God Bless Us Every One. Eva Marie Everson

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СКАЧАТЬ the scent of hay and horses at a premium. “Actually, I’m feeling kinda good right now, Sis.”

      Sis reached for the smaller piece of luggage now at Charlie’s feet. “Then let’s get you inside and freshened up a little.” She started toward the screen door. “Oh, I know. We’ll stop at The Spinning Bean on our way. They have this new pumpkin latte you have to try.”

      Charlie brought up the rear, dragging her luggage over the still spongy grass. “So what play are y’all doing this year?” she asked, her focus on her sandaled feet. She’d need to pull out warmer shoes before they left.

      Sis paused at the top step as she opened the screen door. “A Christmas Carol. And I need to talk to you about—”

      Charlie stopped and looked up. “You’re kidding me, right?”

      Sis feigned indignation. “What’s wrong with A Christmas Carol?”

      “You mean other than the fact that it’s been done to death?” Heavens, but wouldn’t Sis give Clara Pressley a run for her money in the “let’s keep it old-fashioned” department? How one woman could look so modern and think so old . . .

      “Ha. Ha.” Sis pulled at the burnished brass door handle and stepped onto the porch, holding the door for Charlie to enter.

      “You know, Sis,” Charlie said, huffing as she pulled her luggage up. “There are some fantastic current musicals out there. In fact, I was working on one with the girls at Miss Fisher’s before I . . . uh . . . before we took our Thanksgiving break.” New hope sprang into Charlie. Perhaps all the work she’d done before being fired hadn’t been a loss.

      “Mm-hmm.” Sis ambled down the length of the porch toward the side door. “You’ll have to take that up with the new drama teacher.” She turned and smiled at Charlie as though she were in on a classified top secret.

      Charlie stopped. “New drama teacher? Someone I know, or did the county finally spring for someone outside its traditional circles?”

      Sis grinned. “Well, I suppose that’s how you look at it. He is outside the traditional circles. He’s young and just full of ideas, and he is someone you know.”

      Charlie tilted her head. “Who?”

      Sis smiled again, then pushed the door open. “Dustin Kennedy,” she said as she strolled into the house.

      Chapter 3

      3

      * * *

      “Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! . . . If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

      —Ebenezer Scrooge

      Dustin Kennedy. Dusty.

      He had returned to Testament. And not just to visit. Dustin had come to live, apparently, and take the role as the new drama teacher.

      “So . . . um . . .” Charlie asked her grandmother as the older woman’s BMW backed out of the parking place in front of The Spinning Bean. “Dusty.” She took a sip of the pumpkin latte and felt a rush of autumn flow through her. “Mmm . . . good.”

      Sis’s coffee rested in the cup holder between them. “Isn’t it? And yes, he’s back. Your old crush.”

      Heat that hadn’t come from the latte rushed through her. “Sis . . .”

      Sis laughed as she shifted the car to Drive. “No matter how many other boys you dated, you always had your eye on Dustin.”

      “And whomever he might be dating.” The words slipped from her lips without warning. She took another sip of coffee in hopes of a cover-up.

      “He was a cutie all right. Quite the ladies’ man. Still is.”

      Charlie looked over at Sis. “Still is what? A ladies’ man or a . . . a cutie?”

      Sis turned the car right and headed through a residential area of stately homes, all with manicured lawns, some decorated with bales of hay and cutouts of Native Americans and the early settlers. Many of the doors and windows boasted wreaths of burnt orange and red and vibrant yellow leaves. Others had thick pumpkins, a few with faces, lining the front porch steps.

      “A cutie,” Sis finally answered.

      “So . . . what’s he up to these days? Besides being the drama teacher for a bunch of hormonal high schoolers.”

      “You should know what that’s about.”

      Boy, did she ever. Not that Sis needed to know the fine details of her unemployment. “Back to my question.”

      “Well,” Sis began, “he’s got the most adorable little boy—”

      “He’s married then?”

      Sis eyed her. “No. He’s not.”

      “Divorced?” Couldn’t be. Who in her right mind would divorce Dusty Kennedy?

      “No.”

      Charlie’s breath caught in her throat. “His wife died?” She whispered the last word.

      “Yes.” Sis turned the steering wheel, and the car bounded into the high school parking lot. Charlie immediately spied a Jeep Grand Cherokee—new, from the looks of it—complete with vanity plate: DRAMA1.

      Charlie pointed. “Dusty’s?”

      Sis nodded. “But you might want to practice saying Mr. Kennedy before we go inside and the students start arriving.”

      Mr. Kennedy . . . Charlie allowed the name to consume her thoughts. Anything, as long as she didn’t have to think about the fact that she was about to see him again face-to-face.

      She stepped out of the car. The steam from her coffee met the cooler air, bringing a whiff of pumpkin to her nostrils. She breathed it in. Mr. Kennedy . . . Mr. Kennedy.

      “Follow me,” Sis instructed. Charlie did, taking in the familiar outdoor hallways stretching in front of classrooms.

      Three wings made up the high school—T Wing, H Wing, and S Wing—each holding twelve classrooms. Sis ambled along, talking about this and that, none of which Charlie comprehended. Instead, she concentrated on the room numbers. I took American history in this room . . . art here . . . chemistry there . . .

      “Here we are,” Sis said, stopping in front of the old drama classroom. She opened the door and Charlie continued to follow.

      “Hey there, Mrs. Dixon.”

      Charlie heard the voice before she saw the man, the one down on his haunches and peering over his shoulder in the back of a room dominated by shelves haphazardly lined with books. Seeing her, he stood. She gripped her coffee cup to the point of almost squashing the contents.

      “Dustin, you remember my granddaughter, don’t you?” Sis asked as calmly as if СКАЧАТЬ