Dorothy Clark - Falling for the Teacher

A shudder shook her. She tugged the sheet tighter around her neck and roamed her gaze over the familiar objects in the room to hold at bay the face that hovered at the edge of her fear.

Chapter Three

Sadie left her grandmother in the kitchen discussing the day’s meals with Gertrude, carried the stack of washed dishes to the butler’s pantry, put them in their proper place on the shelves and continued through to the dining room. Her stomach was settling—not that she’d been able to do more than choke down a few bites of breakfast. But the knots from having Cole Aylward seated at the table were slowly coming undone.

To come downstairs after the sleepless hours haunted by the nightmare made more powerful by her return and to see him there...she paused and pressed her hands to her stomach as the knots twisted tight again. Cole’s likeness to his brother unnerved her. And try as she would, she could not ignore his presence—the man dominated a room. She would be thankful when he was gone, though it was clear after last night that he would defy her request. It had to be her grandfather who told him to leave. She would have to find a reason.

She lifted the lamps off the mantel in the dining room and carried them back to the table beneath the window in the butler’s pantry. She’d learned long ago that plunging into work the morning after having the nightmare was the best way to bury her fears. Being in control of something drove away the feeling of helplessness—and this morning that helpless feeling was overwhelming. And not only from the nightmare.

It pained her to see her grandfather’s efforts to cope with his infirmities and know there was nothing she could do to make him better. She removed the lamps’ glass chimneys, wiped them with a soft cloth, then turned up the wicks and picked up the silver trimmers. And Nanna...

“I’ve been studying on—” The scrape of a chair against the porch floor drowned out the rest of the words.

Cole. She’d thought he’d gone. She leaned toward the window and peered to her left. Her grandfather sat in a rocker on the porch and Cole Aylward stood leaning against the railing. She drew back lest he see her and took a breath to calm the pounding of her heart the mere sight of the man provoked.

“...best sit here on the porch. That sky doesn’t look too promising, and it smells like rain.”

Her pulse skipped. If they talked on the porch, perhaps she could discover why Cole was being so helpful and—

“What are you doing, sweeting?”

She started, jerked the trimmer handles together and snipped off too much of the wick on the first lamp. “I’m cleaning the lamps from the dining room mantel, Nanna.” She tossed the charred piece of wick into the small trash bucket on the table, adjusted the wick and replaced the cleaned globe, straining to hear the conversation taking place outside. Her grandfather’s halting words were difficult to understand, and Cole Aylward’s deep voice was hard to hear, but she dared not open the window lest they become aware that she was eavesdropping.

“What holds your interest?” Her grandmother frowned and moved into the pantry.

“Nothing, Nanna.” She quickly cleaned and trimmed the second lamp and stepped away from the table. “I’m finished.”

“What cost...buy...one?”

Buy what? She tilted her head toward the window.

“I’ll help you carry the lamps, Sadie.” Her grandmother bustled to her side, lifted one of the lamps in her small, pudgy hands and moved toward the doorway to the dining room. “Come along.”

She snatched up the other lamp and followed, wishing she could have waited to hear what her grandfather was considering buying. What had Cole Aylward suggested? What was he after?

Her grandmother set the lamp on the fireplace, turned it just so, stepped back and looked up at her. “I’m so glad you’ve returned.”

The smile brightening her nanna’s dear face brought a surge of guilt. She should have come home years ago. Willa and Callie had both written of how much her grandmother missed her, of the sadness in her eyes when she spoke of her. Yet she had let her cowardice keep her away. How selfish she was. Well, no more. She was home now and she would make it up to her grandmother. She set the lamp she held on the other end of the mantel, then tugged the bodice of her gown down into place at her waist.

“Turn it so that the knob is on the right, Ivy.”

Ivy? She caught her breath and turned.

Her grandmother looked up at her, a mild rebuke in her eyes. “I’m not scolding, Ivy. But I should think that after all these years in our service you could remember that little detail.”

Nanna didn’t know her. Something awful took her by the throat, squeezed life from her heart.

“Well, gracious! There’s no reason for tears, Ivy. I said I wasn’t cross with you.” Her grandmother reached out and patted her hand. “Now wipe the tears from your eyes and come along. We’ve the lamps in Mama and Papa’s room to tend to.”

* * *

“It’s something to think about, Manning.” Cole yanked his gaze from the dining room window—for the third time. Or, to be more accurate, from the slender, shapely young woman he could see through the glass.

“Cost...ly.”

He frowned, braced himself with his extended left leg, shifted his weight onto his right hip and rested his thigh along the railing. “Yes. But no one else in the area has a clapboard machine. I think it will pay for itself with the first few loads we ship downriver.”

The fading brown eyes took on a speculative gleam. Manning swept his hand through the air. “Big mar...ket.”

The show of enthusiasm brought a smile to his lips. It seemed he might have found a way to get the afflicted man excited and involved in his businesses again. “Very big. I’ve been doing some letter writing. There’s no other supplier of machine-milled clapboard from Olville to Buffalo. And none I could find a trace of from here to Pittsburgh.”

He twisted front and leaned forward. “You’d be the first, Manning. The other timber companies will still be riving clapboard by hand, and you know shaving them clean is a slow process. They wouldn’t be able to compete with your time or price.”

He stared down at his hands dangling in the open space between his legs. Big hands. Strong and powerful from felling trees and making shakes and clapboard. Payne had big, powerful hands, too. He glanced back up at the window and watched Sadie turn from placing a lamp on the fireplace mantel. So lithe and graceful. So unable to defend herself.

Stop it! He clenched his jaw so hard the muscle along the bone twitched. He couldn’t throw away four years of effort and hard work because he felt guilty for something that was not his doing.

Lightning flashed white brilliance through the air. Thunder rumbled a warning of things to come. The approaching storm seemed an ominous omen. He pushed off the railing, looked up at the darkened sky and turned to Manning. “I’d best take you inside before the storm hits.”

“No.” Manning’s face worked; his eyes flashed as brilliant as had the lightning. His good hand fisted on his knee. “Stay here. Like...storms.”

“All right. If it gets too bad, I’ll come back and take you in.” He turned toward the steps at another flash of lightning. “You think about the clapboard machine, and we’ll discuss it more tonight.”

Raindrops angled down from the black clouds rolling in, splatted in a halfhearted warning on the wooden steps, made dark wet splotches on the slate stones of the garden path. “Looks like this is going to be a soaker.” He stole another look at the window. Sadie was not in sight. Disappointment pricked him. He frowned, tugged the collar of his shirt up to cover the back of his neck, trotted down the steps and set off down the path.