Chapter Four
Cecilia swept the kitchen with long, energetic strokes. She had known Pendergast was going to be trouble, she’d just underestimated how much.
At breakfast this morning he’d been the soul of courtesy. The man hadn’t cracked a smile or even looked at her funny, nothing to indicate he was the wolf who had cornered her in his bedroom the night before. The closest he’d come to communicating anything at all to her was to compliment her ironing!
After Pendergast left for school, she’d run up to his room to check on Buck, who was nowhere to be seen. Which was good, since he needed to get back to the ranch. Unfortunately she was dying to know what had happened last night—before she’d heard him singing.
She prayed Buck would make up something to tell her father, any excuse for her not coming home. Sooner or later she would have to tend to placating him herself; she couldn’t rely on Buck forever. But for now, it was necessary to watch Pendergast like a hawk. If her suspicions were true and he wasn’t a schoolteacher after all, he was bound to slip up.
And even if he didn’t slip up on his own, he was bound to catch hell when those readers were discovered missing. She practically rubbed her hands in glee at the thought. Where finances were involved, Beasley wouldn’t care who had actually been responsible for the theft, he would just want to have someone to blame. Pendergast was doomed.
But she would have to keep her wits about her. Last night she’d almost let the man kiss her—for no reason other than some silly little dream she’d had! Never in her life had Cecilia considered herself fickle, and now, with the enemy at her gate, was not the time to start behaving like a complete ninny.
The front door opened and closed, and Cecilia braced herself. What if this was Pendergast? She was alone in the house, except for Mrs. Baker, who couldn’t hear anything anyway. What if he tried to corner her like he had last night?
Footsteps sounded in the kitchen doorway and Cecilia jumped with a startled intake of breath. Dolly stared at her oddly, then sniffed, raised her head proudly and continued on in.
Cecilia sighed. Of course it wasn’t Pendergast! Why would a schoolteacher be home before midmorning?
Besides, as she watched Dolly pointedly ignoring her, she realized she had other problems to tackle. It seemed just about everyone in town had a beef against her. She walked to the small table and picked up the wrapped package from Beasley’s that Dolly had put there.
“What’s this?” she asked, attempting to break the silence between them. Dolly hadn’t spoken a word to her since fleeing from Pendergast’s bedroom the night before.
“Yeast.”
And that, Cecilia gathered, was all Dolly intended to say about that. “Are you going to bake something?” she persisted.
Dolly continued to ignore her, but made an abundance of noise as she gathered things she would need. “Bread.”
A wave of dread went through Cecilia. Given the positioning of her little room, baking bread in the oven meant she baked, too. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked, trying to keep her voice chipper.
The lighthearted tone appeared to be her friend’s undoing. Suddenly, Dolly’s shoulders sagged, then trembled, and she clasped a hand over her mouth. She shook her head as she leaned over the sink, and Cecilia could tell by the way the muscles in her jaw clenched and twitched that she was in the final throes of fighting back tears.
“Dolly, what is it?” she asked, scurrying over. She put an arm around Dolly’s shoulders, but the woman shrugged it away. “Is it me? What have I done?”
Red faced, chest heaving, Dolly turned on her. “Done?” she asked, her voice steely. She dashed an errant tear from her cheek. “I think you know, Cecilia.”
Cecilia stared at her, stupefied. “If it’s about last night—”
A sharp accusatory laugh erupted from Dolly’s chest.
“I know it looked strange,” Cecilia said, but Dolly stopped her by holding a hand toward her, palm out. “I can explain,” Cecilia insisted. “Well, most of it.”
“Don’t,” Dolly said. “I’m going to have to tell your father the next time I see him, Cecilia. I don’t think you ought to stay here.”
A flush suffused Cecilia’s cheeks. She was being thrown out. Thrown out. Just like yesterday, when Pendergast tossed her out of the schoolhouse. How the mighty had fallen.
“You can’t, Dolly,” she pleaded. “It wasn’t how it looked. And you know how my poor father would react. It would kill him, or else he would kill me.”
Dolly’s mouth remained set in a firm, taut line. And then Cecilia detected a quiver. And then another. And then a cry erupted, a sad little moan. Dolly barely made it to one of the woven-backed chairs around the table before she collapsed.
“Oh, Cecilia,” she wailed, “you wouldn’t understand!”
At this rate, Cecilia feared she never would. She hurried over and put a comforting hand on Dolly’s shoulder. “You must explain to me what is wrong. Maybe there’s something I can do to set things right again.”
Dolly’s head shook to and fro. “You’re so pretty and young, you’ll think I’m foolish.”
“For what?” asked Cecilia, astonished.
“For hoping that...” She let the sentence trail off, leaving Cecilia still mystified. “And then, seeing you together...”
Slowly, understanding dawned. Somehow, Dolly must have sensed that there was something going on between her and Pendergast. Of course, there wasn’t, nothing besides animosity, nothing at all. What a horrible misconception!
“Oh, no, Dolly, you’re wrong.” As Dolly’s eyes peered at her in hope, Cecilia shook her head decisively. “I have no interest in him whatsoever, nor he in me. Not the kind you mean, anyway.”
She didn’t know what to say next, but she felt in her heart of hearts it was her duty to dissuade Dolly from pinning her hopes on Pendergast. True, he was a bachelor, of a marriageable age and arguably attractive after a fashion, but Cecilia had serious misgivings about his character. Overall, they knew very little about this man. Also, if she had her way, he would soon be a man with no means of employment.
But before she could speak further, Dolly said, “That’s not true, Cecilia. Perhaps you don’t like him, but he’s been flirting with you for five years.”
“Five years!” Cecilia said, astonished again. “But Mr. Pendergast just got here a few days ago!”
Dolly gaped at her. “Mr. Pendergast? What has he to do with any of this?”
“But that’s who you mean, isn’t it?” Cecilia asked, perplexed. “Who else—”
An unbelievable possibility occurred to Cecilia, cutting her sentence short. She felt herself go pale as the blood drained from her cheeks. “Dolly, you can’t mean...”
Fresh tears spilled freely down Dolly’s face, and she nodded miserably. “Yes!” she cried.
“But you can’t possibly...” She hardly knew how to put it into words.
Dolly did it for her. “It’s Buck! I love him terribly!”
How else? Cecilia stared at her friend in horror. And disbelief. “Buck?” she asked, unable to keep the amazement out of her voice. “Buck McDeere?”
“When I saw you two together, Cecilia, I felt something die inside me,” Dolly said, wiping her eyes with a wrinkled soggy handkerchief.
“But,