The Teacher's Star

rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, yet he said nothing. She’d seen him do that movement before when he was uncomfortable about a situation.
She smiled sweetly at the student who’d fought all of her overtures during the past three months and held out her hand. Surprisingly, the girl moved to her and took hold of it. Delia tenderly squeezed the child’s work-roughened hand before speaking.
“Perhaps your bed is large enough for the two of us. I could share with you tonight. On Monday, I’ll be back in my own bed.”
The girl turned dark eyes up to the teacher. Eyes so like her father’s. The trust in them told Delia the girl trusted her to only tell the truth. “But why are you here, Miss Perkins?”
This time Rol spoke up. “Her name’s Mrs. Anderson for a little while. Then she’ll be Miss Perkins again.” Simple. Direct. That should settle the issue of his marriage.
The winter wind whipped outside, easily heard in the silence that hung heavily in the shed. While Rol finished caring for the horses, no one spoke. Eenie sat, scowling in his direction. Delia stood, discreetly rubbing her backside. The ride had been rough on her, he saw. She was quite a rare woman in his experience. She never once complained.
With the horses cared for, Rol grabbed Delia’s carpet bag and led everyone to the small house that had once housed the foreman’s family. Since Paps Johnson lived in town rather than on the ranch, the foreman and his brood occupied the main house. That made it possible for Rol to rent this one along with the shed for his horses. The horses had been a perfect cover for him to live near Belle. Amazingly, he’d discovered that he enjoyed training them.
No sooner had they settled into the small front room than the little girl began to speak. What she said, though, surprised him. He’d expected her to complain about his marriage. That couldn’t be further from what was actually on the girl’s mind.
“But Pa, I don’t understand. Married peoples stay married. Less one gets dead, like Ma did.”
Eenie sat on the sofa beside her father, her face upturned. Her look of pleading stunned him. He’d expected anger at hearing he’d married the hated teacher. Instead, Rol was coming to understand that his daughter didn’t really despise Delia.
What distressed Rol, tugging sharply at his heart, was Eenie’s desperation for a mother. The girl’s pleading made the need for a ma clear. If he were to search out a mother for the girl, he couldn’t do better than the woman who sat across from them in a straight-backed chair. Her hands were folded demurely and a tender, concern creased her lovely face. Delia obviously cared about his daughter.
To stay married, he’d need to change his lifestyle. Running off with one warrant after another, he’d rarely been home with Deborah, Eenie’s mother. Maybe that’s why she done what she…
He stopped his thoughts there. He’d been a terrible husband who didn’t deserve a second chance at happiness. And he sensed that he could be happy married to Delia.
His daughter’s pleading eyes tore at him. Maybe this wasn’t about him after all. The question should be if Eenie could be happy with Delia as a mother. It wasn’t his second chance at love. It was Eenie’s desire for something she’d never had—a mother.
Putting an arm around the little girl, father and daughter embraced as he spoke into her messy hair. “You’re right. Married people stay together. And new mothers don’t just leave.”
A squeak from the direction of the chair brought his attention to the new mother. She’d half risen. At his cocked eyebrow, she appeared to deflate, flopping back into the chair without the lady-like grace she always showed.
Her movement grabbed Eenie’s attention as well. The girl moved to sit on the floor by the teacher’s legs, leaning her head against the woman. “I don’t mind you as my new ma, Miss Perkins. Honest. Please don’t not be married to my pa just cuz I’m naughty in school.”
He watched Delia once again sit primly on the edge of her chair. Her hand softly caressed his daughter’s cheek as she spoke. “This marriage, well, caught us both by surprise. I’m not sure we can stay married, sweetheart.”
Across the small room, Rol’s back stiffened, and he rubbed a hand across his jaw. His stare brought her eyes to him.
“What’s there to keep us from being married?” Since she was a schoolteacher, the woman couldn’t already be married. Was she betrothed to someone back in Missouri?
Shaking her head, she looked pointedly at Eenie’s head now cradled on her lap as she stroked the girl’s dark hair. He refused to back down, fiery eyes willing her to speak.
“Money, for one thing. Your work takes you all over. I want a husband who’s home most every night.” Her wistful tone let him know how important that was to her.
“Well, I can’t argue with that. Money’s important in keeping a family. I’d have to think on a way for us to settle in one place.”
His response shocked her, it appeared, as her jaw gaped. She closed her mouth and then opened it to voice another objection.
“For another thing, Mr. Anders, you didn’t use your real name during the ceremony. That makes this marriage a farce.”
Eenie started to cry. Delia took her up into her lap, rocking their bodies as she shushed the child. The action proved Rol’s earlier thoughts. The woman was born to be a mother. Added to that fact was an important but uncomfortable one. She moved him like no woman had in the long, lonely eight years since his wife’s death.
He kept his tone neutral as he answered her challenge. “It so happens that I signed my real name on the marriage certificate.” He rose and, standing