Falling for the Teacher

His hands stilled. He looked up, focused his attention on her. So did her grandfather and grandmother. Her heart sank. She’d hoped to wait until she was alone with her grandparents to announce her news, but that wasn’t possible now. She folded her hands in her lap and took a breath. “I’ve resigned my position.”

“Oh, Sadie, I’m so glad!” Her grandmother clasped her hands, beamed a smile at her.

“Sa...die...”

There was sadness in her grandfather’s voice. She looked into his eyes and knew he’d guessed she’d left the seminary because of his illness. She shook her head and smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, Poppa—but you’re wrong. I wanted to come home. I’ve missed Pinewood, my friends and both of you most of all. Your illness merely gave me the impetus to leave now.”

“So you are staying, not merely visiting?”

Cole Aylward sounded...what? Concerned? Why should that be? She wished she had the courage to look into his eyes and read what was written there. She drew her shoulders back, lifted her chin and fastened her gaze on his black beard. “Yes. I’m staying.”

* * *

He looked so frail, her strong Poppa being carried off to bed like a child. Sadie gripped the hooped rail of the chair she stood behind and fought to hold on to control. The unexpected encounter with Cole Aylward and the hard truths that had confronted her one after another since her arrival had brought her close to breaking down. Reading about her grandparents’ infirmities in a letter was one thing—witnessing them herself was another.

Her grandfather was helpless, his right leg and arm useless, his speech impaired. And her grandmother, her dear, sweet Nanna—

No! She yanked her mind from that path, her emotions too battered to manage it. She clenched her hands tighter, pressed the chair rail into her palms and soft finger pads to curb the need to throw herself into her grandmother’s arms and cry away all the hurt and fear threatening to overwhelm her. She had to be the strong one now. Dear God, please help me to be what they need me to be.

She dragged her gaze from her grandmother, who was hurrying out the parlor door to turn back the bed brought down from upstairs to what was the morning room. “Sleep well, Poppa. I’ll see you in the morning.” The quiver in her voice didn’t match the smile she forced to her lips.

“Good...night, Sa...die.” His stammering response almost undid her. She looked at Cole Aylward and took refuge in her confusion. Why was he spending his time helping her grandfather? Given what had happened, it made no sense—even if he was their closest neighbor. Was he cruel like his brother? She’d seen no sign of it tonight, but that meant nothing. Payne Aylward had hidden his cruelty from everyone—until it was too late.

A shudder shook her. She released her hold on the back of the chair, followed Cole from the parlor and stood in the entrance hall until he had entered the morning room, then lifted her hems and hurried up the stairs to the landing. She didn’t want to be down there when he came out of that room alone. She could reach her bedroom and lock him out from here should he come after her.

Such strength in his arms. Like his brother.

Shivers coursed through her, stole her strength. She leaned against the wall, stared at the candle sconce across from her and waited for the memory to pass. She’d given up hoping it would go away.

“...in the morning.”

Cole. She held her breath and listened to the sound of his footfalls in the downstairs hallway. The door to the morning room closed. She gathered her courage and moved to grasp the top of the banister to lend strength to her shaking knees. “May I have a word with you, Mr. Aylward?”

He paused, turned and looked up at her. “In the sitting room?”

“This is fine.”

The dim light outlined his tall form at the bottom of the stairs. “I am not my brother, Miss Spencer. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

How easily he discerned her thoughts. She tightened her grip on the banister and braced herself against the memories, the quivering that took her. “We will not speak of that, Mr. Aylward. I only wanted to express my appreciation for the care you have given my grandfather. And to tell you, again, that I intend to free you from that...service, as soon as possible.”

“You are going to hire someone to care for Manning?”

“I am going to hire someone to help with the physical labor involved. I will care for Poppa.”

“I see.” Lamplight flickered over the knit hat he pulled from his pocket. “I misjudged you, Miss Spencer. I didn’t think you were the sort of woman who would condemn a man who has done no wrong, nor go against her grandfather’s wishes.” His head dipped in a small bow and he stepped back from the stairs. “I will be here in the morning...and for as long as Manning wishes my help. Good evening.” He tugged his hat on his head and strode down the hall toward the dining room. The back door opened and closed.

How dare he make her the guilty one! She caught up her hems and ran to her bedroom, crossed to the window and watched Cole Aylward striding down the garden path toward the woods, the rising moon casting silver epaulets on his broad shoulders. Memories drove her from the window before he neared the trees and the entrance to the wooded path that led to her grandfather’s sawmill.

* * *

Cole glanced right and left, aware as never before of how the trees encroached upon the path, of their thick trunks and looming branches. He slowed his steps at the curve where it had happened, took a breath against the sudden clench of his stomach. He’d walked this path at least a hundred times, but now he’d seen her. That made it all different.

The sylvan depths drew his gaze, halted his steps. How easy it would be to steal silent and unseen from trunk to trunk in order to overtake someone walking along the path. Is that how Payne had done it?

He raised his arm and scrubbed his hand across his eyes, trying to rid himself of the image of the fear on Sadie’s face as she’d stood on the stairs looking down at him. Payne had caused that fear. Payne, who had been so pleasant and funny and kind. What had changed in his brother that he could do that to someone?

His gut churned. Bile surged into his throat. He fisted his hands and continued down the path toward Manning Townsend’s sawmill. If only he’d been here when the attack took place. Perhaps he could have prevented it somehow or at least found out what had caused Payne to do such a thing. He knew his brother’s habits, had hunted and fished with him. He could have tracked him down, talked him into staying and facing justice, helped him atone somehow. But Payne had already disappeared when he’d come to Pinewood to tell him their mother and father were dead, and Payne’s trail had been obliterated by the angry men of Pinewood who were searching the hills for him.

Cole climbed the steps to the sawmill deck and stepped under the shingled roof, walked by the silent saws and entered the attached office. He stepped behind the partition he’d built, jammed his hat onto one of the pegs he’d driven into the wall, shucked his shirt and hung it on another peg, then sat on the wood edge of his cot and tugged off his boots.

The horror and disgust, regret and guilt that had weighed so heavily on him when he’d learned of Payne’s actions had returned full force when he’d looked into Sadie Spencer’s eyes and now sat like a rock in his stomach—though why it should he didn’t understand. He’d stayed in Pinewood and tried to find Payne to bring him back to face justice in spite of the disgust and distrust of the irate villagers who’d watched his every move with suspicion. He’d trudged countless times to the outcropping of rock where the men said they’d lost all trace of Payne’s trail to see if he could find something they had missed. It wasn’t for lack of trying that he’d failed. He had no reason to feel guilty. But the way she’d looked at him...

He yanked off his socks, flung them over his boot tops, rose and snatched the soap and a towel from the make-do washstand. The rough puncheons scraped against his bare feet as he marched to the end of the sawmill deck, dropped the towel and dove into the deep pool formed by the stone dam. The shock of the icy mountain-stream water drove all thought from his mind.

He soaped his hair, threw the soap up onto the deck, did a surface dive and swam upstream underwater to let the current from the overflow carry the soap film away.

If only it could carry away his troubled thoughts that had resurfaced. He kicked his trouser-clad legs, dug hard and deep with his arms and circled around the pond until his shoulders and arms screamed for mercy and his lungs burned for air. What sort of depravity coursed through his brother’s veins that he could look at a woman as delicately beautiful, as quiet and refined as Sadie Spencer and then—

He arched and dove deep, swam to the center of the gently rippling water, flipped over onto his back and stared up at the stars, bright against the dark sky. Peaceful evening sounds filled the night as the water lapped over his chest, but the fear he’d been carrying around for four years wouldn’t leave. Wash me clean, Lord, wash me clean. Don’t let that violence and depravity be in me.

Bats darted and swooped overhead in erratic patterns as they snatched insects from the air. An owl hooted. Another answered. Something rustled through the brush and grasses on the bank. Something big.

A she-bear and her two cubs ambled toward the water. Last year’s cubs, by the size of them. He moved his arms beneath the surface to stay afloat but stationary without causing a ripple and hoped the cubs weren’t in the mood for a swim. Mama Bear reared up on her hind legs and stared out over the pond, snuffled.

His moonlight swim was over.

He drew in air, sank out of sight beneath the water and stroked hard for the deck ladder, leaving the bears behind. If only he could outdistance the fears that plagued him.

* * *

She strolled along the path, humming softly, the basket of berries she’d picked swinging at her side.

Payne Aylward stepped out of the woods onto the path ahead, his tall, broad-shouldered frame large in the sunlight filtering through the leafy treetops. The glitter in his dark gray eyes frightened her. She stopped.

He smiled, his teeth white against his black beard. “I been watching you, Sadie.” He stepped forward, reached for her.

* * *

Sadie bolted upright gasping for air, her heart pounding, her body quaking. Moonlight flowed in the windows, bathed the objects in the dark room in silvery radiance. She stared at the blanket chest at the foot of her bed, the dark blue-and-white cross and crown woven coverlet that had warmed her every night of her childhood. “It’s all right. It was the nightmare. You’re safe.”

Her whisper trembled on the warm night air. She clutched the fallen sheet, slipped beneath it and curled into a tight ball. She wanted so desperately to believe that was true, but how could she? Cole Aylward was here. Cole Aylward. Payne’s brother.

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.