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 she saw darken his expression appeared genuine. She’d bet her new hotel on it.
“I’m right sorry to hear it. Did you marry a local fellow?”
“I did. Maybe you remember Steven Lindor? But he was a few grades ahead of us in school. You’ll recall his brother, I imagine. Thomas. He was in our class.”
“A quiet fellow—kept to himself, as I recall.”
“Yes.” Thomas had been shy and kinder than many of the boys. “That was him.”
And now, with her marital situation clear, she could not help but wonder—what was his?
He took off his coat, hung it on a peg on the wall.
“Hand over that cleaning rag.” He extended his hand. “You must have more important things to tend to. I appreciate what you’ve done, but I’ll finish.”
It was true. She ought to get back to the café, but she was not quite ready to part company with her old friend yet. It felt nice to hear the sound of his voice, to look at him and see the man he’d grown into.
Clearly, he had changed a great deal while he’d been away.
“There’s another rag beside the stove. As long as the babies are sleeping, I might as well stay and help. The students are anxious to get back to school.”
“Are they?” He took the cleaning cloth, dipped it in the soapy water. “I hope so, but I can’t remember ever feeling that way about it. I’ll get the floor if you want to clean the desks.”
“Well—one of them is, at least. Cora. She’s a studious little thing.”
“Like you were?”
“Not really. I was shy. Cora is—well, you’ll see.” She scrubbed vigorously at a dry inkwell. “Have you brought your family with you, Trea?”
The question had to be asked.
She purely hoped the answer was yes. If he’d come home a married man with children, he might be more easily accepted as the schoolmaster.
“I never married.” Squatting, he scrubbed at a stubborn stain, looked up at her with that endearing crooked grin. “Came close to it once, but the lady and I both agreed we weren’t meant to be.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, pretty sure that she truly meant it.
“Don’t be. She wanted more than I could give her in the material way and I—just wanted more.”
What kind of more? The meant-to-be sort of more—like she used to believe in?
Where were her emotions wandering? No place they should, and that was a fact.
She was a mother, a business woman. What she was not was a starry-eyed child.
* * *
Walking through the gently falling snowflakes and pushing the buggy with Juliette’s babies inside—the pair of them sleeping like small angels under the blanket—Trea was sorry that she hadn’t believed him when he’d called her Beautiful.
The doubt shadowing her eyes had been unmistakable.
Her disbelief, he felt, had nothing to do with her own self-confidence. Not at all. From all he could see, she had grown to be a strong, capable woman.
The respect he felt for her, raising these amazing babies on her own, was a mile long.
It shamed him that her doubt was because of him, of the way he’d been back then. There was no reason for her to believe that the town flirt had ever meant what he said or that he meant it now.
While they walked and chatted, even laughed a bit at old times, something became clear to him.
One day he was going to call her Beautiful and she was going to know he meant it, that it was from his heart.
It was important to him that she understood who he had become, that he no longer passed out false flattery as easily as whispers on the wind.
Of course, he’d always been genuine when it came to her. But given the mischief-maker he’d been back then, how could he blame her for having doubts about his sincerity?
Who would not?
For a long time now, he’d been preparing himself for the fact that it was going to cause a stir when people found out who would be educating their children.
“This place doesn’t look much like the Beaumont I remember.” It seemed dull and grungy. Not at all the respectable place he’d last seen.
“It isn’t. The rail spur brings all kinds of strangers to town—thieves and gamblers, to name a few. Can you believe there are three—”
A blush bloomed in her cheeks. He saw it, even through the snowy dusk.
“Saloons, you mean? And my father owns two of them?” He smiled
