Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he replied, “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m perfectly serious. You're very good with a gun, as I’ve seen first-hand, and I need someone to teach me. I could ask someone else, I suppose, but…" He didn’t let her finish her sentence.
“Why do you think you need a gun? Has someone tried to hurt you? Tell me who, and I’ll take care of it. If someone has tried to hurt you, I’ll…” He growled as thoughts of anyone hurting her just about drove him insane.
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“No. No one has tried anything, but you know the back of my house faces the center of town. The other night after you had left, there were some rowdy-looking men hanging around near the saloon. It made me a bit nervous, and thought that I should have something for protection.”
“But why a gun? They aren’t toys, you know. They are dangerous and shouldn’t be taken lightly. A woman packing a pistol is a bad idea." How else would she protect herself should someone try to break into her house?
“I’m fully aware they are not toys, Seth, but I know you are very handy with one. That’s why I want you to teach me.”
When she flashed one of those looks at him, it was over. He was done.
He couldn’t tell her no if he wanted to, and he was sure she knew exactly what she did to him.
She probably learned that in boarding school
.
Running his fingers through his hair in frustration, he knew he was in a no-win situation. “All right. I’ll teach you, but only enough that if you had to use one, you would know which end to point. It’s not like you need to become a gunslinger or something.”
He didn’t like this idea at all, but he didn’t think he had much choice, especially when she batted those big green eyes at him and stuck her lip out in a pretty pout.
“Oh, thank you!” She threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged him.
His arms went around her without any conscious thought. When she stepped back slightly, his gaze met hers, and the world disappeared. Her lips parted in silent invitation, and his head dipped to take them with his own.
When his were a mere hairsbreadth away, Johnny’s voice penetrated the void around them, and he groaned.
Embarrassment flushing her cheeks, she stepped back out of his embrace.
Johnny shouted from the wagon. “Pop, are you coming?”
“In a minute, son.” His gaze held Lily’s for a moment longer before he turned back toward the door. He stopped near the threshold and said, “If you’d like, you can come out to the house tomorrow evening after school, and I’ll set up a target.”
“That would be perfect. Thank you for helping me.”
“You are welcome.”
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How had she managed to penetrate his being to the point where he could hardly keep his hands off her?
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Yes. I’ll rent a buggy to ride out after school.”
“No use doing that. I have to pick up the children anyway, so you can ride back with us if you like. I’ll bring you home later.” When the words were out of his mouth, he mentally kicked himself.
Now I’ll be alone with
her again while I take her home. Dumb ass!
“That sounds like a good idea. That way I wouldn’t be on the road alone after dark or anything. Thank you for the offer.”
They both turned as the back door of the schoolhouse opened and Daniel came inside.
“Hello, Daniel. I’ll be right there.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed when he saw the other man enter. Seth didn’t trust him, and Lily was spending time alone in the schoolhouse with him. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Of course. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her dismissal grated on his nerves as he watched her turn to walk back into the classroom.
He shot a glance over Lily's shoulder at Daniel. The other man gave Seth a mocking cock of his eyebrow before his gaze returned to the beautiful woman in front of him.
Seth studied the pair for a moment before he walked out, slamming the door behind him.
* * * *
Lily tried to concentrate on the lessons for the children, but Seth kept creeping into her thoughts. She couldn’t understand why it was so easy to forget everything around her when he was near. When he kissed her, it was like her whole body caught fire, and the blood in her veins turned to hot liquid as it raced through her.
Squirming slightly in her seat at the front of the class, she checked the clock on the wall again, hoping that it was three already but groaning softly when she saw that it was only one.
“Mrs. Backman?” Walter Carter approached her desk.
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Attempting to clear her thoughts and refocus on the tasks at hand, she pulled her attention back to the child in front of her. “Yes, Walter?”
“I don’t understand this.” He moved around the back of her desk and showed her the arithmetic problem he was working on.
“All right, Walter. Here. I’ll show you.”
When three o’clock did arrive, she almost wasn't ready for it, but the children were. They were very restless but tried desperately to sit quietly in their seats until she said they were dismissed. Lily had already informed Daniel she wouldn’t be available to tutor him today, so when all the children left, she’d be free to spend the afternoon with Seth.
Spending time with him at his home intrigued her. True, she’d been out there last Saturday when she had tried to talk to him about the children, but this time, it was for her. She needed him, and the thought sent shivers running up her arms.
Her plans included spending at least the afternoon there since she didn't know exactly how long it would take for him to teach her to shoot.
As the wagon pulled to a stop in front of the steps, her gaze met his, and those same goose bumps skittered across her flesh.
“Poppa!” the boys cried when he pulled to a stop. They skipped excitedly down the stairs.
“Are you ready to go home?” His gaze slid over her face in a caress even though he spoke to the children.
“Yes, Poppa. Mrs. Backman is coming with us, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is, Jarod. She’ll be having supper with us tonight, and I’m going to show her around the ranch a bit.”
He lifted Anne into the wagon bed before he turned back to her. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Lily moved down the stairs and met him at the bottom. “I just need to bring this with me so when we come back to town later I don’t have to stop by here to pick it up. It’s the children’s papers I need to grade.”
Seth took the basket from her hands and placed it in the back with the children before he turned to her and spanned her waist. She squeaked "oh"
as she placed her hands on his shoulders, and he lifted her effortlessly onto the wagon seat.
He walked around the wagon and hopped onto the seat next to her.
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her leg and settled between her thighs.
Oh Lord, this is going to be a long
ride.
The road stretched in front of her in an endless expanse. She focused on how his hands gripped the reins lightly while he effortlessly guided the horses along.
He doesn't seem to notice how intimately his leg is pressed
against mine.
She cleared her throat, fighting feelings she knew would get her nowhere.
Lily tried to keep the conversation light. “How was your day today?”
“Busy. I have a couple of mares read to foal and one that gave birth this morning, so I’ve been keeping an eye on her.” His eyes never left the road in front of him.
“I bet that was exciting! I’ve never seen a horse being born before.”
He glanced her way for a moment. “If you’d like, I’ll show him to you.
He is going to be a nice stud for the ranch some day.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“How did the children do in school?”
“Very well, actually. Jarod got a perfect score on his arithmetic test, and Johnny and Anne did very well on theirs, too.” Lily turned to smile at the children in the back of the wagon.
“That’s really good. You must be a really wonderful teacher. I don’t think that they have ever gotten grades that good before.”
“I don’t think it’s so much me as it is them. They learn very quickly.”
* * * *
This light banter between them was refreshing, but it did nothing to relieve the sexual tension zinging through him. Her body next to his on the rough wagon seat drove him crazy. All he could think about was the heat creeping up his leg to settle between his thighs, and he shifted uncomfortably.
“Well, I’m sure you had something to do with it. I don’t believe they liked their other teacher very much.” Seth grasped the reins a little tighter in his hands while his mind and body absorbed the heat of hers.
“She was mean,” Jarod said from the back.
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“She never let us do any kind of outside things during the day like you do, Mrs. Backman,” Johnny added. “Mrs. Backman takes us outside so we can study the trees, the leaves, the soil and the animals, Pop.”
“It sounds like you have made quite an impression on my children.” He shifted slightly and gave Lily a sideways glance.
“They are good children and very easy to teach, so that helps. Although we need to work on talking out of turn like we did today, right Johnny?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Johnny reply sheepishly.
“I’m sure you’ll remember next time to raise your hand and wait for me to call on you before you speak.” Lily looked at him over her shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Seth stared at the remarkable woman sitting next to him while he listened to her talk to his son. Johnny had always had a bit of a wild streak in him ever since he was little. Lily managed to get him to speak respectfully and listen to what she had to say, and it was quite extraordinary.
Even Victoria hadn’t been able to completely tame their son’s wild spirit, yet this little bit of a woman managed to curtail his willful nature in such a short time.
What else does she have up her sleeve for my children?
How has she so
easily managed to infiltrate my life that I'm taking her out to my house? She
treats the children wonderfully, that is obvious, but lately it seems a day
doesn't go by when I'm not thinking of her in some way.
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Lily bumped along on the seat of the wagon, fully aware of the man next to her. She’d never really gotten to talk to Kathleen in depth about things between a man and a woman. The feelings Seth aroused confused her more each day.
He seemed to be completely still in love with Victoria and her memory, but Lily knew that he was attracted to her, or at least that's the way it seemed. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, when the house came into view.
The boys were off the back of the wagon before it had come to a complete stop and ran for the house as Carmen came out of the door.
“Ah! Mr. Seth, you have brought company?” Carmen smiled when she saw Lily in the wagon with Seth. “Nice to see you again, ma'am”
Seth stopped the wagon, hopped down and walked around the other side to help Lily down.
The exchange between Carmen and Seth made her wonder if there was a problem. “Nice to see you too, Carmen.”
“Will you be staying for supper?”
The question vanished from Lily's mind when Seth reached up and swung her down from the wagon seat. She stared into his eyes for a moment, lost in the feelings that zipped across her heart.
Seth dropped his hands from around her waist, where they lingered just a bit too long for propriety’s sake. “I… uh… have a target set up near the barn. Come with me, and I’ll show you where.”
“Of course.” She smoothed her skirts in an attempt to calm her shaking hands.
The two of them walked together in the direction of the barn, and she could see the whole area around the large building was fenced off.
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She wanted to keep the conversation light, so she figured horses and cattle were a safe subject. “Do you raise a lot of cattle and horses out here?”
“I run probably a thousand head of cattle a year. It keeps us eating and gives us a roof over our heads, you could say. It certainly won't make me rich by any means. I do break horses, too, and sell them to some of the local folks. I guess you could say ranching is in the blood, so to speak, even though my real father didn’t teach me. I consider Jack my father.”
Curiosity pushed her to ask while she studied the man in front of her.
“What about your adoptive family? Are they still around here?”
“Jack and Jennifer still live in the area. They have some land on the other side of town, although Jack doesn’t do much ranching anymore. He hurt his leg pretty bad some years ago and now can’t walk very well. They hire out for most of the work these days. Maybe someday I’ll take you to meet them. They are really amazing folks.”
“That would be nice. I would like to get to know more people around here if I plan to stay for a while.”
The shirt stretched across the muscles of his back when he set a couple more bales of hay behind the target for her to shoot at. She had to fight the urge to smooth her hands over the tempting flesh.