With the weather turning ever colder, the wind and snow swirling, close was better.
He balanced his valises, tucked them tighter under his arms and picked up his pace. Through one of the windows he saw the stove’s orange glow. It cast a welcome through the dim afternoon light.
He’d say a heartfelt prayer of thanks for whoever had had the foresight to warm the place up.
It was curious that anyone had, though, given he’d been vague about the time of his arrival.
After bounding up the steps, he set his valises on the porch then opened the door.
A woman was on her knees, facing away from him. Her slim back moved in time with her vigorous scrubbing. The skirt draped across her hips swayed with the effort she exerted.
A black braid with a pink ribbon entwined in the strands bounced between her shoulder blades.
She hadn’t heard him come in because she was singing to herself.
He wasn’t aware of breathing or his heartbeat because when she turned and saw him, what would her expression be? How would she look at him?
Why, after all this time, did it matter so much?
“Hello, Beautiful,” he said, surprised his voice croaked past the lump in his throat.
Juliette clenched the rag in her fingers then let it drop on the floor near her knees. Slowly straightening, she dug her damp, sudsy hands into her skirt.
Trea’s voice was familiar and different at the same time. For some reason, it came as shock to hear it even though she knew he was coming back to Beaumont Spur.
Slowly she pivoted her head. Her gaze collided with a pair of pants, gray wool damp at the cuffs. She raised her eyes. Her line of vision slid up, over thighs that had grown muscular over the years—she noted it even under the cover of wool.
He gazed down at her, arms folded across his ribs. The coat he wore was bulky so she could not tell if his chest had filled out like his long legs had.
But of course it would have. No one stayed seventeen forever. The boy she had been smitten with had quite clearly become a man, and she scarce knew what to think or how to feel about it.
From her position on the floor it seemed that his hat touched the ceiling.
Then, for a heartbeat only, she did see the boy. The expression of vulnerability that she remembered all too well flashed across his face before he smiled.
The way his mouth curved up at one corner was instantly familiar, except, of course, for the dark mustache that had been trimmed within half an inch of a subtle dimple.
She well remembered that flirtatious dimple, having dreamed of it night after night for a good three years when she was a girl.
He grinned and the impression of vulnerability vanished.
“Trea Culverson. I imagine you still say that to all the girls.” Slowly she rose, grateful that her skirt hid the way her knees quaked.
She flipped her braid over her shoulder by habit, striving to look casual and unshaken by his sudden appearance. Because why should she be shaken? He was a ghost of her past and nothing more.
“I only ever meant it for you, Juliette.”
Maybe it was foolish, but she did believe him—and it made her feel...confused.
Yes, confused and lovely, which was unexpected, and silly, too. She was a widow, the mother of two, and he was—
Who was he now? Why had he shown up in the schoolhouse, of all places?
“It’s good to see you after all this time, Trea.”
That was so completely the truth that it scared her. How could it be that she felt as nervous as the awkward girl she had been the last time she’d seen him?
“Blame it, Juliette, you are even prettier than you were last time I saw you. I can’t see how that’s possible.” His smile ticked up; his brown eyes glimmered at her.
“And you are still a flirt. I was never beautiful and you know it. I was tall and gawky.”
“No, that was me. You were always the sweetest person I ever met.”
It was time to move on from this clumsy conversation. Or if it wasn’t, of the way it made her feel.
“I heard you were coming back, but what are you doing here in the schoolhouse?” It was the very last place she would have expected to encounter him. It was in the opposite direction of The Fickle Dog, which is where she would have assumed he was headed.
He tipped his head to one side, arched a dark brow. Oh—she remembered that expression, too! It made her heart flutter, same as it always had.
Where on earth was her good sense?
Widows were levelheaded folks. Everyone knew it.
“I’m surprised to see you here, too.”
“Oh, well—you wouldn’t be if you saw what the classroom looked like an hour ago. The former teacher was lax in tidiness and everything else. I’m hoping a good scrubbing will keep our new teacher from turning tail and running away.”
She sounded normal, her voice smooth and her thoughts casual. He would never guess how seeing him again so suddenly had shot her back in time and turned her inside out.
“That won’t happen, Juliette.” The jaunty smile, the teasing glint in his eye, faded and he looked at her soberly. “I’m the new teacher. And I’m here to stay.”
The teacher! It couldn’t be—no, not possibly.
“But—but—well.” Some folks would never allow him to teach their children. He couldn’t know how they still gossiped about him. “That is—I’m glad—grateful, I mean. We need a teacher so desperately.”
Trea Culverson a schoolmaster? Try as she might, she could not envision it.
Schoolteachers, both men and women, were held to strict standards. Why, they could have no social life at all. The instant there was a breath of scandal involving them, they were dismissed. It was not so long ago that a lady teacher had been fired for accepting a ride home in a buggy driven by a man who was not her father or her brother. It mattered not at all that it had been windy and getting dark.
Even if Trea had grown a halo and sprouted wings over the years, some folks would find fault.
“Surprised?” That brow lifted again, along with the crooked smile and the tick of his dimple. “You’re looking at a teacher with a degree in education.”
No, not surprised—stunned. Of all the things she’d considered, of all the things she’d imagined he had done with his life—she was simply astonished.
“What about you, Juliette?” he asked with a quick glance at her hand and away.
Could he be wondering if she was married? Apparently, but—
“Look over there in the corner—behind the stove.”
He turned. She noticed his shoulders sag ever so slightly, but when he looked back at her his grin was as bright as summer sunrise.
“Those little babies are my life.”
“Congratulations, Juliette! They are beyond precious.” He reached out as though he might touch her, but instead took a step back. “Your husband must be a happy man.”
No doubt. She believed everyone was, in the great beyond. More than once she’d felt Steven smiling over her shoulder.
“I’m a widow, Trea.”
The regret