Winning the Cowboy's Heart

“There’s worse stuff below that. Spinach, beets, spuds and corn.”

“I liked the just-beef plan better.”

“I’m sure you did, but veggies are a fact of life.”

A STORM WAS MOVING IN. A full moon was in the offing. In Regan’s experience, those were usually the best explanations for the off-the-wall behavior of her classes on such a day.

Jared, the new guy, Pete’s long-term PE sub, stood in the hall with her. “I’m whipped,” he said. “I usually teach elementary. Now I know why.”

“This age grows on you.”

“When?”

Regan smiled at his comeback and he returned the smile crookedly. The bell rang and Jared exhaled and headed for his class.

Regan managed to keep a lid on things until sixth period, near the end of the day. Kylie’s class. Regan was teaching observation skills and since kids love nothing better than something gross and slimy, she’d invested in several calamari. The lesson was good—she’d simply picked the wrong day to teach it.

The trouble started as soon as the students were released to start their lab.

“Hey, Sadie,” one of the boys called, holding up his squid. “Doesn’t this look a lot like a spider?”

The girl immediately turned pale and stared straight down at the table. The boy wiggled the squid and a few students laughed, until they saw the look of death in Regan’s eyes. It had been a long day and she was not going to put up with this. She walked over to the offending student, took his books, led him to a desk and told him to read chapter two of his textbook, outline it and then answer all questions at the end.

She moved back to Sadie, who was still staring down at the floor with Kylie beside her, and discovered that the girl did indeed have a major fear of spiders. Regan assured her that the squid was not a spider and that she could observe it from a comfortable distance. “No one will bother you.”

A quick look around the class told her that everyone had gotten her message—or so she’d thought—until the students filed out after the quietest lab of the day and she realized that one of her specimens was missing.

She didn’t need it—her final class was social studies—but she couldn’t have an unauthorized squid floating around the school. She hated to think of what might happen if it fell into the wrong hands. She had to find that cephalopod.

Then a shriek in the hall gave her a good of idea of where to look. She hurried to the door and pushed her way through a throng of kids to see three people in the center of the hall—Pete Domingo, Sadie and Kylie. The missing squid lay on the floor near Pete’s feet.

“Pick it up.” He was talking to Sadie.

Sadie’s face was ashen. She shook her head, looking as if she was about to be sick. Domingo’s face grew red.

“I. Said. Pick. It. Up.”

The girl was close to tears. She didn’t move.

“Joseph threw it at Sadie. So Joseph should pick it up.” Kylie said hotly. Sadie was Kylie’s best friend and Kylie was bent on protecting her.

“I distinctly saw it in Miss Grant’s hand just before it hit me in the face.”

“I was just getting it off me.” The girl’s voice was shaky. Her entire body was trembling, but Pete didn’t seem aware of that. He’d just been hit in the face with a squid. The world was about to end.

“I’ll pick it up,” Kylie snapped. She started to reach for it, but Pete stopped her.

That was when Regan stepped into the center of the circle, calmly stooped down and grabbed the slimy creature. “I was wondering where this had gotten to,” she said evenly, looking Pete in the eye. “I’m glad you found it.” She turned and the crowd parted as she walked back to her room.

There was a silence and then— “Anyone who is not in class when that bell rings will have three days’ detention.”

The crowd broke up, leaving Kylie and Sadie standing silently in the center of the hall, uncertain whether they were supposed to go or stay. The bell rang and Regan paused at her door to see what was going to happen.

Domingo shook his head. “Three days, ladies.”

His voice was clearly audible in Regan’s classroom. She let out a breath and, knowing the kids were watching her reaction, carefully kept her face expressionless as she walked to the front of the class and started taking attendance. Inwardly she was seething.

Tanya was right. A baboon would be better.

CHAPTER TWO

“DAD, do you think you’ll ever get married again?”

Will managed to flip the hotcake he was cooking without muffing it. “Not anytime soon.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Mark’s dad and stepmom are breaking up. He says it sucks.”

It did suck. No argument there. “Marriage is serious business, Kylie. Not something to be entered into lightly.”

“How about you and my mother?”

My mother. The shadow figure. Kylie rarely spoke of her, although she did keep a photo of her in her hope chest. The last Will had heard, Des had hooked up with a rodeo stock contractor and was living in Florida. He hoped she’d finally matured enough to try to stick it out in a relationship.

“We were young.”

Kylie speared a hotcake off the plate her father had set in the middle of the table. “That matters?”

“A lot of times it does. You can’t have a grown-up relationship if you’re not grown up.”

“Marriage must be a lot of work.”

“A good one is,” Will said as he poured more batter into the pan.

“Then how do parents have time for kids?”

Will didn’t know, since he’d never had a wife and a child at the same time. He winged it. “They work together to raise the kids.”

“How do they have time for each other?” Kylie slathered butter on the hotcake and started to eat, not bothering with syrup.

“They make time.”

“Mark’s parents didn’t.”

“How so?”