Night Song

  By the time Cara finally made it back to Sophie’s she was exhausted. She grabbed a plate of dinner from Dulcie in the kitchen and retreated to the quiet of her room to eat before going back out to listen to the choir competition.

  When Cara left the singing around eleven that night, the voices were still going strong. It was not unusual for the dawn of August second to be greeted by still rising hymns. If they were singing when she awakened she’d come back. But right now, she wanted nothing but her bed.

  She wasted no time lighting a lamp, stripped off her dress and tossed it into the basket with other clothes ready for the laundry. Heading to bed, she froze at the sight of a man standing in the shadows.

  “Evenin’, Cara Lee . . .”

  Cara stared, absolutely stunned.

  “Never knew you to be at a loss for words,” he said, stepping out of the shadows.

  Cara instinctively backed up. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Your door was unlocked. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d never expected to see him again. She’d written to him a few weeks after he’d left in May, received no answer, and had come to believe that Chase was done with her.

  As he stood in front of her now she had to fight to bring the trembling in her limbs under control. The stubble on his face appeared to be weeks old, giving the already handsome features a hard, dangerous edge. “Let me light a lamp . . .”

  Her hands shook as she lit the lamp and replaced the globe. In the light she could see he was not in uniform but dressed in a faded blue double-breasted shirt and snug-fitting leather trousers. With the stubble on his face and the gun strapped to his thigh, he looked like an outlaw. His power, his all-knowing, born-to-seduce gaze, made it difficult for her to breathe. “Does Sophie know you’re here?”

  “Yes, I talked to Sophie and Dulcie earlier. Asa, too. No one else needs to know I’m in town, Cara.”

  “Are you on army business?”

  “Yes, I’ve been assigned to look into the mail coach robberies.”

  “Oh. We’ve been hearing a lot about those robberies. The outlaws seem meaner than most . . . almost like they’re eager to kill. Be careful, Chase.” She paused, “Have you eaten?”

  “Dulcie fixed something for me earlier.”

  Chase wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms but sensed her reticence. “What’s wrong, schoolmarm?”

  Hearing him call her that was almost her undoing. The memories that flooded back were searing. “Nothing’s wrong, Sergeant.”

  “You’re lying, Cara Lee.”

  He was right, of course. “I know I said no ties and no commitments, but I thought you’d at least answer my letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “The letter I wrote after you left.”

  “Cara, I swear, I never received a letter from you. Where did you send it?”

  “Fort Davis, Texas.”

  “That explains it. I was in Texas only a couple of weeks before Colonel Grierson sent me to the Indian Territories in Oklahoma. Your letter’s probably still with my mail back there.”

  Cara’s heart sang. He hadn’t dismissed her like a piece of fluff in a cathouse.

  “Better?” he asked, dazzling her with that smile.

  “Very much so.”

  “Then can I get my kisses now?”

  Cara went straight into his arms.

  Chase swung her off the floor, kissing her passionately. For the first few moments they did nothing but enjoy the sensations of each other. Cara fed on his welcoming kiss and refamiliarized her hands with the hard strength in his arms and back, while he did the same with her back, waist, and hips. And the longer they stood, the deeper the kisses became. The caresses took on an urgency that infected them both, the silence broken only by the harsh sounds of their breathing. Chase blazed a hot trail of kisses down her throat and wasted little time undoing the laces on the bodice of her nightgown. Cara, trying not to lose a moment of his kisses, pulled the buttons off his shirt. She lost the sensual race, but when his mouth closed over her breast, she felt as if she’d won.

  “Lord . . . Cara Lee . . .”

  He nibbled her until she thought her nipples might moan. The feel of him, the feel of his mouth . . . She welcomed his hands when they pushed her gown off her shoulders. He planted kisses against her bare shoulders, her throat, her hairline. She wanted this. Lord have mercy on her soul.

  He carried her to the bed. While he discarded his shirt and trousers, his eyes glittered. She pulled the gown over her head and off.

  “How can you be more beautiful than I remembered?”

  He lay down beside her and pulled her close. Cara kissed him and ran her hands over his chest. “How can you be more handsome than I remembered?”

  He groaned and pulled her atop him. They came together with a swiftness that declared a burning mutual need. Cara met his strong strokes with a strength of her own, and moments later they were both soaring on wings of shuddering completion.

  Cara lay on his chest, fulfilled for the moment. Only after she came back to herself did she realize where she was. She looked down into his eyes, and her smile garnered a smile from him in reply. “How many ways are there to do this?” she asked.

  “Hundreds.”

  Cara snorted. “Hundreds? I don’t believe that at all.”

  He laughed. “You willing to call my bluff?”

  She felt him surge within her and smiled in surprise, using her inner muscles to squeeze him gently. “Hundreds. Really?”

  He reached out and ran a finger over her breast, “Would you like to be taught, Miss Henson?”

  They began again, more slowly this time, and Cara found she liked being positioned on top. His hands could touch all the places he desired while he sucked her breast until the nipples stood out like sable jewels. Gone was the earlier urgency, and they could indulge in a more leisurely passionate play of lovers. He thrust and she rode, sighing, then keening as he brought her once more to the heights.

  Much later, as they lay entwined, Cara said, “Chase, we have to talk.”

  He rolled over onto his side and kissed her mouth. “About what?”

  She let the kiss fill her, then withdrew. “Us.”

  “What about us?” he asked, sliding his finger over her lush mouth.

  “I—we can’t do this again. Promise me you won’t seek me out if you come to town again.”

  Chase could see the serious set of her eyes and searched them for her intent. “Why not?”

  Cara sighed unhappily. “Because I think I’m a lot more serious about . . . us than you are.”

  Chase, propped up on his elbow and looking down into her face, was at a loss for words. The ramifications were staggering. “I’m not husband cloth, darlin’. You already know that.”

  “Yes, I do, but you and your talents are going to make it hard for me to be with someone else should someone else ever come along.”

  “You told me the last time we were together you didn’t think there would be another man. You seeing someone?”

  “No, but who would’ve thought you’d come into my life?”

  “I see your point. You’re saying I’ve spoiled you for other men?”

  She looked at the mustache curling around his smile and replied, “Don’t gloat. But, yes, my arrogant pony soldier, you’ve spoiled me for other men. It’s bad enough that I’ll be comparing all kisses in the future against yours.”

  “Just kisses?”

  “Arrogant, arrogant man!” She laughed.

  “Talented,” he corrected. Chase looked down at her and wondered how in the world he could give her up. He didn’t want to. The thought of never kissing her lips again or hearing her keening when he touched her went against every male instinct he possessed, but this was Cara Lee, his Cara Lee, and if she wanted the moon, he’d try his damnedest to grant her wish.

  “What are you doing?” Cara asked as he got up and pulle
d on his shirt.

  “Leaving.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you said . . .”

  “I said next time. This time you’re supposed to be giving me lessons in those ninety-eight other ways to make love, remember?”

  Her sly gaze made his manhood leap powerfully. “Why, you wicked little schoolmarm,” Chase replied in a tone laced with amazement and delight.

  And when he rejoined her on the bed, she showed him just how wicked a little schoolmarm could be.

  When she awakened the next morning, he was gone. Slamming her fists into the mattress, she swore at herself for still being in love with him.

  Cara didn’t get her monthly flow in September. Her monthly had never come like clockwork, so she chalked it up to the chaos that accompanied the beginning of the school year. Quite a few families had migrated to the Valley over the summer, and Cara found her small classroom more crowded than ever. She dealt with the lack of space by having the younger students share seats whenever possible, but there weren’t enough books and other materials to go around. Cara approached Virginia Sutton about the problems, but the Black Widow did not see it as one the school board should deal with. The board was paying her a salary, Virginia noted, and had also paid for books in January. There was no money for more. The children would just have to make do. The other three members of the board, hand-picked by the Black Widow, went along with the decision. Cara refused to let them have the last word.

  Cara began to solicit businesses in the Valley for funding. Sophie was more than happy to contribute, as were other business owners. No one in town had the ability to donate all the money the struggling school needed, but they gave what they could. By the end of the second week of school, Cara had a portion of what she needed, but was still short by a lot. The only business she hadn’t approached was the saloon owned by Miles Sutton.

  When Cara walked into the Liberian Lady, she vowed not to let Miles’s attitude deter her from her mission. She spotted him behind the bar, an easy task since he was the only person inside. He noticed her approach and smiled. “Well hello, love.”

  Cara snarled inwardly, but kept her expression pleasant. “Miles.”

  He came out from behind the bar. She looked around the place and noticed he’d made quite a few improvements. The floor was now a real floor, wood having replaced sawdust over dirt. There was wood trim on the walls; the staircase that led up to the quarters of his hostesses resembled something more akin to a grand mansion than a Kansas saloon. He’d even had a tin ceiling put in.

  “How do you like my improvements?”

  “Very nice,” she lied.

  “You know it’s hard to make a profit on a place like this. People traveling West prefer to spend their money in places like Nicodemus or Wichita. Henry Adams is a town to ride through, not stop in.”

  “Well, you seem to be doing fairly well.”

  “With a mind as shrewd as mine, it isn’t too hard.”

  “Well, then you can contribute to the school fund,” Cara noted, seizing her opening.

  “I heard you’ve been begging for the school. If I contribute, what’s in it for me?”

  Cara once again kept her face void of all emotion. “A well-equipped school.”

  “That all?”

  “Yes.”

  Their eyes held a moment, then he spoke. “I still say we are fated to be together.”

  Cara chose to ignore that. “Will you contribute or not?”

  “Will you at least have dinner with me?”

  “No.”

  “You’d make a good businesswoman, love.” He changed the subject. “When was the last time you heard from that soldier, Jefferson?”

  “Miles, we are discussing the school.”

  “Yeah, well, he better be glad he left town. I didn’t like the way he tried to make me look bad that night you and I were talking outside my mother’s house.”

  Cara didn’t bother reminding him who’d started that confrontation. Miles seemed never to take responsibility for his actions. “Will you be contributing or not?”

  He looked her up and down like a buyer. “Yeah, how much do you need?”

  “As much as you can afford.”

  “All right, wait here.”

  He went up the new staircase and returned a few moments later. He handed her a small canvas bag. Cara looked at him in surprise when she took the bag and felt its weight.

  “Open it,” he said, looking at her with those mysterious gray eyes of his.

  She did and her surprise heightened. “There must be two hundred dollars in here.”

  “Just about. Is that enough?”

  Cara stared at him. “Why, yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you,” she told him, amazement filling her voice.

  “My pleasure. Just remember what I said. Fated.”

  By the beginning of October the weather had already changed and the people of the Valley began to prepare for winter. Cara had to light the stove in the mornings now, and she and the children had spent one morning a week since school began in September gathering and storing brown stalks of corn and sunflowers to use as fuel for the old black stove.

  Cara’s sickness began the first week of October. The body-sweating, gut-wrenching nausea gripped her as soon as she left her bed. That first morning, as she raced to the chamber pot, she assumed it had been caused by something she’d eaten the night before. Gasping, she’d crawled back to bed and lain there until the world righted itself again. When the malaise continued each morning for the next week, and a few times in the middle of school’s opening lessons, she groaned not only in discomfort but with dread. As horrifying as the knowledge was, she had to admit the truth to herself: She’d gotten herself pregnant with Chase Jefferson’s child.

  It took all her pride and strength to go and see Delbert Johnson, the doctor over in Nicodemus. He confirmed her suspicions. She also received his pledge of silence for as long as she needed it.

  Secrecy didn’t matter, however. The townspeople suspected she was pregnant. It began with the frosty stares directed at her by two women on their way out of the mercantile. The two, friends of the Black Widow, had never been overly friendly in the past, but because their children were in Cara’s class they had been Christian enough to speak. Not on this occasion.

  Shrugging off the snub, Cara went on into the mercantile, puzzled by their attitude. Her purchases made, she walked back in the direction of Sophie’s. Approaching her on the wooden walk were two other women, also mothers of students. They were talking quietly as they moved in Cara’s direction, but stopped abruptly when they spotted her. Their steps halted, and Cara felt herself burned by their accusing stares. One of the women, the mother of Willie Franklin, looked momentarily embarrassed and opened her mouth as if she intended to speak, but her companion stayed her with a hand on her arm, and Willie’s mother simply looked away. Cara, offended because she could not understand the hostility, continued to move forward. To her amazement the women crossed to the other side of the street.

  Later, in her room, Cara answered a knock on her door. It was Sophie, and it was easy to see by the grimness on her aging but still beautiful face that she had something pretty serious on her mind. “What’s wrong?” Cara asked, looking up from the laundry she was folding.

  Sophie asked plainly, “Are you carrying Chase’s child?”

  Cara’s whole body stiffened.

  “Are you?” Sophie asked again.

  Silence.

  “Cara?”

  Cara’s reply was just as quiet. “Yes, I am. And I don’t want him to be told.”

  “Suppose he wants to know? Chase would never run from a responsibility like this. He wouldn’t want you fending for yourself when you are carrying his child.”

  “I don’t want him told, and I mean it, Sophie. This is my problem. Chase has made it very clear how he feels about marriage, and
I don’t want him forced into doing something he doesn’t want to do.”

  Cara thought back to the afternoon’s incidents with the women. “Does the whole town know?”

  “Just about. Your children have been telling their parents about you being sick in the mornings.”

  “Then I suppose it’s pretty silly to ask whether they’re going to make me resign. It’s only a matter of when.”

  “The Black Widow has called a special town council meeting tomorrow night. The elders want you to attend.”

  “Then that’s that,” Cara summed up bitterly. “Virginia will finally get her way.”

  “Not without a fight from me she won’t. A lot of people in this town care for you a great deal.”

  “I appreciate that, Sophie, but I don’t want others dragged into this.”

  “Well, you know you and the baby can stay here as long as you want. I sort of like the idea of playing grandmere.”

  Cara smiled sadly. “I can’t. A baby shouldn’t have to pay for her mother’s sins. People can be cruel.”

  “That’s true, but where will you go?”

  “Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Don’t you believe for one minute that the folks will let you leave without some type of fight. Dulcie was over in Nicodemus this morning, and she said there’re a lot of people over there talking about coming to the meeting tomorrow to speak for you. A few here may hold the baby against you, but not everyone is a Virginia Sutton.”

  Sophie’s support and understanding soothed Cara, but she placed little faith in her friend’s optimism. Schoolteachers had to be above reproach. Yes, it hurt thinking about leaving her students, but she expected the meeting tomorrow night to be a mere formality. She’d be dismissed. “Lord, what a mess,” she whispered, fighting the sting of tears.