style="font-size:15px;"> She shook her head. Wispy curls floated around her temples. He remembered how soft her hair had been the one time he’d touched it. Sometime past midnight of that night long ago, he’d taken her to a twenty-four hour clinic where she’d been checked out and pronounced fine. The doctor had told them that over fifty percent of first pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
“Just the body’s way of preparing for the real thing,” he’d assured them in a hearty manner, treating them as a couple.
Neither he nor Zia had explained the truth. Between the two of them, they had managed to pay the bill. Later he’d received a check from Zia for his share. Two words had been written on the accompanying note. “Thanks forever.”
“Actually my life is quite calm and peaceful. Just the way I like it.” Her smile was droll.
He smiled, too. “Same here.”
“No serious involvement to give you heart pains?” she teased, surprising him with the question.
He grimaced. The woman he’d been dating had made it clear she wasn’t interested in moving from Cedar City in the southwestern part of the state to another small town in the northeastern section, so that had ended the relationship. “None. You?”
Her smile dimmed a bit. “I was going pretty steady with a high school teacher in Provo when this job offer came up. When he didn’t get down on his knees and beg me to stay, I was disappointed. Then I realized the promotion meant more to me than he did.”
“You didn’t love him,” Jeremy murmured.
“I cared about him, but I didn’t want a lifelong commitment.” Her eyes seemed to darken. “I’m not sure I ever will.”
“You can’t let a jerk like Sammy influence the rest of your relationships,” he advised.
“No, I haven’t. At least, I don’t think I have.” She sighed. “Mom’s worried, though. She made some strong hints during the wedding festivities that I might be too picky. I didn’t remind her that her first attempt at marriage ended in divorce.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she said, her tone cooler. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound sharp. I just haven’t met the one, I suppose.”
“Yeah, same here.”
“All my friends thought you were a hunk,” she murmured on a determinedly lighter note. “They kept dropping by the house when we were home on vacations. Did you notice?”
He shook his head. “I was concentrating too hard on getting my courses in, making decent grades and graduating. Nothing was going to stand in my way.”
“That’s what my mother said I should do when I was going with Sammy. I’ve never had the courage to tell her she was right.”
“It was a long time ago,” Jeremy advised, catching a hint of regret in her manner. “We were young.”
“Young,” she echoed, brushing back a curl from her cheek. “And foolish. Why do those two go together so easily?”
When she laughed, he did, too. But he didn’t share the irony. He felt sorry for her. She’d learned a hard lesson in trust, one she’d obviously never forgotten. However, that was neither here nor there. He felt he could truthfully report to her mom that Zia was safe and well in her new environment.
“Ready to go?” he asked as she patted back a yawn.
Zia studied the three-story building where she would be working come August. She had seven weeks to find a place to live, get her furniture out of storage and settle in. That should be plenty of time.
Meanwhile, she was reading over all her books on continuous courses of study for students from first to twelfth grade.
Research had shown that more than about six weeks off from school and the kids forgot a lot of what they had learned. That meant teachers had to spend at least a month reviewing old material before beginning new stuff each and every school year.
She wanted to decrease the review time to two weeks and hoped to make changes in the scheduling of the semesters, too.
A vehicle pulled into the parking space next to her. Startled, she glanced around to see Jeremy in the SUV.
He rolled down the window. “Checking out your new domain?”
She nodded, feeling a little shy because he’d read her so easily. “I wanted to see where the building was located and how the town was laid out.”
“Where’s your car?”
“I walked down from the hotel. I needed the exercise after spending all those hours in traffic yesterday.”
“Good thinking. I’m heading for the bridge site south of here, down toward Desolation Canyon. I saw you when I pulled out of the parking lot at the DOT building and wondered if you’d like to go along. The scenery is pretty nice.”
The educational offices were across the street from the courthouse. The squat building down from the courthouse was the one he pointed out as the DOT regional headquarters. She hadn’t realized it would be near her workplace.
“You probably don’t want to be trapped in a car again after your long trip yesterday,” Jeremy said when she failed to respond.
She turned to him. “Sorry, I was thinking about work. If you’re sure I won’t be in the way, I’d love a scenic tour of the area,” she said on an impulse she couldn’t quite explain.
“Hop in,” he invited with an engaging smile.
As they drove out of town, she had to chuckle at the dinosaur that welcomed visitors.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “It takes some getting used to.”
“Why pink?”
“Beats me.”
It was nice, she realized, to laugh with him, to have someone to be at ease with. Jeremy was the only person who knew all the ugly details of her secret past, so she didn’t have to be on guard with him every minute the way she was with her family and friends back in Idaho. In fact, she hadn’t really been free and easy with anyone in ages, perhaps not since she was nineteen.
That was the past, she reminded herself hastily. When she’d agreed to take the new position, she’d decided the move would be a starting point, a new day in her life. Regret and mistakes would be wiped out, and she’d start over with a clean slate.
Could that be done? Her emotional upheaval since the wedding had upset those grand schemes, and now she was unsure she’d done the correct thing.
Her gaze was drawn to her companion. What an irony that the one person who knew all the details of her foolish, betrayed heart should be here, reminding her of long-ago dreams and the confidence she’d once had in them.
“Look,” he said softly, pointing out the rugged view in front of the truck. “The Uinta Mountains of this area are unique
