by Laura Moore
So she ended her story with, “Then Cooper told me he was going to have Hayley moved into Tricia Creighton’s class, and he left. Good riddance—to him, not to Hayley, who obviously gets her brains from her mother.” Just to make sure everyone knew there was nothing left to the story, Jade grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it into her mouth.
Unfortunately, Margot wasn’t buying it; her older sister knew her too well. She pinned her with a long look. Jade wouldn’t have believed the itchy flush covering her throat and cheeks could intensify. It did. She felt like she’d broken out in a full body rash of guilt.
Stuffing her mouth with popcorn hadn’t been such a brilliant idea either. When she swallowed, the kernels scratched the inside of her too-tight throat.
A silence descended over the room. While Miriam and her sisters absorbed the story, Jade looked around the library—anything to avoid looking at their expressions—as if she’d never seen the portrait of Tallis, Rosewood’s first stud, or noticed the gold fringe on the lamp shades, or traced the swirling pattern in the Oriental rug with the toe of her shoe.
Jordan spoke first. “Well, I think you handled the situation admirably, Jade. I mean, what an impossible situation. And I must say, Rob Cooper is behaving very badly. I’m surprised. He should know better.”
Jade’s jaw went slack with astonishment to hear her sister criticize Rob Cooper, who basically epitomized moral rectitude.
“If I didn’t think it would only aggravate what’s already a difficult situation, I’d be tempted to give him a piece of my mind,” Jordan continued, apparently oblivious to her youngest sister’s shock.
“You and me both,” Margot said. “Good for you for handling parents’ night and Rob Cooper.”
That was the amazing thing about Margot and Jordan: Just when Jade was sure she could predict how they would react to her most recent debacle, they surprised her. She’d been expecting to be ostracized for having indulged in anonymous hotel sex. Instead, she got their love and support.
“And what about the Harrisons? Were they true to form?” Miriam asked.
“You know, I’d forgotten about them,” Jade said, almost cheerful to be discussing them. “But, yeah, I’d have to say old witch Nonie Harrison would have been right proud of her daughter-in-law. I have a hunch that Christy will be trying to switch Eugene out of my class too. According to her, I’m not providing a stimulating enough academic environment for Eugene—who’s not such a bad kid.”
Jordan, who could give Emily Post a run for her money, snorted loudly. Margot, Miriam, and Jade had to stifle their collective giggles at the sound.
“How absolutely typical,” Jordan said, with a disgusted shake of her head. “I just bet Nonie put that idea in Christy’s head. Well, if I know Ted Guerra, he’ll turn the Harrisons down flat, which of course will only enrage Nonie and Christy further and make them even more determined to get their way. Gosh, Jade, I am so sorry you had such a rotten night.”
“Está bien,” Jade said with a careless shrug. The petty maneuverings of the Harrison clan didn’t rank very high on her list of worries. She was far more concerned with what Ted Guerra would say to Rob Cooper and what her principal would think of her if Rob chose to enumerate his reasons for taking Hayley out of her class.
She really wasn’t looking forward to being called in to the principal’s office to account for herself—it brought back shades of high school.
At least her sisters were there for her, as they’d always been. Truth be told, she was always a little flabbergasted by their unwavering support. Though she knew she was looking a gift horse in the mouth, she couldn’t help asking, “So you guys aren’t going to tell me how utterly stupid I was down in Norfolk?”
Margot lifted an elegantly arched brow. “I assumed you’d worked that one out for yourself, kiddo.”
“And though I don’t approve of hookups, at least you were smart enough to use protection,” Jordan added, amazing Jade anew. Then again, having Owen as a hubby was about the best antidote one could find for easing painful memories of Richard, Jordan’s louse of an ex. Jordan and Owen would have gone through their fair share of prophylactics, of that Jade was sure.
Grinning, she said, “Yes, indeed, we went through my entire supply.” Her grin turned to laughter as her sisters and Miriam succumbed to fits of mirth.
“Hey, have I told you guys lately how lucky I am to have you around?” Reaching for the popcorn again, she grabbed a handful and shoved it in her mouth.
Margot leaned over to give her a fierce hug. “The feeling’s mutual, kid.” Settling back against the sofa’s cushions, she cocked her head and studied Jade, a smile playing over her face. “So, that Rob Cooper. He’s pretty cute, isn’t he?”
The popcorn in Jade’s mouth went flying.
The next morning, in search of a mega caffeine fix, Jade stopped at Braverman’s Bagels on the way to school. Braverman’s not only had the best bagels, muffins, and deli sandwiches in town, but George Rollins, who manned the espresso machine in the morning, made a terrific triple-shot cappuccino. A large cup of that and maybe a pumpkin muffin with a cream-cheese filling—one of Braverman’s seasonal specials—and one could face just about anything. Jade figured she needed all the extra help she could get.
While Tricia Creighton had sagely predicted how tough parents’ night would be, she hadn’t mentioned anything about the morning after or what to say when the principal asked why the parents of her students were determined to pull their kids from her class. Then again, Tricia probably never had that problem.
Entering the deli, Jade inhaled deeply. The scents in Braverman’s were always yummy, but especially so in the morning. The bagels were fresh out of the oven and cooling on the racks, the breakfast pastries nestled in a tantalizing row of cloth-lined baskets, and their yeasty, sugary aroma mixed with the scent of roasting coffee beans. Heaven.
Three people stood before her in line, and by the time the first customer was served and paid, she was nearly salivating. She was also a little panicky, because, even at that hour, only three pumpkin cream-cheese muffins remained and the first customer bought one of them. Jade wasn’t overly superstitious, but she figured her day would be ruined before it even had a chance to go south if she didn’t get a pumpkin muffin. Roger Braverman, the owner, was about the only baker in Warburg who could give Jordan a run for her money.
She fixed her eye on the remaining pair as the second customer, a middle-aged woman who definitely wasn’t a regular, dithered over whether she wanted a cinnamon raisin bagel, blueberry peach scone, or a pumpkin muffin. When the woman finally chose the scone, Jade breathed a sigh of relief. Only one person stood between her and the last two pumpkin muffins. And the man in front of her looked more like a bagel kind of guy.
When he ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese from Roger, Jade barely refrained from doing a fist pump. Yes, the morning wasn’t a total disaster.
“Please don’t tell me you plan to snatch up both of those pumpkin muffins,” a voice said.
Startled, Jade whirled around. A woman her age with black hair and blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face was standing behind her. Dressed in black Lycra exercise pants and a form-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt, she looked like she was about to hit the gym.
“Um, no.” Jade shook her head as she tried to place the woman. “Two would be greedy.”
“That’s a relief. I saw you watching them kind of intently, so I started worrying you were going to snag both of them. You’re Jade Radcliffe, right?”
Jade nodded, frowning unconsciously because she still hadn’t identified her.
“Emma Cooper,” the woman said with a smile. “I was a year behind you in high school. I’m Hayley’s aunt. She loves your class and is constantly talking about you.”
“Oh!” was all Jade could manage. Another Cooper, and she hadn’t had that coffee yet. Of course this was Rob’s younger sister. They had the same eyes and hair. But Jade didn’t remember being in high school
with her; she’d been too steeped in the misery that was her teenage life to notice much.
“Roger’s pumpkin and cream-cheese muffins are my absolute favorites, even if eating one means I have to tack on a half an hour extra to my workout. Good thing I’m teaching a strength class today.”
“You teach fitness?”
Emma nodded. “At Body Complete.”
That explained Emma’s taut physique.
“Hey, Jade, top of the morning to you. You want your usual?”
She turned to find that the customer before her had walked away from the cash register, white paper bag and paper coffee cup in hand. “Please, Rog,” she said, stepping up to the register, where Roger Braverman stood, looking dapper in a checked shirt and a fire engine-red bowtie.
“A triple-shot cappuccino for your sweetheart, George,” Roger called.
Stationed by his enormous gleaming espresso machine, George gave a nod. “You’re looking fine this morning, Jade.”
“Thanks, George. Back atcha.”
“What would you like with that coffee, Jade?” Roger asked.
“I’ll take a pumpkin muffin. You might as well bag the other one too. Emma Cooper’s also a fan.”
“Hey, Emma,” Roger said with the same easy familiarity. “You fueling up for your class?”
“That’s right. And can you pop a blueberry one in the bag for Rob?”
“Sure. How about one for Scott?” Roger asked after he’d added a fat blueberry muffin to the bag.
Emma shook her head. “He’s working a later shift today. He can buy his own.” To Jade, she said, “You’re lucky you came in before me, because I probably would have snatched up both those pumpkin muffins. Rob loves them too. He’ll have to settle for blueberry today. I love my brother, but it’s possible I love these muffins even more.” Her smile turned sly. “Of course I could tell him you bought the last one. He wouldn’t begrudge Hayley’s favorite teacher a well-deserved muffin, especially when you had to work overtime at parents’ night yesterday. How was it, by the way? I hope Rob didn’t give you a hard time.”
Jade returned the large paper cup Roger had just handed her to the counter, as her suddenly nerveless fingers would have bobbled it otherwise.
“Uh, well, I really couldn’t say—” she managed to reply. The most accomplished actress would have had difficulty responding normally to Emma’s question; the words Rob and hard conjured memories hotter than the coffee in Jade’s cup. She only hoped that if Emma noticed her embarrassment, she’d chalk it up to a new teacher’s self-consciousness.
Then, before Emma could ask any more questions that would doubtless prove acutely mortifying, she grabbed the coffee and muffin. “It was nice running into you, but I’ve got to head off—lots to prepare for today.” If not for the fact that she’d have doubtless ended up with coffee splattered down her skirt, she’d have sprinted out of Braverman’s and the company of one more Cooper.
It was the not knowing that caused the muscles in the back of Jade’s neck to tighten until it felt like a knife had been thrust between her shoulders. Even though Jordan had said Ted Guerra would dismiss both the Harrisons’ and Rob’s requests to transfer their children, Jade wasn’t convinced. She kept expecting Ted to walk into her room or send his assistant to take over for her so he could dispense the bad news in his office.
During recess, while the kids played a quick game of dodgeball that she and Andrea Hess, the gym teacher, organized, she found out from Andrea that Ted was away for the day, observing another elementary school. Then, at lunch, she took a minute to check her iPhone and saw that she had one message. It was from Ted, asking her to come to school early on Monday morning so that they could discuss the feedback he’d received from the parents after parents’ night.
The delay in hearing the bad news only made things worse. It made her heart ache, as if it were being torn into pieces. How could it not when Eugene got every clue right in his crossword puzzle and gave her a huge gap-toothed grin after she stuck a WAY TO GO! sticker on his sheet? Or when Hayley read Henry and Mudge aloud to her without faltering over a single word?
Finished with the story, Hayley had closed the book with a happy sigh and traced the picture on the paperback’s cover with her index finger. It was of Mudge and Henry sitting side by side, with Henry’s arm wrapped around his dog’s massive shoulders.
“Someday I want to have a dog like Mudge, and he can play with my uncle Scott’s dog, Dexter. I think Mudge is the kind of dog who would like horses too; don’t you think so, Miss Radcliffe?”
“I think he’s just the sort of dog that would like horses.”
“I bet he’d even like goats. Armadillos too,” she added with a decisive nod of her head. “Mudge is definitely the kind of dog I’d want.”
And Jade thought of how much she would miss hearing Hayley’s ideas and her dreams over the next few months. The little girl was so quirky and sweet. Jade would miss having to come up with precise answers for Eugene when he asked about Egyptian pyramids and how they cut and carried and transported all those blocks of stone, because Eugene liked to hoard facts the way a squirrel does nuts. And she’d definitely miss his daily report on Nemo’s whereabouts. Eugene had discovered that the tetra the class had named Nemo liked to hide in the sunken pirate ship. He had a personal Finding Nemo project going on.
It wasn’t even a full two weeks into the school year. How could she have become attached to these kids so very quickly?
When the bell rang for dismissal, the kids all hurried over to their cubbies to shrug into their windbreakers and sweatshirts, and to grab their things. Hayley’s cheerful call of “See you Monday morning, Miss Radcliffe!” before she raced out of the classroom, her purple backpack bouncing against her, had Jade blinking back foolishly sentimental tears.
She straightened the desks in the now-empty room and picked up stray odds and ends until the room was neat and orderly, ready to welcome the kids on Monday morning. Her last task was to insert the automatic fish feeder onto the wall of the aquarium, so the fish would have food over the weekend. It was good that the weekend was here, she told herself. She’d have two days of working with the horses and ponies. Two full days to put the disastrous encounter with Rob Cooper behind her and regain some sort of equilibrium.
Perhaps by Monday she’d be able to listen Ted Guerra break the bad news without bursting into tears.
HAYLEY HAD a playdate at Jenny Ferris’s, and because it was a Friday, Rob had agreed to let her stay for dinner. Maryanne, Jenny’s mom, was making chicken fajitas. According to Hayley, they were the best. After dropping her off, with a reminder to help set and clear the table, Rob went back to the station to swap his patrol car for his Mustang and change into a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt. Somehow he knew that being dressed in his police uniform when apologizing to Jade Radcliffe wouldn’t go over too well. The sight of his police car might get her back up too.
The mid-September afternoon had turned warm, almost summerlike. Rob drove with the windows down, and although he’d traveled only a few miles from the center of town, the air somehow smelled sweeter here, redolent of meadows and dense canopied trees. It was beautiful countryside and, as he turned into the winding drive that led to Rosewood, he tacked on the adjective grand to the description. The driveway to the Radcliffes’ historic home was longer than some of Warburg’s streets.
The Radcliffes had always been one of Warburg’s leading families. With the death of RJ Radcliffe, the patriarch, things had changed a bit—but not much, Rob reflected, as he drove along the long rows of wood fencing that protected the horses grazing in the pastures. Faced with bankruptcy due to the gargantuan debts their father had left behind, Jordan, Margot, and Jade had managed to hang on to the family estate and their horse-breeding business, both of which had been in the family since the nineteenth century. Despite the emotional ties the property held for the daughters, a lot of people in town had expected them to sell. Rosewood would have brought a
pretty penny. Instead, they’d defied those expectations, choosing to try and preserve their home and heritage.
While the sisters—even with Margot’s success as a fashion model—probably couldn’t boast the kind of fortune their father had once enjoyed, they’d managed to keep the horse farm going. Not just going but prospering, if the number of horses he passed in the fields were any indication. Even with Rob’s untrained eye, he could see they were beautiful animals, sleek-coated and muscular.
And now Jade had decided to expand Rosewood Farm’s business by offering children’s riding lessons. Rob figured a fair number of Warburg’s equestrian set would want their kids to ride at Rosewood simply because of its exclusivity. The snob factor would count for a lot among some here. But most would choose Jade because of her ability as a riding teacher. Considering her own extensive riding background and the fact that she’d taught her nieces and nephew to ride, that was pretty much a given.
He didn’t drive up to the stately house with its imposing columns and wide porches. Instead, he pulled up behind the largest of four barns—which, as barns went, were pretty grand too—and parked next to a late-model SUV he recognized as belonging to Travis Maher.
Rob liked Travis. Though he was a good ten years older than Rob, Travis had never given him a hard time when he was a rookie on the force—probably because Travis was the antithesis of his father, Red Maher, who’d been a mean-tempered drunk and a far-too-frequent guest of the station’s jail cell. Rob didn’t think Travis had shed many tears when his father’s liver gave out. Nor had Red’s long-suffering wife, who’d moved away after his death. Rob suspected Travis would have left Warburg too, if not for the fact that he’d found his calling working as Rosewood’s trainer and manager. And then there was Margot Radcliffe.
They were married now, and Travis was the envy of most men in Warburg—the holdouts being those who would like to be in Owen Gage’s shoes and married to Jordan, the eldest sister. Now that Jade was back in Warburg, he really didn’t want to think about how many men would begin lining up for the chance to date her.