The final bell rang at three o’clock, and after giving the children a last reminder to push in their chairs, Chloe dismissed them for the day.
Relief flowed through her that this school day was finally over. Not that she didn’t like her job. She loved being a teacher, loved the kids, but this day had gone from bad to worse. She just wanted to go home, put her comfy sweats on, and curl up on the sofa with a warm cup of tea.
Not that she would. Between grading papers, making two dozen cupcakes for the bake sale the next day, and figuring out what the heck she was going to do about her car, she still had hours of work ahead of her. She wasn’t ready to admit she also wanted to go home to where it was quiet so she could relive and analyze every moment of the time spent that morning with Colt. She still couldn’t believe she’d crashed into him. Of all the people in Creedence, Colorado, she had to run into the guy she’d been crushing on for the past two months, but had been too timid to say more than a few words to.
Not that a guy like Colt James would ever take notice of her. She knew he was just being friendly and doing that gentlemanly thing that all the James brothers were known for, but she certainly took notice of him.
She let out a dreamy sigh and clutched her planning book to her chest as she remembered how it had felt to be cradled in his arms as he’d carried her to his truck. He’d picked her up like she weighed nothing, and she’d wanted to cuddle against him, wanted to bury her face in his neck and inhale the scent of his aftershave. Heck, she’d wanted to lick him and claim him as hers.
Stop it, she admonished herself, rolling her eyes at her own foolishness. Hadn’t she just established that there was no way a guy like Colt would be interested in her licking anything of his?
Lord have mercy. Now all she could think about was licking him. Heat flared to her cheeks, and sweat gathered in the center of her back. She fanned herself with the planning book and let out another sigh as she looked around her classroom.
Her brain had been too fuzzy with thoughts of Colt and her damaged car, and she’d let the last half hour of arts and crafts go longer than usual. Trails of gooey glitter and scraps of construction paper littered the craft table, and piles of books lay scattered on the floor in the reading corner. Normally she wouldn’t let the kids out until they’d cleaned all the stations and returned the room to its tidy state, but today she’d figured it would be easier to clean it herself than make the kids stay after the bell rang.
It took her only a few minutes to wipe the tables clean and return the books to their assigned shelves. She pushed the last book neatly into place, then ran her fingers over the straightened spines. Her chest eased as she scanned the neatly ordered book corner. An overstuffed chair sat in one corner, and she’d arranged carpet squares in a perfect rectangle in front of the bookshelf.
Each section of her classroom was organized and arranged so everything had a place and a purpose. She tried not to think too much about her need for tidiness, preferring to brush it off as a quirky part of her personality, but she knew the more she felt in control of her surroundings, the more she felt in control of her life. Her mom had left when she’d still been a kid, and the duties of cooking meals and keeping the house had fallen to Chloe. It didn’t take her long to figure out that the best way to keep her dad happy—to control his moods, to keep him from going to the dark place—was to keep the house clean and the chores done. And even though her dad was gone now, it still settled her to straighten and tidy and keep her surroundings neat. It wasn’t a full-blown obsession, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to go to bed with dishes left in the sink or leave for the day with her classroom in disarray. Even if she did have a million things she still needed to do that afternoon.
A timid knock sounded at her door, and she looked up to see one of her former students standing just inside the room.
“Hi, David,” she said, pushing to her feet.
“Hi, Miss Bishop.” He stared at the floor as he shifted from one foot to the other. After a few seconds, he looked up and glanced around the room before nodding at the black-and-white guinea pig rustling in the cage sitting on the counter. “I was just wondering if I could come see Oreo.”
“Yes, of course. Would you like to feed him a carrot?” She crossed to the mini-fridge behind her desk, pulled out a bag of baby carrots, and dumped several into a bowl.
The boy shrugged and crossed to the cage. “Sure, I guess.” His coat was threadbare and hung loosely on his small frame. His dark hair was in need of a cut, and he brushed his bangs from his eyes before taking the bowl of carrots.
“You know Oreo only likes to eat carrots if you eat one too,” she reminded him, her heart breaking as she watched him gingerly push a carrot into the cage before stuffing one in his mouth.
David was in fourth grade now, but he had been one of her most challenging students a few years before. Not that he wasn’t bright enough; he was smart as a whip, but his home life often prohibited him from turning in his homework or, at times, just staying awake in class. He’d made excuses for a long time, then finally admitted that his family didn’t always have electricity and sometimes slept in a car or in the homeless shelter.
Poverty was an issue for several of Chloe’s students, and she tried to bring in healthy treats once or twice a week. Plus she always kept extra snacks and protein bars in her classroom.
She opened the cupboard above her head and drew out a box of graham crackers. She tore open the top of a fresh pack and held it toward him. “I was just about to have a cracker. You want one?”
He shrugged again but took a cracker. She left the rest of the package on the counter and busied herself with straightening the art supplies next to the cage.
“So what’s new? Anything exciting happening in fourth grade?” She kept her tone nonchalant, her focus on the tubes of glitter she was arranging by color.
“Nothing much.” He kept his eyes trained on the guinea pig, pushing his finger through the bars of the cage to pet the end of the animal’s nose. His voice was soft, and he seemed to be talking to the guinea pig instead of her. “I got an A on my math quiz last week.”
“Wow. That’s awesome. Good for you.” She expected to see his shoulders pull back with pride, but they stayed slumped forward. There had to be something else going on. “How’s your little sister doing?”
“Fine.”
Hmm. That wasn’t it. She tried a lighter approach, knowing he’d eventually get around to what was troubling him. “Read any good books lately?”
He shook his head, and his eyes cast to the floor. “Nah. Miss Ledbetter doesn’t have as many books in her room as you do.”
“Would you like to read a book?”
He shrugged again. “Kinda. I’m supposed to read one at home and do a book report on it.”
Chloe patiently waited, holding her tongue in hopes his would loosen.
“But…ya see…we moved again, and it didn’t work out to bring all our stuff…so I don’t really have any books at my house right now.” He scratched at a small scab on the back of his hand. “And I don’t have my notebook anymore either.”
Chloe pressed her lips together as a ball of anger burned in her chest. What was wrong with that Miss Ledbetter? How could she give out an assignment that some of the kids in class couldn’t complete? Joyce Ledbetter was new this year and seemed more concerned with hanging out and gossiping in the teachers’ lounge than taking her turn for recess duty. She’d tried to share some tidbit of a rumor with Chloe earlier in the year, but Chloe had shut her down and hadn’t spoken to her much after that. But this was unacceptable. So she’d be speaking to her now.
Chloe tried to keep her own shoulders from slumping because she knew she wouldn’t actually confront Joyce. No matter how outraged she was, she didn’t have the guts it took to challenge another teacher. She avoided confrontation like the plague.
But she was fearless when it came to helping her kids. And she could help David. She nodded to the bookshelf in the reading corner. “I’ve got plenty of books. Probably too many. In fact, you’d be doing me a favor if you took one or two of them home with you. It would make more room on my shelf. And then you’d have one to do your report on.”
The boy let out his breath, and the tightness in his shoulders eased. “Yeah, I guess I could do that. If it would help you out and all.”
“It really would. And I think I’ve got an extra notebook around here that’s cluttering up my cupboard.” She opened another cabinet and peered inside. Every summer, she combed the back-to-school sales and stocked up on extra supplies. Grabbing an extra pencil and a blue notebook from the stack, she passed them to David, then nodded toward the bookshelf. “Why don’t you go take a look and see if there are any books that interest you?”
He tucked the notebook under his arm and grabbed the remaining graham crackers before crossing to the reading corner and plopping down in front of the books.
Chloe busied herself with rinsing the carrot bowl as David pulled almost every book from the shelf and thumbed through them, scattering cracker crumbs across their pages as he tried to pick which two to take home.
She didn’t care, didn’t even cringe, didn’t give a second thought to the mess she’d have to clean up or to the fact she’d be even later getting home. The smile on David’s face and the soft chuckle of laughter he gave as he found a book he liked were worth everything.
“I found a couple,” he told her, holding up two.
She peered at the books. “Great choices. But that one is the first in a series, so you should take the second one in the series too. In case it ends with a cliffhanger.” She handed him an extra book. “Let me know what you think, okay?”
“Okay, I will.” He stared down at the toe of his shoe, a pink flush coloring his cheeks. “Thanks, Miss Bishop. You’re the best.”
“You’re the best, David. I know your book report is going to be great.” She crossed to her desk and pulled out her drawer, then gave him the all-natural protein bar she’d been saving to eat after her classes ended for the day. “I always like to have one of these while I read. It helps me think clearly. You better take this one. Just in case.”
He nodded. “Okay. Just in case.”
She followed him out the door and watched him head down the hallway before turning and bumping directly into the hard-muscled chest of the object of her earlier licking fantasies.
He grunted as he grabbed her shoulders to steady her. “Woman, you are bound and determined to wreck into me today, aren’t you?” he teased.
“Colt, what are you doing here?” Her skin flushed. Her cheeks burned warm enough to roast marshmallows over.
“I thought you might need a ride home.” He held up her snow boot. “And, since it hasn’t stopped snowing yet, I figured you’d be needing this.”
Thankfully, she kept a pair of sneakers at school to wear when she had recess duty, so she hadn’t had to go shoeless all day, but her day had been so crazy, she hadn’t given much thought to what she was going to wear after school. Or to how she was going to get home.
She took the boot from him. “Thank you. That was really thoughtful.”
He shrugged. “It was no big deal. I was out anyway.”
Of course. He was just being nice. He would do the same for anyone, she was sure. That’s just the kind of guy he was. Why would she think it had anything to do with her? She did nice things for people all the time. It didn’t mean she was attracted to them.
“I just have a few things to finish up, then I’ll be ready. If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes.”
“I don’t mind.” He sauntered into her classroom and gazed around at all the things she had on the walls. “Your class is nice. Everything is so neat.”
She flushed again. Like he’d just told her she was pretty instead of complimenting her on her organizational skills. “Thanks. I like to keep things organized.” She sidestepped around him as if trying to block the messy reading corner. “Usually, I mean.”
He took a few steps closer and knelt down to gather a handful of books. His forearm brushed the side of her leg as he reached to put them back on the shelf. “I heard you with that kid before. You did a great job convincing him to take a few books and something to eat.”
He was listening? Her cheeks burned hotter, and the side of her leg where he’d touched her felt like it was on fire.
She should laugh off his compliment, dazzle him with her sparkling wit—do something, anything. But she couldn’t. Besides the fact that she was woefully lacking in sparkling wit, even when she wasn’t trying to talk to a devilishly handsome cowboy, her body felt so hot that if he said anything more, she was afraid she might spontaneously combust.
But she had to say something. She swallowed. Focus on the student. “Thanks. He’s a good kid. He’s just had a rough life.”
He nodded, obviously understanding. Holding a book up by one edge, he shook cracker crumbs from its pages. “He got a few crumbs on some of these.”
“It’s fine,” she said, trying not to cringe as he pushed the rest of the books back onto the shelf. It was fine. She could always go back and straighten them tomorrow.
He stood and turned to survey the rest of the room. “I like the bookworm.” He pointed to the segmented creature that circled the top of the room, each part of its body listing a child’s name and the book they’d finished reading.
She caught her breath as his arm skimmed her shoulder when he pointed. She stared at his chest, her mouth dry. His jacket was unzipped, and a stray thread had broken in the seam on his shirt. She wanted to reach up and pull it. Maybe his shirt would come apart and fall off. That could happen.
But she didn’t reach up, didn’t pull it. She kept her hands at her sides and tried to act natural. Like she had handsome men in her classroom every day. “Thanks. It’s a contest thing—anything to get the kids excited about reading.” Her voice was too high. It sounded stiff.
He studied the bookworm. “It looks like my nephew makes up a significant portion of your worm.”
She laughed and tried to relax her shoulders. This was more in her wheelhouse. She could talk about reading. “Yes. Max is definitely my best reader. I was glad to see him in my class again this year after they switched me from teaching second grade to third. His reading improved quite a bit over the summer. And he does a good job of getting the others excited about the books he’s just finished. Do you like to read?”
“Not the way Max does, but yeah, I enjoy it.”
“What are you reading now?”
He named a popular thriller that his mom had lent him. “How about you? What are you reading?”
Her cheeks warmed again as she thought about the western romance she’d been lost in the night before. For some reason, she’d been drawn to books lately about ordinary women and the swoony, hot cowboys who swept them off their feet.
Um, yeah. The reason is standing right in front of me—looking hot as heck in his snug Wranglers and cowboy boots.
She was saved from answering by the arrival of Maddie and two of her older brothers as they burst into the classroom.
“Can we get a ride home with you, Miss Bishop?” Maddie asked. “Jesse didn’t show up to get us today.”
The oldest Johnson boy, Jesse, was seventeen and wasn’t always the most responsible, but it seemed to Chloe that he took on more than his share when it came to raising his younger siblings. He’d worked the whole summer before to buy an old beater Toyota that he usually drove the kids to and from school in.
“You don’t have to,” Charlie, the older of the two boys, said, staring down at his feet. His canvas sneakers were shabby and ragged, and the corner of his dingy white sock poked through a small hole in the end of one. “I told her we could walk. It’s not that far.”
The junior high school that Charlie and his brother, Jake, attended was across the street from the grade school, and although it started earlier, it let out at the same time.
“Where’s Jesse?” she asked.
Jake shrugged. “Not here.”
“Well, I would love to give you all a ride home, but unfortunately, I had a little accident in my car this morning, and I’m having to beg a ride home myself.” She nodded toward the tall cowboy leaning nonchalantly against her desk. “And I don’t think Colt…er, Mr. James’s truck has enough room for all of us. Let me see if I can find another teacher.”
“I can take them,” Colt offered. “Didn’t you say you had a few things to do anyway?”
“Yes, but—” But what? She couldn’t very well say she’d rather have Colt give her a ride home than the three kids. And she wouldn’t dream of ever letting that happen. No, it would be easier for her to find another ride or just walk to her house.
“It’s no problem. I can run them home and come back to pick you up—take me twenty minutes tops. Will that give you enough time to finish up what you need to do?”
“Yes, but…you don’t have to do that,” she stammered. “I don’t want to put you out. I’m sure I can find a ride with someone else.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re not putting me out at all. I’m glad to do it.” He winked at her, and her insides went a little gooey. “Hey, what are friends for?”
Her mushy insides turned into a solid mass that landed hard in her stomach like a punch that drove her securely back into the boundaries of the friend zone.
What had she been thinking anyway? That Colt had shown up here because he was romantically interested in her—a neurotic, chunky schoolteacher with unruly curly hair and poor driving skills? She smoothed the front of her sweater over her stomach. Okay, so she wasn’t so chunky—not anymore. But she wasn’t thin, and the label still haunted her after spending the majority of her growing-up years known as Candy Bar Chloe after her classmates had discovered a stash of chocolate bars in her desk.
“Yeah, of course,” she stammered. “That sounds great. I’ll just finish up here and wait for you to come back.”
“Back in twenty,” Colt called over his shoulder as he herded the kids out the door.
Chloe sagged into the reading chair, realizing she was still holding her snow boot in her hand. She dropped it to the floor and fought the urge to thump her head against the bookshelf.
What are friends for?
His words echoed in her ears as she rearranged the books, then finished cleaning up her desk and gathered her things together for the night. Being friends with Colt was better than nothing, she decided as she slipped her feet from her sneakers and pulled on her snow boots.
She’d just need to keep her emotions in check when she was around him.
Her classroom door opened, and she looked up expecting to see the handsome cowboy, a traitorous smile already crossing her face. So much for keeping her feelings in check.
But it wasn’t Colt.
She tried to keep the smile in place. “Hi, Hugh.”
Hugh Nordon bounded into her room. He was the PE teacher and did almost everything with an energetic zeal. Fit and toned, his upper body bulged with well-defined muscles, and he was always willing to share a new fitness or healthy-eating tip he’d just heard about or tried. His dark hair was thick and wavy, and a mustache covered his upper lip.
“Hey, Chloe, did you get your tickets yet?”
“Tickets to what?” Oh great. Had she missed a memo about a school event?
He pressed his fists together and flexed his muscled arms. “Tickets to the gun show.”
She tried not to roll her eyes as she offered him the same kind of patient smile she’d give a second grader who’d told her a corny joke. “Good one, Hugh.”
“Seriously, I can’t even wear a jacket without a concealed weapons permit.”
“And the jokes just keep coming…”
“No, for real now, I heard you wrecked your car this morning and figured I’d give you a ride home. My SUV does great in the snow,” he said with his usual confidence in everything he chose to own, use, or wear.
“Thanks for thinking of me, but I’ve already got someone picking me up.”
“It’s not a problem for me,” he said, oblivious to what she’d just said. “I could even come in when we get there, in case, you know, you have anything around the house that needs some heavy lifting.” He smoothed the edges of his mustache and arched an eyebrow as if heavy lifting was code for something else.
She shook her head. “No, really, I’m good. I can’t think of anything like that. And like I said, I’ve got someone picking me up.”
“You sure? Because this is my ‘arms’ week for lifting, and I wouldn’t mind a little extra workout. I’ve been working on bulking up my biceps.” He took a step closer and grabbed her hand, then set it on his flexed bicep. “How do you think it’s going?”
Before she could answer, a deep voice spoke from the doorway of her classroom. “Am I interrupting?”
Chloe snatched her hand away as Colt walked in. “No, of course not. We were just fooling around. I mean, we weren’t fooling around. Hugh was just showing me his muscle.” She clamped her mouth shut—she was only making it worse.
But Hugh wasn’t fazed. He took a protective step in front of Chloe and lifted his chin. “Hugh Nordon. I teach physical education.”
Colt held out his hand. “Colt James—friend of Chloe’s. Nice to meet you, Huge.”
“It’s Hugh, actually,” he said, firmly grasping Colt’s hand.
The two men looked like they were sizing each other up as they crushed each other’s hands in viselike grips.
Oh brother.
“Hugh, this is the friend I was telling you about, the one who is giving me a ride home. Speaking of which, we’d better get going.”
“Good to meet ya,” Hugh said, extricating his hand from Colt’s and casually dropping his arm around Chloe’s shoulder. “I’m a friend of Chloe’s too.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She could almost taste the testosterone flying around in the air. She ducked out from under Hugh’s arm and grabbed her coat and Colt’s scarf from the peg behind her desk. She stuffed her arms into her jacket, wrapped the scarf around her neck, and grabbed her bags from her desk. “You ready to go?”
“Yup.”
“See you tomorrow, Hugh.” She turned off the light, then stood by the door as she waited for Hugh to leave. Finally getting her not-so-subtle hint, he gave her a nod before heading out the door and down the hall.
“Yeah, see you later, Huge,” Colt called, then looked down at her. “I like that guy. He seems nice.”
“Yeah, sure.” She playfully nudged him in the side with her elbow, shaking her head at his terrible efforts to conceal his grin.
She followed him outside, any more of their conversation cut off with the force of the blowing snow.
“My buddy towed your car in today,” Colt told her once they were in the truck and headed toward her house. “He runs Bud’s Auto Shop. He said most of the damage was to the door, and it wouldn’t take too much to fix it. But he’s going to have to keep the car for a few days at least.”
“Oh no.” That’s what she’d been afraid of. “Now I’ll have to file the accident with my insurance. Otherwise, I won’t be able to get a rental car.”
“You don’t need a rental. I can give you a ride the next few days until you get your car back.”
“Why would you do that?”
Please don’t say that’s what friends are for again.
“Because I feel partly responsible for the accident, and because I’d like to help you out.”
Ugh. She didn’t know which was worse—that he was doing it because he wanted to be her friend or because he felt responsible for her dumb driving mishap. “It’s too much. You really don’t have to.”
“Do you have another car in the garage?” he asked, completely ignoring her protests.
“No. In fact, all I have in there are boxes of junk and stuff from my dad that need to go to Goodwill.” She swallowed, the mention of the garage hitting her like a blow to the throat. For all her efforts at keeping her life tidy, the garage was the one place that she couldn’t quite sort out. It was the one area of her home—of her soul—that she truly couldn’t summon the courage to face.
It wasn’t just her dad’s old recliner and his collection of sports magazines. It was boxes of junk and layers of guilt packed in with a few remnants of shame and self-loathing. And every time she walked into the garage, she was reminded that it was the one area of her life that she still needed to “clean up,” to deal with, to finally lay to rest.
She’d tried many times—had gathered trash bags and boxes and set her mind to dealing with her dad’s stuff. Except it wasn’t just his physical stuff. It was all the stuff that he’d damaged in her, that she didn’t know how to fix or get rid of. No matter how much she prepared herself to stomp into the garage and hurl boxes into the trash or burn the magazines into charred ashes, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t break the hold her dad and his “things” still had over her.
“Then it’s settled. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven.” He grinned, oblivious to the inner war of regret coursing through her, then dipped his gaze to the scarf around her neck. “My scarf looks good on you, by the way. It matches your eyes.”
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, so flummoxed by the compliment that she forgot about the garage, forgot to keep arguing about him giving her a ride, forgot everything except the gloriously handsome man whose grin had just flipped her stomach inside out. She twisted the handles of her purse in her lap, trying to think of a more appropriate response than “I think you’d look good on me too.” She hadn’t said the words out loud, but just thinking them had heat darting up her spine.
“So, how was your day?” he asked, slowing for the one stoplight in Creedence.
“Crazy,” she answered, thankful to change the subject. “As if it hadn’t started out bad enough with the accident and running late, I also had to deal with three meltdowns, a glitter explosion, no recess because of the snow, two kids who called in sick, and one that should have, judging by the way he tossed his lunch all over his shoes.” She glanced over at him. “Were you actually asking how my day went, or was that one of those rhetorical questions where I was supposed to say fine?”
He chuckled. “No, I was really asking. Hopefully, your night will get easier.”
“Not hardly. I’ve got papers to grade, a load of laundry to do, and two dozen chocolate cupcakes to make for the bake sale tomorrow.” She pressed her lips together again—must stop blabbering on. What was wrong with her? Standing next to him in her classroom, she could barely force out two words, and now she suddenly had diarrhea of the mouth. “How about you? How was your day?”
“About the same. Except that no one threw up on their shoes. I helped Mason with some downed fence line this morning, then did quite a bit of plow work this afternoon, trying to keep the streets and parking lots cleared for the downtown businesses.”
She’d met Mason, Colt’s older brother, earlier that summer and had spent a little time with the James family when she’d helped run the snack bar for the annual alumni hockey game. Creedence loved its hockey and its most famous hockey player, Rockford James, Colt’s oldest brother, who played for the NHL. Rock had made headlines recently for his whirlwind wedding with his high-school sweetheart, Quinn Rivers. Now she saw Rock and Quinn frequently since it was Quinn’s son, Max, who was in her class again this year.
“Do you work for the city?” she asked.
“No. I just fill in when they need an extra hand. It’s one of about seven odd jobs that I fill in for.”
“That’s nice of you.”
He shrugged. “I like to stay busy, and I like helping people. Plus the extra cash doesn’t hurt.”
Extra cash? She wasn’t familiar with the term. Her teacher’s salary barely covered her expenses plus the endless additional supplies she frequently purchased out of her own pocket for her classroom. Thank goodness her dad had left her the house, which was bought and paid for, or she didn’t know what she’d do.
They pulled up in front of her house. How did that drive go by so fast?
She wasn’t ready for her time with him to end. Even if they were “just friends,” she could use a friend after the day she’d had. It wouldn’t hurt to ask him to come in for a hot drink—just to warm him up. It seemed like everything had been topsy-turvy today anyway, so maybe she should try something a little daring, and maybe he would say yes.
“Do you want to come in for something hot?” She froze, her heart slamming against her chest. She didn’t say… Oh, gosh, yes, she did. “I mean, something hot…to drink. Like some tea or coffee, is what I meant. To say.”
A grin tugged at the corner of his lips as he turned off the engine to the truck. “Sure. Something hot sounds good.”