Sycamore Hill (4 page)

“You’re from Boston?”

“How did you know that?” I asked, raising my brows in surprise.

“Your accent. And other things....”

“Other things?”

“No one that I know of would walk dressed like that, carrying a
carpetbag, without a canteen in the middle of August. Not if they were from
around here. And not if they had any brains.”

My mouth tightened, though I saw the teasing light in his eyes. “I
was eager to reach Sycamore Hill,” I said coolly. “The stagecoach had already
broken down twice before, and when it lost a wheel, I thought I’d have a better
chance of reaching my destination if I walked. Besides, it was mild enough this
morning.”

“It starts out cool,” he agreed. “But it can end up hotter than
hell in the afternoon.” I flushed at his easy swearing, and he chuckled.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, though I suspected he knew very
well.

“Not a thing.”

“Boston through and through, aren’t you?” he needled.

“What do you mean by that?” I demanded, piqued by his laughter.

“All prim and proper. A little earth language brings sundown into
your cheeks.”

“I’m not as prim as I look,” I flared, his tone indicating some
slight at which I took immediate offense.

“Aren’t you now?” he asked, raising his brows speculatively. His
gaze moved down again, and I tried unsuccessfully to ignore it. My experience
with men was almost non-existent, and I was finding this conversation
increasingly baffling and disturbing.

“Thank you for the water,” I muttered, clutching my bag and
turning away.

“Just a minute,” he said quickly. “All right,” he relented. “I’ll
try not to tease you anymore. But I think you ought to sit down for a few
minutes before you faint dead away. Your face is a little too red.”

“I do wish you would keep your observations to yourself, Mr....
Mr.... ” I searched frantically for a name, then remembered he had not offered
one.

“Jordan Bennett,” he supplied with a slight smile.

“Mr. Bennett,” I finished rather lamely, pulling my eyes
determinedly away from his.

“Visiting or staying?”

“Pardon me?” I asked blankly.

“Sycamore Hill. That is your destination, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And?” He obviously expected an answer whether it was his business
or not.

“I’m not sure,” I hedged. Jordan Bennett didn’t say anything for a
minute, but his blue eyes narrowed fractionally on my flushed face.

“You wouldn’t be one of Ross Persall’s new girls, would you?” he
asked almost hopefully.

“No. I’ve never heard of him,” I answered truthfully. There was an
oak several yards away, and I walked over to sit in the shade. I dreaded the
thought of walking another step and looked up at Jordan Bennett leaning against
the tree trunk. Surely he would offer me a ride. No one would be so unkind as
to leave a woman walking out here in the heat of the day, I hoped. I did not
possess the nerve to ask.

“I’m... glad to hear that,” he said, not really sounding it. I
wondered who Ross Persall was.

“Who’s Ross Persall?” I admitted my curiosity.

“A local resident,” Jordan Bennett answered as evasively as I
previously had. I sighed and decided not to press further. Besides, I was too
tired to be curious about much of anything. Except for him.

“Are you a local resident?” I asked.

“No.”

I waited, hoping for more information. None was forthcoming, but
those blue eyes were dancing and obviously seeing right inside my head. My
mouth tightened, and I gave a faint shrug to indicate it didn’t matter one way
or another whether he was or was not from Sycamore Hill. The silence was
growing uncomfortable for me.

“Is it always this hot in the summer?” I asked inanely, desperate
for anything to say.

“No.”

The man was determined to make me angry!

“How far is it to Sycamore Hill?”

‘Two miles. Uphill all the way.” He was grinning now, and I closed
my eyes, saying a silent prayer. It remained unanswered, and I sighed heavily.

“Well?” he drawled.

“Well what?” I asked.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” He was laughing at me again, the
dreadful man!

“Ask you what?” I pretended obtuseness. There was a long silence,
and I looked away, unable to sustain his look. My eyes encountered the road,
parched, dusty and pockmarked, but worse, stretching out ahead of me for
another two long, painful miles. It wasn’t getting any cooler either. I looked
back at Jordan Bennett, but couldn’t bring myself to voice the question.

“Are you always this stubborn?” he asked with slight impatience. I
couldn’t explain that it was a matter of reticence, not stubbornness, about
asking favors of strangers.

“I give in.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “I must be the more curious
of the two of us. What’s your name first off?” He sounded as though he had made
up a list of questions, and I stiffened again.

“Abigail McFarland,” I offered hesitantly, and then felt foolish.
After all, he had already introduced himself, hadn’t he?

“Abigail.” He tested the name on his tongue. “A nice,
old-fashioned name, if a bit stiff,” he commented dryly, and then his eyes
widened as some thought, obviously far from pleasant, entered his head. “Good
God!” he exclaimed. “I think I know who you are!”

“You do?” I asked blankly. “Why are you looking so thunderous?” I
added, alarmed at the sudden change in his expression.

“You’re the new schoolmarm, aren’t you?” he accused, a wealth of
disgust in his tone.

“Well... yes,” I admitted, bewildered by his reaction to my
occupation. I might have been some bug under a rock!

He swore beneath his breath, renewing the color that had recently
managed to recede to normal. “I should have known,” he muttered and then glared
at me as though I had done something criminal. His eyes, when they coursed down
over me this time, were derisive and not the least bit friendly. Without another
word, Jordan Bennett walked purposely toward his buckboard.

He was going to leave me here! I thought with sudden astonishment.
Without thinking, I jumped up and ran after him.

“Mr. Bennett, wait, please,” I pleaded. “May I... may I...” The
words wouldn’t come. The only other time I had ever asked for anything, I had
requested freedom from my guardians. That had been denied to me. I had never
asked for anything again.

“No!” he snapped. “If you’re about to ask for a ride to town,
forget it!” he continued curtly. “A schoolmarm ought to have enough good sense
not to be walking on a day like this in the first place,” he added tauntingly.
“The walk will teach you a lesson.”

I tried for levity. “Well, I’ve learned my lesson.” I smiled
shakily, hoping he would relent, and still not understanding his contempt for
my occupation.

“You’ll learn a damn sight more when you reach town,” he grumbled,
releasing the brake with one fluid motion. His gaze was blistering.

“What do you mean?" I floundered.

“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, Miss McFarland,” he stated
with heavy sarcasm. “And another thing. I’ll take odds that you’ll be running
out of town by the end of the month.”

“I’m not as soft as you seem to think I am,” I said coolly. Jordan
Bennett was unreasonable, unpleasant and definitely not a gentleman.

“No?” His eyes dropped provocatively, further solidifying my
impression of him. “You’re soft all right. Everywhere...” he looked directly
into my eyes, “including the head.”

I looked at him with hostility matching his own. “Don’t let me
detain you any longer, Mr. Bennett,” I smiled stiffly. A muscle jerked in his
jaw.

“Have a nice walk,” he retorted in the same testy tone. Then he
snapped the reins, not even wasting a backward glance at me. I stood staring
after him, unable to believe he really was leaving me out here. Dust billowed
out from beneath the wheels and floated back to cover me from head to toe.
Frustrated and furious, I pounded the dirt off my blouse and dress, wishing I
could scream at him. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

Picking up my carpetbag, I forced myself to start walking again.
Only two miles, I told myself. Not far. My self-assurance lacked conviction.

“What a horrid man!” I said out loud, glaring down the road where
the buckboard went. It disappeared over the rise.

So Jordan Bennett thought I would be running out of town by the
end of the month, did he? Well, he would see he was wrong! And what had he
meant by that remark? Surely the children of Sycamore Hill were not quite that
bad. And what was wrong with being a schoolteacher? It surely did not deserve
such unveiled contempt as he had displayed.

My entire body quivered with anger, but after ten minutes’
walking, it dissipated. I was exhausted and felt almost as thirsty as I had
before the drink from Jordan Bennett’s canteen. Only two more miles. Don’t
think about what he said. It can’t be all uphill!

During the rest of my odyssey I could not stop thinking about
Jordan Bennett’s reaction to my occupation, and his prophecy of my imminent departure.
It made my determination to succeed all the more firm, but it also afforded me
no comforting thoughts as to what might lie ahead in Sycamore Hill.

Standing on the rough plank bridge, I gazed tiredly down at the
creek below. Young cottonwoods grew along the banks, showing the level of
winter and spring flooding by the dead, hugging grasses twisted around their
trunks. Now the creek moved slowly, revealing its rocky bottom. I longed to
climb down the steep incline and get a refreshing drink. I wished I could take
off my shoes and sink my aching, blistered feet into the cold, clear water.
Even better would be to submerge my entire body and rid myself of some road
dust!

However, all that was impossible, for just beyond the bridge lay a
town nestled in the small valley surrounded by oak-covered hills. I knew I was
in Sycamore Hill, for at the end of the community’s main street arose another
hill, this one with a grove of giant sycamores.

Below the sycamores, white crosses and marble markers studded the
brown shadows like buttons on dark velvet. At the base of the hill stood a New
England-style church with high steeple and brick front steps. Off to the right
I saw another church built contrastingly of adobe brick, much in the tradition
of a Jesuit mission.

Closer by me and only several hundred yards beyond the bridge lay
a two-story building made interesting by gingerbread eaves and red decorative
shutters at each of the ten front windows. The raised wooden sidewalk was
shaded by an overhang supported by six solid-looking pillars. Just below the
walkway were three horse troughs and tying rails. Several saddle horses stood
in the sun, chewing distractedly at their bits while their owners lingered
somewhere within the establishment.

As I passed the building, I heard noise. Bursts of laughter
blended with the sound of a woman singing while someone with a heavy touch
accompanied her on an ill-tuned piano.

As I walked into Sycamore Hill, I admired the modest homes that
snuggled tightly against businesses along the main street. Each boasted a neat
rose garden and white picket fence. Several had vegetable gardens to one side,
with squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, bush beans, berries, carrots, peppers, and com
interspersed with brilliant-gold, pungent, bug-repellent marigolds. At one
house, there stood an absurd scarecrow on which sat an arrogant magpie almost
smirking with disdain.

Black- and English-walnut, maple and pine trees gave shade to the
streets that were unpaved and shot out to the left and right. Each bore a name
that seemed Catholic or hinted of some founding immigrant—St. Joseph, St. Mary,
McPherson, Janssen, St. Paul, Silverton.

On the comer of Silverton stood a fine, sturdy two-story
boardinghouse with a small, neatly printed vacancy sign in the front
lacy-curtained window. I hesitated and noted with interest the brilliantly
overflowing window boxes in front, the porch swing and front wooden steps, the
neat garden with sweet peas ranging from deep purple to bright red and pale
pink lining the front gate. Two climbing rose bushes alive with honeybees grew
lavishly over a latticed arch at the front gate. A large English-walnut tree
and two smaller fig trees shaded the yard. To the back I saw another
characteristic vegetable garden, and I heard the clucking of hens followed
closely by one cocky rooster.

A weary sigh escaped me. Perhaps this pleasant house would be my
new home. There was a vast difference between it and the spacious brownstone
mansion in Boston. This one bespoke of warmth and hospitality. Here, perhaps, I
could develop friendships and make a place for myself. The opportunity had
never before been available under the jealous, self-centered guardianship of
the Haversalls.

However, there was no time to linger and dream. I noted the sun was
well into its descent toward dusk, and I had yet to find the Olmsteads’ general
store. Arrangements would have been made for my arrival, I was sure. Excitement
overrode the pain of my ten-mile walk, and I moved more quickly down the quiet
street.