His Prairie Sweetheart. Erica Vetsch

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СКАЧАТЬ of the tiny white building, and the sheriff jumped down, rocking the conveyance, forcing her to clutch the seat.

      Thankfully, the dog followed him instead of breathing his doggy breath in her face anymore. “Thank you for stopping, Mr. Parker.”

      “Call me Elias.”

      Mr. Parker—Elias—sauntered around the horse to help her down. Savannah could feel him sizing her up...and to judge by the skeptical tilt to his brows, finding her wanting. She knew she wasn’t at her sparkling best, travel-worn and tossed into what felt like a foreign land. Her self-confidence had sunk to an all-time low ebb with Girard’s defection, and the sheriff was doing nothing to bolster it. She felt strange and a bit weepy, which wasn’t like her at all before her broken engagement, but now seemed to be her constant state.

      Elias, on the other hand, exuded confidence. Tall, muscular and in familiar surroundings. Dark hair, gray eyes and, when he bothered to smile, deep creases in his cheeks. He’d probably never suffered a setback in his entire life.

      “The school’s been closed up since last Christmas, when the teacher left town.” Elias tromped up the steps and opened the door. The hinges let out a terrific squeal. “It’s going to need a good cleaning before Monday.”

      Savannah furled her parasol and stepped past him into the building’s foyer. A beadboard wall greeted her, with doorways on either side that led into the classroom. A crock stood in the corner, and several shelves with hooks ran along the walls. To the right of the entry door hung a rope, held to the wall by large metal loops. It ran up through a hole in the ceiling.

      “School bell. Don’t ring it now, or folks will come running, thinking there’s an emergency.” Elias tipped his hat back on his head and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Schoolroom’s through there.” He indicated the doorway with his chin.

      Great blocks of light fell through the western windows onto the hardwood floor. Three rows of desks took up most of the space. Not patent metal and wood desks but rough-hewn benches and long, slant-top desks with a single shelf beneath, clearly locally made.

      On a slight platform sat a teacher’s desk and chalkboard, and behind the last row of desks, a small iron stove. Portraits of Presidents Washington and Lincoln graced the spaces between the windows, and an American flag hung proudly in the corner.

      The air smelled stale, and dust covered everything and danced in the air. Savannah’s trailing skirt left a track as she made her way to the front of the room. Aware of Elias watching her, she sought for something intelligent to say. Nothing came to mind. She was too fuzzy-headed with fatigue.

      The dog trotted up the aisle as if he owned the place, his nails clicking on the floor. He sniffed around the desks and sneezed. Savannah didn’t know much about dogs, but she did know they should stay outside. She kept a wary eye on him as she placed her hand on the back of the teacher’s chair. From here she was supposed to rule this little kingdom.

      The crisis of confidence that she’d carried around since Girard had jilted her welled up and threatened to paralyze her. What had she been thinking to come so far from home?

      “You might want to check out the list of rules for teachers. They’re posted by the blackboard.” Elias said it casually, but she sensed a challenge in his tone. Was she imagining things, or was she overlaying her insecurities onto him?

      Scanning the paper tacked to the wall, she wilted inside. Clean the lamps, haul water, haul coal, scrub the floors and windows once a week, check the privies, clean the livestock shed, be circumspect in her behavior, attend church regularly, start the fire by seven each morning in cold weather so the room will be warm by eight. Savannah blinked. She’d never scrubbed a floor in her life, much less mucked out a stable or hauled coal.

      This whole thing was a mistake. What had she been thinking? She wasn’t suited for any of this. The sinking feeling she’d been fighting for days grew in her middle. Fiercely, she battled it down. Somehow, some way she needed to regain her belief in herself. If she couldn’t do that, what future did she have anywhere?

      “Tyler wanted me to give you this.” Elias spoke from just behind her, startling her. She whirled as he pulled a paper out of his back pocket. He walked to the desk, leaned over and blew, sending dust puffing into the air, then spread the sheet on the blotter. She followed him, trying to still her beating heart.

      Her contract.

      “You can fill it out now if you want.” He slid an inkwell and pen toward her. “Or you can read it over, think about it and weigh up if you really want to sign it. The stage will be back on Tuesday if you decide to leave.”

      She frowned. “Why do you seem so eager for me to run away?” The man didn’t even know her. She might be a bit daunted, but he didn’t have to assume she was a failure before she even got started.

      He parked his hip on the corner of the desk. “Maybe because I’ve been down this road before. The two teachers before you skedaddled the minute things got tough. The first one was a man—a city boy, I’ll grant you, but even he wasn’t tough enough to stick it out through one of our winters. The other was a girl.” Elias paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “She only stayed for a couple of months, and when she left, she didn’t even resign or say goodbye. Just hopped on the stage one morning and took off.” With a shrug, he paced a few steps down the aisle and then turned to look at Savannah once more. “She caused a lot of hurt...among the students and their families, I mean.

      “And here you come, fresh from the South, a slip of a girl with a fancy paper that says she’s a teacher, but precious little else to recommend her for this job.” He took off his hat and swept his fingers through his hair. “I hate to see the parents and kids get all excited, only to have you walk away in a week or a month because life out here is harsher than you thought. Not to mention that my brother has a lot riding on you. Better you call it quits now than disappoint everyone.”

      “What makes you think I will disappoint everyone?” She spoke through her tiredness and the tightness in her throat. “I graduated first in my class from normal school, and though I’ve never lived in Minnesota, I assume other women do? If they can, so can I.”

      He threw his head back and laughed, the strong column of his throat rising from his open-necked shirt. “Miss Cox, I doubt you share anything other than gender with the women around here. They’re hardy Norwegian stock, hard workers, practical and used to getting by without much luxury. From the way you dress and the amount of baggage you brought, I surmise you’ve never been within a stone’s throw of milking a cow or plucking a chicken or hoeing a garden.”

      “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not being hired to do any of those things.” She snatched the pen, dipped it in the inkwell and signed her name before her courage could wilt entirely under his criticism. “I will teach school and follow the rules, and if I need help, I’m sure I can find someone who won’t be as grudging and skeptical as you are.” She snapped the pen down on the desk, snatched up her parasol and marched toward the door.

      She’d show him.

      Savannah wanted to slam the schoolhouse door, but her aunt’s training in the fine art of being a lady came to her rescue in time. She climbed aboard the buckboard, snapped open her parasol against the ruthless sun and searched her reticule for her fan. Flicking it open, she cooled her hot cheeks.

      He strolled down the steps, his shaggy canine on his heels, and took his seat with a long-suffering sigh, as if humoring a toddler in a tantrum.

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