head, and he insisted, “Fair is fair.”
“I hardly have any makeup on,” she mumbled.
“Paige, come on,” he said, more seriously. “You look beautiful.”
Her expression softened and her mouth curved upward. He snapped the picture.
“Uncle Dylan, let’s gooo,” Connor said.
Okay, the kid was killing the moment. But Dylan couldn’t complain. If it hadn’t been for his nephews, he might never have met up with Paige again, and this had been the most fun he’d had in a long, long while.
chapter seven
On Monday afternoon, Paige read the latest installment of the story to her classroom. “‘The knight said, Come with me’—Yes, Neveah?”
“How can the night talk?”
Paige sat puzzled for a moment, and then understood. “Oh! It’s not ‘night’ like ‘night and day,’ it’s ‘knight’ with a silent ‘k.’” She got up and wrote it on the board. “Does everyone know what a knight is?” Clara raised her hand. “Yes, Clara.”
“It’s like a prince but he has a sword.”
“Yes, very good! But only for scaring away bulls and monsters,” Paige added. She still didn’t want to promote fighting. Clara raised her hand again. “Yes, Clara?”
“I think princes are boring.”
“No they’re not!” another girl shouted.
“It’s funny you should say that,” Paige said. “Because this prince—I mean this knight—seemed boring at first. But then, it turned out he wasn’t.” Clara’s hand went up again. “Yes, Clara?”
“Is he a real person?”
Paige’s face heated. “This is a story,” she said, not exactly lying to the children, even under pressure. “I’m going to keep reading it.—‘The knight said, Come with me to the magical orchard!’”
The bell rang. Paige put the journal away and helped the children gather their coats and belongings. Once they’d gone out to the busses, she stopped by Jessica’s classroom.
Jessica was standing on a chair to put up a new bulletin board display. A border of colorful fall leaf cutouts surrounded a half-finished message. When she saw Paige, she smiled. “Hey! How was your weekend?” As she stepped down, she scrunched up her face and added, “I bet it was better than mine. You would not believe how complicated wedding centerpieces can be. I was going to have tropical flowers in square vases, but then the vases looked too big, so I…” She cut herself off. “Aaand that’s all super boring.”
“I like hearing about it,” Paige protested. “And you don’t think it’s boring. You love planning all that stuff.”
“I do.”
“I think you’ll miss it once the wedding is over.” Jessica looked sheepish at Paige’s words. “What?” Paige asked.
“I may have signed up to help organize a charity ball at the shelter.”
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