Tennessee Waltz

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "Mandy," Sarah said helplessly.

  "It's all right, dear. Truly, it is. What will be, will be, as Leery says. It's just that there are only six more weeks of school scheduled for this year. By the middle of April, the children are needed at home to help plant. We'll never find anyone for just that short amount of a time. I guess Dan just needs to begin looking for someone to start next fall, after harvest."

  She had no business even considering what Mandy was talking about, Sarah chastised herself. If anything, the kiss she'd shared with Wyn last night should tell her that she needed to get out of her immediately and content herself with her plans to marry Stephen. She would soon have children of her own to care for, probably at least one within a year of her marriage.

  In a year, Baby Sarah might be walking, she thought. And Mairi will probably forget what the woman who rescued her even looks like, unless I can get back here for a visit or two.

  And Wyn MacIntyre would probably be married himself, with a start of his own brood of babies. Surely as soon as the snow melted, there would be a trail of single mountain women visiting the store as often as possible.

  "I wish I could teach," she became aware of Mandy saying. "But I didn't go beyond third grade myself. I can read and write and cipher, but just enough to get by on. Of course, I've read a lot over the years, so I suppose I'm a little beyond when I had to drop out of school and help care for my younger brothers and sisters. Still, it's not enough to teach with."

  "I can't stay, Mandy. I can't."

  She rose and hurried over to the sink. Grabbing one of Mandy's aprons from a hook beside the cabinets, she donned it and plunged her hands into the dish water. She'd never had to wash dishes at home, but she'd done pretty well last night when she had her first lesson.

  She scrubbed a plate, set it in the rinse pan, and picked up another one. No, she'd never washed dishes back home, but she hadn't minded it one bit last night. Not with the sounds of everyone cuddling and cooing to her namesake, before Sissy lovingly but sternly told them the baby Sarah needed to sleep. She'd helped wash hands and faces, also, and prepared two grubby little boys for bed. They had demanded that she kiss them good night, their arms clinging to her when she did.

  The rowdy, rambunctious, loving MacIntyre family was a complete contradiction to what she had known all her life. But she had to admit that it was exactly what she would want her own family to be like, if she could choose.

  Only with a different husband in the picture.

  She became aware of her surroundings again with a start. She had been staring out Mandy's kitchen window and dreamily circling the dish rag around and around on the same plate. Sneaking a guilty look over her shoulder, she sighed gratefully when she didn't see Mandy. Her landlady must have returned to her room to make her bed.

  Turning again, she gazed at the magnificent view out the window. Far and away, snow-capped mountains stretched before her, disappearing in the distance without end. On one side of Mandy's yard were several huge, bare trees, one with a set of swing ropes hanging from a large limb. She could imagine children laughing and shouting in that large back yard in the summer, but she didn't recall Mandy saying she'd had any children of her own.

  She would bet that Wyn would enjoy swinging the children high into bright sunshiny air in the summer.

  For heaven's sake! She thinned her lips and wrenched her gaze away from the swings, digging back into the dishes. She'd only met the man two days ago, kissed him once, and was already building a future with him in her mind! How stupid! Plenty of men kissed plenty of women without there being wedding bells in the future for them!

  And her own wedding bells were going to ring for a her and a different man.

  A stab of sorrow crawled into her heart. Probably, too, Wyn only had a fancy for a little dalliance with the city woman who would be leaving quickly and wouldn't threaten his bachelorhood.

  Seems as though he would have picked a prettier woman than her to dally with, she mused. A man as handsome as Wyn should have his pick of the beauties and not have to settle for wallflowers like her.

  Chapter 5

  From behind the counter, Wyn stared out the window, watching Sarah approach. Instead of coming into the store, though, she turned and walked down the pathway he had shoveled to the schoolhouse. Something tugged at him, urging him to follow her, but he resisted.

  He'd do well to steer clear of Miss Sarah Channing until she put her tall, slender frame on Jeeter's wagon seat and left. Even the additional white lightning he'd drunk last night after he walked her home and foolishly kissed her hadn't given him a good night's sleep. Her face had wavered through his dreams, and once he actually woke up with his pillow clasped in his arms, his face buried in it. The morning light had brought further confirmation that he never should have kissed her. He'd enjoyed it way too much, and they were world's apart.

  But hell! What really bothered him was her kissing him back. He kept trying to blame her response on the white lightning she'd drank, but that didn't work at all. He found himself thinking about setting up his own still — brewing his own moonshine — carrying a bottle around with him so he could get her to take a sip whenever he caught her alone.

  Yep, it was a good thing the warming day was melting the snow. If Jeeter didn't show up tomorrow morning, he'd take Sarah and Prudence down to Razor Gully himself!

  He picked up his coffee cup and took a long swallow, nearly gagging on it when he realized it was cold. Telling himself he only needed to dump the coffee, he walked out onto the porch and over to the railing. He flung the coffee into the snow, barely registering the brown surface stains before he shifted his gaze to the schoolhouse.

  She'd evidently already gone inside. Whatever her purpose over there, it didn't take long to accomplish, because she came out again as he watched. Her movements appeared rather careful — until she closed the door. Then she straightened to her full height and stared at the door for a full minute. Suddenly she turned and headed back down the path to the store.

  She saw him before Wyn could escape inside and hesitated slightly. Then she came on again, sweeping up the steps and stopping several feet from him.

  "Mandy told me that Dan was head of the School Board," she said without a preliminary greeting. "Where is he?"

  "In his room — doing books. And calling what we have here in Sawback Mountain a School Board is stretching it a tad. Pa and a couple other men meet whenever there's a need to hire a new teacher, and the other two men bring Pa the money they collect from the various families each fall for the teacher's salary. But that's about the extent of their organization."

  "Thank you."

  Before Wyn could surge forward and hold the door for her, Sarah opened it and went through. He pulled back his hand quickly and sucked on the tips of his fingers, which had gotten caught between the screen door and the door jamb when the door slammed behind her.

  What could be so darned important Sarah needed to talk to his pa? Maybe her brief peek inside the schoolhouse had made her decide the school wasn't good enough for Mairi. She'd definitely developed a soft spot for his niece, if the wardrobe Mairi unpacked last night was any indication of Sarah's feelings.

  Determined to protect his pa, Wyn hurried after her. At the bedroom door, he saw Dan leaning back in his wheelchair, a serious look on his face and his bookkeeping pen tapping against his chin. He flicked a glance at Wyn, but made no other sign he was aware of his presence, keeping his main concentration on Sarah.

  Sarah stood before him, talking in a low but ardent voice, and Wyn walked a quiet couple of steps closer. Just inside the bedroom door he stopped, straining to hear what she was saying. From his position he could also see Sarah in the bureau mirror behind his pa, although the angle protected him from Sarah's view.

  ". . . suppose it's because she considers this her last day, but she might as well dismiss the children and send them home for all they will learn today," Sarah said with a huff of indignation. "It's total pandemonium, and she
's just sitting there reading a book!"

  "To tell you the truth, Sarah," Dan said, "I wasn't gonna offer Prudence Elliot a contract for next year anyway. I ain't never made no effort to gussy up my talk like I probably could, since the men and women who buy stuff from me would think I was a puttin' on airs. But I had a full slate of school years myself, and I've tested my young'uns off and on. They ain't learnin' near as fast as they oughta be. Given how hard it is to get teachers to come here, I figgered leastwise they was a learnin' somethin', which was better than nothin'. And I've got a passel of books for my young'uns to read on their own."

  "Do all the other families have books to supplement the lack of education they're getting in school here?" Sarah demanded.

  "No, they don't, though I've let it be known anyone is welcome to borrow any I've got. They're real respectful of books, though, and I imagine they're afraid somethin' would happen to a borrowed book and they couldn't replace it for me."

  "There should be no need to supplement the children's education. Reading for pleasure or for seeking further knowledge on a child's own is different. I surely hope you don't intend to give that woman a good reference!"

  Sarah shook her head, and a tress of brownish-blond hair loosened from her careful chignon. She lifted an arm to push it back into place, her movement straining the loose bodice material on her gown across her breast. When the tress stubbornly refused to stay in place, she lifted her other hand behind her head to help tame it.

  Wyn's mouth went dry. Last night when he'd kissed her, there had been his heavy jacket and her cloak between them. Still, he'd managed an adequate feel of her rounded hips. She didn't wear one of those "enhancers" so popular with the women he'd seen during his time in Washington, D.C., which made those ruffles and bows wobble so enticingly on their backsides. Now he realized she'd also hidden a completely adequate set of breasts under her loose fitting garments. With her height and where her waistline hit her as a guideline, he'd be willing to bet those legs went on endlessly, too.

  He took a hesitant, unwilling step forward, and she glanced up at the mirror. She dropped her arms so fast they whooshed through the air. Those soft, chocolate eyes met his, the expressions in them changing so quickly his brain barely had time to register each one — from concern, probably as to her discussion with his pa; to a hot flash of awareness; then to humiliation that she'd let the awareness show, and on to a haughty attempt to wipe her face free of any emotion.

  To distract himself from the stab of response in his groin, Wyn concentrated on what he'd decided her purpose in visiting the schoolhouse had been.

  "So," he said as nonchalantly as he could as he walked on into the room. The safest place for him to talk to her seemed to be behind his pa, just in case he couldn't control what happened between his legs. Dan's wheelchair would block her view. He moved over that way.

  The problem was, then he could see his pa's bed reflected in the mirror behind Sarah. In the slightly wavy surface, it appeared it would only take a slight shove to send her tumbling back onto the wedding ring quilt his mother's relatives had presented her on the day she married.

  He took a steadying breath. "I don't want to make assumptions here, but if you're going to malign our attempts to give the area young'uns an education . . ."

  "Attempts is right," Sarah said, waving a hand in obviously checked anger. "That woman is robbing you instead of earning her salary."

  "I suppose it's Mairi you're worried about," Wyn said.

  "Wyn!" Dan cautioned.

  "Mairi?" Sarah's brow furrowed, then wrinkled deeper when she narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "Are you back to what you nearly accused me of the day I arrived? Are you insinuating that I'd try to talk Dan into letting me take Mairi back with me because she would get a better education that way?"

  "Would you?" Wyn shot back at her.

  "No! It's not only Mairi who's being rooked out of proper schooling! Why, in the short time I've been here, I've seen that both Jute and Luke have extremely sharp minds. I'd be willing to bet that the reason she has so much trouble with the twins is that she's not keeping them challenged. They're probably willing and able to learn a lot faster, if she'd just spend the necessary time with them!"

  Not understanding at all why he defended Prudence Elliot, since he didn't much care for the woman himself, Wyn said, "She's got fifteen young'uns over there, with hardly more than three of them each at the same level of learning. She can't spend every minute of her class days with Jute and Luke."

  The color flared higher in her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled with gold dust when she slapped her palms on her hips. Her motion smoothed down the skirt material to outline that hidden shapeliness.

  Maybe that was why he antagonized her, a corner of his mind said. She was a completely different woman when she forgot and stepped outside that haughty, cool exterior, which preceded her like a shield from the days of knights and ladies. She was the woman she'd been last night, with a swallow of moonshine in that flat belly.

  "Teachers are trained how to handle a room full of varying levels of children," she spat. "It's just plain laziness when a teacher doesn't properly handle her children."

  "I suppose you could do better."

  "I darned sure could!"

  "Then I'm glad that's settled," Dan put in. "Mairi will be glad you're not leaving yet, Sarah."

  "What?" Sarah's head snapped around and she stared at Dan in puzzlement. Wyn could have sworn he saw his pa wipe a satisfied gleam from his face and replace it with a questioning look.

  "I hope the salary we can afford is adequate," Dan continued in a musing voice. "We really can't pay any more than what we're giving Miss Elliot."

  "I'm not . . . I didn't . . . I don't think you understand, Dan," Sarah sputtered.

  "Of course I do," Dan replied. "You've just agreed to teach the young'uns for the rest of the school year."

  "NO!" Wyn and Sarah's voices both yelled in unison.

  Suddenly Sarah turned her attention back to Wyn. "Why not?" she asked, glaring at him once more.

  "Hey!" Wyn threw out his hands. "You said 'no' too! Besides, our girl children need to know a little more than pretty needlework and what the season's fashions are."

  Sarah advanced on him, sidestepping Dan's chair. Wyn thought he heard his pa chuckle, but he kept his eyes warily trained on Sarah as Dan grabbed his wheel rims and rolled himself out of the way, continuing on out the bedroom door.

  The mattress hitting Wyn in the back of the knees told him that he'd unconsciously retreated from Sarah, and he chastised himself for his apprehension. Hell, she was just a woman. A tall, extremely pretty woman at the moment, but a woman still. He cautiously held his ground. It was either that or end up flat on his back on the bed, staring up at her. If he did that, he was going to take her with him!

  He imagined having her lying on top of him on that bed, and his groin throbbed again. There was no wheelchair to shield his reaction from her this time. Luckily, she seemed focused on his face, the gold dust in her eyes shimmering as though it would erupt into sparks any moment.

  "I could teach those children better than Prudence Elliot if I had laryngitis the entire term!" she fumed.

  "Could not," Wyn sneered childishly.

  "Could too!" Sarah leaned close to him, her nose almost touching his.

  Then he kissed her.

  He didn't even become aware of what he was doing until he realized his hands were buried in that bountiful gold-brown hair, which was a shade or two lighter than her eyes when she got excited. But the awareness hit him like a fist in the stomach as soon as his lips touched hers. She gasped, drawing in his breath with her own, and he fit his mouth to her welcome.

  And welcome him she did, for at least a good, long — extremely short — ten seconds. Then she worked her hands in between their bodies, pushing against him and trying to say something, but his lips kept her words smothered. Finally she twisted her head free.

  "I can't!"

  "Can'
t what, Sarah?" Wyn whispered. "Can't kiss me again or can't stay here?"

  "Neither." An anguished look filled her eyes. "I'm betrothed."

  Wyn jerked with the news, but he said, "You don't love him. You couldn't, and kiss me that way."

  "It doesn't matter," she said in an astonished voice. "It's a fact and I can't change it."

  He tightened his fingers in her hair and slowly pulled her to him again. After an initial second of resistance, she complied, tilting her head to let him fit his lips to hers again. She lifted her arms, placing one around his neck and threading the fingers of her other hand in his hair. With a sigh, she settled against him for a long, delicious moment.

  Then, reluctantly, she pulled back. "There. I wanted to see if it was my imagination, but it's not. You're temptation itself, Wyn MacIntyre, but it's a temptation I need to resist. If I'd found you sooner, it might be different. But it's too late now. And besides, I'm not interested in a few days of experimentation with you."

  "Experimentation? What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

  She gave one of those haughty sniffs he was starting to hate. "I don't appreciate your using profanity around me, either."

  For her being such a tall woman, he was able to move her rather easily. He lifted her by the waist and whirled her around, pushing her onto the bed before she could regain her balance. The springs squeaked loudly, and she landed with her arms propped behind her to keep from falling flat on her back. He allowed her that much dignity, but stood over her, daring her to try to rise back to her feet.

  "I want to know what you meant by my experimenting with you! You're the one who said you kissed me the second time a few minutes ago to see if it was your imagination or not. That sounds a hell of a lot more like experimenting than what I was doing — kissing you because it felt damned good to me and because I thought you were enjoying it too!"