Smoky Mountain Reunion

Mason didn’t like thinking about a former student this way. As the only male teacher in an all-girls’ school, he walked a very narrow line. He’d been careful to keep his balance, since the near miss with Nola. His tutoring sessions always were conducted with at least three girls present, his office door remained open at all times. Any kind of involvement with a student, even a former student who’d returned as a fellow teacher, might endanger twelve years of work.

Especially now, when he’d just sent out applications to a dozen different schools across the country, looking for a new job.

More important, he was a man in mourning for his dead wife, with a son who still called out for “Mommy” in his dreams and talked to her when he said his prayers. Garrett wasn’t ready to see his father with another woman. Hell, until this afternoon, Mason would have sworn he, himself, wasn’t ready to talk to a female about anything more personal than work. Or maybe baseball. Nola’s presence didn’t—shouldn’t—change his situation in the least.

When the meeting finally broke up, Mason left the library without a word to anyone. He would treat Nola as a colleague, keep his distance. Staying current with grading and lesson plans—not that he’d been doing such a great job of that this school year—offered him plenty to occupy his time and his brain. The students needed more than he’d been giving lately. He could improve there, as well. All the while avoiding too much time with the disturbing Nola Shannon.

“So, did you like Ms. Shannon, Dad?” Garrett walked beside Mason on the way home, staunchly carrying Nola’s expensive suitcase with its homely occupant inside. “I thought she was cool. She said she went to Hawkridge. Were you her teacher?”

“I was. Back before you were born. Even before your mom and I got married.” Which made him feel about a hundred years old—no kind of candidate for a romance, inappropriate or not.

“That must be kinda weird, to see one of your students grown up.” Sometimes, Garrett was too perceptive for a ten-year-old. Maybe that happened when kids lost their moms.

“Most students do grow up, you know.” Though not always in such an appealing way as Nola had. Mason clenched his jaw, trying not to think about it.

“Yeah.” Garrett set down the turtle case in their front yard. “Maybe you could invite her over sometime, so she could see the animals. I bet she’d be interested.”

Mason climbed the porch steps and crossed to the front door. “I expect she’ll be pretty busy.” With the door unlocked, he dropped his briefcase by the table in the hallway. “And I’m pretty busy, too.”

“Oh, Dad. You always say that.”

“It’s always true.” Before he could say more, the dogs came running from the back of the house. Gimp, the three-legged terrier mix, made a mad dash for Garrett, his idol, ignoring Mason completely. But Ruff and Ready, two “Carolina brown dog” puppies who’d shown up last winter during a snowstorm, stopped for an ear scratch and a couple of pats before rushing outside to play. Last came Gail’s old dog, Angel, a golden retriever with more white than gold in her fur these days and eyes blurred by cataracts. Mason gave her a gentle back rub and some soft words.

“It’s not always true.” Garrett stayed outside on the grass, with Gimp bouncing around him and Homer rustling in the suitcase. “You just don’t try anymore. You say you will, but you never do.”

When his dad’s only answer was a shrug and a crooked smile, Garrett gave up. Blowing a frustrated breath, he picked up the case with Homer inside and headed toward the back of the house and the pond beyond.

At the corner of the house, though, he tried one more time. “Want to come?” he yelled.

“I’ve got design work to do,” his dad answered. “I’ll catch you later. Stay out of the water.”

The sad thing was, he really did intend to spend time on his airplane plans. Garrett could remember the days when page after page of computer diagrams littered the floor of his dad’s office—designs he produced using different systems, materials and structures. He’d built models, too, along with simple balsa-wood planes they used to fly together in the afternoons while Mom cooked dinner.

These days, though, his dad would go into the house, hesitate at the office door, then turn on TV news in the den and sit down with the latest book he’d ordered—always a mystery or science fiction—until dinnertime. Or maybe he’d decide to do some housework. Lately he’d been a real fanatic about keeping everything neat and clean, like Mom always had.

After they ate, Dad would do some grading or make up tests for his classes while Garrett finished his homework. Then they went to bed. His dad didn’t go to sleep right away, though. If Garrett woke up in the middle of the night to pee, more often than not his dad was still reading. Or just lying in bed with the light on, staring at the ceiling.

Switching the suitcase from his right hand to his left, Garrett went through the open gate in the backyard fence and on down the slope through the woods leading to the pond. Angel had stayed behind at the house, but Ruff and Ready and Gimp had come with him and now they zigzagged through the undergrowth, checking out scent trails and animal droppings. He’d patrolled the forest this morning, looking for lost baby squirrels and raccoons, grounded birds and other wildlife, so he felt safe letting the dogs run.

The pond filled a small opening amid the trees, with only a narrow bank around it. Sometimes, after a hard rain, the tree roots closest to the pond would be underwater. But today there was a muddy border for him to kneel on as he tipped the case onto its side.

“Okay, Homer. Here you go.” He tapped the bottom with his hand. “Slide on out, buddy. This is your new neighborhood.”

Homer stuck his head out and looked around, then put one foot on the mud. Gimp came up beside them, sniffing, and Homer jerked back inside his shell.

“Shoo! Go on, Gimp, leave me alone.” Garrett pushed the dog away. “Get back in the trees.”

Right then one of the other dogs barked, and Gimp took off to investigate. Garrett encouraged Homer again, and this time the turtle slipped all the way out onto the bank.

Moving carefully, Garrett picked up the bag and backed away, watching to see which way the turtle headed. Homer sat there for a few minutes, then made his slow, steady way toward the high grass along the edge of the water and disappeared.

“Whew.” Garrett took a deep breath and let it out. “Stay away from the highway,” he said out loud. “You got all you need right here. Prob’ly even a lady turtle to make a family with.”

From what he could tell, the instinct to mate and create new members of the species was the major motivation for animals of all kinds. They ate to survive, and they survived to reproduce. That’s what his mom had told him.

Garrett glanced up at the patch of pale sky above the pond. “Is that what Dad needs, Mom? A reason to survive?”

His dad cared about him, Garrett didn’t doubt it for a minute. But a ten-year-old could take care of himself. Maybe his dad needed a new baby to get interested in. And that would require a mom.

He glanced at the sky again. “I need some help with this, Mom. Show me what to do.”

PINK’S COTTAGE, named for the long-departed Josiah Pink, was one of a dozen small houses scattered within walking distance of the Manor, as the main house was called, on the Hawkridge estate. In the grand old days, senior staff members such as Josiah, who had been Howard Ridgely’s personal secretary, lived in these cottages. Now the school made ten of these houses available to teachers and kept the other two as guest accommodations.

Nola found her luggage on the floor of the single bedroom in Pink’s Cottage, lined up from smallest bag to largest, minus the lingerie case, of course. Fresh daffodils filled a vase on the table by the casement window, cut from the Hawkridge gardens, she was sure. White curtains lifted with the breeze and a white spread stretched invitingly over the plump mattress. She looked forward to settling in there later tonight.

First, there was dinner to get through. Jayne Thomas had caught her at the end of the faculty meeting and invited her to supper in the Hawkridge dining hall. Much as she wanted the chance to relax by herself, an invitation to the head table was not to be declined.

So she spent her free half hour changing for dinner and wondering why Mason had disappeared so fast, without a word or even a wave. The meeting had run long, as the faculty discussed several incidents of vandalism on school property, the upcoming spring dance—the biggest social event of the Hawkridge year—and of course the impending senior graduation. Maybe Garrett was the reason Mason had left so quickly. Maybe they’d gone to the pond together to return Homer to the wild.

Or maybe Mason simply didn’t think she was interesting enough to wait around for.

And that was something about Hawkridge that hadn’t changed. Twelve years ago, he’d brushed her off like a mosquito at a summer picnic. From an adult perspective, Nola could acknowledge the facts—she’d been a lonely adolescent with a huge crush on a man not much older than herself. Mason had been a teacher with his career and reputation at stake. But at the time…

She knew he cared about her. She saw the glow in his eyes when they talked and laughed. He touched her when they were working together—nothing sexual, of course. Anybody could walk in on them in a classroom. But his hand would rest on her shoulder while he looked over the work on her desk. Or his fingers would brush hers and linger, as he reached for one of the gazillion papers she had to fill out for every college application.

Nola had been with her share of guys, and she could read the signs. Mason was falling in love with her. Not for her money, like the idiots back in Boston. Mason had a job, and money of his own. And not even just for sex, because any woman would want him if he looked at her twice.

No, Mason wanted her because they were soul mates. Because they were meant to be together, forever. And as soon as she graduated, as soon as she got free of Hawkridge, he would make her his own.

Like most adolescent fantasies, Nola’s had been destined to remain unfulfilled. And now, away from the distraction of his magnetic personality, she could remember her resolution regarding Mason Reed. She wanted to put him—her memories and fantasies of him, to be exact—firmly in the past where they belonged. Then she’d marry Ted and have his children, sharing a home and their careers in Boston. They’d spend summers on Cape Cod, or even in France, perhaps, renting a small cottage in Provence. Ted specialized in Napoleonic politics. He could do research while the children learned fluent French.

Unfortunately for her plans and intentions, however, the encounter with Mason this afternoon had simply confirmed Nola’s worst fears.

The man appeared to be as irresistible as ever.

Chapter Three

“Why do I have to eat in the kitchen?”

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Mason frowned at the knot of his tie, pulled it loose and started again. “Because you aren’t old enough to eat at the head table.”

“I could eat at one of the girls’ tables.”

“You don’t belong there, either.”

“I don’t belong in the kitchen.” Arms folded, lower lip stuck out, Garrett sat cross-legged on the floor and pouted as hard as he knew how.

“What’s wrong with the kitchen?” Mason started over on his tie for the third time. “It’s big and warm, and Mrs. Werner lets you eat as much as you want.”