Romancing The Teacher

Lisa glanced at her watch. It was almost seven. She’d stayed longer than she’d intended. Again. Whenever she came to Providence Shelter, time melted into this distant dimension and she lost all sense of it. One thing led to another and she would never seem to finish. But that was life. Ongoing. Neverending.

But right now her life was waiting for her back at her house and if she didn’t hurry, she was going to miss reading Casey his bedtime story. He was pretty out of sorts with her over the last time she’d come home late, only to find him fast asleep. She’d had to bribe him by letting him stay up an extra half hour on Friday night in order to get him to forgive her. She didn’t want that to become a habit.

Not to mention she still had papers that needed to be graded. She really owed it to her students not to fall asleep over them the way she had last time.

That’s what she got by trying to make do on five hours sleep, she silently upbraided herself. As her mother had pointed out to her more than once, she wasn’t a superwoman. There was no point in trying to act like one.

Just before she left, Lisa swung by Muriel’s office to get her purse. The room was empty. Just as well, Lisa decided. She didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation at this hour. Muriel was a lovely person, but she could go on indefinitely without ever reaching her point.

Crossing to the old desk someone had donated to the building, she opened the bottom drawer and took out her purse. Lisa closed the drawer and slung the purse strap onto her shoulder. She was ready to leave.

But she didn’t.

Whether it was a sense of responsibility or just plain old-fashioned curiosity, she couldn’t honestly say, but instead of leaving the building, Lisa found herself retracing her steps and going outside, where less than two hours ago, she’d left Providence Shelter’s latest penitent perched on a ladder, ready to make the necessary interim repairs to the roof.

Or so he had said.

Closing the door behind her, she looked around the back. Part of her expected to find Malone sprawled out on the ground, unconscious, a victim of a sudden attack of vertigo or some such paltry excuse.

Granted she might have been a tad too hard on him, but something about him reminded her of the last man she’d had the misfortune of dating. Thad, the divorced father of one of her students, had been charming on the outside, hollow in the inside. In the end, she honestly didn’t know who she was more disappointed in, him for stepping out on her or herself for being such a poor judge of character.

She knew better now.

Apparently not, Lisa silently amended the next moment as she circled around to the rear of the building and found the ladder just where she’d left it. Malone was definitely not where she had left him. Not on the ladder, not anywhere in sight.

Lisa could feel her jaw tighten. The man had fled the coop. Already. Blowing out a breath, she swallowed an oath. She might have known.

It was obvious that Malone couldn’t stick to a commitment. But she would have thought he’d at least last out the day. Frowning, she went back inside to see if she could find one of the older boys to move the ladder and put it away. It obviously couldn’t stay where it was. Thanks to Casey and her teaching position, she was well acquainted with the way the minds of the under-four-foot set worked. The ladder and all it represented was far too much of a temptation for the smaller residents of Providence Shelter.

As she turned the corner, she nearly bumped into Muriel. Lost in thought, the older woman was humming to herself. Lisa couldn’t remember ever seeing the woman look anything but sunny and optimistic.

“Leaving, dear?” Muriel asked.

Lisa nodded. “I’ve got to be getting home.” She hesitated for a second, debating saying anything. Technically, it wasn’t any of her business. But she had never operated that way, keeping out of her fellow man or woman’s business. Doing so would have made the world a very cold, isolated place as far as she was concerned.

Besides, Muriel deserved to know. She was far too busy to be aware of every little detail that went on at the house.

“Look, that new guy, the one the court sent here because of a DUI,” even saying the acronym constricted her throat. “I really don’t think that he’s going to work out.”

The look on the woman’s face told Lisa that Muriel knew instantly who she was referring to. “You mean the one who makes me wish I were twenty years younger?” The wistful smile on Muriel’s lips was unmistakable. “What makes you say that?”

Muriel was the kind who would find redeeming qualities in Genghis Khan, Lisa thought. “Well, I told him to replace the shingles that flew off the roof in that storm we had last month.”

“Good, good.” Muriel nodded, then seemed to realize that there was obviously more. “And?”

Lisa spread her hands wide. “And I just looked and he’s not there.”

Muriel glanced out the back window automatically, even though there was no way she could see the area under discussion. In addition, twilight had long since sneaked its way across the terrain.

“When did you tell him to do it?”

Lisa thought for a moment, trying to remember the time. “A little less than a couple of hours ago.”

Muriel’s expression all but said, Well, there you have it, but she added audibly, “Maybe he’s finished.”

Lisa didn’t have to get on the ladder to know the answer to that one. An expert might have completed the job, but Malone was no expert. “I doubt it. He’s not the handy type.”

The smile on Muriel’s lips turned positively wicked as it reached her eyes and made them sparkle. “That probably all depends on what you mean by handy.” The smile widened as Muriel’s thoughts took flight. “He strikes me as someone who could be very handy under the right circumstances.”

Lisa could only shake her head. Muriel spent most of her time here. It was obvious that she needed to get out and socialize more. “Muriel, you’ve been a widow too long.”

The woman’s dark brown eyes met hers. “You should talk.”

This wasn’t about her. Not in any manner, shape or form. “I’m not a widow,” Lisa reminded the other woman. “Casey’s father and I never got the chance to get married.”

Not that there hadn’t been plans, lots of plans. Plans that never had a chance to become a reality because the weekend before the wedding, Matt was struck by a drunk driver. He’d died instantly at the scene.

It had taken her a long time to recover and make her peace with what had happened. Having Casey in her life had helped most of all. But even that caused her to ache a little in the middle of the night. Ache because she had never gotten the chance to tell Matt that she was pregnant. He’d died without ever knowing that they had created a son.

“You know,” Muriel began slowly, running the tip of her tongue along her bright-red lips, “this Ian fellow might—”

“Stop right there,” Lisa warned abruptly, raising her hand like a traffic cop. “You have the same glint in your eyes that my mother periodically gets.” The one that would come into her mother’s eyes when she’d talk about friends’ unattached sons or nephews who just happened to be in town for the week. “And I can tell you right here, right now, that not even if Ian Malone were the last man on earth and tipped in gold would I entertain the idea of hooking my wagon to his star.”

“Interesting way of putting it,” a male voice interrupted.

Caught, Lisa could only look at Muriel’s face. The older woman didn’t bother suppressing her grin as she nodded her head. Malone. Somehow or other, the man had managed to sneak up behind her.

Okay, this wasn’t the time to look guilty. Instead, she summoned the indignation she’d felt when she’d first happened upon the unattended ladder.

Swinging around, Lisa went on the offensive. Her late father, a football coach for a semipro team, had always been a big believer in using offense rather than defense.

“I thought you went home.”

Ian summoned an innocent expression, enjoying himself. “My time wasn’t up yet.”

He might fool Muriel, but he wasn’t fooling her. “Then why didn’t you finish putting up the new shingles like I asked you?”

“You didn’t ask,” he corrected her, “you told. And I did.” Before she could open her mouth to challenge his answer, he had a question of his own. “Did you bother looking at the roof?”

She seemed annoyed, which gave him his answer. “From the ground,” Lisa said grudgingly.

He infuriated her by shaking his head. “Can’t see the new shingles from that angle.”

Ian found the suspicion that clouded her eyes oddly attractive. There was chemistry here, he noted, wondering if she was aware of it. Probably the reason she was snapping his head off.

“So you finished.”

Ian inclined his head and then saluted smartly. “Yes, ma’am, I did indeed.”