to night and never feeling full.
“Sandwiches?”
“Sandwiches would be great.” She treated him to another smile, this time relieved.
They met at the foot of the bed and had one of those awkward moments where they both hesitated, started forward, shuffled, until he finally waved toward the door. “After you.”
It seemed to him that her cheeks were a little bit pink. Did she feel some of the pull that had him half-aroused and uncomfortable?
He couldn’t imagine. With his scarred face and obvious limp, he was more likely to be an object of pity than lust. His throat momentarily tightened. Had that moment been so clumsy because she’d been trying to defer to him since he was disabled?
“I’ll get started on food,” he said shortly, and left her to the kids.
Like a bunch of locusts, they showed up in the kitchen all too quickly and began filling plates. A couple of the smaller girls barely nibbled—one was Asian, a tiny thing with glossy black hair down to her hips, the other thin and plain with braces that pushed her lips out. Those two, he remembered, had taken the room with one bed, and now were quieter than the others.
Two girls were arguing loudly about some math question, while another flirted with the stocky boy who seemed more interested in piling food on his plate. The teacher looked dead on her feet.
She swayed, and John stepped forward, but she rallied and said, “Wow! This is great. Thank you.”
They took seats around the long, farmhouse table that occupied the middle of the enormous kitchen, John at her right side.
“Everyone, our host is John Fallon.” She reeled off their names, most of which he’d likely need to hear again.
The tall, skinny boy who’d stayed here before was Dieter Schoenecker, the stocky one had the unlikely name of Hopper Daniels, and the third boy was Troy Thorsen. Nordic last name, which didn’t explain his racial heritage.
The girls were a blur. Kelli—with an i, she made sure to tell him, last name he didn’t catch, Amy Brooks, who seemed given to posing and flipping her hair, Tabitha, Erin and…that left someone out, but he couldn’t remember who. Probably the plain, quiet one.
Watching the speed with which the food disappeared, John took mental stock of his larder. They’d be okay for a week, he figured; he kept an emergency supply of canned goods he could dip into if need be.
Fiona took half a sandwich and ate it slowly, as if she had to remind herself to take a bite and swallow. Clearly they’d driven across the mountains that morning, and had probably made an early start to have had time for any kind of competition during the day. Driving for hours through the blizzard had to have wrung her out.
“Why don’t you hit the sack?” he said quietly. “They’re still wound up. I can sort them out later.”
“I’m responsible…”
“You look ready to collapse.”
Dieter Schoenecker, who sat on her other side, heard. “Ms. Mac was Superwoman today.”
She managed a grin and pretended to flex a bicep. “That’s me. Speaking of which—” she pitched her voice a little louder “—have I mentioned that I have X-ray vision? I see through walls.”
“Ahh! Ms. Mac doesn’t trust us.” The Hopper kid clasped his hand to his chest and fell back in his chair.
She just smiled. “Bathroom on the right side upstairs is for girls, left side for boys.”
“Toothbrushes.” John pushed back his chair and stood. His bad leg chose to cave, and he had to brace his hand on the back of the chair until the spasm let up. Without looking to see if anyone had noticed, he left the kitchen.
He grabbed a basket and piled it with toothbrushes, toothpaste in sample tubes, dental floss, the small bottles of shampoo and hand lotion he put out when readying a bathroom for guests, and a couple of packages of feminine products. It might embarrass the girls, but if they were here for very many days, odds were a couple of them would need something.
Fiona stood when he came back. “I’ll take that up.” She looked into the basket. “Oh, thank goodness. I didn’t even think of that as a problem. I’ll distribute all this.” She raised her voice. “I’m going to bed, kids. Help Mr. Fallon clean up, then I expect you to get ready for bed, too. It’s been a long day.”
“Do we have to turn the lights out?” Amy looked genuinely horrified.
“No. You can read, talk, listen to music, whatever. Just keep it down, and be considerate of each other.”
“If you need anything during the night—” John pointed to a door at the back of the kitchen “—that’s where I’ll be.”
Nods all around.
He walked the teacher to the foot of the stairs.
Standing one step up, she was at eye level with him. “Did I tell you when I called that our principal said they had four inches and snow still piling up even in Portland? It’s amazing that you have electricity.”
“We operate on a generator. There aren’t any power lines out here.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” She gave a small shiver. “I can’t believe how lucky we were. I didn’t want the kids to know, but…I was so scared.”
Feeling cruel, he said, “You should have been. Without winter gear…”
Her chin came up. “This blizzard wasn’t predicted so soon. And none of the meteorologists expected it to be so major. It’s only November!”
“You ever noticed how ski areas open Thanksgiving weekend? Means they’ve been getting snow for weeks.”
“That’s true, but we’re not at that kind of elevation here…” She trailed off, then sighed. “You’re right. We should have never set off without being prepared. I knew we had chains, and I’ve driven in snow, so I got complacent. But my dad kept down sleeping bags in the trunk whenever we traveled during the winter.”
“Smart man.”
“You saved our lives.”
“No. It sounds like Dieter did.”
Her face softened. “He did. He’s an amazing boy. Really brilliant. I mean, they’re all smart, but not like him. And he’s so… together. Mature and, I don’t know, comfortable with himself. Which, let me tell you, is rare in sixteen-year-olds.”
The boys he’d known in Iraq were younger in years, if older in experience. Living in a war zone did that to kids.
He jerked his head toward the kitchen. “They all that age?”
“Willow is fifteen. She’s our only sophomore. And Troy and Erin are seniors, so they’re seventeen. The rest are juniors.”
John nodded.
“It’s nice
