I received mostly blank looks. A couple of kids smiled at me. Mrs. Tully remained stiff and unfazed. A mother and father in the righthand corner literally sighed in unison.
I took a steadying breath. This was mandatory. I had to get through it. And it would be fine.
Wouldn’t it?
Nerves fluttered to life in my tummy. My head spun. This hadn’t been so awkward last year. Last year, the parents were chatty, forthcoming, and eager to be there. But this year, they seemed stiff and irritated, almost like high school students.
Then I cast my gaze in Mav’s direction. He was bouncing one knee gently, and Olivette bounced with every tap of his heel. She wore a happy but shy smile as she leaned back against his chest, and he had his arms wrapped around her waist.
His attention was on me. We locked eyes. He smiled.
My knees nearly gave out on me.
Clearing my throat, I ventured into new territory, covering the details of the syllabus with those in attendance and telling them a little bit about myself toward the end.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering what sort of teacher I am and where I come from,” I said. “This is my second year as a full-time kindergarten teacher, but I’ve been teaching young children for quite a few years now. I started as a substitute and teacher’s assistant before I came here full time. I’m so excited to see your children flourish and learn. It’s the best part of my job. Working part-time and covering for other teachers meant I never got to spend much time with the students. I’d make a connection and have to leave the next day. But this is different. Here, I am a constant for your kids, and they’re a constant for me. It’s going to make all the difference as we get through this year together.”
The room remained passive and quiet, so I cut to the end shorter than expected and asked if there were any questions.
A man near the back cleared his throat, and all heads turned to him. He had my syllabus open, and his eyes scanned the page. He never looked up at me as he spoke. “It says here you have a master’s in engineering.”
I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I didn’t hear a question in there. But yes, I have my master’s degree in engineering.”
He finally looked up at me. “Then what are you doing here?”
The room buzzed with whispers. For some reason, I looked at Mav. He was looking at the man who spoke. I couldn’t tell if he was bothered by the question—or accusation. His expression remained neutral. So did his posture. But there was something different. Something that had shifted.
Perhaps it was the tightness in his jaw.
I pressed my lips together. “I get that question a lot, actually. My master’s was something I did to appease others. Teaching is something I do for myself. It’s my passion. And there is no place I’d rather be than in this classroom with your kids this year.”
The man grunted. “An engineering salary and a teaching salary are miles apart.”
I made sure my smile never wavered. “That is an absolutely correct statement.”
He blinked at me. I blinked back. Then he broke eye contact and sank lower into his seat like a moody teenager.
“Well, unless anyone has any other questions, we can call it a night. Feel free to linger and chat. I’ll be here until nine o’clock. Oh, and on your way out, please stop at your child’s cubby.” I pointed to the wall where the children could store their things. “There are index cards and a pencil on the top shelf. It would be of immense help if you could write down any and all of your child’s allergies and intolerances. Thank you kindly in advance.”
Nobody lingered. Everyone sprang up out of the chairs, collected their things and their children, and started heading for their assigned cubbies. Children started talking behind their parents, who scribbled frantically on the cards, and then when the task was done, they all slipped out of my room one by one, like sand falling through an hourglass.
Well, almost everyone.
7
Mav
Olivette had her arms wrapped around my knee as I poised my pencil over the index card in her cubby. Her name was written in slanted handwriting at the top of the card across the pale red line. On the blue lines below, I wrote the words “shellfish” and “cherries”. I knew for a fact my daughter was allergic to shellfish, and she’d had a reaction to cherries last summer. Not wanting to take any risks, I figured I’d write it down just in case.
When I turned back to the class, Olivette still clung to me, and I ruffled her hair as the other children and parents wove around us to slip out the door.
I crossed my arms over my chest and arched an eyebrow at my daughter. “You and I both know you’re not this shy.”
Olivette hugged me tighter.
“Or this quiet,” I added.
“It happens to the best of us.”
I looked up to find Olivette’s teacher, Ms. Branson, leaning against one of the desks and smiling at us.
She was a beautiful woman. It was the first thing I’d thought when I crouched down to help her collect her fallen papers.
Her hair was the first thing I noticed. It was a rich coppery red, and she had it pulled back in a high ponytail. It was loosely curled and very thick, the kind of hair a younger, pre-father me might have dreamed of wrapping my fingers around and pulling on while I took her from behind.
Present me thought about it too, I supposed. But briefly. In passing.
As she stood before me and Olivette, I noticed several other things about her. Ms. Branson had lovely eyes. They were chartreuse and flaked with gold. Her lashes were thick, dark, and framed her eyes, giving her a sharp, dramatic look. Her lips were pink and glossy, and small diamond earrings winked in her earlobes.
Ms. Branson leaned back on the desk. “I hope my speech up there didn’t bore you like it did the others.”
“Bore me?” I asked, shaking my head. “No, definitely not. I feel informed and ready for the year.”
Ms. Branson smiled. Then she bent over and clasped her hands over her knees to peer around my legs at Olivette, who was shyly playing peek-a-boo as she poked her head out and then back in.
“What about you, Ms. Olivette?” Ms. Branson asked. “Did you like my speech?”
Olivette nodded bashfully.
Ms. Branson smiled in earnest. Her teeth were incredibly white—so white she could have done dentist ads. She also had dimples. Adorable dimples. “Wow. Thank you, Olivette. I’m glad you liked it. And I’m so excited to have you in my class. Are you excited?”
Olivette nodded again.
Ms. Branson looked around suspiciously, putting on a show for my daughter. “Since nobody is here, how would you feel about me, you, and your dad taking a tour of the school? That way when you start on Monday, you know where everything is. How does that sound?”
Olivette looked up at me.
I waited for her to answer Ms. Branson.
Finally, Olivette nodded.
Ms. Branson straightened up. “Wonderful. Just hold on one minute. I have to lock up the classroom. Then we can go on our tour. Are either of you hungry? Help yourself to those snacks there. I won’t be able to make my way through them all by myself.”
Ms. Branson did a lap of the classroom while I loaded some veggies on a plate for Olivette. I handed it to her, and she began munching as Ms. Branson turned off the lights, covered the food with saran wrap, and tucked it in the fridge. Then she fished out her keys and led us out into the hall to lock up behind her.
“All right,” she said, smoothing her skirt with her palms. “Let’s go.”
Olivette and I fell into step behind her new kindergarten teacher. Ms. Branson walked with a gentle sway to her hips. Her steps were silent in the white sandals she wore, and I found my eyes moving to her narrow waist, where her white blouse was tucked into her skirt and broken up with a thin white belt.
Ms. Branson smiled over her shoulder at us. “Do you live close by to the school?”
> “Yes.” I nodded. “About a ten-minute drive down the road. If that. And you?”
She slowed her pace and walked beside me. “It’s about a five-minute walk to my apartment from here. Which is pretty convenient. There’s even a coffee shop on my route.”
“I like hot chocolate,” Olivette piped up on my other side.
Ms. Branson gasped playfully. “You do? Me too. What are the chances?”
Olivette giggled. “Do you like whipped cream?”
Ms. Branson waggled her eyebrows. “What’s the point of ordering a hot chocolate if you’re not going to have whipped cream?”
“You’re going to steal my daughter’s heart,” I said.
Ms. Branson stopped outside the library and ushered Olivette to come stand beside her by the windows. The two girls pushed their faces against the glass, and Ms. Branson pointed out the sections of the library. The books for the older kids and the younger kids, the spot on the floor filled with plush pillows in all the colors of the rainbow where they had reading time three times a week, and the computer lab off the back of the library.
“The library is my favorite spot in the whole school,” Ms. Branson said.
“Do you like books?” Olivette asked.
“I love books.”
Olivette giggled and retreated back to my side, where she wrapped her fingers in the denim at my knee. I ruffled her hair and gave Ms. Branson an apologetic smile. Chances were my daughter wasn’t going to come all the way around to her new teacher. Especially not this fast. New people made Olivette nervous, and she would probably continue this dance of questions and curiosity and then random bouts of shyness throughout the entire school year.
Ms. Branson moved us away from the library and asked if we’d like to see the gym.
I smiled down at my daughter as she clung to me while we walked down the hallway. “Gym was my favorite room in my school when I was growing up.”
Ms. Branson giggled. It was a delightful sound, like water rushing over rocks in a shallow brook. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“What are you trying to say?” I joked.
Ms. Branson gave me a one-shoulder shrug as we approached the closed gymnasium doors. “Nothing at all. You just have that look about you that you’re an athlete.”
Olivette poked her head out from behind my legs. “My daddy fights fires.”
Ms. Branson paused with her keys in the gymnasium door lock. “Oh. Wow. So you work at the station on the other end of town?”
I nodded. “Yep. Been there for a while now.”
“Daddy saves lives for a living.”
“Olivette,” I said. “Hush now.”
“She’s proud of you,” Ms. Branson said. She pushed the door open with one hip, slipped into the unlit space beyond, and held the door open for us. “Aren’t you, Olivette?”
Olivette still hung behind me as I stepped into the gym, but she nodded.
When the lights came on at Ms. Branson’s touch, the gym became everything I suspected it would be: a rectangular room with basketball court lines painted on the wood floors. It smelled like old sports equipment, chalk, and faintly of old socks. It would probably smell even worse when summer vacation came to an end and there were kids packed in here every day.
I slid my hands into my pockets. “Oh yeah. That’s the smell of my childhood right there.”
I was pleased when Ms. Branson giggled again. But she turned her attention to my daughter. “What do you think, Olivette? Do you think you could have fun in here? We’d play a ton of games. And they have shows at the assemblies where the band plays and the dance class comes out. Sometimes, people sing. It’s a lot of fun.”
Olivette didn’t answer.
Ms. Branson winked at her. “You know, I know this is a lot to take in all at once. But I think you and I are going to be good friends by the end of the year.”
“I think so too,” I added.
Olivette licked her lips, gazed up at me, turned pink, and promptly hid one more time.
Ms. Branson offered me a warm smile. “Well, let’s make our way back to the front doors. I’ll point you down the other hallways, but we’ve seen the important stuff. The places where Olivette will spend time.”
“Thank you, Ms. Branson.”
“Please call me Allie. I feel old when anyone other than my students call me Ms. Branson.”
“Allie, it is.” I liked how her name felt on my tongue. It suited her, too.
Allie, the girl with red hair, green eyes, and a body worthy of all kinds of worship. As Olivette and I followed her to the front doors, I wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was. She certainly didn’t carry herself like a woman who knew how much of a smoke show she was. In fact, she carried herself the opposite way. There was no sensuality dripping off of her, although I supposed that made sense, due to her career. She was modestly dressed. Her shoes were sensible.
Curiosity tickled at me. How did she doll up to go out on a date? Even if she didn’t doll up, she was my kind of woman just like this. Sweet. Soft. Wildly curvy.
Allie paused at the front doors at the end of our tour and put her hands on her hips. “Thank you both for coming tonight. It was really nice to meet you. And Ms. Olivette, I am so looking forward to seeing you again on Monday morning. If you’re feeling shy, you can always come talk to me, okay?”
Olivette nodded.
“What do we say, Olivette?”
My daughter looked up at me. Then she looked at her teacher. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” Allie said, clasping her hands together. Her green eyes slid up to meet my stare. “Will you be dropping her off on Monday?”
I nodded. “Yes, I’ll do most of the drop-offs, and my grandmother will handle the rest when I’m working the morning shift. Oh, I almost forgot. Can I leave you with the station’s phone number as an emergency contact? If you can’t get a hold of me for some reason, ask for Chief Rinehart.”
Allie nodded. “Of course. You have my email on the syllabus. You can send me a list of numbers to reach me at. And for safe measure,” she pulled a card out of a pocket in her skirt, “this is my contact information. My personal information. Please don’t hesitate to call if you have any concerns at all.”
“Thank you.” I pocketed the card.
Allie flushed a bright shade of pink. “I suppose the school number would have done the trick.”
I smiled. “I won’t call you in the middle of the night unless it’s terribly important.”
She giggled nervously. “Okay.”
“Come on, Olivette. Time to go. Say goodbye to Ms. Branson.”
Olivette chewed the inside of her cheek. “Bye, Ms. Branson. Thank you.”
“Goodbye,” Allie said, standing in the doorway as I pushed through it and stepped out into the fresh summer air.
I held out a hand, and my daughter took it. We walked down the path to the parking lot, where my truck was parked. I got Olivette strapped into her car seat in the back seat before climbing up into the driver’s seat. I turned the ignition and glanced at my daughter in the rearview mirror. “So, what did you think?”
“She’s really nice.”
“She is.”
“And really pretty.”
“That too,” I agreed. “What do you think of the school?”
Olivette shrugged. “It’s big.”
I chuckled. “It will feel small before you know it, kiddo. Trust me.”
8
Allie
The patio at Searing’s Grill was full at noon on Saturday. The bright-colored umbrellas in red, green, blue, and yellow stood like proud birds protecting the customers from the sun, and I sat with one leg crossed over the other, sipping my lemon water and poring over the menu while I waited for Candice to meet me.
This was almost a weekly ritual for us. We both liked to come here to eat, and we almost always ordered the same thing, a tequila chicken salad for me and a chicken wrap for her. It was the perfect place t
o catch up after a long week, share some laughs, maybe sip a glass of wine, and then get back to the grind.
It was busy today. Everyone was back in town after their summer vacations, in preparation for back to school. Most of the other patrons were young families, and I wondered if I would be seeing any of them at Searing Elementary on Monday morning.
I spotted Candice walking down the street about five minutes after I’d sat down. The trees lining the street were maples, and they were vibrant and green, but some sunlight shone through in patches that seemed to dance across Candice’s skin as she passed beneath their canopies. She was dressed in denim shorts and a loose white peasant shirt with flowers all over it. Her hair was done up in a messy knot on top of her head and pinned with a white flower, and she was makeup-free.
She smiled when she hit the patio, hopped up the three stairs to leave the sidewalk, and took her seat across from me. “Hey, sorry I’m late. One of my girls was late for her shift, so I had to wait for her to get to the shop.”
“No worries. I’m not in a rush.”
“Do you know what you’re getting?” Candice flipped the menu open. Her eyes went straight for the middle of the menu, where I knew her Chicken Caesar Wrap was. She frowned. “Do I want to get the same old thing or be bold and try something new?”
“Be bold.”
Her eyes slid up to me. “And you? What are you getting? Your salad?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Don’t play it safe, and tell me to be bold.”
We had to make our decision quickly. Our waiter arrived, a young man who had served us all summer long and knew exactly what we always ordered. He cocked his head to the side and smiled at us. “Good afternoon, ladies. Are we going with the usual?”
Ignite The Spark Between Us: Searing Saviors #4 Page 5