Redemption Read Free Page A

harshly.
    “I’ve had articles in the weekly newspaper,” she said. “I’d have thought you read the Green Rapids Gazette , and might even have recognized that there was a new teacher at the school.”
    She was smart-mouthed, he decided. A woman who spoke her mind. He could just imagine the sort of articles she wrote. A smile begged for existence on his lips as he considered her. Her writing was no doubt aimed at cleaning up the saloons and driving the women who worked there out of business.
    “Get to the point, Miss Merriweather.”
    She inhaled and her ample bosom rose in response. He’d never been overly fond of women so well endowed, but she was well-formed, if a bit too full-figured for his taste. Even so, the dress she wore concealed a shape beneath its folds that would bear further study. And suddenly that idea appealed.
    “I think Jason should be made to come to the schoolhouse, and at least sweep up the mess he made, and then help me board up the windows until I can get Ben from the hardware to replace the glass.”
    “You’re going to board up the windows?” he asked. “And you want Jason to clear up the broken glass?”
    She shot him a level glance. “He broke it, didn’t he? He needs to learn that there are responsibilities that go along with his actions.”
    “And if he cuts himself in the process?” Deliberately, he was making this difficult, but the woman was persistent and he was rising to the challenge.
    “What if he burns himself cooking on your stove, Mr. McPherson?” She pursed her lips and then lifted a brow as if she awaited a reply.
    “Well, you have me there, ma’am,” Jake answered. “The difference is in who takes the blame for his injury.”
    “In the case of the windows, he takes the blame, sir. Both for the damage he wrought on the school, and for any harm he comes to in the resolution of the problem.”
    “He’s only nine years old,” Jake said, intent on continuing the argument, the best one he’d had in a month of Sundays. This woman knew how to hold her own.
    “He may never reach his tenth birthday if he doesn’t learn some rules of decent behavior,” she said firmly. “He has half the parents in town out for his hide. There isn’t a boy in school safe from his fists, and the little girls have suffered ink splattered on their dresses and skinned knees from being pushed down in the schoolyard.”
    Jake was silent, absorbing her words. If it was indeed as bad as all that, the boy had to be taken in hand.
    “I’ll agree to him cleaning up the mess,” he said grudgingly. “As soon as he’s eaten his supper, I’ll send him on over.”
    She gritted her teeth. He saw her jaw clench and noted the militant gleam in her eyes as she defied him again. “He’ll do it now. I won’t be eating my supper until the windows are boarded up and the school isback in shape for tomorrow. He can just do without his meal until that’s been accomplished.”
    “Do you always get your way, Miss Merriweather?” Jake asked, fuming inwardly, yet aware that the woman had a point.
    “Only when I’m right.” The words were a taunt, delivered with a smug smile. Then she clutched her reticule and stiffened her spine. “Now, will you tell him to come along with me? Or shall I go out into your kitchen and drag him out the back door?”
    “It’s against the law to manhandle a child who is not your own,” Jake told her.
    “I have the right to discipline the children in my classroom,” she reminded him. “The school board has put that into my contract.”
    He might as well let the creature have her way. She was going to go over his head if he didn’t give in gracefully. Or at least without a fuss.
    He raised his hand from the arm of his chair and waved toward the closed kitchen door. “He’s on the other side of that, ma’am,” he told her. “I’ll warrant his ear is glued to it, in fact.”
    “Call him in here,” she said, moving to plant herself halfway down the hallway.