The Lawman's Romance Lesson

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Wynona?”

  Recognizing the voice, concern reared its head instantly. Because Wynona taught all day at the elementary school, evenings were reserved for her husband and stepson. Shania made it a point not to call her cousin except occasionally on the weekend. To have Wynona call her during the week and at this hour, something had to be wrong.

  Shania felt her stomach tightening as she asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Well, if there was, you wouldn’t have been home to find out,” Wynona answered.

  Shania felt obligated to explain why she hadn’t been home this one time. “I needed some company.”

  If Wynona had been harboring as much as a drop of annoyance—which she wasn’t—all pretense instantly vanished.

  “You could have called here, Shania. Or just come over,” Wynona told her.

  “That’s called intruding,” Shania pointed out, then explained, “I’m not about to invite myself over to your place, Wyn. You and Clint are still in the honeymoon stage.”

  She heard her cousin chuckle softly before saying, “Well, that’s about to change.”

  “Change?” Shania repeated. “Why?” She was back to being concerned. Was there a problem between Wynona and her husband? “You do realize that men require a lot of patience. Whatever Clint’s done, he didn’t mean it so just forgive him and move on from there. I guarantee you’ll both be happier.”

  Rather than agree with her, Shania heard her cousin sigh—or was she stifling a laugh? “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

  This wasn’t like Wynona. Her cousin didn’t give up this easily. She was exceptionally stubborn. Shania searched for a way to convince her cousin to dig in and fight for her marriage.

  “Sure it is. You just have to be the bigger person, that’s all. In every relationship, there’s always someone who loves more and someone who forgives more. Sometimes, that’s the same person,” Shania added, hoping she was convincing her cousin to find a way to forgive Clint if that was what was necessary here and give their marriage another try.

  And then she heard Wynona laugh. Was her cousin just putting her on?

  “Have you ever thought of writing these gems down in a ‘how to make a marriage work’ book?” Wynona asked.

  “Too busy,” Shania answered, letting go of the breath she’d been holding. “So, is everything okay then?”

  “Well, that all depends on your definition of ‘okay,’” Wynona answered.

  They were going around in circles, Shania thought. Why?

  “Are you like this with Clint?” she asked. “Because if you are, I can see why he might lose his temper with you.”

  “Lose his temper?” Wynona echoed. “That’s not what happened.”

  Shania took a deep breath, trying to hold on to her patience, which was quickly being shredded. When did her cousin get this trying?

  “What did happen?” she asked. “And no more beating around the bush. Tell me straight out why you called or I swear I’m going to drive over to your place right now and ask Clint to tell me what’s going on with you.”

  “Well, if you put it that way...” Wynona said, still hedging.

  Shania took a deep breath, struggling to keep her temper under control.

  Why did it sound as if Wynona was grinning? she suddenly thought.

  “Wynona,” she cried, a warning note in her voice. When her cousin still paused, not saying anything, concern returned in spades. Maybe her cousin was too afraid to tell her what was wrong. “Wyn, please. You can tell me anything, you know that.”

  “You promise not to tell?” Wynona asked in a subdued voice.

  There went her stomach again. This had to be worse than she thought. With effort, Shania reined in her imagination, which was on the verge of running away with her. Big-time.

  “I promise,” she told her cousin solemnly.

  Then, to her surprise, she heard Wynona suddenly start to laugh. “That’s okay, Shania. You can tell anyone you want.”

  Okay, Wynona’s life wasn’t in danger and neither was her marriage. Relieved, she was back to being annoyed. She’d had enough.

  “What I’m going to tell them,” Shania told her cousin, “is why I committed justifiable homicide if you don’t stop this and tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’re going to feel bad about threatening me once I tell you.”

  From the sound of her voice, Wynona was still grinning, Shania thought.

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Now talk!” she ordered, coming perilously close to the end of her patience.

  The words seemed to burst out of Wynona’s mouth all at once. “I’m pregnant, Shania!”

  This was the one thing that hadn’t occurred to her. Shania’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me? Did you just say—”

  “I did,” Wynona interrupted her. “And I am. I’m pregnant!” she repeated because she liked saying it and liked hearing it even more.

  Still stunned at the news, Shania asked, “When? How?” Realizing what she’d just blurted out, she amended her question. “I mean, I know how. But when?”

  “You want the exact moment?” Wynona asked her, laughing. “Because there’ve been a lot of them and I can’t really pinpoint when we—”

  “No!” Shania cried, stopping her. “That’s okay. That was just the surprise talking,” she explained. She took a breath, collecting her thoughts so that she could sound like a coherent person instead of an overjoyed babbling idiot. “Have you seen a doctor? Did he tell you how far along you might be?”

  “She,” Wynona corrected. “I went to see Brett Murphy’s wife, Alicia.”

  Shania was equally torn between being overjoyed and being impatient to have her question answered.

  “And what did she tell you? When am I going to be an aunt—again?” she added belatedly, remembering that Ryan was her nephew now that Wynona had married his father.

  All of this was so new to her, Shania thought, trying her best to get used to the idea.

  “Well, according to what she said, you’ve got about a seven-month wait,” Wynona told her.

  Her mind was already going full speed ahead. “Great, that’ll give me a chance to amass some baby clothes and toys for you.”

  “Don’t get crazy, Shania,” Wynona warned her with a laugh.

  “Sorry.” She couldn’t stop grinning as the thought of Wynona being pregnant took root. “Too late. So what does Clint say?”

  “Well, at first he was speechless,” Wynona told her. “And then he couldn’t stop grinning. Actually, he’s still grinning.”

  “Grinning?” Shania repeated. She tried to picture that and failed. “Are we talking about the same Clint?”

  “We’re talking about the new Clint,” Wynona corrected. “He’s absolutely thrilled, Shania. And so am I.”

  “Well, that makes three of us. Four,” she amended, looking at Belle. Responding to the mood the dog was picking up on, Belle’s tail was thumping against the floor again. “The dog’s very excited for you.”

  “Probably not as excited as Ryan is,” Wynona told her.

  “You told Ryan?” Shania asked, surprised. “And he’s not jealous?”

  “Jealous?” Wynona laughed. “He’s already stacking up his old toys and baseball equipment so he can give it to the baby. He can’t wait until he gets here.”

  “What if it’s a girl?” Shania asked. Working with her students had made her anticipate problems.

  “It doesn’t matter. Ryan’ll be happy. Besides, girls play baseball, too.”

  Pregnant. Wynona was pregnant. Shania couldn’t get over the news. “This is really great, you know.”

  “I think so,” Wynona agreed. “Well, enough about me. What about you? How’s everything going?”

  In the wake of her cousin’s news everything else paled in comparison, but si
nce she’d asked, Shania felt obligated to answer.

  “Same old, same old,” Shania told her. “Mostly I’m too busy to notice much of anything. I’ve got to drill them to get ready to take their PSATs.”

  “Are you doing all right?” Wynona asked, more interested in the personal aspect than the scholastic one.

  “I wouldn’t mind a magic wand that would transform some of my rebellious students into studious ones. Got one of those lying around somewhere?” Shania asked.

  Hearing Wynona laugh was really the best medicine Shania could ask for.

  Chapter Four

  “Elena,” Shania called out the next day as the teenager was just about to shuffle out of her classroom along with the rest of the third period algebra class. When Elena turned around to look at her quizzically, Shania asked, “Could I speak with you for a minute, please?”

  Elena remained where she was and regarded her with the excessively bored expression that she had managed to perfect in the past few weeks.

  “Do I have to listen?” she asked the teacher.

  “That would be the general idea, yes,” Shania responded, keeping her voice upbeat and friendly and refusing to rise to the bait.

  Elena sighed dramatically, then slowly sauntered over to her teacher. “I’ll try to do better on the next test.”

  “Well, you didn’t do all that badly on the last one, but that’s good to know since we both know you’re capable of doing better,” Shania told her. “But this isn’t about your test score.”

  A suspicious look came over Elena’s face, subduing her fresh, natural beauty. “Then what is it about?”

  Shania gestured toward a desk in the front row, indicating that the girl take a seat. At the same time, she sat down at the desk next to it.

  After Elena warily sank down, Shania began to talk to her, continuing to choose her words carefully and with precision.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that you seemed really upset about something today—even more than usual,” she added with a small, encouraging smile. “I was just wondering if there was anything I could do.”

  Well-shaped eyebrows drew together on Elena’s brow. “About what?”

  “About whatever it is that’s making you scowl so hard,” Shania replied. There was no judgment in her voice, just a friendly offer of help.

  For a moment, Elena seemed to debate denying that there was anything wrong, that it was all in her teacher’s head. “That all depends. Can you turn a narrow-minded, judgmental, know-it-all older brother into a reasonable person?”

  “Maybe. What happened?”

  Elena waved her hand at her teacher, dismissing the offer. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  But now that Elena had started this, Shania wasn’t ready to back off. “Now, there we have a difference of opinion, Elena, because I think that it does.”

  Elena tossed her head, trying to be the very picture of haughty rebellion.

  “Oh? And why would you say something like that?” Elena asked, using her best disinterested, bored voice.

  “I’ve looked at your grades, Elena. Your past grades,” Shania emphasized before the girl could protest this invasion of her privacy despite the fact that they were talking about something that was listed in her file and was a matter of record. “Until this year, you were on your way to being seriously considered for a scholarship that could pay for all four years of your college education.” Her eyes met Elena’s. The latter looked away, staring off into the air. Shania wasn’t about to drop the matter. “That’s not something that you should throw away lightly.”

  Elena’s whole body gave the impression that she was shutting down. There was a defensive expression in her eyes as she lifted her chin, ready for a fight. “Maybe I don’t want to go to college.”

  “Okay,” Shania said good-naturedly. “What do you want to do?”

  Elena looked even more annoyed as she shrugged. “Why do I have to have a plan?” she demanded.

  “Because if you don’t,” Shania told her patiently, “if you just float along without any kind of a goal, you’re really going to regret it someday.”

  The girl shifted impatiently in her seat. “Yeah, yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Can I go now?”

  Elena began to rise, but Shania raised her hand, indicating that the teen should remain seated a little longer.

  “Not yet,” Shania told her.

  Elena looked at her watch. “Look, you’re making me late. I’ve got another class.”

  But Shania knew that was a lie. “No, you don’t,” she replied simply. When Elena opened her mouth to protest, Shania told the teenager, “I looked up your school schedule.”

  “You did what?” Elena cried. “Why would you do that? Did my brother put you up to this?” Impotent frustration had the girl suddenly letting loose with a guttural yell. “I can’t believe he’d do this.”

  Shania was quick to set her straight. “Your brother didn’t put me up to this. I have no idea who your brother is,” she told the girl.

  It wasn’t absolutely true, but Shania felt that she could be forgiven until she actually confirmed if the man she’d talked to last night was Elena’s brother. For now, she felt justified in making the denial.

  “Then why would you bother looking up my schedule like that?”

  “It’s very simple,” Shania said. “Because you’re really very, very bright and I wanted to talk to you to see if I could help you.”

  Elena’s eyes narrowed again.

  “Why?”

  “Because I hate to see waste,” Shania told her simply. “Because quite honestly you are the brightest student I’ve ever encountered and, in a way, maybe you kind of remind me of me when I was really mad at the world and almost wound up destroying everything, including the aunt who had gone out of her way to try to save me.”

  Elena closed herself off as she glared at her teacher. “You’re just making all this up,” she accused the woman.

  Rather than deny the assumption, Shania asked the teen, “Why would I do that?”

  Elena threw up her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers!”

  The girl appeared ready to bolt. Shania went on talking to her in a calm, even voice, trying to get through to the angry teenager.

  “Let’s start over,” Shania suggested. “What made you so upset? More upset,” she amended. “You haven’t exactly been Miss Sunshine since the beginning of the semester.”

  “My brother actually set up some kind of a surveillance device so he could watch my every move,” Elena cried, seething over what she obviously viewed as an insult.

  Rather than act indignant for her, or side with Elena’s brother, Shania just asked a simple question. “Why would he do that?”

  Elena crossed her arms before her chest, pulling into herself. “Because he doesn’t trust me, that’s why!”

  Shania looked at the girl for a long, probing moment. “Should he?”

  “He’s my brother,” Elena retorted indignantly. “Of course he should trust me.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “And you haven’t done anything to undermine that trust?” she asked, her eyes meeting the girl’s.

  “No,” Elena protested. But Shania continued just looking at her and finally the teen shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, maybe.”

  “And how did you do that?” Shania asked her, giving every indication that there would be no judgment attached to anything that Elena said.

  Elena glanced away and shrugged. “I might have gone to Matt McGuire’s party a week ago,” she murmured. And then she quickly added, “But Daniel told me not to have parties at our house and I didn’t. I can’t tell someone else not to have one at their house.”

  “No, you can’t,” Shania agreed. And then she added the part that Elena didn’t want to hear. “But you don’t have to atte
nd.”

  “Matt’s my friend,” Elena protested. “I can’t not go.”

  Shania couldn’t help grinning. “That’s a double negative, but we’ll talk about that later.” She got back to the subject under discussion. “Did you ask your brother if you could go to the party?”

  The answer came grudgingly and only after a couple of moments. “No.”

  “Why not?” Shania asked her. Again, there was no judgment in her voice.

  Elena’s voice grew louder and more assured. “Because I can make up my own mind if I want to go to a party or not.”

  The girl had to know that wasn’t right, Shania thought.

  “Elena, like it or not—and yes,” she interjected before Elena could protest, “I know it seems unfair—but you are a minor and your brother is responsible for you. That means that you have to ask him for his permission, or at the very least, tell him where you’re going to be before you go.”

  “Why? So he can say no?” Elena challenged her teacher.

  “That is his right,” Shania informed her. She knew it didn’t win her any points with the girl, but it was also true.

  “Who says?”

  Shania regarded her quietly for a minute before she answered, “You are a very intelligent girl, Elena. More intelligent than most. You already know the answer to that.”

  “You’re on his side, aren’t you?” Elena accused. “I knew it!” She was on her feet in seconds, ready to bolt out of the room.

  But Shania caught her wrist, holding her in place. “No, I’m on yours. And I’ll let you in on a secret. The best way to earn your brother’s trust is to be trustworthy.”

  Elena huffed loudly.

  “Did you ever stop to think that he’s just worried about you?” Shania asked.

  “Well, he shouldn’t be,” Elena retorted. “I can take care of myself!”

  “That might very well be true,” Shania allowed, “but you’re going to have to prove that to him.”

  “How? My brother’s got me under lock and key like a prisoner,” Elena complained, seething. “Can’t he be arrested for that?”

  “Not unless he’s got you chained up. Does he?” she asked, looking at the teen’s face.