Her Dearest Enemy

“So the reality is, he’s eighteen years old and the only control you have over the boy is what little he allows you.” He shot her a withering scowl. “I thought as much.”

Harriet fought the urge to fly at him and rip the smug expression off his face with her bare hands. “Whatever you’re implying, Mr. Calhoun, my brother is a decent, responsible young man!” she snapped. “Ask anyone who knows him!”

“I already have. Hezekiah Moon at the feed store says your brother’s the best worker he’s ever hired. He’s always on time, he has every account figured to the penny, and he can load a wagon in the time it takes the customer to have a smoke. But that doesn’t mean I want the young whelp sniffing around my Jenny!”

“So what is it you want?” Harriet demanded, suddenly out of patience with him. “If you’ve only come to grouse and complain, please consider your mission accomplished and let me get back to work!”

He retreated a step as if startled by her sudden vehemence. Then he swiftly recovered and seized the offensive. “I wouldn’t have wasted my time in coming here if I didn’t have something in mind,” he said, shifting his weight uneasily, like a boxer. “Since you don’t keep your money in my bank, I can only judge your financial situation from what I see. You live in a rented, two-bedroom shack next to the cemetery. You don’t own a buggy or even a horse, and as for your clothes—”

“My clothes are clean and modest and in good repair.” Harriet’s fists clenched against the skirt of her faded gingham dress. “If I don’t look like a page from a fashion magazine, that’s none of your concern, nor is the way I live! Aside from the matter of Will and Jenny, you and I have nothing to say to each other, Mr. Calhoun! Now kindly get out of my classroom and leave me in peace!”

He loomed over her, making everything in the room seem small. Blue lightning crackled in his eyes. “For what it’s worth, Miss Smith, I own this building and the land it sits on,” he said. “That would make it my classroom. And I don’t intend to leave you in any kind of peace until you’ve heard me out.”

Harriet willed herself to ignore her liquid knees and slamming pulse. She faced him squarely, her chin up, her features composed, her eyes meeting his in a steady gaze. But when she spoke, her shaking voice betrayed her. “Go on, then. I can hardly throw you out with my bare hands.”

One dark smudge of an eyebrow slid upward in unspoken challenge, as if to imply he’d like to see her try manhandling him; but when he spoke, his manner was cold and formal. “Very well. I’m prepared to make you and your brother an offer. I think you’ll agree that it’s more than generous.”

“I’m listening.” Harriet felt as if the ground had dissolved under her feet, leaving her with no solid place to stand. He was so imposing, so damnably sure of his power to turn her to quivering jelly. She found herself wishing he would give her an excuse to slap his insolent face. Of all the girls in town, why had Will chosen to fall in love with the pampered only child of a man like Brandon Calhoun?

He took a deep breath, the air rushing into his powerful chest. “Here’s my offer,” he said, pulling a folded paper out of his vest. “Leave town within the week, the two of you, and I’ll pay your way to wherever you want to go. If your brother agrees never to contact Jenny again, I’m prepared to pay for his college education. Every penny of it.”

Harriet stared up at him, shocked into silence by his audacity. The offer was more than generous; it was unimaginable.

She struggled to keep her wits about her, but her head had already begun to spin—as he had doubtless known it would. Over the years she had saved her own money for Will’s education, living like a pauper so that she could send every spare cent to the Denver bank where she kept her savings. By now, she calculated, she had enough to pay for three years of college. Somehow, with Will working summers, they would manage the fourth year.

But if Brandon Calhoun were to pay for Will’s education, the money she had saved would be hers. Dear heaven, she would be able to travel—to England, to Italy, to all the places she’d dreamed of seeing. Or she might even be able to buy her own small house, with space for a garden and no landlord to trouble her for the rent. It would be like a dream come true.

All she needed to do was to strike a bargain with the devil.

He was watching her, his steel-blue eyes wary but confident. Harriet could almost read his thoughts. This sorry spinster, so drab in her worn gingham frock, could not possibly be foolish enough to turn him down. Just like anyone else, the woman had her price. For a few thousand dollars he would be rid of her and her troublesome brother once and for all, with no stain on his own conscience or reputation.

Brandon Calhoun thought he could buy them off, as if they were common trash; as if they were so poor and so devoid of pride that they would take his charity—or bribery, to call it by its real name. She was as anxious to keep Will and Jenny apart as he was, but not at such a price. What a smug, self-righteous prig he was!

The wave of outraged pride that welled up in Harriet almost swept her off her feet. “How dare you?” She flung the words at him. “I am not for sale, Mr. Calhoun, and neither is my brother! I have enough money saved to pay for Will’s education myself. And as for our leaving, I have a two-year contract and twenty-three children who will be without a teacher if I desert them. If you’re so anxious to keep your daughter from associating with common folk like us, you might want to consider leaving town yourself!”

He glowered at her, his face burning as if she had slapped him. Harriet fought the impulse to shrink away from him. Even with her heart pounding and her legs buckling beneath her petticoat, she could not let this man intimidate her.

“Very well,” he said in a flat, cold voice. “I made you a fair and generous offer and you rejected it. All I have left to say is, keep your brother in line for his own good, Miss Smith. If he so much as speaks to my daughter, I’ll have the law on him!”

With those words, Brandon Calhoun turned on his heel and stalked out of the schoolroom.

Harriet stood rooted to the floor, gazing after him as he disappeared down the path in a swirl of fallen leaves. Her hands were shaking and the inside of her mouth felt as if she’d swallowed a fistful of dry sawdust.

Stumbling backward, she collapsed onto the cramped seat of a first-grade desk. Outside, the sun was sinking below the peaks. Its fading light cast dingy shadows on the schoolroom walls. The breeze that blew in through the open doorway had turned bitter. Harriet wrapped her arms around her trembling body, too stunned to even get up and close the door.

Had she done the right thing? Heaven help her, should she have swallowed her pride and accepted Brandon Calhoun’s offer?

Her spirit sank deeper as a gust of wind rattled the trees, ripping leaves off the branches and scattering the math papers on her desk. Maybe she should have put the banker off, told him she’d think on the matter and let him know. At least she should have spoken with her brother before making such a rash decision—but no, that would have changed nothing. Will was head over heels in love with the banker’s pretty, shy daughter. Young as he was, he had his own share of family pride. His answer would have been the same as hers.

Now what? How could she keep her brother from pursuing Jenny Calhoun—especially when Jenny seemed as eager as he was?

Harriet’s head throbbed at the thought of what lay ahead. Brandon had spoken truly about one thing. Will was eighteen years old, practically a man, and the only control she had over him was what little he allowed her. Her only hope was that her headstrong brother could be made to listen to reason.

Keep your brother in line for his own good, Miss Smith. If he so much as speaks to my daughter, I’ll have the law on him!

The words rang in Harriet’s ears as she staggered to her feet, shoved the door closed and bent to gather her wind-scattered papers. Could Brandon Calhoun really put her brother in jail? There was no law, surely, against two young people falling in love, but as the most influential man in town, the arrogant banker had the means to accomplish anything he wanted.

Would he carry out his threat, or worse? Either way it was a chance Harriet could ill afford to take. She had no means of knowing what lay in the darkness of Brandon’s heart. The only certainty was that she had made a very dangerous enemy.

Chapter Two

All the way home Harriet struggled with the question of what to tell her brother. Given the power, she would have chosen to wipe out the shattering encounter with Brandon Calhoun, the way she might erase a child’s botched arithmetic problem from the blackboard. That way, Will would never know what she had thrown away out of pride; nor would she need to make it clear that she was still dead set against his courtship of Jenny.

But that kind of denial was useless. One way or another, Will was bound to ferret out the truth. It was best that he hear it from her.

The wind plucked at her thin skirts, raising gooseflesh on her legs as she passed along the weathered picket fence that ringed the cemetery. Blowing leaves danced among the tombstones like ghostly spirits in the twilight.

Harriet pulled her thin wool shawl tighter around her shoulders. She’d been told that winters were long and harsh in this high mountain valley, but she had comforted herself with the thought that Will would be with her through the cold months to shovel the paths, chop wood for the stove and provide companionship on dark, snowbound evenings. Now she found herself wondering if it might not be best to send him to Indiana before the storms set in. He wouldn’t be able to start college until spring term, but maybe he could find work and a place to board until then. It would be a dear price to pay, for she truly wanted his presence over the winter. But at least he would be far away from Jenny Calhoun and her fire-breathing dragon of a father!

Harriet’s resolve began to crumble as she opened the door of the unpainted clapboard house and stepped over the threshold into its dusky interior. The place would be so lonely without Will. Worse, he was only eighteen, little more than a boy! And they had no relatives anywhere who might take him in. Sending him away to school was one thing, but simply putting him on the train was quite another. If he left now, he would be entirely on his own, easy prey for any opportunist who happened along! Merciful heaven, how could she just turn him out into the world, so innocent and untried?

Harriet was still struggling with the dilemma twenty minutes later as she sliced the bread and set the table for supper. The fire in the stove flickered on the rough-cut walls, lending a touch of warmth to the bleak kitchen with its small alcove that served as a parlor. Brandon had been right about the house. It was a shack in every sense of the word. Even the homey touches Harriet had added—the calico curtains, the crocheted afghan draped over the rocker and the framed family photographs on the wall— could not relieve the drabness or stanch the cold draughts that whistled between the boards.

She had rented the cheapest place she could find so that she could save the remainder that was needed for her brother’s education. True, she may have carried frugality too far this time. But there was nothing to be done about it now, except to thank the good Lord that she and Will had a roof over their heads, food on the table and the bright promise of days to come.

She was stirring last night’s leftover beans when she heard the scrape of Will’s boots on the stoop. Harriet could tell from the weary cadence of the sound that he’d put in a long, hard day at the feed store. At an age when many boys were sowing their wild oats, Will did the labor of a man. But he would not always have to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. She would see to that. She owed that much to their parents, who had cherished such hopes for him.

Will stumbled inside as if the wind had blown him through the open doorway. His hair and clothes were coated with dust from loading sacks of feed. His body sagged with weariness, as if he had spent the past nine hours carrying the weight of the world on his young back.

“Supper will be on by the time you’re washed,” Harriet said, wishing she had a better meal to offer him than bread and beans, and more cheering conversation than what she needed to tell him. But the present trouble was Will’s own doing, she reminded herself. Much as she loved her brother, she could not condone what he had done or shield him from the consequences.

As she was ladling up the beans, Will emerged from the back of the house, his face scrubbed, his dark hair finger-combed and glistening with water. His lanky frame folded like a carpenter’s rule as he sank onto the rickety wooden chair. He was still awkward, like a yearling hound, with big feet and big hands and a body that was all bone and sinew. His face might one day be handsome, but for now there was an unformed quality about his features. His nose seemed too big, his jaw too long and gaunt and his chin was punctuated by an angry red pimple. Only his eyes, like two quiet black pools, showed the true character of the man who waited within the boy.

He was too thin, Harriet thought. He worked too hard and laughed too seldom. And now he was hopelessly, determinedly, in love. Heaven help them all.

She murmured a few words of grace over the food, then waited until he had buttered his bread and taken a few bites of food before plunging into her account of Brandon Calhoun’s offer and her own defiant refusal.

She had expected him to be upset, but he ate as he listened, chewing his beans and bread in silence as the story spilled out of her.

By the time she’d reached the end of it, Harriet felt as if she had lived through the encounter a second time. Her pulse was ragged, her breathing shallow, as if an iron band had been clamped around her ribs. Gazing into Brandon’s angry blue eyes had been like facing a charging buffalo or leaning into the face of a hurricane. Even the memory left her nerves in tatters.

“The man was simply monstrous,” she said. “He threatened—actually threatened—to see you in jail if you came near his daughter again, and I’ve no doubt that he has the power to do just that. Be careful, Will. Brandon Calhoun owns a good piece of this town. He has influential friends and people who are in his debt. A word from him and your whole future could be ruined.”

Harriet’s gaze dropped to her untouched plate as she struggled to collect her emotions. All her life she had protected her young brother. Now he was nearly a man, but it was clear that he still needed her protection and good judgment.

She raised her eyes to find him sopping up the last of the beans with the crust of his bread. His face wore such a faraway expression that Harriet found herself wondering whether he had heard a word she’d said. Will had seemed unusually preoccupied of late. She had chalked it up to the vagaries of puppy love. But maybe there were other things troubling him. Maybe she should have been talking less and listening more.

“Are you all right, Will?” she asked, feeling the weight of sudden apprehension. “Is there something you need to tell me?”