Maureen McKade (20 page)

Dylan sighed. The dream disappeared with the harsh light of day, and he slipped out of bed. He removed the clothes he’d slept in and threw on a heavy shirt and a pair of threadbare but clean overalls.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Dylan’s startled gaze shot to his mother, who stood in the doorway. Stringy strands of hair hung haphazardly around her smeared face, and her red-rimmed
eyes glowered at him. Fear shimmied through Dylan. “N-nowhere.”

She smiled heartlessly and stepped closer. “Before I get some sleep, I figured to take care of some unfinished business.”

Dylan wished she would disappear, but her sinister figure remained. “W-what do you mean?”

“Last night you bothered me while I was working. You know what happens when you break the rules.”

“I thought you weren’t going to hit me anymore,” he said.

“You have to be punished.”

Dylan stared into his mother’s menacing eyes and he shivered. Maybe if he explained, she wouldn’t hurt him. “You and Mr. Pearson were making up bad things about Miss O’Hanlon and the sheriff.”

Her hand lashed out almost faster than Dylan’s gaze could follow, and stinging pain confirmed the blow. He bit the inside of his cheek and the bitter taste of blood filled his mouth.

“It don’t matter what we were saying. I don’t ever want you to interfere with me and one of my customers again.” Stale liquor breath washed across his face and Dylan’s stomach lurched.

She slapped him again. The force sent Dylan stumbling back, and he cracked his head on the corner of the metal bed. Involuntary tears sprang to his eyes and his mother’s face swirled in front of him.

“Let me tell you something, you little bastard. Sweet Miss O’Hanlon isn’t as nice as you think. She and your precious sheriff have been making fun of you, telling you how much they care when they really don’t give a damn for anything except their own-selves,” she stated through clenched teeth.

Dylan blinked back moisture and his chin trembled, but he didn’t cry.

“The wood boxes need filling and the parlor has to
be cleaned. Get down there and get to work. I’m going to sleep,” Sadie said.

Her robe swung around her legs and she left him lying on the floor.

A low buzz sounded in Dylan’s ears. He staggered drunkenly to his feet and plopped onto his pallet, the ceiling spinning above him. He blinked and the whirling stopped. The left side of his face throbbed, and he touched the stinging warmth with a cautious hand.

Dylan wasn’t certain what his mother and the mean storekeeper meant, but he knew enough to realize they weren’t being nice. He couldn’t let the dirty lies about the sheriff and Miss O’Hanlon continue. He liked them even better than the man who’d played cards and taught him how to write his name.

“Dylan?” a soft voice called from the doorway.

He sat up and winced. “Becky?”

A girl eight or nine years older than Dylan tiptoed to his side. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Dylan glanced at the scarlet circle on the pillow. He checked the back of his head, and his fingers found matted hair.

Becky took his hand. “Come on. Let’s go to the kitchen and we’ll get you cleaned up.”

“What about my ma?”

“She went to her room.”

Dylan balked. “Won’t she be mad at you for helping me?”

“It’ll be our secret.”

She held out her hand, and Dylan allowed her to lead him down the back stairs. She motioned to a chair, where he sat down. Becky wet a cloth and blotted the blood from the injury. “It won’t stop bleeding.”

Dylan blinked back a wave of dizziness. “It’ll stop. It always does.”

“Maybe you’d best go see the doctor. Sadie’ll sleep until this evening.”

Dylan’s head throbbed, and his queasy stomach threatened to lose its meager contents. “I’ll be okay. You can go.”

Becky laid a hand on his shoulder. “If you need me, I’ll be in my room.”

Dylan nodded, regretting the motion immediately. The room tilted, and he pressed a hand to his mouth. He didn’t see Becky leave, but she was gone when the world righted itself.

Saturday morning Libby entered the boardinghouse, where welcome warmth washed across her like a summer breeze. She continued to the kitchen, smiling at the typical scene before her. Lenore vigorously beat a mixture in a large blue china bowl and a mouth-watering scent wafted from the oven.

“It’s high time you came calling,” Lenore greeted. “Light and have a cup of coffee.”

Libby removed her coat and gloves and hitched herself up on a stool. Lenore handed her a steaming cup. “Thank you. And thanks so much for the apple pie last night. Between Dylan and Matt, they finished it off.”

Lenore returned to stirring. “I hope you grabbed a piece for yourself before those boys ate it all.”

“I managed to get one, and it was delicious,” Libby assured.

“I don’t think I told you how happy I am to hear you’ll be helping Eli with his doctoring. He tells me you have a gift not many folks can claim. Said you took right good care of Matt, and did as good as he could’ve done.”

“I don’t think it’s as much a gift, as experience with
my father. I was just glad I could help.” Libby traced circles on the table with one finger. “I wonder how long it’ll take for the fine, upstanding folks of Deer Creek to fire me and get a new teacher.”

“They don’t know you spent the nights with Matt.”

“It’s just a matter of time.”

Lenore shrugged. “So you’d start working with Eli earlier than you’d planned. I never figured you for a teacher anyhow. Too much starch in your drawers. The teachers I know wouldn’t think of upsetting the apple cart. Too worried about their positions.”

“When I came here, I was worried about making a good impression. Now it seems everything I’ve done has been wrong.”

“Fiddlesticks. You’ve done a fine job. You got to understand folks around here …”

The door to the kitchen swung open to reveal George Johnson. His skittery gaze caught Libby, and his watery eyes widened behind his spectacles.

“Hello, Mr. Johnson,” Libby said.

“Miss O’Hanlon.” His greeting was as cold as the north pole.

“Did you want something, George, or are you going to stare at Miss O’Hanlon like she’s a two-headed calf?” Lenore asked.

George’s ascetic face reddened. “I wanted to tell you I’ll be late for lunch.”

“I’ll keep a plate warm for you.”

“Thank you. Good day.” Without another glance at Libby, he strode out.

“Mr. Johnson must’ve heard the rumors, too,” Libby remarked dryly.

“Fools, all of them,” Lenore muttered.

“They may be, but even if I went to work with Eli, I’d have to live with those fools.”

“You aren’t thinking about hightailing it out of town, are you?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You haven’t done a blessed thing wrong, but if you leave everyone will be convinced you did.”

Libby thought about her behavior at Matt’s, and wondered if Lenore would say the same if she knew what had happened. Her conscience squirmed with the lie of omission. “I didn’t tell you everything.”

Lenore poured the batter into a rectangular pan. “What is it you didn’t tell me?”

Libby’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. “W-we kissed.”
And more.

“Matt’s a fine looking specimen of man. If I was thirty years younger, I’d set my bonnet for him myself. I’ll bet he could show a woman a fine time in bed, too.”

Aghast, Libby’s mouth dropped open. “A good woman doesn’t think about such things, much less discuss them.”

“And who told you such a ridiculous thing?”

“It’s not ridiculous. That’s how to tell a good woman from a bad one.”

“Then you’re looking at a bad woman. Willard and me had seven children, but it wasn’t just children that kept us together. I know I complain about my Willard, but truth be told, he knew how to pleasure me.”

Shocked embarrassment suffused Libby. “Lenore!”

The older woman wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron and withdrew three pies from the oven. She set them in the pie pantry, then turned to Libby. “You said your ma died when you were born, so I figure you haven’t had a woman to tell you how it is in the marriage bed.”

Black memories poured into Libby’s mind. She didn’t need anyone telling her what happened between a married couple. She had spent the last three months trying to forget. “I know more than you think. My father was a doctor.”

“You know what goes in where, and you know
where babies come from, but there’s a whole lot in between you don’t know.”

Libby wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. She knew exactly what lay in between, and she didn’t want to remember the accompanying humiliation. “Please, Lenore, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“It’s high time you did. I know you’ve been told by everyone that it’s a woman’s duty to lie beneath her man.” She glanced at Libby and chuckled. “When you love each other, there’s a heap more to it than that. You find the right man, and he can make you feel all tingly in the center of your female parts. No reason to be embarrassed, honey. That’s the way it was meant to be.”

Despite her distaste for the subject, Libby remembered how Matt’s touches had produced a pool of warm honey inside her. The sensation he created in her made her wonder if she was only a step away from heaven. But the years of suffering Harrison’s pain-inflicting perversions made it difficult to accept Lenore’s words so readily. “Isn’t it wrong for a lady to express her”—Libby stumbled—“to express her pleasure?”

“Whoever told you that nonsense never knew how to love. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I say.”

“But what about when a man lies with a woman who isn’t his wife? The woman is branded a harlot and the man moves on.”

“Not all the time. Take me and Eli for instance. You don’t think I keep him around just for conversation, do you?”

Libby stared, shocked. “You mean you and Eli…”

Lenore’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Just because we’re not spring chickens doesn’t mean we can’t kick up our heels once in a while.”

“Don’t people know?”

Lenore shrugged. “I’m sure most do, but nobody
talks about it. Why, I’ll bet half the married men in this town pay Sadie’s house a call at least once a month. Nobody talks about that either.”

Libby forgot her embarrassment and assimilated the new information. “So why does Mrs. Beidler worry about my virtue?”

“Because you’re the teacher and young children look up to you. I figure what people don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Libby’s eyes narrowed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get Matt and me together. You aren’t, are you?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with a little matchmaking.”

“It would never work. Fire and water don’t mix.”

“Who says you’re fire and water? By that blush on your face, I’d say more like fire and kerosene.”

“There are things you don’t know about me, Lenore. I can’t afford to get involved.”

“Since you accepted Eli’s offer, you’ll be staying in Deer Creek for a time, right?”

Suspicion brought a frown to Libby’s face. “That’s right.”

“Did I ever tell you about Esther Rostenberger?”

Libby shook her head and prepared herself for another of Lenore’s parables.

“Esther was the reverend’s daughter. Pretty young thing. More importantly, she had a fine mind. Her father taught her to read, and he wasn’t one of those preachers who only let her read the Bible. She read everything and anything she could get her hands on. Her father raised her to be independent and she surely was that. Swore she didn’t need a man to boss her around and that the world would be a better place if women ran it. One day a rancher rode into town and caught sight of Esther. He decided then and there to make her his wife, only he didn’t have a clue as to
how contrary she’d be. He never gave up, and he courted her for five years—until he wore her down and she finally said yes. Heard tell they had ten children in as many years, and she was one of the first women in Wyoming to vote.”

“And the point?” Libby prodded.

“Independence is a two-edged sword, and if you aren’t careful, you’re liable to cut your own throat with it.”

“You’re making this difficult for me.”

Lenore chuckled. “Good. I’d like to see you and Matt with a passel of young’uns. Maybe you’d even let me and Eli be their grandparents.”

“Sometimes things aren’t that easy.”

“Sure they are. You’re the one making things so blamed muddled. Forget about everything else and think about Matt. The answer will come clear enough.”

A spark of hope flared in Libby’s heart. Lenore had a way of uncomplicating things. What if Libby allowed Matt further liberties? Could it be as pleasurable as Lenore said? Would she take a step into heaven, or would she stumble back into the pits of hell she’d so recently escaped?

The ember in her chest fizzled and died. The uncontrollable panic that threatened to choke her when his caresses became too heated would never allow her to learn the answer.

“I can tell you’re thinking on it,” Lenore said. “That’s a good sign.”

Libby smiled weakly. “Maybe not.”

Lenore poured herself a cup of coffee and settled herself on a chair across from Libby. “So tell me what you have planned for your program on Christmas Eve.”

The two women visited for nearly an hour, then Libby returned to her tiny room at the schoolhouse.
After Lenore’s companionship, the silence seemed oppressive. Firmly, Libby set the loneliness aside, fired up the small stove, and put a battered tin coffeepot on to brew.

She scraped the frost off a window and peered outside. Bare trees shivered in the brisk northwest wind and a gray mass of clouds marched toward the town. She suspected they’d have another couple inches of new snow by evening. She’d been lucky the weather had remained clear while she’d cared for Matt.

Matt.
The thought of his lean body and craggy face brought a wealth of emotions vying for attention. She tried to ignore the clamoring in her soul, but her body refused to obey the commands. She’d become a master of control with Harrison, but the memory of Matt’s kiss turned her into a quagmire of passion.