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She was very aware of how everyone turned and gazed at her as Jeremiah took her to the table, where she was made to sit between him and one of his children, Kathryn. Nicole found that quite peculiar, for she knew the children usually ate away from their parents at another table.
Yet as she looked quickly around her, she noticed that all of the children were at their parents’ tables tonight.
She suddenly realized that there was something else unusual about the meal. A cake with burning candles sat in the center of the main table.
She wondered whose birthday it was.
“Surprise!” the children suddenly boomed out as they jumped to their feet so that they could see Nicole better.
“What?” Nicole gasped, her shawl falling away from her shoulders and onto her chair. “It’s not…my…birthday.”
“Well, no, it’s not,” Jeremiah said, drawing Nicole’s eyes quickly to him. “This was the first day of your teaching our children. We are all so happy to have you, especially the children, we felt that we needed to have a celebration of sorts, with you the person of honor.”
“Truly?” Nicole said, stunned by the sweetness of what these people had done for her.
She looked around her at the smiling faces of the children, and guilt spread through her with a strange coldness.
How could she leave these children when she knew just how happy they were to have her there?
“I don’t know what to say,” she gulped out.
She was terribly conflicted now about what she had planned to do. If it meant so much to the children that she was there, how on earth could she disappoint them by leaving after she had taught school for only one day?
Jeremiah fetched the cake, then placed it in front of Nicole on the table. “I know it might be strange for you to have candles on a cake when it is not your birthday,” he said. “But as I said, in a sense, it is your birthday. It is a birthday for all of our children. That is how much having a teacher means to them. We are truly established now in our new settlement, because we have a teacher. And you are a part of our community, too, even though you are not of Mormon faith.”
“But she will be!” the children chimed in, almost in the same breath. “We shall teach her about our faith as she teaches us our reading and mathematical skills.”
That made the color drain from Nicole’s face. She hadn’t even thought about becoming a Mormon, but wouldn’t Jeremiah expect her to be a woman of his faith if she was to be his wife?
Now, no matter that these children had welcomed her so wonderfully with a cake and candles, she knew she must leave.
She must escape tonight!
Jeremiah slid the cake back to the center of the table. “We’ll cut the cake after we have all eaten the main meal,” he said as the children scrambled to go and sit now at their usual assigned table.
Several men came and took the empty chairs away, and then women began bringing the bowls of food into the room. The smell of fried chicken filled the room.
Nicole scarcely tasted any of the food as she forced herself to eat. She almost gagged on each bite as she thought ahead to what she must do.
Even the corn on the cob, which was dripping with delicious freshly churned butter, had no flavor whatsoever to Nicole. It was as though all of her taste buds had been removed because of her fear and anxiety.
Through the entire meal, Nicole felt Jeremiah’s eyes on her, as well as Nancy’s and Martha’s. It must be plain to all that she was the object of Jeremiah’s affection and the women’s resentment.
Yes, she must leave.
But another problem hit her like a slap in the face when she recognized that the man across the table from her was one of the sentries who guarded the community.
How would she get around him and the others without their seeing her? How would she keep from being caught by Jeremiah?
Chapter Twenty-two
The smell of roasted meat lay heavy in the air as the campfire shot sparks heavenward from the grease dripping into the flames.
Sam Partain was too restless to sit and idly chat with his friends. He paced back and forth while ignoring the complaints of his men, who said that he was driving them wild by acting so nervous.
But Sam couldn’t stop his brain from thinking about Nicole and the fact that they had found no sign of her on the mountain today.
He and his friends had split up, covering much of the land where she could possibly have gotten on horseback, but they’d had no luck. That only meant to him that someone was giving her sanctuary.
