“The schoolhouse.”

He faced the men. “I’ll take care of Mrs. Harbaugh. She’ll be gone in a month.”

They started to cheer, then stopped suddenly and looked around. As if they weren’t allowed to be happy anymore.

“You swear?” Billy asked.

“In thirty days Mrs. Harbaugh will no longer be a problem. You have my word.”

He left them clustered together like cattle in a thunderstorm and started up the narrow street. Business had been good, he thought, taking in the two new stores and crowded streets. As he owned more than half the buildings and land in town, that meant his bank account would be full.

He saw there had been improvements, as well as trade. Wooden sidewalks had been started and there were flower boxes in front of many of the storefronts. A large sign in the general-store window proclaimed a meeting the next night for a reading of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. He would guess the “ham” one of the men had complained about was Hamlet. Not many schoolteachers who’d come to Titanville read Shakespeare. He would know. In the past eight years, he’d bedded most of them.

He turned left at the Titanville First Baptist Church, then headed out toward the two-room schoolhouse on the edge of town. When the original smaller building had burned down three years ago, he’d donated the money for the larger structure.

Two boys raced across the schoolyard, a kite flying above them. A few girls sat together, playing jacks. As he approached, a woman stepped out of the schoolhouse, glanced toward him, then shaded her eyes to watch his approach.

From what he’d heard, he’d expected the new schoolteacher to be tall, rail-thin and old. The woman in front of him barely came to his shoulder. She was young and pleasantly rounded with a full bosom. As he got closer, she dropped her hand. The scars someone had complained about were freckles. They went with her flame-red hair. And the cold eyes were, instead, the color of spring grass. Big and green and bright, framed by long lashes.