It Started with a Cowboy

by Jennie Marts

  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.”

  Chapter 3

  Colt tried not to laugh as he followed Chloe into her house. She was just so dang cute. He loved to watch her blush. Heck, he loved to watch her do just about anything.

  He held the door for her as she fumbled with the lock. Were her hands shaking? Maybe he made her as nervous as she made him. He doubted it. Something about Chloe Bishop had him feeling like an adolescent teen with a crush on the prettiest girl in school. Whenever he was around her, his heart started racing and his palms began to sweat.

  They stamped their feet on the rug, and she took their coats, hanging them both up neatly in the close
t.

  “Should I take my boots off?” he asked, glancing at the fresh vacuum tracks on the carpet of the living room.

  She waved his concern away as she tugged her own boots off. “Oh, no. Don’t worry about it. This carpet is so old, it’s seen much worse than your boots.” She gestured to the living room. “Have a seat. I need just a second to check on Agatha.” She padded quickly down the hall in her stocking feet.

  He wiped his boots one more time, then wandered around the immaculately kept living room. An overstuffed blue sofa sat on one side of a heavy coffee table, and a large rocking recliner sat on the other. A purple tote bag brimming with multicolored skeins of yarn and knitting needles sat on the floor next to the recliner, and a paperback with a brooding cowboy on the cover perched on the corner of the end table.

  A neat row of three pictures lined the oak mantel above a small fireplace, and Colt leaned in to study them. The first was a faded old photograph of a handsome, dark-haired man laughing as he held a chubby toddler high in his arms. The second was of Chloe in her college graduation cap and gown, smiling as she held her diploma, one arm wrapped around a tiny white-haired woman he assumed was her grandmother. And the third was a recent picture of Chloe sitting cross-legged on the floor of her classroom, laughing as she read a book to a group of students.

  “Your nephew gave me that for Christmas last year,” Chloe said as she stepped back into the living room. “I think it’s the only picture I have of me teaching. I guess Quinn took it one day when she was volunteering in the classroom and had it framed for me.”

  He spotted Max in the circle of kids around her, his gaze rapt with attention at either the teacher or the story she was reading. Knowing Max, it could have been either, or both. “It’s a great picture. You have a pretty smile.”

  She ducked her head, a pink blush rising to her cheeks. “It’s one of my favorite gifts. But don’t tell my other students.”