“The moment I came home this afternoon to spend some time with my children, Emily started to cry. She said Davy had been acting up and was being punished—”
“He was—but never with the rod!” Ingrid blurted, astonishing herself as tears blurred her eyes. She felt so maligned, so unjustly accused, that her usual shyness at being addressed by most adults flew right out the window. “He left a short while ago after completing his punishment. It’s plain as day what he wrote, Sheriff Logan!I will not misbehave in school!”
Ingrid flung the eraser to the floor in a cloud of chalk dust and skirted the desk to rush past him, wiping away tears from her cheeks with trembling fingers.
“Miss Hagen!”
He hadn’t shouted at her, but had spoken with such stern authority that she imagined he thought she would stop dead in her tracks.
She didn’t stop. Instead she ran out the front door and down the wooden steps, not caring at all if she left the place unlocked. He was the town sheriff after all! Let him lock the door after himself!
Nearly blinded by angry tears and the bright afternoon sun, she hoisted her skirt and rushed on, slowing her pace only a little to keep from stumbling. Thankfully her home was only a few blocks from the schoolhouse, which was situated at one end of town, and she couldn’t wait to seek refuge in her room.
Odious, horrid man to have jumped to such a terrible conclusion about her! Overcome by indignation, Ingrid swiped damp tendrils of blond hair from her face that had come loose from the thick bun at her nape. She could feel sweat trickling down her back in the scorching heat.
Why, oh, why had she ever wanted to become a teacher? She couldn’t even keep control of one unruly boy—and now to have David’s father accuse her of inflicting corporal punishment on his son?
“Oh my, child, look out!”
Ingrid gasped, so lost in her tumultuous thoughts as she prepared to cross the street that she nearly ran into a diminutive elderly woman who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Only then did Ingrid hear the shrill neighing of horses, a loaded wagon rumbling by only inches from both of them.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” Ingrid cried, coughing from the dust thrown up from the wheels. “You just saved my life!”
Amazingly, her companion didn’t seem ruffled at all, not a silvery hair out of place beneath her trim brown bonnet.
“I’m fine, child, perfectly fine,” she said with a lilting Norwegian accent. “But you must take care to watch where you’re going from now on, will you promise me?”
Ingrid bobbed her head, still stunned by so close a call as the older woman smiled at her kindly. “I didn’t even see you standing there.”
“I know. Not so surprising when your mind is elsewhere. It’s easy to judge others when we’ve been sorely misjudged. Things are not always as they appear, child. Oh, my, he does look concerned, doesn’t he?”
He? Ingrid spun around to see Sheriff Logan dismount from his horse, a brown and white paint stallion, and come striding toward her.
“Miss Hagen, you could have been killed! It’s a miracle you stopped in time.”
She bristled, her cheeks still wet from tears caused by his baseless assumption. Yet before she could utter a word, he swept off his hat and stared at her solemnly.
“I apologize for distressing you. It was wrong of me to presume—”
“Yes, it was!” Ingrid spouted before he could finish, drawing herself up to face him squarely. “I’m doing my best for the children of Walker Creek, but it doesn’t help when I have a student intent upon disrupting class at every turn. I asked David to stay after school so I could speak to him in private, but he refused to say more than a few words to me! I had to devise some fair punishment—”
“Today is the anniversary of his mother’s death, Miss Hagen. My wife, Mary, one year ago. It’s no excuse for Davy’s misbehavior in class, but at least that explains it. Of course, being new here, you couldn’t have known…”
Ingrid stared at Sheriff Logan as he seemed to gaze into the distance for a moment, while she felt her breath had jammed in her chest.
The anniversary of David’s mother’s death? Ingrid had learned shortly after she arrived in Walker Creek that the sheriff was a widower when Caleb had shared some background about the town’s citizens, but not that his poor wife had died only a year ago.
Swamped with remorse, Ingrid saw grief etched into his rugged features, which made him appear older than the late twenties she guessed as his age. When he focused upon her face again, his eyes held unmistakable sadness that told her Sheriff Logan must have dearly loved his wife.
“I’m so sorry, truly,” Ingrid murmured, her heart aching for him as well as for his children. She felt sickened for having punished David, but she hadn’t known the reason behind his misconduct, just as his father had said. Yet it didn’t make her feel any less wretched for not trying harder to encourage the boy to open up to her. “Please tell David I hope he won’t be reluctant to come to school tomorrow.”
“He’ll be there bright and early, Miss Hagen, and he won’t cause any more trouble, I promise you.”
“Oh, no, Sheriff, you’re not going to discipline him, are you?” Ingrid stepped toward him, alarmed. “David must feel terrible as it is, what with his mother and all. If you’d allow me to accompany you, we could talk to him together. I want to assure him that I’m not upset and that we’ll start fresh in the morning like nothing happened at all—”
“Not upset?” Sheriff Logan cut her off bluntly, glancing down to brush chalk dust from his black trousers. “I’d hate to see you truly angry, Miss Hagen. You could have spared me some gray hair from seeing that wagon nearly run you down if you’d just stopped to hear my apology at the schoolhouse.”
She gaped at him, about to retort that if he hadn’t falsely accused her, she wouldn’t have stormed off like a wild hoyden. She didn’t have a chance, though, as he’d already donned his hat and turned back to his horse.
