  “Were you?”

  Blood rushed to Lily’s face. This was a terrible, terrible idea.

  “Was I what?” She played ignorant.

  “Were you sweet on every attractive man that paid you attention when you were that age?”

  Her stomach writhed with reluctance.

  “I don’t remember,” she lied.

  Christian cheated a sideways smile at her. “Yes, you do. Who was he?”

  She pursed her lips and clenched her hands to fists in her mittens.

  “I think perhaps we should hold academic games again next year, make it an annual event.”

  He nodded. “We should. Who was he?”

  He wasn’t going to leave her alone until she told him.

  “A teacher at the Indian School.” She prayed that would silence him on the matter.

  In vain.

  “And his name was…?”

  She sighed, old shame welling in her gut. “Christopher Smith,” she confessed. “He taught religion and philosophy to the older students. He was British and strict. None of the other students liked him. They didn’t understand his sense of humor, but I found him witty and clever.”

  “I see.” He was having a hard time keeping his grin under control. “And how old were you?”

  “Sixteen,” she answered.

  “Oh! Well that’s old enough to actually do something about it! Should I be jealous?”

  “Sixteen is not old enough to do something about those things!” she fired back at him. �
�Really! Where are your morals?”

  He shrugged. “I think I left them in a file somewhere at the courthouse.”

  She shook her head and clucked in derision.

  “He was married anyhow,” she went on, “and had children my age. As soon as the other students found out about my feelings….”

  She squeezed her eyes shut around the memories.

  “What happened?” Christian asked. The teasing was gone from his voice.

  All of the old bitterness was still there, the urge to pull in on herself with it.

  “They laughed at me,” she admitted in a near whisper. “Tormented me, really. Called me ‘teacher’s pet’ and…other things that I don’t want to repeat, excluded me from activities, study groups.”

  Christian frowned. “Didn’t the teachers at the school put a stop to it?”

  “They tried. When they noticed that I was being prevented from sitting at any of the student tables at meals I was invited to sit at the teacher’s table.” She swallowed, seeing herself as she was then, ostracized and alone.

  “But that only made it worse.” This time she was grateful that he finished her sentence. It spared her the pain of admitting it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she asked voice stony. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Maybe not.”

  He rubbed a gloved hand over his chin. Too much silence passed between them before he glanced sideways at her.

  “Are you worried people might brush you off like your classmates did if they think you’re sweet on…anybody?”

  She turned away from him, face hot with embarrassment. She couldn’t even bring herself to nod.

  “They won’t, you know,” he said. “I won’t.”

  They rode on in silence for a few minutes. Lily couldn’t have spoken if she had wanted to. Her throat was tight with the pain of the past and the promise of the present. She believed him. He wouldn’t shun her. Everybody else in Montana was another matter. And they all knew.

  “So these civics lessons I’ll be teaching.” Christian spoke again as if her heart hadn’t just been bared for him. “When do you want me to teach them?”

  She drew in a breath, forcing the past back where it belonged.

  “I told you, I release you from your obligation. It was a bet made in haste.”

  “And I told you that I want to do it.” He smiled. “How about I start Monday?”

  His stubbornness was exactly the excuse she needed to balance the intimacy between them with scorn.

  “How about you keep to the profession for which you were trained and I keep to mine?”

  “Monday it is, then.” He ignored her. “What time?”

  She sighed. He wasn’t going to back down. She could exhaust herself battling with him or she could let him teach a few short lessons and be done. At least if she allowed him to teach those lessons at the courthouse she could be close enough to the town’s sudden unrest to know if she or her students would be in danger.

  “We have civics lessons directly after lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” she said, itching with defeat.

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  She had no time to think about it further. Christian drove the wagon over the last hill and onto Sturdy Oak’s homestead. With no recent snowfall, the path to the corral by the barn between the houses was a dark, damp brown. The snow that had been piled to the side of the faded houses was dirty and old. The children who played in it, climbing the hills and throwing snowballs, looked as though they would need a good scrub when they came in. The sight was not one to lift Lily’s spirits.

  “What brings you out here today?” Snow In Her Hair greeted her as Christian helped her down from the wagon.

  A thousand insecurities welled up in Lily’s chest as she faced the woman. Was she angry because they had come unannounced? Were they angry about the night before? Did Snow In Her Hair think she was just another unreliable white woman?

  “Lily was worried about Two Feathers, about all of you,” Christian said, reaching back into the wagon to hand Lily the satchel of books. “I offered to bring her out with me this afternoon I have some business to discuss with your father anyhow.”

  “I see.” Snow In Her Hair smiled, glancing between Lily and Christian.

  Lily felt the tell-tale flush of embarrassment rising on her cheeks. She was afraid that Snow In Her Hair did see.

  “I brought these books for the children,” she said, stepping away from the wagon and Christian. “I thought that if they were upset by last night’s events, perhaps I could read to them.”

  “The children are playing. They have no concerns for last night other than that their team won. But I am certain they would enjoy a story.”

  “Thank you.”

  They walked on between the houses together, almost like friends. For a change, Christian did not follow her. He strode around the back of his wagon to speak with Sturdy Oak’s son. It didn’t feel right.

  “So you came with Christian, did you?” Snow In Her Hair said.

  Lily swallowed the anxiety that raged in her stomach. “I did.”

  Snow In Her Hair smiled. “That is a good catch.”

  “I haven’t caught anything,” Lily protested.

  “Oh, I think you have,” Snow In Her Hair laughed. Before Lily could protest further, she called out, “Children, come in! Singing Bird is here to read to you!”

  The happy sounds of children playing swirled to high-pitched squeals of delight. A dozen grubby children hopped up out of the snow and rushed to greet her. Two Feathers stepped around the corner of the barn to see what the commotion was. Lily’s knees went weak with relief.

  “Two Feathers.” She rushed to him, stopping short instead of hugging him as she wanted to. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  “Why? Do you not think I am a thief, too?”

  It was as if she had been hit in the chest with a snowball. “What? I…. No! Not at all!”

  “Two white men break into the pharmacy, but I am accused and another of our people just passing by is arrested. Now I am forbidden from leaving my home!”

  He turned abruptly and marched off, leaving Lily cold and gaping.

  Snow In Her Hair touched her shoulder with a heavy sigh. “He is angry. He says he saw the men leaving the pharmacy, saw the unknown man pause to investigate only to be set upon. We have warned him to stay home until the furor passes.”

  “But if he saw the true thieves he could identify them.” Hope filled her at the prospect.

  Snow In Her Hair shook her head and led her on to the big house. “He will not say anything. He would not be believed anyhow.”

  The painful ache of the truth filled Lily’s gut like stone. She walked on with Snow In Her Hair, sick with frustration. But at the same time, it hardened her resolve. She needed to prove herself as a teacher in Cold Springs now more than ever.

  Chapter Eleven

  Christian hauled the last sack of flour from the wagon bed and onto his shoulder. His back ached and his muscles were warm and loose with use, but the battle of conflicting emotions hadn’t subsided.

  “This should hold you through for a few weeks at least,” he said to Sturdy Oak as the two of them started their last trip toward the main house. “You shouldn’t have any reason to go to town until this mess has blown over.”

  Sturdy Oak nodded. It was one of those calm, accepting nods that left Christian with no idea if the man agreed with him or if he was merely being polite.

  “This man who was captured. Did he say who he is? Who his people are?”

  “No,” Christian answered. “Once he saw the writing on the wall, he clammed up. I went to see him this morning, but as far as I could tell he hadn’t moved an inch.”

  “He is a wise man,” Sturdy Oak said. “When one is silent, one’s words cannot be used as weapons.”

  Christian smiled. Philosophical to the core. Philosophy wouldn’t stop a fool with a bad idea though.

  “You know, peo
ple think that Two Feathers was involved,” he said, losing his smile.

  They reached the main house and Sturdy Oak held open the door for Christian. “Two Feathers is strong in body and in will. If these thefts had not happened, the ignorant would have found other blame to bring to his door.”

  “I’d argue with you if I could,” Christian agreed.

  He shifted the heavy sack of flour and scooted sideways through the door.

  His gloomy thoughts were cut short by the sight of Lily sitting on a stool in the middle of the large room, a pack of a dozen children of different ages sitting in front of her. She held a large book with colorful pictures that she showed to the children. Even Red Sun Boy—who sat at the table reading his own book—glanced up from time to time.

  “Who can find a word that begins with L?” she asked.

  The children scooted closer to study the pages of the book.

  Lily was radiant when she wasn’t angry or anxious. The lines of her shoulders were loose and relaxed and she moved with easy grace. Her face glowed with such care and affection for the children that Christian stopped what he was doing to watch her. She leaned forward on her stool as one of the children poked a finger on the page.

  “That one!”

  “Lion. Very good, Sees The Clouds.” Lily smiled, resting the book on her knees so she could ruffle his hair. “There’s one more.”

  “I know! I know!” Meadow pointed at the book. “Love.”

  “Yes. Love. Very good.”

  Her eyes flickered up to meet Christian’s. It was only a peek, less than a glance, before her attention shifted back to the children, but Christian felt it as though she’d taken him in her arms and kissed him square on the mouth.

  Love. Maybe it was.

  Sturdy Oak tapped his shoulder. For a moment Christian struggled to remember where he was. Sturdy Oak gestured for him to bring the sack of flour to the pantry. He followed, but the world seemed completely disoriented, the floor tilted. Any direction that he went in that wasn’t straight to Lily felt wrong.

  “Snow In Her Hair says you brought Singing Bird to us today,” Sturdy Oak said as he helped Christian roll the sack off his shoulders.