Rosie’s seat squeaked as she turned to see who was speaking. There, sitting three rows back and wearing a pink oxford, was her new neighbor—the one who wanted to bring former drug addicts to Lone Spur. She balled her hands into fists. What was he doing here?
Principal Moore flipped through his stack of papers. “Last year it ran us about twenty thousand dollars.”
While Destry wrote down the number, Principal Moore extended his arm as if he were introducing a celebrity on a late-night talk show. “Faculty, I’d like to introduce you to our new science teacher, Destry Steadman.”
“What?” The word sprang from Rosie’s mouth unbidden. First, he bought a ranch without knowing anything about ranching. Next, he wanted to build a resort next door to help drug addicts. And now, he was going to be a teacher. Did he have any experience teaching high school? She doubted it. Tanner would have been a much better choice.
The principal looked her way for half a second before going on, “Destry worked for ten years as an engineer in biotechnology and taught part-time at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Lone Spur. He brings with him invaluable experience to prepare our students for real-world science. Mr. Steadman has obtained an alternative teaching license just so he can help students here in Lone Spur. I hope you’ll all support him any way you can.”
Jade shook her head and leaned to whisper in Rosie’s ear. “Why would he want to be a high school teacher?” Jade was already upset about the prospect of Destry building a resort, seeing as how her parents owned the bed and breakfast. She would probably be even more upset once she found out what kind of resort it would be. “I looked up that biotech company he owns,” Jade whispered. “He makes enough money to buy the whole town.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. Her doodles turned into skulls and crossbones. Why would Mr. Moore hire Destry? Sure, he’d worked at a University, but he didn’t have any experience teaching high school. If he had an alternative license, that probably meant he’d start at level one, which meant he’d be working at the lowest possible salary.
Tanner would have started at the same salary, though, and had so much more experience. She wondered if this didn’t have something to do with the time Tanner’s dad called the police on Principal Moore’s daughter, Janessa, for tipping cows. She’d had to pay a steep fine back then, before the principal’s brother became the sheriff. It was usually a mistake to cross the Moores. They were the biggest family in town and didn’t take kindly to anyone pointing out their flaws.
Principal Moore went on, describing Destry’s credentials. “Mr. Steadman also plans to help us secure funds for improvements to the science labs.”
Inside, Rosie felt like a trapped animal, circling inside her tiny square of options—say something or keep quiet. No matter what, she could not lose her temper like Ms. Klein did last year.
For an hour, she waited for the meeting to end, so she could put as much space between her and Mr. Moore as possible. She could live with Destry wanting to help improve the science labs. It might even delay his plans for bringing former drug addicts to the neighborhood. But the real issue was that Tanner needed the job so much more. Sitting through the rest of the meeting felt like the ultimate form of claustrophobia. She had to get out.
When it finally ended, Rosie dodged the other teachers, bursting through the auditorium doors right after Destry. With the absence of the students, everything in the hall seemed gray—the lockers, the floor, even the white walls had a gray tone to them. Her footsteps echoed off the bare walls. “Hey, Destry?”
He turned and walked back to her. “Hi, Rosie.” He had a slight limp. “How’s Wile E doing?”
“Fine.” The word came out sounding short. She drew in a breath, trying to calm herself. “She walked outside in her cast for the first time yesterday, but I don’t think she’s up to bothering your chickens.”
He wore jeans and flip-flops with his pink shirt. “The chickens are ready. I finished their new fortress last night. Cleaning out your coop gave me some ideas.” He looked down at his leather briefcase. “I guess Phil talked to you about being my mentor.”
Mentor? She’d forgotten about that. She would be Destry’s mentor, not Tanner’s. “Yeah. He mentioned it.”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her face. “I didn’t know you worked here until Phil offered me the job.”
How was he already on a first-name basis with Mr. Moore? She hadn’t accomplished that in her eight years of teaching. Destry seemed to have a way with people. Likely, the parents and students would adore him. He’d have little need for her as a mentor.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“I just don’t understand why you want this job when you already have so much to do.” Her words rushed out, grating against each other like tectonic plates.
“I want to do something that makes a difference.” He paused, looking at her as if they were enjoying a pleasant day in the park. “Back when I graduated from college, I was hoping to save lives. I wanted to invent a vaccine for malaria or a cure for cancer, but all I’ve done so far is develop a successful wrinkle cream. That’s how I made all my money—selling wrinkle reducers. Maybe you’ve heard of my company—EternaDerm?”
She shook her head.
He smiled, not seeming to care that she didn’t recognize the name. “It’s made me a lot of money, but I’m still hoping to do something more substantial. That’s one reason why I want to be a teacher, so I can make a difference for some of the kids here.”
It made sense, but she still wasn’t ready to back down all the way. She folded her arms. “Teaching high school is more than a full-time job. You won’t have time to run your ranch.” It struck her as she said it how hypocritical she sounded.
“This probably won’t shock you too much, but I didn’t buy the ranch because I had some dream to become a cowboy.” His deep voice soothed her anger. “I bought it for the same reason I’m working here. I want to help people. I think I can do a better job of that if I hire some help on the ranch.”
Why did he have such good answers? Rosie looked down at her notepad. “I could recommend a few kids who know how to run a ranch.”
“I’m planning to hire Alan Erskine. Phil said he needed a job.”
Rosie drew in her breath. The last thing she needed was Alan working next door and driving drunk down the lane twice a day. “Alan’s a nice kid, but—”
“—I figured as long as I’m hiring someone, I might as well hire someone I can help.” As more teachers exited the auditorium, Destry started walking down the hall.
She followed him. “Alan has a drinking problem. He needs professional help.”
Destry shrugged. “I may not be a professional, but I can be someone who cares.”
She couldn’t argue against Alan needing someone who cared. Still, it was a bad idea to hire him. “That may be a bigger job than you think.”
He was still limping. She had noticed it on the day he came to clean her chicken pen—the way he dragged one leg made her suspect he had been thrown by that new horse of his. “Betty’s son is good with horses,” she added.
“I was going to ask you about that. I’ll see if I can hire him as well.” He stopped to lean against a locker. “You haven’t said how you feel about being my mentor.”
How she felt? She was disappointed that Tanner didn’t get the job, but there was nothing she could do about it now. “I’m happy to be your mentor,” she said, forcing a smile. “It sounds like you already have some teaching experience, though.”
Destry watched as some teachers passed them by. “I might not need help with teaching per se, but I have no idea how to navigate the bureaucracy.”
Rosie laughed. “I’m still working on that myself.” The truth was, at the moment, she felt absolutely crushed by the bureaucracy—the stupid bureaucracy that allowed Mr. Moore to pass over a qualified teacher like Tanner.
“And I need help setting up my classroom,” he added.
She t
hought back to the last time she’d seen Ms. Klein’s classroom. Had anyone cleaned up all those potted plants she threw at the end of last year? “Was it . . . dirty?”
“No. There’s just nothing there, except lab tables and a few sinks that don’t work. Where do I get textbooks?”
“I should warn you—most of the textbooks are the same ones we used when I was in school, and they were old then. Did Mr.—err, Phil tell you what you’d be teaching?”
“Physics, chemistry, and what was the other?” He pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Oh yeah, computer tech.”
Computer tech? She had been looking forward to teaching that class herself. “So Mr. Moore gave you mostly advanced classes.” She stopped to read through her schedule. She hadn’t been able to focus on it before. “That must mean, I have,” she read from her revised schedule, “biology, earth science, and health.” She stomped her foot. Why hadn’t she checked her schedule before she told Mr. Moore she was fine with the changes? Health was her least favorite class, and Mr. Moore knew it.
“That wasn’t what you expected,” he ventured, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand.
Jade passed by with the other foreign language teacher. Rosie put on a happy face and introduced them to Destry. But as soon as they were out of ear-shot, she groaned. “I hate teaching health.”
“I don’t mind teaching health if you want to trade,” he offered.
The last thing she needed was another talk with Mr. Moore today. She was already itching to throw a potted plant. “No, I can handle it. I’ve taught it before.” She pushed back her shoulders and headed down the hall again. “Come on. I’ll show you where to find the curriculum guidelines online. My classroom’s just down the hall from yours.”
“I already figured out which one is yours,” he said, limping along beside her.
“So Phil showed you around?”
“No, I looked through the little windows in the doors. Yours is 107.” His playful words took the edge off her anger.
“How’d you know?” she asked.
“The solar system mobile in the corner,” he said, as if that explained everything.
She and her grandma had made the solar system mobile out of Christmas ornaments and iridescent paint. There was no way Destry could’ve known it was hers. He’d just made a lucky guess. “And the fact that it’s the only other classroom with lab tables,” she said, drawing out her syllables. “That didn’t give it away at all?”
“Not at all.” He winked, sending a jolt of . . . something through her.
Surely, it wasn’t attraction. She would never be attracted to a guy who couldn’t even choose the proper footwear. She pulled out her keys as they turned down the back hallway. There was no reason to feel like she was betraying Tanner. She and Destry were co-workers. Besides, he wasn’t at all her type.
Chapter 6
Destry followed Rosie into her classroom and paused in front of the rainforest mural on her back wall—complete with frogs, snakes, a jaguar, and spider monkeys. “Impressive. Did you paint this? Or was it your students?”
Rosie opened the laptop on her desk. “I tutored a freshman last year, and her mom painted it to thank me.”
“You must be some tutor.” He turned to survey the rest of the room. “I don’t see any aquariums or guinea pig cages.”
“I have enough animals to take care of at home.” She scooted a chair over beside her desk. “Have a seat.”
He sat down but kept his eyes above the whiteboard, reading the quote in vinyl letters. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. “I had that same quote by Einstein on the wall of my office in Philadelphia.”
She wondered how many quotes he had on the walls of his office. “You know Jade Harris, the Spanish teacher we met in the hall? She gave me that for my birthday last year. It’s my favorite quote.” Turning her laptop for him to see, she said, “Here’s where you can find the curriculum guidelines.”
He skimmed through a few lesson plans and grimaced. “This doesn’t seem very inspiring.”
“You can teach it anyway you want—in any order or method, but the tests are standardized. Whether or not the administration approves is another story.” Since she’d taught all the classes he was going to teach, she passed him a thumb drive containing the files for each class. “It might help to look through my lesson plans. You can keep a copy if you want.”
While Destry paged through her files, she sat down to figure out the new curriculum for health. Her mind kept going back to the last time she’d taught health class six years earlier. Janessa Moore had been in that class. Weighing barely 100 pounds, Janessa was the brown-haired cheerleader who always got thrown in the air during football games. Like most sophomore girls, she had a way of hiding her phone under the edge of her desk. She had probably been texting while Rosie explained that even one drink could put a petite woman over the legal limit for driving.
It had been thirteen months since the accident—thirteen months since her grandmother had died. In some ways, it seemed like it’d only been yesterday. In some ways, it seemed like twenty years ago. Everything was different now, and it was all because of one bad decision—Janessa’s bad decision.
Rosie still froze like a frightened squirrel every time she saw a white pickup truck, the type of vehicle Janessa drove that night. Seeing Janessa herself was no better. When she waited on them at La Cocina, Rosie couldn’t bring herself to look at the girl—or speak to her. It was better that way. Rosie’s anger smoldered like burning embers, ready to break out into a forest fire at any moment.
And she had every right to be angry. Janessa had suffered no more consequence than a fifty-dollar ticket, and everyone knew she’d gone straight back to her old ways. So many of them did. Rosie often wondered if Janessa even remembered the events of that night.
She couldn’t let Alan make the same mistake as Janessa. She had to say something to Destry. “If you hire Alan, can you make sure he knows not to come to work drunk?” There. She’d said it.
Destry furrowed his brows. “I’ll tell him.”
She scrolled blindly through the curriculum website. “I just wouldn’t want anything to happen while he drove to your place.”
He stared at her. “You’re really worried about this.”
She made an effort to sound calm. “Drunk driving is a big problem around here. Most people don’t take it seriously enough.”
He reached his hand out, almost touching hers where it lay on the desk. “I’ll take it seriously.” His deep, even tone made him sound like he meant it. “I promise.”
She hoped he would. “Thanks.”
Turning back to her work, she tried again to focus on the health curriculum. She would have to add a lesson plan for suicide prevention and revamp her plans for healthy eating and exercise. Likely, these students had heard all the information many times before. She’d have to make it different somehow.
Destry interrupted her thoughts. “Where do I get my textbooks?”
“They’re down in the supply room. There’s a form to check them out. I’ll show you how to do it.” She hopped up from her desk, happy to have something else to occupy her mind.
The supply room was on the other side of the school at the end of the library. No other teachers were there, which was a good thing. Textbooks occupied almost every square inch of space inside. Not only did they line six rows of bookshelves, boxes of them crowded the floor. “I’d hate to be here in an earthquake,” Rosie remarked.
“I don’t know,” Destry said, pointing to the science books on the shelf and taking on a flirtatious tone. “If we got trapped, we could learn a little more about chemistry.”
She laughed, refusing to engage in his banter. “Chemistry’s never been my strongest subject.”
He reached for a biology book. “I should have guessed—you’re more of a biologist.”
“I like physics too.” She reached toward an old media cart stacked high with M
s. Klein’s biology books from last year. “Can you help me move the books out from in front of this cart?”
Despite his limp, he moved the piles of history textbooks with ease. Together, they filled out the forms. Afterward, she pushed the cart back to her room, unloaded it, and returned to the library, expecting to load it up again. But Destry had already loaded another cart with biology and chemistry texts. “I’ll trade you,” he said, taking the empty cart from her.
She was just pushing the loaded cart out through the supply room door when Tanner appeared, startling her.
“Where did you come from?”
He grinned. “I just signed a contract.” He wore his suit, tie, and cowboy boots.
“What do you mean, you signed a contract?”
He held his arms out as if he expected a hug. “The job they offered me at the middle school last month—I decided to take it.”
She resisted the urge to turn and see whether Destry was watching. That would only alert Tanner to Destry’s presence, and now was not the time to tell Tanner who got Ms. Klein’s old job. “I’m so happy for you!” She threw her arms around him.
He kissed her. “How about we celebrate with lunch out?”
“I’d love to. I just need to finish up with—”
“Go ahead,” Destry said, walking out of the supply room. “I’ll be okay on my own. As long as there’s no earthquake.”
She swallowed. “Okay. I shouldn’t be gone long.”
Tanner glared at Destry. “We can go ring shopping while we’re at it.”
Destry paged through a chemistry textbook. “Take as long as you want. I’ll just be here studying up on my high school chemistry.”
She pulled on Tanner’s arm, leading him toward the library exit. “I only have an hour for lunch,” she said. “That doesn’t leave much time for ring shopping.”
Chemistry Lessons Page 6