“No.” She gave him a smug look. “This is my first teaching assignment.” She waved and hurried into the schoolhouse, leaving Mitch with his mouth hanging open.
Mitch sat at the supper table, still smarting from his exchange with Priscilla. Despite what she’d mumbled in French, she would not prove him wrong. He would prove her wrong in the end. He was sure of that. The winters in Oklahoma were nothing like the winters in the Rockies. Once she got snowed in for three or four days, he would bet she’d be packing those trunks and heading out on the next mail coach. A French-speaking, high-class city girl would never last in Dogtown.
Ian helped himself to a serving of fry bread and dipped it into his bowl of stew. “Pa, don’t you think Miss Cochran is pretty?”
Mitch stabbed a piece of meat with his fork. Did the woman have to invade his home, too? He shrugged. “She’s all right.”
“Nah. She’s pretty. I’m glad she’s our new teacher.”
Mitch had spent too much time thinking about the new teacher, and how pretty she was. He didn’t want to notice her looks or even think about her. “I just hope she stays long enough to keep the school opened at least until Christmas.”
“Why do you think she won’t stay?”
He looked into the very young and trusting eyes of his son. “Come on, Ian. She’s young. She’s pretty. She comes from an important family. She’s college educated. She’s…” He couldn’t help but think the words he spoke were for his benefit, not his son’s.
Ian shrugged. “I like her.”
“I didn’t say I don’t like her. She seems to be a nice person. I just have my doubts that she’ll last the winter.”
Ian popped the last of his fry bread into his mouth. “I forgot to tell you, Miss Cochran wants me to come to school tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“She’s testing all the students before school starts on Monday. My time is tomorrow at ten o’clock.”
“Don’t forget Mr. Boswick brings the newspapers tomorrow. Everyone will be looking for theirs.”
“She said it won’t take more than an hour. I’ll have plenty of time.”
Mitch nodded and picked up the bowls and placed them into the sink. What would it be like to have a woman in the house? Someone who fixed the meals, cleaned up afterwards, sat with them in the parlor at night, sewing or reading a book? Funny how he’d never felt the lack of female companionship before now. When he felt the need, he’d make a trip into Denver to visit a widow friend of his for an overnight stay. Even those visits had dwindled down to only a few times a year.
More than a woman to cook, sew, and read, the idea of having a warm, soft body wrapped in his arms when he fell asleep at night and then awoke alongside in the morning had him wishing for things he had no right to wish for. The woman who’d made him long for things he hadn’t thought he wanted was too far above him and his life.
The nightly chores he’d done alone since Polly died seemed harder somehow tonight. Was he lonely? He hadn’t questioned that for a long, long time.
His marriage to Polly had lasted less than a year, and most of that time she’d been sick with her pregnancy. Why he was thinking now about a woman in the house disturbed him, certain Miss Priscilla Cochran prompted those thoughts. Memories swamped him of her soft body pressed up against his chest when she’d dropped from the roof into his arms. The fresh scent of lemons surrounding her. The sparkle in her hazel eyes. The plump lips she’d licked that he’d wanted to cover with his own.
Feeling like the fool he was, he stomped to the shed to settle the horses for the night. Keeping busy would stop his thoughts from traveling in a direction they had no business going. Sure, he’d invited her to church and the social afterward, but that was only because it was his responsibility to see that the new teacher was settled and familiar with the town and its inhabitants. He would have done the same for the plump fifty-year-old spinster he’d expected to arrive on the mail coach.
Yeah, but would I have looked forward to it as much?
Ian rounded the corner of the schoolhouse and came to an abrupt halt. Miss Cochran stood, feet apart, both hands gripping what looked like a Colt M1911 semi-automatic pistol. She released the safety, and, taking aim at tin cans sitting on a wooden fence running along the back of her yard, she slowly squeezed the trigger. And picked off all seven cans in rapid succession.
“Wow, Miss Cochran, that was great.”
She lowered her gun, engaged the safety, and spun around. “Goodness, Ian, you startled me. You shouldn’t do that to a person holding a gun.”
He walked up to her. “I know guns. If that’s a Colt M1911, it holds seven rounds.”
“Yes, I guess you would know guns.” She placed her hand on his shoulder and walked him back toward the schoolhouse. “This will be our little secret, all right, Ian?”
“You’re a great shot. Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
“I’m not sure how proper it is for the teacher to have such a talent.”
Ian shrugged. “All right. If that’s what you want.”
“Thank you.” As they entered the schoolhouse, she placed the gun in the top drawer of her desk. She waved him toward the bench in front of her desk. He was such a pleasant boy and as handsome as his father.