“Yes. The whole year.” Jenny patted Silas on the head. He turned and looked at Sienna with a wide grin.
“She’s pretty,” he said.
“Yes, she is,” Jenny answered. She brushed her hands on the blue skirt of her business suit. The James family was one of the few old-money families in Pine Point. Most of them had ended up in law or real estate or business, and Sienna wondered what had brought Jenny, the baby of the family, to education instead.
Jenny motioned at the teacher’s desk in the corner. “There are lesson plans in the top drawer, but of course you’ll want to design your own once you get a feel for the class. The children’s Individualized Education Plans are all in that file cabinet in the corner, top drawer, locked up.” She produced a ring of keys from the pocket of her blazer. “The large one is for the classroom, the silver one for the closet in the corner, and the small gold one for the two file cabinets.”
“Thank you.” Sienna palmed them. Yes, she’d taught a special-needs class before. Once. Three years ago. During her interview for this position, it had seemed like the perfect qualification, along with her education and the fact she’d grown up in Pine Point. The superintendent and principal had obviously agreed. Now she wondered if they were all off their rockers.
“The schedule for the day is posted by the door,” Jenny went on. She turned and pointed. As she did, Caleb walked over to the blue banner.
“Nine o’clock is arrival time,” he began in his thin, high-pitched voice. “At nine-fifteen, you have to call the main office and tell them if anyone is absent. And if we are each having hot or cold lunch today.” He paused. “I am having hot lunch. My mother gave me one dollar and fifty cents for it.”
Jenny leaned close and whispered to Sienna, “He’ll be your best resource.”
Caleb dragged his finger down the banner and the explanations went on. “We leave for lunch at eleven-thirty. Every other day we have special, like Art, or Music…”
Jenny tiptoed her way around Caleb, mouthing, “Call me if you need anything.” Loni stood and followed her with a smile and a bob of her chins. Sienna nodded at them both, and then it was just her alone with the students.
“At twelve o’clock, we go outside when the weather is nice,” Caleb was explaining, “but not if the temperature is below freezing. That is thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius.”
“Yes, it is,” she said, but he didn’t slow down or stop to respond.
“And at quarter to three, we have to pick up everything and walk out to the buses when the bell rings at three o’clock.” He finished and folded his hands in front of him, like a public debater who’d finished his formal presentation.
“Well, thank you for all of that,” Sienna said. She tried to give him a smile, but Caleb looked over her shoulder, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t touch him. Instead, she walked over to the bookcase, selected two books, and sank into the chair at the edge of the rug. “How about a story or two to start the day?”
Billy and Bailey were squirming where they sat, but they looked up expectantly, which she took as a positive sign. Silas had returned to the chair under the window and was rocking it furiously. His cheeks had turned bright red, but he waved at her and grinned as if he was having the time of his life, so she left him there.
Caleb walked across the room, pulled out a chair, and sat at the small table near the teacher’s desk. He folded his hands again and waited, his gaze still focused somewhere over Sienna’s head. In the only other chair at the table sat Dawn, the lone girl in the class. She had wide blue eyes and beautiful blond hair pulled into neat braids. She wore what looked like designer clothes, a long maroon sweater over patterned leggings and cute black shoes with bows on the toes. But her cuticles were chewed to the quick, and as Sienna looked at her, she pulled her knees up to her chin and dropped her gaze to the floor.
A flash of memory swept over Sienna. The Pine Point playground in bleak winter, kids playing, Sienna standing near the swings and waiting for her turn.
“Her mother talks funny,” one of the boys said in a low voice. He inspected his bright red ski jacket and tugged on the ski lift tag attached to the zipper.
Sienna dug her bare hands as far as they would go into the pockets of her secondhand coat.
“My mother says she’s a gringo,” said another boy with a glance at Sienna. “That means a dirty Mexican.”
Eight-year-old Sienna turned, cheeks burning, and stumbled in the direction of the slide instead.
“I know the schedule says math at nine-thirty,” she said as she banished the memory, “but I think since we’re all getting to know each other today, we’ll start with a story and then do math a little later on.” She glanced at Caleb, but he continued to stare at the wall. Billy and Bailey were slapping each other’s knees. Sienna reached down to put a hand between them and spread her fingers wide on the carpet. “One, two, three, four, five,” she said, wiggling each finger in turn. “That’s how much space I want here, okay?”
They blinked and frowned, but they stopped slapping each other and moved apart a few inches. One of the twins had a small scar on the bridge of his nose, and his hair was a shade darker brown than his brother’s. That’s how I’ll tell them apart. I’ll figure this out. She opened the book and began to read. One step at a time.
* * * * *
“You’re teaching the special-ed class now, right? Lucy Foster’s class?”
The voice came from behind Sienna as she stood in the doorway to the cafeteria and watched her students walk to their table. “Yes,” she said and turned. A short, young woman with a dark blond bob and frosted-pink lipstick smiled up at her.
“I’m Polly Preston,” the woman said. “Second grade.” She pointed to the woman beside her, a taller version of Polly with the same haircut, only in light brown. “Harmony Donaldson. Third grade.” They both dressed in long tunic tops and leggings, with identical black boots on their feet.
“Sienna Cruz. Nice to meet you.”
Polly shook her hand. “You too.” She looked and sounded exactly like a second grade teacher should, cute and sparkly and full of energy. “Are you from the area?”
“I was. Left when I was fifteen and moved to North Carolina.”
“Oh, you must be freezing!” Polly said and rubbed her arms as if a winter wind had swept down the hall. “North Carolina must be a lot warmer than Pine Point in January.”
Sienna couldn’t help smiling. “It is.” She glanced at Harmony, who hadn’t stopped studying Sienna’s clothes, her hair, her ringless left hand. “So…have you two worked here long?”
“Four years,” Polly said.
“We’ve been best friends since second grade,” Harmony added.
“You’re from Pine Point?”
Polly shook her head. “Silver Valley.”
Sienna mentally took a few notes. “And you both always wanted to be elementary school teachers?”
Harmony shrugged. “Not always. But it’s a good job. Reliable. With benefits and summers off.”
“It’s good until we find husbands,” Polly said. Her cheeks pinked, and she looked around as if to make sure no one else had heard her. “I mean…I want to have a family. I like kids and everything, but this is just until I have my own.”
Sienna filed that information away with the rest of the stereotype beginning to emerge. She tried to give a conspiratorial smile. “I hear you.”
But Harmony lifted a brow as if in doubt. “You’re not married, right? I heard you were working on your PhD.” She said the words as if getting a PhD precluded any chance of settling down with a husband and kids.
“Well, I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want a social life too.”
“Harmony said she thought she saw you at Mike Springer’s gym yesterday afternoon,” Polly said. “Was that you?”
Harmony gave Sienn
a another quick up-and-down glance. “You work out, don’t you?” She pinched at some imaginary fat on her belly. “I should. I just can’t find the time.”
“No kidding,” Polly agreed. “Although I’m sure having Mike as a trainer is a pretty good incentive. Are you, you know, like, friends with him?” she asked Sienna.
Ah, so the real reason Polly and Harmony had stopped to chat. Sienna shrugged. “We’ve hung out a few times.”
“He seems like a nice guy,” Polly said. Five or six silver bracelets dangled on her wrist, and she played with them as she talked. “I don’t really know him that well. He hasn’t gone out much since he came back.”
“Back from where?” Sienna asked. She’d always assumed Mike Springer was a local boy, born and raised. She remembered him vaguely from high school, three years ahead of her. His senior year, he’d sat with his buddies on the long stone wall outside Pine Point High’s main entrance and whistled as the cute upperclassmen walked by.
A long look passed between Polly and Harmony. “He lived in California for a while,” Polly said. “He came back to Pine Point a couple years ago and opened the gym.”
“Oh. That’s cool.” Sienna gave what she hoped was a noncommittal nod. Interesting he never mentioned that. How long had he lived on the West Coast? How had he ended up that far from home? And why had he left to return to Pine Point?
“Anyway, we just wanted to say hi and introduce ourselves,” Polly said, the bubbly tone returning to her voice. “Good luck with everything. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” She glanced into the cafeteria. “That Silas is a cutie-pie.”
They all are, Sienna thought as she watched her five students clustered at a table in the corner. With a glance at the clock on the cafeteria wall, she pulled her phone from her pocket. She wanted to see Mike again. She wanted to talk to him, spar with him, get worked up and sweaty and then watch his arms flex as he mixed her a smoothie and grinned from behind the front desk. Finding out any backstory about his time in California would just be a bonus.
“How about a workout tonight?” she typed. “I’m gonna need one after today.”
Chapter Five
Mike eyed the clock beside his computer. Some days, the time flew. Others, it crawled. Went backwards even. Since the text from Sienna around noon, he’d stared at the clock a hundred times. Stop thinking about her that way, he tried telling himself. You’re going to be polite when she gets here. Tell her you’re better off as friends.
Yeah, right.
The second hand ticked at a snail’s pace, mocking him. At a few minutes after six, people from the five o’clock yoga class began to dribble from the fitness room at the back of the gym. Some chatted quietly, while others walked with relaxed expressions and heavy eyes. A middle-aged redhead slowed at the desk. “Hey, Mike.”
“Hi, Chantell. How was class?”
“Great.” She sighed and rested her enormous chest on the desk. As usual, she wore a low-cut top that revealed the top half of her overly bronzed breasts. “Have you ever taken it?”
“Yoga? No. But I hear it’s great for the mind.”
“And the body.” She gave him a suggestive smile. “It’s definitely helped my flexibility.”
Mike coughed. Just then, the front door opened and Sienna walked inside. She wore a red hat pulled over her dark hair and a black workout suit. Gym bag over her shoulder. Cheeks pink from the cold. Despite all his earlier advice to himself, all Mike could do was stare.
“Ah, hello?” Chantell waved a hand in front of his face. “So you’ll think about it?”
“I’m sorry.” He dragged his attention away from Sienna, who grinned and leaned against the counter. “Think about what?”
Chantell took one look at Sienna, heaved a dramatic sigh, and turned away. “Never mind.” With a hurt expression, she stomped toward the door.
“Sorry,” Sienna said. “Was I interrupting something?”
“God, no. I was about to tell Chantell to go home to her husband.”
“She’s married?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t stop her from flirting with you though, does it?”
Mike shrugged. He’d discovered over the last year that harmless flirtation went with the territory. It didn’t take much—friendly conversation, a smile, a compliment—to make the women who came to his gym feel good about themselves. He wasn’t interested in any of them, which made the conversation and the compliments easy to dole out.
“So how was your first day?” he asked.
She pulled off her hat and unzipped her jacket. “Not terrible. Just a lot harder than I remembered.”
“And those kids are even tougher than the normal ones.”
She gave him a look. “Normal ones?”
“Sorry. That’s not the right word. They’re different, that’s all. Right? They have special needs and learn slower and stuff.” He cleared his throat. Stop talking. Tell her you have to do paperwork. Or you have a personal training client coming in. But he did neither. Instead, he let his gaze rest on her mouth, which was smiling at him.
“Yes,” she said. “They are. And they do.” She took a long drink from her water bottle. “I need a workout. Something quick and intense that’ll get my mind off school and burn a few calories.”
Mike resisted the urge to invite her back to his place and engage in a quick and intense horizontal, no-clothes-required workout. Instead, he gave a short nod. “Fitness room is free for the rest of the night. How about we do twenty minutes of Tabata and then a ten-minute meditation?”
“Meditation?”
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Something I picked up when I was living in California. Helps clear the mind.”
Her eyes lit up. “I heard you were out there for a while.”
“Yeah?” He grabbed two towels from the clean pile behind him.
“From two teachers at school. They mentioned it.” She slowed and gave him a sideways glance. “Didn’t know that.”
He shrugged. “Don’t talk that much about it.”
“Any reason?”
Because I made some shitty mistakes and don’t want everyone in town knowing about them. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead. “It’s in the past.”
“I get that,” she said as he pulled open the glass door to the fitness room. When he glanced over, those delicious lips curved upward. “Let’s hit this workout.”
“C’mon, just twenty seconds,” Mike urged as Sienna dropped for push-ups.
She gave him a dirty look, her breath coming too hard for words. The neckline of her tank top was drenched, her ponytail too. Mike’s own shirt stuck to his back, and he took a quick drink of water before finishing his own round of push-ups.
“Twenty seconds around the room,” he said as they clambered back to their feet. “Top speed.”
“You’re killing me,” she said as she panted for breath.
“When’s the last time you thought about school?” he asked from behind, taking in the perfect view as she ran. I can look, he told himself. Just no touching.
She picked up the pace and pulled away from him. He sped up too.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. Not since we started sweating.”
“Good.” He pushed the pace, willing her to keep up. She did, elbows pumping. When they finally finished, she bent over and put both hands on her knees.
“Keep moving,” he said. He tugged on her elbow. “Let’s take three walking laps. Get your heart rate down.”
She nodded, didn’t say anything, but followed him. After the third lap, they stretched briefly. “Now comes the good stuff,” he said.
“Terrific.” She raised her arms above her head, revealing an inch of smooth, caramel-colored belly skin. Mike blew out a long breath and considered the Yankees’ chances of making it back to the World Series this year to dist
ract himself. Think about baseball. Pitch counts. Cold showers. Anything.
He picked up two yoga mats from the stack in the corner and unrolled them. Then he turned off all the lights but one and sank to the floor.
“You ready?” He gestured at the mat beside him.
“I guess,” she said as she sat. “I’m not much for staying in one place for very long. Just so you know.”
“Give it a try. It might surprise you.” He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “It’s a good way to wrap up a workout. Or a rough day.” He looked over. Sienna had crossed her legs and rested her wrists on her knees.
“Do I have to chant or say om or something?” she asked.
“Not unless you want to. Just close your eyes.”
She lifted one brow.
He raised his palms in innocent supplication. “I promise I won’t try any funny business.”
She cocked her head. “I like funny business.”
Shit. She was flirting with him. His jaw twitched as he thought of about a hundred responses. So do I. Although funny might turn to dirty in the blink of an eye. Or in the touch of a hand. Or a kiss. Or your legs wrapped around…
He cleared his throat and stretched both arms overhead. The Yankees. The Rangers. The Giants. Any goddamn sports team at all.
“Fine,” she said when he didn’t answer. She closed her eyes, opened one, then closed it again. “I’m listening.”
He cleared his throat and felt like a teenager going through puberty all over again. “Breathe in for a count of four, then out for four. Then breathe in for five, and out for five. Go up to eight if you can, or if you can’t, stay wherever feels comfortable. Stay at the top number four times, then work your way back down to four.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. Well, try not to think about anything except your breath.”
She opened one hazel eye again. “That might be harder said than done.”
“I know,” he admitted. “But give it a try.”
Mike closed his eyes. For the next few minutes, the only sound in the room was the soft swish of inhalations and exhalations. He fought the urge to cheat and watch Sienna’s chest rise and fall. Instead, he did his best to satisfy himself with the thought of her beside him. After a few moments, he opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the dim light before looking over.
Spring Secrets: Pine Point, Book 3 Page 3