After she had taken Jeremy from the laughing crowd, she had searched in vain for a doctor. It wasn't until she was at the end of the main street, Eureka, that she came to a stone wall patrolled by armed guards. Looking over the wall at what lay on the other side was like standing in hell and looking at heaven. Across the wall seemed to be a pretty little village complete with a library and a church and several houses with white picket fences and flowers growing in front.
"Back on your side, sister!" said a burly man with a rifle, glaring at the two of them.
For a moment, Kathryn's mind was transported back to Ireland and the laws against trespassing on O'Connor land: O'Connor laws, O'Connor punishments.
When Kathryn was speechless and Jeremy could see the blood rising in her neck, he pulled himself up to his full height and announced that they wanted to see Mr. Cole Jordan.
"And what's your business with him?" said a second guard, who had come to see what the problem was.
"My mother is to teach his son," Jeremy said proudly.
At that the two guards looked at each other and started to laugh. "You?" one said.
"Jordan told us you were--" He was laughing too hard to finish the sentence.
"Got any guns on you?"
"I hardly think so!" Kathryn said, at last recovering her powers of speech.
"Think we oughta search her?" the first man said, then the other said, "Not unless you want Jordan cuttin' your throat."
With that pronouncement, the men parted and allowed the two of them to pass, only vaguely pointing the way toward the Jordan house.
Now, she and Jeremy were standing on the porch outside a large, rambling old house, and she was trying to make both of them presentable.
"Yes, I understand that we can't leave now. I'm not a child, you know," Jeremy said.
"You wouldn't have known it this morning. I still can't believe that you attacked that boy like that. Whatever possessed you?"
"He impugned your honor."
"Really, Jeremy, this is not the seventeenth century, and you do not have to defend my honor."
"I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't..." He hesitated as though he still couldn't believe what he'd seen. "If you hadn't kissed that man."
Since Kathryn had no excuse or even an explanation for her behavior, she thought it best to make no comment. "Now please remember your manners. I want both of us to make a good impression on Mr. Jordan." She took his chin in her hand and looked hard into his eyes. "Remember: We need this job!"
"Yes, Mother," he said dutifully. "I will do my best, but I hope you give me no further cause to--" The look his mother gave him made him decide not to finish that sentence. One could push Kathryn de Longe only so far, and well he knew her limits.
Raising her hand, Kathryn knocked, and moments later an elderly man ushered her into a nicely furnished parlor where they were told to wait. Minutes later the man returned and asked Kathryn to follow him to Mr. Jordan's office.
Once she was alone outside the room, Kathryn hesitated before knocking as she smoothed her hair and straightened her travel-stained garments. She would have liked to change, but what she had on was the best she had. There had never been money for more than one suit of clothing at a time.
"Come in," said a pleasant-sounding male voice and, smiling, she tucked her little leather portfolio under her arm and opened the door.
"You!" Two voices spoke in unison, both disbelieving. She was staring into the startled blue eyes of the man she'd... Well, that she'd kissed just an hour or so ago. So many thoughts went through Kathryn's mind that she couldn't speak. Would he fire her? Would he, as Jeremy said, "impugn her honor"? He couldn't, she thought--and prayed. He couldn't take this job away from her. She and Jeremy had to have it. And she had to make him understand that she was a respectable woman--all evidence to the contrary.
The man recovered first. "Look, I can't see you now. I have to interview a teacher for Zach, so you're going to have to come back later. Better yet, give me the name of the house you're working and I'll meet you there later. Right now you have to get out of here." While he was making this extraordinary speech he came around the massive desk, grabbed her arm, and started to usher her out a side door in the room.
"Unhand me!" Kathryn said in her sternest schoolteacher voice, but it had no effect on the man, so, with a twist, she freed herself and ran back to the middle of the room. In an instant he was beside her, about to grab her again.
Without thinking what she was doing, she dropped her case, made a leap, and grabbed what looked to be an army sword from where it hung on the wall. "Mr. Jordan, if you touch me again I'll use this on you. I assume you are Cole Jordan, that is."
For a moment Cole stood staring at her in stunned silence, then his handsome face lit up in amusement. Leaning back against the desk, he folded his arms across his broad chest. "Maybe you should remove the scabbard first," he said, eyes twinkling.
"All right," she said with disgust, then with what dignity she could muster, she replaced the sword on the hooks in the wall and picked up her case from where it had fallen to the floor. "So I don't know anything about weapons of any sort, I admit it, but then I'm a teacher not a fighter. Nor am I whatever else you think I am." Turning back, she smiled at him. "I think, Mr. Jordan, that you and I got off on a wrong foot. Perhaps we should start again." With her hand outstretched, she took the few steps toward him.
But Cole did not take her offered hand, and his face went from smiling to a frown. "Where did you hear of this? Who told you I needed a teacher? And who the hell are you?"