followed her back into the office, where she was copying papers on the antique copy machine—a hand-me-down from another school, no doubt. Regan had told her that Barlow Ridge Elementary got all the district’s reject equipment. “I was wondering about the blackboards.”
“What about them?”
“They’re unusable. Is there any chance of talking the district into putting up whiteboards?”
Bertie cackled. “Yeah. Sure.”
Claire felt slightly deflated, which, for her, was always the first step toward utter determination.
“You can try,” the veteran teacher said.
“I’ll do that.”
Bertie was still in her classroom working when Claire finally left three hours later. She’d started sorting through her storage closet but gave up after a half hour, concentrating instead on making her first week’s lesson plans. She would be teaching five different subjects—some of them at four different grade levels. Regan had already explained that she could combine science and social studies into single units of study for all her grades, but English and math had to be by grade level. The challenge was scheduling—keeping one grade busy while another was being taught.
But Claire loved a challenge, and this would be just that. Plus, she’d have an excellent background for her planned master’s thesis on combined classroom education. Old equipment and a wavy blackboard were not going to slow her down.
BRETT’S CELL PHONE RANG at seven-thirty, while he was driving the washboard county road that led to Wesley.
Phil Ryker. His boss.
“Hey, pard,” Phil drawled, setting Brett’s teeth on edge. He had to remind himself to practice tolerance. Phil was an urban boy who wanted to be a cowboy, and being heir to the man who owned most of the land in the Barlow Ridge area, including Brett’s family homestead, he was wealthy enough to indulge his dreams. Brett considered himself fortunate to be leasing his homestead with an option to buy, which he was close to exercising, and also to be working for Phil, managing the man’s hobby ranch during the three hundred days a year he was not in residence. Those two circumstances were enough to help Brett overlook a fake drawl and words such as pard.
“Hi, Phil.”
“I won’t be able to get to the ranch next week like I planned, but I did buy a couple of horses and a mule, and I’m having them shipped out.”
“All right.” What now? Brett knew from past experience that the horses could be anything from fully trained Lipizzans to ratty little mustangs.
“One of them is a bit rough. I thought maybe you could tune him up for me.”
“Define ‘a bit rough.’” Brett’s and Phil’s idea of rough were usually quite different.
“Seven years old and green broke, but he’s beautiful,” Phil said importantly. “You’ll see what I mean when he arrives.”
“He isn’t…”
“He’s a stud. I’d like to show him, so I need him fit for polite society.” Phil laughed. “I’ll get a hold of you closer to the delivery date. Hey, did you figure out that problem with the north well?”
“Yeah. Yesterday. The water level is fine, but the pump needs to be replaced. I sent you an estimate.”
“Just take care of it. We can’t have that pivot go down.”
“Sure can’t.” Because that would mean that he wouldn’t be able to grow hay at a loss. Brett figured Phil knew what he was doing. A hobby ranch that was slowly losing money was a tax write-off and apparently Phil needed write-offs. Brett had tried to interest him in a number of ideas that would make the ranch more economical, perhaps even profitable, but he had his own ideas. Brett gave up after the third set of suggestions was rejected, finally understanding that Phil wasn’t particularly concerned about losing money. Must feel good, he mused as he hung up the phone.
Amazingly, Brett found the parts he needed for the swamp cooler at the hardware store in Wesley. Now all he needed to do was go home and get them installed—with luck, while Claire was still at school mucking out her classroom.
He didn’t want to spend a lot of time around her. It wouldn’t be prudent, since he found her ridiculously attractive, and he was really trying to mind his p’s and q’s where the family was concerned. He’d spent more than a decade being the missing brother, and before that, he’d been the rebellious brother.
Now he owed it to his family to be the good brother. And this was one time he was not going to fail.
CHAPTER TWO
CLAIRE SMILED AT HER NEW class—all ten of them—and wondered who’d masterminded the snake incident. They all looked more than capable of it, but at least the younger students, the fifth and sixth graders, were smiling back at her with varying degrees of curiosity and friendliness. By contrast, the five older students, the seventh and eighth graders, stared at her with impassive, just-try-to-engage-us-and-see-how-far-you-get expressions.
“I’m Miss Flynn,” Claire said, as she wrote her name on the overhead projector.
“We know who you are,” one of the kids muttered snidely. Claire glanced up, startled by the blatant rudeness, but she couldn’t tell who’d spoken. “I’m looking forward to a productive year, and I thought that in order to—”
One of the eighth-grade boys raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“Do you think you’ll be here for the whole year?”
“It’s one of my goals,” Claire said dryly. She knew that her class had had three teachers in two years, each less effective than the previous one. “As I was saying, in order to get to know each other better, I thought we could all introduce ourselves and tell one thing we did this summer. How about starting on this side of the room?” She nodded at the boy in eighth grade, Dylan, who sat farthest to her right.
“I think everyone knows who I am. This summer I slept.” He fixed her with a steely look.
Claire quelled an instant urge to jump into battle, as her instincts were telling her to do, deciding it would be wiser to bide her time and get a read on her opponent.
“How nice,” she said. She nodded at the girl sitting next to him.
“I’m Toni.”
“Did you accomplish anything this summer?”
“No.” But then Toni suddenly made an O with her mouth. “Yes,” she amended, with a satisfied expression. “I almost talked my mom into getting rid of her bum of a boyfriend.”
Claire gave the girl a tight smile and moved on.
“My name is Ashley,” the redheaded girl sitting next to Toni chirped. “This summer I totally revamped my wardrobe.” She jangled the bracelets on her wrist as if to prove the point.
Claire was saved from the remaining
