Winning the Teacher's Heart. Jean C. Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ kept an eye on Brendon and Ari from the kitchen window that overlooked the backyard as she put away the groceries she’d picked up in Ticonderoga. Her son was racing his bike around Ari and the jungle gym her father had built for them before he and her mother had moved to North Carolina. Probably pretending he was Jared. He and motocross racing were all Brendon had talked about on the drive home from Edna Stowe’s house.

      She closed the cupboard and walked out to the deck to call the kids in to get their things ready to go to their other grandparents’ for the night.

      “Hey, Mom, watch.” Brendon rode his bike up a small rise behind the jungle gym and sped down, yanking on the bike’s handle bars and doing a wheelie for several feet across the yard. She stifled a screech as he circled around and laid the bike down on the grass in front of the deck steps.

      “What do you think?” He beamed.

      What she thought was she was likely to be completely gray by the time she was thirty-five. “Impressive,” she said.

      “Do you think if I asked Dad, he would buy me a dirt bike for my birthday?”

      Becca closed her eyes and breathed in and out. If her ex-husband knew how much that thought terrorized her, he probably would and count the cost as child support. She’d never shared it with Matt, but her parents had instilled a fear of motorcycles in her when she was a child after a close friend of theirs had died in a bike accident.

      “I think you should wait a few more years on that one.” Brendon was only nine going on ten.

      “Aw, Jared could teach me how to ride. The story in the magazine said that he’s going to start a school to teach kids like me how to race motocross, with a real motocross racetrack and everything.”

      “I don’t think he’s building his racetrack here.” Jared Donnelly hadn’t been back to Paradox Lake for more than an occasional short visit since he’d left fifteen years ago. Even if he were in town for an extended visit, she doubted he’d build his motocross school here in the North Country where he could only operate it part of the year.

      The disappointment on Brendon’s face made her chest tighten. He was just a little boy, even though he often seemed older because of his self-appointed role as the man of the family since her ex had left them.

      She draped her arm over his shoulder, expecting him to duck out of her loose embrace, and her heart warmed when he didn’t. “You and Ari need to get ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. They’ll be here soon to pick you guys up for the pizza movie night at church. Is Ian going?”

      “Yeah.” Brendon shrugged away. “His parents would probably let him get a dirt bike.”

      Back to that. Becca was pretty certain her son’s best friend’s parents would no more buy Ian a dirt bike than she’d let Brendon have one. “Go on and get your sleepover stuff ready. I’ll be right in with Ari.”

      Brendon stomped off.

      “Ari, we need to pack your things for Grandma’s.”

      “Okay, Mom.” She jumped off the swing and skipped up the stairs to the deck.

      A few minutes later, Becca watched her former in-laws and her kids drive away. Fortunately, they’d been running late, so she hadn’t had to talk with them much beyond finding out when they’d be bringing the kids back tomorrow. She walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice tea and took a carton of yogurt from the refrigerator before going back out onto the deck. Brendon had left his magazine on the umbrella table. She sat on the matching chair and leafed through the magazine to a page with a picture of Jared standing beside a racing bike with his helmet tucked under his arm. His hair was tousled as if he’d just taken off the helmet, and he oozed masculine bravado. In the accompanying article, Jared talked about starting a motocross school for kids, particularly underprivileged and fatherless kids.

      She closed the publication and placed it on the table. Brendon wasn’t underprivileged, but she often felt he was growing up fatherless. She’d taken her wedding vows seriously. Tried and prayed so hard to keep her marriage together, and, despite knowing better, couldn’t shake the final remnants of failure that she hadn’t been able to. As if to block out the pain, her mind went to Ari and Brendon sitting on either side of Jared on his grandmother’s couch looking at Ari’s storybook. A perfect family picture. Something beyond her reach. Obviously, she wasn’t cut out for marriage if she couldn’t make a go of it with someone she’d grown up with and had known as well as Matt. Or thought she’d known.

      The picture of Jared with her kids popped back into her head. She had no idea why her mind was flitting from him to marriage and back to him. Regardless of what he’d said at his grandmother’s about getting used to Adirondack winters again, she couldn’t imagine he was back to stay. What attraction, besides his family, could Paradox Lake hold for someone who’d traveled all around the world?

      Becca pushed Jared and her failed marriage out of her head. Looking past her yard beyond her property to the meadow and woods that Bert Miller had owned, she wondered what would become of the acreage. Her ex-mother-in-law had been sure Bert would leave it to her, his only relative. But that didn’t seem to be the case. She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined fingers. Last year, she and the two other families on Conifer Road had heard Bert was considering selling it to a resort syndicate that was vying for one of the gambling casino licenses New York State had up for grabs at the time. They’d banded together in an informal homeowners association, ready to oppose that project or any other undesirable one that might endanger the quality of life they wanted for their families.

      She hoped it wouldn’t come to anything like that. Recently, hanging on to her property had become enough of a fight for her. She didn’t need another one. Raising two kids and paying the mortgage on the dream house she and her ex-husband had built was tough on a teacher’s salary, especially a teacher’s salary at a small school such as Schroon Lake. She nudged a stone under the table with her toe. Getting the job she’d applied for running The Kids’ Place at church for the summer would really help. Disappointment welled inside her. She’d thought she would have heard back by now. The only other jobs available were in the tourist trade and wouldn’t pay enough for her to make any money once she’d paid for day care. Unless she asked her ex-mother-in-law to watch them, which she wasn’t about to do. Ari and Brendon could come with her to The Kids’ Place. She kicked the stone and watched it arch up and hit the deck rail before landing on the grass several feet away.

      She rose to go inside. Why did she always have to second-guess herself and overthink everything? Why couldn’t she simply accept God’s plan for her? Her mind flashed back once more to Jared reading to her kids and she halted midstep. That couldn’t possibly be what He had in mind for her.

Chapter Two

      The summer breeze ruffled Becca’s hair. She pushed a stray strand behind her ear and adjusted her seat on a boulder left courtesy of the advance or retreat of a prehistoric glacier. Science had never been her subject. A motion to her left caught her attention. Someone, a man, was walking toward her. She tensed. There was no place for her to go. This wasn’t even her property. She looked at her house in the distance on the other side of the meadow.

      “Becca?” The figure called.

      She shielded her eyes from the late-morning sun. Jared. His smooth, cocky gait was a dead giveaway if she hadn’t recognized his voice. “Hi,” she called back with a wave.

      “What СКАЧАТЬ