Winning the Cowboy's Heart. Jeannie Watt

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СКАЧАТЬ strange day was getting stranger. Someone had stolen it, and quite recently, too, since she’d used the machine just before lunch.

      Who would want to steal an overhead projection bulb?

      Regan rushed to the office between classes to get the key to the supply room. The student aid looked at her with surprise. “Mr. Domingo doesn’t give out the key. He opens the supply room himself.”

      Regan let out an exasperated breath and set off to find Mr. Domingo, the supply Nazi. He was in the gym, counting uniforms.

      “There’s only one more period,” he said when she explained that she needed a projector bulb. “Can’t you make it?”

      “No. I need my overhead to teach the lesson.” She stared at the uniforms. “Are you putting those in numerical order?”

      “It’s easier to keep track of them that way,” he muttered. “Come on.” Pete marched out of the gym and down the long, dark hall that led to the supply closet. He turned the final corner ahead of her and then let out a sharp cry and swatted wildly at something that appeared to be attacking his head.

      Regan gasped as Pete reeled backward, cursing and thrashing, until he finally tripped over his own feet and ended up flat on his butt in front of her.

      Several of the…things…seemed to fly off him as he landed, and then a familiar smell hit Regan’s nostrils. Squid. Quite possibly freshly thawed.

      Domingo glared up at her. A limp tentacle was stuck to his shoulder. Another was attached to his back. Several other squid parts were suspended from the doorframe above him.

      He flicked the tentacle off his shoulder, radiating fury. Regan tried to think of serious things—SATs, mortgage payments, the nightly news. It wasn’t working.

      “Who had access to these squid?” he demanded, wiping a smear of slime from his face.

      “I don’t know. I was keeping them in the staff freezer and planned to throw them out on trash day, but…they were missing this morning.”

      “Why didn’t you report this?” His face was dangerously red.

      “You want me to report missing squid?”

      “This wouldn’t have happened if you had. You are responsible for this.”

      The bell rang. Regan pulled in a deep breath. “No, Pete. I’d say you’re responsible. Maybe if you weren’t so over-the-top with your discipline policy, you wouldn’t be covered with squid parts right now.”

      “You can’t talk to me like that.”

      Regan flicked a piece of slippery cephalopod off the wall. “I need to get to class. Are you all right?”

      She was rewarded with a furious look, which she took as a yes.

      “There will be no more seafood in this school!” Domingo shouted as she rounded the corner without her lightbulb. She decided then and there she’d bring shrimp salad for lunch every day for the rest of the month.

      The next day, the Wesley staff and students discovered that hell had no fury like a principal who’d been punked.

      Pete Domingo had no evidence, no suspects. All he had was a head full of possibilities, a school packed with smirking students and staff who’d heard about what had happened and had thought it funny, too.

      Student after student was called down to the office to be grilled. All had returned to class looking shaken, but also vaguely satisfied. Kylie and Sadie were subjected to a longer inquisition than the other kids called from Regan’s class, but they came back unscathed. No one confessed and, at the end of the day, Pete was no closer to solving his crime than he’d been when he was sitting on the floor in front of the supply-closet door, flicking tentacles off his clothing.

      The staff avoided being seen gossiping in groups. No one wanted to be accused of conspiracy and no one wanted to relight Pete’s very short fuse.

      “You’ve been a good sport about this,” the librarian whispered, late in the afternoon, as she scanned Regan’s reference book. “I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble.”

      “I’m fine,” Regan whispered back. “But I wish I knew who did it. I’d kind of like to shake their hands.”

      The woman winked and then nodded toward a table of three geeky eighth-graders who had been thoroughly reamed out by Domingo a few days before for some petty infraction.

      “You’re kidding,” Regan mouthed.

      The librarian gave her an arch look and disappeared into the stacks.

      A few long hours later Regan was in her kitchen making tea, peppermint tea, to help combat the stress headache she’d acquired.

      A windstorm had started brewing late that afternoon and was now in full force, bending the trees and rattling the windows, and at first Regan thought the noise at the front door was a blast of wind. When she heard it again, during a lull, she realized someone was knocking.

      She glanced down at her after-work wear—a tank top, sweat bottoms and fuzzy socks. Short of ignoring the door, there wasn’t much she could do about her appearance and she couldn’t exactly leave someone standing outside in a windstorm.

       Or could she?

      Will Bishop was out there, his shoulders hunched as the wind whipped at his clothing.

      A gust caught the storm door as she pushed it open, and Will caught it just before it hit him. “Do you want to come in?” She raised her voice to be heard.

      “For a minute.”

      Okay. She could deal with a minute. He’d barely gotten inside when another blast hit.

      “Does the wind do this a lot?”

      “We get some good storms here.”

      She wondered if she should ask him to sit down, offer him something to drink. Then she glanced at him and decided no. He had some reason for coming and it wasn’t social, so she’d skip the niceties.

      “I’m sorry to barge in like this,” Will said, getting right to the point, “but I’d like to know… Do you think Kylie is involved in this squid thing?”

      Those damned squid again. She’d had it up to here with squid—especially when they brought parents to her house.

      “Have you asked her?” she asked with a touch of impatience.

      “She says she’s innocent.” The for once went unspoken.

      The house shook with the force of the wind. Twigs and pebbles bounced off the windows, but Regan’s attention was focused on Will and the deep concern she saw on his face. This man was worried about his daughter and she owed him an honest answer.

      “I don’t know if she was involved, but my gut feeling is no. I’ve heard that it was actually some eighth-grade boys, but I’m not sure.”

      Will СКАЧАТЬ