Liz Ireland - Cecilia And The Stranger

The schoolhouse, set down a rutted road from the rest of the town, was in considerably better shape than the other buildings. A new coat of paint made the white wood-frame structure a standout against the dusty terrain.

“On Sundays Parson Gibbons comes in and holds services in the school. Other than that, the school will be quite your domain,” Beasley explained. “Cecilia Summertree has been overseeing the children since our last schoolteacher left us. Wonderful girl, Miss Summertree.”

But his disdainful tone conveyed the fact that he meant just the opposite. “Her father’s quite a cattleman. The Summertree ranch is one of the biggest in the region.”

So Jake had heard. It was impossible to have passed through this part of Texas without having heard something of Summertree and his vast spread. Jake had dreamed of having a ranch that would be even a fraction as successful. He couldn’t imagine why a daughter of such a man would want to teach school in this barren place, though. “She’s a local girl?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. She’s not a professional academician like yourself, Mr. Pendergast. Mercy, she doesn’t even have a certificate. Sometimes out here we’re forced to bend all these new regulations, you know. She did spend five months at a school for young ladies in New Orleans this year.” Beasley stopped and raised a speculative eyebrow. “She was supposed to have been gone for a full year...” He left the sentence dangling tremulously between them.

Kid probably got homesick, was Jake’s first reaction...if a body could get homesick for this patch of dust. But what he thought wasn’t at issue. “Hmm,” he murmured suspiciously for Beasley’s benefit, knowing the man probably expected his Philadelphia schoolteacher to be loaded with moral superiority.

“Precisely,” Beasley said, pleased to have indoctrinated the new teacher in one of his own personal prejudices. He continued walking. “Now I wanted to tell you about my daughter, Beatrice. She’s quite the little student.”

As they approached the school, Jake only half listened to the litany of Beatrice Beasley’s accomplishments. Undoubtedly any child of Lysander Beasley, formerly of Louisville, Kentucky, would be nothing less than a prodigy. Jake was more interested in the laughter and periodic high-pitched whoops coming from the schoolhouse. It was late afternoon already—just finding the town had taken Jake the better part of a day after disembarking the train in Abilene that morning—and school was definitely out.

Noticing his companion’s distraction, Beasley broke off and cocked his head to the side, listening. “Hmm. Sounds as if Miss Summertree’s in her usual high spirits today.”

“It would seem so,” Jake answered, injecting a hint of disapproval into his voice.

“I might add that my daughter’s true genius would seem to lie in the area of literature,” Beasley droned on. “Her dear mother, God rest her soul, started her early. Why, Beatrice could recite Shakespeare by the age of three!”

Jake nodded at this impressive tidbit, but at that moment, his attention was completely derailed. Through a window, he saw a young man—a cowboy—and woman cavorting around the teacher’s desk. The woman, a pretty blond creature, let out a laughing cry and hopped nimbly on the high desk, revealing a glimpse of shapely leg.

“C’mon, Cici,” Jake heard the man saying. “You know you want to.”

“Not if you were the only man in Texas, Buck!” The woman’s bright blue eyes sparked with a mix of amusement and annoyance.

“But I am the only man for you, sweetheart.”

“You crazy—”

The cowboy reached for the woman’s waist. She attempted to back away, but was thrown off-balance and regained equilibrium only by allowing herself to be hoisted high in the air. She rolled her eyes in distress, and as she did, caught sight of movement outside.

As her eyes alit on Beasley, dread crossed her face. Then when she glanced over to Jake, her expression changed to one of complete mortification.

Jake couldn’t help it. He smiled.

Even caught slack-jawed with surprise, this Cecilia Summertree gave him hope for his short stay in Annsboro. Her figure, so easily held aloft by the rustic youth, appeared lithe and sturdy at once. It was encased in a blue muslin frock of practical design, but she wore the gown with a dash that would have made the cowboy’s forwardness with her person humorous, had not her own reaction to seeing a stranger peeping in the window—and catching sight of such a spectacle—been comical in itself.

After the initial shock passed, Cecilia Summertree’s eyes swept over him with feminine curiosity, making Jake groan at the memory of his ill-fitting brown suit. Not that he was normally a lady-killer...well, maybe he had made a few pulses flutter in his day. He instinctively tugged down his tight herringbone vest.

But the smirk that crossed the young woman’s face halted him in mid-preen. Obviously, she found nothing heart-stopping about his appearance. And she couldn’t even see that his pants nearly reached his shins! Jake silently cursed his suit as he watched her expression change yet again—to guarded anticipation.

“Put me down, fool!” the woman whispered urgently to her companion.

Beasley, beyond the sightlines of the window and therefore ignorant of the drama awaiting them inside, hurried his straggling companion into the building with a wave. Jake sobered his expression and eagerly stepped over the threshold ahead of Beasley, into a small hallway that held a coatrack. Suddenly, the subject of Miss Summertree’s early return from finishing school, or anything else about the woman, fascinated him.

Before he could step through the door, the man named Buck had set her down, and she was giving the bodice of her dress a firm straightening jerk. When their gazes met again, her brilliant blue eyes were narrowed on him suspiciously.

Jake was irked that he wasn’t able to make more of an impression. Not that what this woman thought made any difference, he reminded himself. He was just here to lie low, not to spark the local schoolteacher. Ex-schoolteacher.

“Mr. Beasley,” she said in a high feminine voice whose energy enchanted him immediately. “What did you bring me?”

“Looks too old for a student,” the cowboy joked, eyeing Jake with genial curiosity.

“Good heavens!” Beasley said sharply, as if the offhand comment had done grave insult to their guest. “This is Mr. Eugene Pendergast. Mr. Pendergast, this is Miss Summertree, who I was telling you about. And this is...”

“Buck McDeere,” Cecilia supplied. That Beasley wouldn’t know the cowboy’s name came as no surprise to Jake, or apparently, to Cecilia.

“Mr. Pendergast is our new schoolteacher, just arrived from Philadelphia.”

At the word schoolteacher Cecilia Summertree’s mouth dropped open. Once again her blue eyes assessed his person, this time without mirth. She stiffened her spine and jutted her jaw forward. “Philadelphia, you say?” she said disbelievingly.

Jake bit back a laugh. No curtsy, no how-do-you-do. Just a question about his origins and another scathing once-over. Maybe Miss Summertree expected men from Philadelphia to have better tailors.

In spite of the cool reception, he bowed politely. Trying to think of a way to respond, Jake remembered his uncle Thelmer, from St. Louis. The one time Thelmer had visited his relatives in Texas, it was clear he had considered himself to be hands-down more civilized than his poor relations. And to give the man his due, the ladies had been impressed.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Summertree,” he said now in his best impression of Uncle Thelmer’s sophistication.