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“Fine, last I heard.” Sarah felt a little guilty that she didn’t know more. That she hadn’t made a more concerted effort to visit Genna herself. After all, they were coworkers and had been since Sarah began teaching at Weaver Elementary nearly six years ago. Genna was a friend of her mother’s. Her aunts!
“What was she doing skiing at her age, anyway? It’s no wonder she broke some bones.”
“Anyone can have a skiing accident, even someone who’s barely twenty-five,” Sarah said pointedly.
Dee grinned impishly and rolled her eyes. But Sarah was spared her comment when the bell rang, sharp and shrill.
“To the salt mine,” Dee said, heading for the classroom door. “Want to head over to Classic Charms one night this week? See if Tara’s got anything new in?”
Sarah nodded. The children outside had scattered like leaves on the wind when the bell rang, and now she could hear footsteps ringing on the tile floor in the corridor. “Sure.”
Classic Charms was the newest shop to open its doors in Weaver, though it had eschewed the new shopping center area for a location right on Main Street.
Dee swiveled, deftly avoiding a collision with the first trio of kids bolting into Sarah’s classroom.
Sarah began passing out the workbooks she’d corrected over the weekend as the tables slowly filled. She had seventeen kids in her class this year.
Correction.
Eighteen, now.
They sat two to a table, usually, though she had enough room for them to all sit separately if need be. Some years were like that. This year though, had so far been peaceful.
“Thanks, Miz Clay.” Bright-eyed Chrissy Tanner beamed up at her as she accepted her workbook. “Are we having science today?”
“It’s Monday, isn’t it?” she asked lightly and continued passing through the room. Her attention, though, kept straying to the door.
Sooner or later, Eli would be there. Her gaze flicked to the wide-faced clock affixed high on the wall and noted he’d have three minutes before he’d be tardy. Not that she’d enforce that rule with a brand-new student on his very first day. She wasn’t that much a stickler for the rules.
The thought struck her as incredibly ironic.
The last workbook delivered, she walked back through the tables, heading to the front of the classroom where she picked up her chalk and finished writing out the day’s lesson plan on the blackboard. The sound of chatter and laughter and scraping chairs filled the room.
It was familiar and normal.
Ordinarily those sounds, this classroom, felt safe to Sarah.
But not today.
Would he bring Eli?
Between her fingers, the chalk snapped into pieces. Squelching an impatient sound, she picked them off the floor, and rapidly finished writing as the final bell rang.
No Eli Scalise.
As she’d done every morning at the beginning of the school day, she moved across the room and closed the door. Regardless of her feelings about her new student and his presence—or lack of it—she had a class to teach.
She turned back to her students, raising her voice enough to get everyone’s attention. “How many of you saw the double-rainbow yesterday?”
A bunch of hands shot up into the air.
And the lessons of the day began.
“Why do I gotta go to school?”
“Because.”
Eli sighed mightily. “But you said we were going to go back to California.”
“Not for months yet.”
“So?”
Max Scalise pulled open the passenger door of the SUV he’d been assigned by Sawyer Clay, the sheriff. They were already late, thanks to a conference call he’d had to take about a recent case of his. “In.”
His son, Eli, made a face, but tossed his brown-bag lunch and dark blue backpack inside before climbing up on the seat.
“Fasten the belt.”
The request earned Max another pulled face. He shut the door and headed around to the driver’s side. As he went, his eyes automatically scanned the area around them.
But there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just bare-branched trees. Winter-dry lawns not quite covered by snow. A few houses lined neatly along the street, all of them closed up tight against the chill. Only one of them had smoke coming from the chimney—his mother’s house that they’d just left.
Genna was as comfortably situated as she could get in the family room, where Max had lit the fire in the fireplace as she’d requested. She had her heavy cast propped on pillows, a stack of magazines, a pot of her favorite tea, the television remote and a cordless phone.
Outside the houses, though, there were no particular signs of life.
His breath puffed out around his head in white rings and cold air snuck beneath the collar of his dark brown departmental jacket.
God, he hated the cold.
He climbed in the truck.
“I could’a stayed in California with Grandma Helene,” Eli continued the minute Max’s rear hit the seat.
“What’s wrong with your grandmother here?” He made a U-turn and headed down the short hop to Main Street.
Eli hunched his shoulders. The coat he wore was a little too big for him. Max had picked up the cold-weather gear on their way to the airport. There hadn’t been a lot of time for fine fitting. “Nuthin’,” his son muttered. “But she always visited us out there. How come we gotta come here this time?”
“You happen to notice that big old cast on Grandma’s leg?” Max drove past the station house and turned once again, onto the street leading to the school. It took all of three minutes, maybe, given the significant distance.
The closer they got to the brick building that hadn’t changed a helluva lot since the days when Max had run the halls, the more morose Eli became. If his boy slouched any more in his seat, he’d hang himself on the seatbelt.
“Look at the bright side,” Max said. “You won’t be bored.”
Eli’s eyes—as dark blue as Jennifer’s had been—rolled. “Rather be bored back home than bored in there.” He jerked his chin toward the building.
Max pulled into the parking lot and stopped near the main entrance. “Don’t roll your eyes.” Donna, the school secretary, had told him when he’d faxed in the registration forms from California that the office was just inside the main front doors. A different location than he’d remembered from his days there.
“Do they have an after-school program?”
Eli was used to one in California—two supervised hours of sports and games that had never managed to produce completed homework the way it should have.
“No.”
Eli heaved a sigh. “I hate it here.”
Unfortunately, Max couldn’t say much to change his son’s opinion. Not when he remembered all too clearly feeling exactly the same way. He reached over and caught Eli behind the head, tousling his hair. “It’s only for a few months. Until Grandma’s all healed up and can go back to teaching school.” By then, hopefully, Max would have finished the job he’d been assigned. But Max didn’t tell Eli that. He wasn’t about to tell anyone in Weaver what his true purpose was there.
Someone was funneling meth through Weaver. It was coming out of Arizona by way of Colorado and heading north after Weaver, even—occasionally—on a locally contracted semi. But only occasionally.
The transports seemed to be wide and varied and Max’s job was to determine who was organizing the local hub.
It was a job he’d managed to avoid being assigned until his mom broke her leg two weeks earlier. She’d needed help. His boss had been putting on the pressure. So here they were. Father and son and neither one too thrilled about it.
“I’m already late, you know.” Eli dragged his backpack over his shoulder. It rustled against his slick coat. “On my first day. The teacher’ll probably be mad for the rest of the year.”
“I seriously doubt it,” Max drawled. His son had inherited his mother’s dramatic streak, as well.
“Is it a lady? Or a man?”
“Who?”
Eli started to roll his eyes again, but stopped at a look from Max. “The teach. I liked Mr. Frederick. He was cool.”
“I have no idea.”
Eli made a sound. “You didn’t ask?”
Max felt a pang of guilt. He’d been more preoccupied with this unexpected—and unappealing—assignment than with the identity of Eli’s temporary teacher. Max had only had a few days to take care of the school paperwork, as it was. But Eli was right about one thing. They were late. Both of them.
The sheriff had expected Max at the station nearly thirty minutes ago.
Great way to start off, Scalise.
He caught Eli’s jacket and nudged his son around the corner into the office when he spotted the sign.
A young woman he didn’t recognize smiled at them the moment they came into her view. “The new student,” she said cheerfully. “Welcome.”
Max heard the gritty sigh that came out of Eli and hoped he was the only one who heard it. He didn’t need Eli having trouble at this school. He needed everything to go as smoothly as possible. With no distractions, Max could finish his investigation as quickly as possible, and they could get the hell back out of Dodge. As soon as his mother could get back in the classroom.
Weaver held no great memories for him.
He was just as anxious to leave it again as Eli was. Telling his boy that, though, was not going to happen.
“Deputy Scalise—” the girl at the desk had risen “—I’m Donna. It’s nice to meet you in person. You, too, Eli. I’ll just let Principal Gage know you’re here.”
“He already knows.” A balding man approached from behind them, hand outstretched. “Max. Good to see you. Been a long time.”
“Joe.” He shook the principal’s hand. “Still can’t believe you’re head honcho here.” Joe Gage had been a hellion of the highest order back when they’d been kids. “Guess they don’t hold a little thing like blowing up the science room against a man.”
“Guess not. They made you a deputy, and you were in that room with me.”
“Whoa, Dad.” Eli sounded impressed.
The principal chuckled. “Come on. I’ll take you down to Eli’s class.” He looked at the boy as they stepped into the corridor once more. “Miss Clay. You’ll like her.”
Max’s boot heels scraped the hard floor. Clay. Another name from the past.
Well, why not?
The Clay family had plenty of members—seemed to him there’d been a teacher among them.
For a moment, he wished he’d been more inclined to listen to his mother’s talk of Weaver over the years. But she knew his reasons for not wanting to hear about the town well enough. Weaver was where Max’s father betrayed everyone they knew. It was where Tony Scalise had abandoned them. And on her visits to see him and Eli, she barely mentioned details about her life back home. Mostly because it generally led to an argument between them.
Max had wanted Genna to leave a long time ago. To join him in California.
For reasons that still escaped him, she’d been just as determined to stay.
The principal stopped in front of a closed classroom door. Through the big square window that comprised the top half of the door, he could see the rows of tables—situated in a sort of half circle—all occupied by kids about Eli’s size. At the head of the class, he caught a glimpse of the teacher. Slender as a reed, dressed in emerald green from head to toe. A little taller than average and definitely young, he noted. Her arms waved around her as she spun in a circle, almost as if she were acting out some play.
Max started to smile.
Then the teacher stopped, facing the door with its generous window head-on. Through the glass, her sky-blue eyes met his.
He felt the impact like a sucker punch to the kidneys.
He’d only known one woman with eyes that particular shade.
The principal pushed open the door. “Pardon the interruption, Miss Clay,” he said, ushering Eli inside. “This is your new student, Eli Scalise. Eli, this is Miss Clay.”
Max stood rooted to the floor outside the doorway.
Sarah.
She was no longer looking at him with those eyes that were as translucent as the Wyoming winter sky, but at Eli.
Her smile was warm. Slightly crooked. And it made Max wonder if he’d imagined the frigid way she’d looked at him through the window.
“Eli,” she greeted. “Come on in. Take off your coat. Can’t have you roasting to death on your first day here.” She gestured at the line of coats hanging on pegs. “We do our roasting only on Wednesdays.”
Eli shot Max a studiously bored look. But Max still saw the twitch of Eli’s lips.
A good sign. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about Eli, after all.
He looked back at Sarah again.
What the hell was she doing here? A teacher of all things. When they’d been involved—
