Falling for the Teacher

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Chapter Six

“I’m sorry I’m late, Manning. I hope you weren’t uncomfortable.” Cole held his gaze steady on the elderly man, resisting the urge to look to where Sadie sat reading. There was no need. He could well imagine what she thought of him standing there all sweaty in his dusty, torn suit—not that her opinion of him could get any lower. Still, he’d hoped to improve that situation today. “I came straight here from church—despite my appearance.” He almost snorted at the feeble attempt to justify himself to her. He was giving far too much weight to Sadie’s power to—

“Reverend Calvert came to call. He helped Grandfather.”

Sadie’s cool, polite tone, the inference in her words, sent a rod of steel down his spine. She might as well have called him a liar. He drew a breath, then let it go when Manning tugged at his torn sleeve.

“What...hap...pened?”

“Why do you bother to ask, Manning? Daniel is an adventurer. He’s always unkempt.”

Daniel. He looked to where Rachel Townsend sat working her needlepoint, noted her opaque, unfocused expression, and his chest tightened in a way that was becoming all too familiar. He’d begun helping the Townsends as a way of atoning in a small measure for the hurt Payne had caused them, but the elderly couple had taken up residence in his heart—they’d become the grandparents he’d never had. He made her a small bow. “Please forgive my appearance, Mrs. Townsend. I did not mean to call in this disheveled state. It was unavoidable.”

She stared at him a moment, then bowed her head to her work. “At least you’ve manners enough to apologize.”

“Cole...” Manning gave another tug on his sleeve, pointed to the rip. “Tell...me.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Sadie’s head lift and turn slightly their way. The better to hear and sort through his words for another reason to distrust him, no doubt. The day wasn’t going at all as he’d hoped. He held back a scowl and focused his attention on Manning.

“Henry Conklin bought a new mare. Turns out she’s a nervous one. On the way home from church, a fox ran in front of her and she spooked. Unfortunately, Henry had stayed home and Chloe and Enid were alone in the buggy. In all the jolting, Chloe lost the reins.”

“Runa...way?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my! Are they all right?” Rachel lowered her work and stared at him, her eyes now clear and focused. Sadie’s were narrowed and suspicious. He supposed he should be grateful she hadn’t fled the room at his appearing, as was her wont.

“They were a little shaken, but they’re fine. I spotted their careening buggy and was able to cut through the field and that copse of trees that borders the Gardner place to get ahead of them.”

“Bottom of...hill?”

He looked back at Manning and nodded. “You figured it right.”

Manning chuckled, his face creased into a smile. “Smart. Hill would...slow...horse.”

The approval felt good. He’d never managed to gain that from his father. “That and the brake. The women had forgotten it in the excitement, but Enid managed to pull it on when I yelled to them. It worked. I was able to drop back and get hold of the bridle.”

Manning’s smile turned to a frown. “Danger...ous.”

He couldn’t deny the charge. He glanced down at the angry red streaks crossing his fingers and palm, felt again the power of the mare’s thrusting head straining his arm and shoulder. “But necessary. If they’d gone into that sharp bend at the top of the hill at a run, they’d have overturned.”

“Still risky...hero...ic.”

He glanced toward Sadie, sure she would be irritated by that description. She was looking at his bruised hand. He folded his swollen fingers against his palm and moved his hand back out of her sight. “Hardly. I simply happened along at the right time and the right place. I never could have caught them if it weren’t for the hill.”

“Nonetheless, you saved them, Cole. And, from the looks of you, it was quite a task.” Rachel set her needlepoint aside, rose from the settee and bustled over to him. “Give me your coat. I’ll give it a good brushing and mend that tear for you.”

He glanced down at the three-cornered rip in his sleeve. “A branch must have caught it when I rode through the trees, but you don’t have to—”

“Do not argue with me, young man.” A mock scowl knit Rachel’s fine gray brows together. She held out her hand.

Warmth filled his chest. It had been four years since anyone had fussed over him. He slipped his arm out of a sleeve and wished he had the right to lean down and kiss her soft, wrinkled cheek.

“You’re busy with your needlepoint, Nanna, and I’m only entertaining myself reading. Why don’t I brush and mend the coat?”

His mouth didn’t exactly gape, but only because he caught himself in time. He froze with his coat half-off and shot a look at Sadie. She’d moved to the settee and was staring at Rachel’s needlepoint. He glanced down. There was a hodgepodge of large, red stitches scattered over the beautifully worked, unfinished piece. So that was it. She was protecting her grandmother. From what? His disapproval? Anger? She thought him so cruel that he would berate an ill woman?

He jerked his gaze up to Sadie’s face and his spurt of anger died. The sadness in her brown eyes tugged at his heart harder than Rachel was tugging on his arm. He looked down.

“Your coat.” She raised her arms, grasped the collar and slid it off his shoulder.

He couldn’t refuse her. He pulled his arm out of the sleeve. “You’re most kind, Mrs. Townsend. Thank you.”

“I’ll mend the coat, Nanna.” Sadie hurried over. He glanced at her taut face, wished she would look at him so he could let her know that it was all right, that he understood.

“Nonsense.” Rachel draped the coat over her arm and took hold of his hand, turned it palm up. “Come with me to the kitchen, Cole, your hand needs tending.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You come, too, Sadie. You can see to Cole’s hand while I brush his coat.”

Sadie’s face drained of color and panic flashed in her eyes. Did the thought of touching him do that to her? He clenched his jaw and gently withdrew his hand from Rachel’s grasp. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mrs. Townsend. I need to go home and get cleaned up. And Cloud had a hard run in this heat—I want to get him fed and turned out to pasture. I’ll get my coat when I return this evening.” He dipped his head in farewell and strode from the room.

* * *

The dishes were finished at last. Sadie looked at her puckered fingers and swallowed the lump in her throat. Twice Nanna had taken the dishes she’d washed and rinsed, dried them and put them right back in the dishpan. She hadn’t known how to stop her without hurting her feelings or confusing her more. If Poppa hadn’t called for help, they’d be doing dishes still. How did Gertrude manage? Why couldn’t she?

The helpless feeling in her chest swelled. What happened to Nanna? What made her forget what she had done so that she did it over and over again? Why did her grandmother’s mind slip from the present to the past and back again? She wanted so much to help her, but how did you help a woman who forgot you? Who confused the child she had raised from a toddler with others?

She removed her apron, scooped some rose-scented oatmeal-and-beeswax cream from the small crock on the shelf over the washstand and rubbed it into her hands. If only she could tell when her grandmother was going to slip into the past, she might be able to prepare herself and do something to stop it...if one could.

The ache in her heart grew. She smoothed back her hair and scanned the kitchen to be sure all had been put to rights for Gertrude’s return in the morning, then dimmed the lamp and walked out into the hall. If Nanna had remembered about Cole’s suit coat and repaired that tear...

She sighed and grasped hold of the thought of Cole. She wished he would simply go away, but at least he was a distraction from her concern over her grandmother, the anger she felt toward him a welcome respite from the lost, hollow feeling that had settled in her heart since she’d come home.

Twilight showed outside the entrance hall window, and she hurried her steps. Cole would soon return to carry her grandfather to bed. Why had he not come for supper? It had been odd not having him sitting at the table sharing their meal. Though she was thankful. It was only that she had become used to him sitting across from her.

There was something too...accepting about his relationship with her grandparents. They treated him as they would a son. And what was truly disturbing was that she was responsible. If she had been here where she belonged when her grandfather had his seizure, none of this would have happened. Cole would not have set foot in this house. And he certainly would not be caring for her grandfather. Although, to be honest, he did an excellent job of it.

She stopped outside the sitting-room door, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and stepped into the room. Oh, Nanna... Tears filmed her eyes, blurring the large stitches of crimson yarn her grandmother was using to sew the two sides of Cole’s sleeve together.

“Sa...die...”

“Yes, Poppa?” She looked at her grandfather sitting helpless in his chair and clamped her lips together to hold back a cry of anger and frustration at her inability to help these two people she loved so dearly.

“Checkers. Bring...table.”

Her heart sank. She didn’t want to disappoint him, but she had no time to play a game of checkers now. She had to somehow get Cole’s coat from Nanna and remove those stitches before he returned. She blinked her eyes and cleared her throat. “Poppa, I—”

He shook his head. “I play...Rachel.” His gaze darted to Cole’s coat in his wife’s hands then came back to lock on hers, his message clear.

She read the love and care for her grandmother in his brown eyes, and the awful loneliness inside her eased. He might be limited physically, but he was still her poppa—and he had just given her the answer to her dilemma. She curved her lips into a trembling smile. “A perfectly lovely idea, Poppa. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried across the entrance hall to the library, lifted the small game table from its place in the corner and carried it back to set in front of his chair.

He reached for her hand, pulled her close and placed his mouth by her ear. “Distract...doesn’t hurt...her.”

The warm breath of his whisper tickled her cheek. She swallowed hard and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, Poppa. I didn’t know what to do. I’ll remember.” She straightened and stepped back.

He pulled the drawer in the table open and began placing the red and black wood disks on the inlaid game board. Memories of him teaching her to play the game caught at her throat. A deep breath steadied her and she moved a Windsor chair into place on the other side.

“Rachel. Come...play.”

Her grandmother glanced up and shook her head. “Sadie will play with you, Manning. I’m mending Cole’s coat.”

“No. Want...you to...play.”

Her grandfather waved her away. She stepped to the chair she’d occupied earlier and picked up her book.

“Let you...go...first.”

Her grandmother laughed, laid Cole’s coat on the settee, walked over to the game table and seated herself. “That is so very gallant of you, Manning. But we both know it will make no difference. You always win.”

She watched her grandmother reach to slide a checker forward and moved quietly toward the settee. Her grandfather lifted his head and looked at her. She made sewing motions and pointed in the direction of the back porch. Grabbing Cole’s coat with the threaded needle stuck in its sleeve, she snatched a skein of black embroidery wool and a pair of scissors from her grandmother’s basket and hurried out the door.

* * *

Cole stopped and stared through the tree trunks at the glowing lamp on the Townsends’ porch. His pulse jumped at recognition of the slender figure seated in its circle of light.

He frowned at the unwanted reaction, lifted his lamp high to give Sadie ample warning of his coming and walked out of the woods and up the garden path, stopping at the bottom of the steps. “Good evening.”

She nodded, then glanced toward the kitchen door beside her, no doubt wishing she could flee his presence. Why didn’t she? For that matter, as fearful as she was, why was she sitting outside at night? He climbed the steps, set his lamp on the railing and leaned his shoulder against the post as a signal that he would come no closer. “It’s a hot night.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him but avoided meeting his gaze, as always. The tension, the wariness in her reached him from halfway down the porch. Clearly she wanted him to leave. His obstinacy rose. “Being so still with no breeze brings out the fireflies.”

“I hadn’t noticed. I’m busy.”

A pointed hint. But for some reason she wasn’t running away from him, and he intended to take advantage of it. Perhaps some time spent talking together would prove to her she had nothing to fear. “I used to run around and catch fireflies when I was a kid. I tried to see how many I could capture in one night. I guess everyone—” Something fluttered at the corner of his vision. A bat flew under the porch roof and swooped toward the lamplight on the table.

Sadie squealed and jerked to her feet. Her chair crashed over and something clanked against the floor.

He leaped forward and waved his arms through the air, driving the bat toward the railing. It swooped low between the porch posts and disappeared into the night. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips at the sight of Sadie pressed back against the house wall with a blanket over her head and shoulders. “You can come out, now. The bat is gone.”

“Are you sure? I hate bats!”

His smile widened to a grin at her muffled words. “I’m sure.” He set her chair aright and scooped up the objects that had fallen when she jumped up—a pair of scissors and a spool of black wool thread. She’d been sewing. He straightened and looked her way, eyed what he’d thought was a blanket now dangling from her hands. “That’s my coat. What—”

“I’m mending it.” She freed a hand and smoothed back her hair, straightened her collar.

He was rather sorry she did. She looked less self-contained and standoffish mussed up like that. Pretty, too, with her cheeks flushed and— He frowned, laid the scissors and yarn on the table. “That’s kind of you, but not necessary, Sadie. It’s not your fault it needs to be repaired.”

“I’m afraid it is.” She held the torn sleeve forward for his inspection. “Nanna sewed the sleeve together.”

He looked at the large red stitches puckering the wool of his sleeve, then lifted his gaze to her face. “And you thought it necessary to fix the sleeve before I saw it?” How little she thought of him. And without cause. He took a breath to calm the anger tightening his gut. “I’ve grown to know your grandmother quite well in these past few weeks, Sadie. She’s a wonderful woman. If she...mistakenly sewed my sleeve together, it doesn’t matter.”

“It would to Nanna...if she knew.”

There was a glitter of moisture in her eyes. He looked into their brown depths and suddenly understood why she hadn’t run inside when he appeared. “That’s why you’re working here on the porch in this heat, isn’t it? So she won’t realize what she’s done.”

She lifted her chin. “I’ll have your coat finished by the time you’re ready to go home.”

There’d be no changing her mind, judging from her protective tone. “As you wish. You can lay the coat on the railing by my lamp when you’re done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go tend to Manning’s needs.” He turned and walked toward the other door.

“Cole...”

He looked back her way.

“I do thank you for your kindness to my grandmother and for the help you give my grandfather...no matter what your reasons.”

He could have done without that reminder of her distrust. Would he always walk in the shadow of Payne’s dark deed?

Chapter Seven

He was kind to her grandparents—she couldn’t deny that. She simply wanted to know why. Sadie fanned her face with her hand and stepped closer to the window as Cole strode down the garden path toward the woods, his mended suit coat a dark shadow over his arm, his lamp lighting his way. Both Poppa and Nanna thought highly of him. It was clear they trusted him. They seemed to have forgotten that his brother had also been pleasant and helpful until—

She jerked her gaze from Cole’s broad shoulders, his strong, powerful arms moving in rhythm with his long strides. She hadn’t forgotten. She wished she could. But the memories, the nightmare never stopped, and coming home had made them more powerful than ever. There were so many reminders—chief among them Cole, so like Payne with his dark eyes and black beard. Every time she looked at him she remembered.

The yellow glow of his lamp swept forward, passed over the garden bench where he carried her grandfather to enjoy the morning sun every day, moved across the ground and slid over her grandmother’s small, wood wheelbarrow sitting by the corner of the fence. Cold gripped her. Shivers coursed down her spine. She wrapped her arms about herself and absently rubbed her upper left arm, her gaze frozen on the small, painted cart. If Poppa hadn’t sent that logger to fix the split handle, no one would have heard her scream over the noise of the saws....

She whirled from the window, tried to order her thoughts, but the unwanted memories flashed, one after another, into her head—Nanna asking her to pick berries for a pie...the smell of the warm blackberry patch...the sun-dappled path...Payne stepping out from behind the trees...

“No!” The protest burst from her constricted throat. She grabbed her skirts and ran from her bedroom, rushed down the stairs, across the entrance hall into the library and sagged against the door, shaking and gasping for breath. She drew in air, replacing the remembered scents of Payne’s sweat, forest loam and the crushed blackberries beneath her as she fought him with the scents of wood smoke, leather and candle wax and a hint of bayberry—the smell of safety.

She closed her eyes and thought about Nanna teaching her how to cook and sew and do needlepoint, of Poppa teaching her to read and showing her how to play checkers and drive the buggy, of how wonderful life had been before her world had been torn apart.

Her ragged breaths evened and her pulse slowed. The quaking eased to an inner trembling. She opened her eyes and looked around the moonlit room, drinking in the sight of all that was dear and familiar. The settle with its hooked-rug pad and worn pillow. Poppa’s chair by the hearth with the flat stone and hammer he used to crack open butternuts and hickory nuts close by. His desk.

The peace she sought fled. She stared at the gaping space on the desk’s bookshelves where the green leather business ledgers should be and shoved away from the door. Payne Aylward had stolen her grandfather’s money and robbed her of her dreams. She would not allow his brother to harm her grandparents.

But would he? Cole was so gentle with her grandmother and so thoughtful of her grandfather. And he had brought her the umbrella and left her his raincoat during the storm. And he’d saved her from the bat. Those were not the actions of a cruel man. Still...

Her breath shortened and she wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed her arm, thinking back to those moments on the porch. How foolish she’d been to blind herself in Cole’s presence by throwing his suit coat over her head, but she’d been so afraid of the bat she’d forgotten to be frightened of Cole. Yet once again, he had not seized the opportunity to—

Oh, what she was thinking? Perhaps Cole was not cruel like Payne, but that did not mean he wasn’t as dishonest. She mustn’t allow herself to be swayed from her purpose by his acts of kindness. There had to be a reason why he was spending his time doing these things for Nanna and Poppa, and it was up to her to discover what it was. She was certain it had something to do with the books, else why would they be missing?