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Chapter 3

3

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“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 she’d inquired about whether he wanted pie with his coffee. “I believe you two went to school together.”

Nice, Sis.

He had already made it halfway to them, hands holding several small playbooks, when he stopped. “Charlie?” His voice went up an octave.

Charlie held up her free hand. “Hi there.”

His face—the one that had somehow gotten more handsome, the one with the Scott Eastwood eyes and brows, the one with the pouty lips and chiseled jaw—registered honest pleasure at seeing her. He dropped the books on a nearby desk and, before she could prepare, wrapped her in a warm hug of cotton and denim. “Wow,” he said, stepping back. “I didn’t expect to see you.” He smiled, and she blushed—she was positive she did—before he added, “Are you here for Thanksgiving?”

And Christmas and New Year’s . . . “I am,” she replied.

“Charlie teaches at Miss Fisher’s School for Girls down in Ocala, Florida,” Sis interjected. “Drama.”

Dusty took two steps back as though struck by a bullet. “You’re kidding.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember you being in the drama club back in the day.”

“I wasn’t,” Charlie said. “I concentrated more on chorus in those days.”

He pointed a finger, wagging it. “I remember that now. Of course, of course.” His smile widened. “Miss Fisher’s, huh? Sounds classy. Are you here to help us little people with our Christmas play?”

Charlie walked up to the front of the room and placed her cup on the teacher’s desk. “I understand you’re doing A Christmas Carol.”

He picked up the playbooks while Sis took a seat in one of the desks, crossed her legs, and took a long sip of her latte. “We are,” he said. He grinned knowingly. “I bet I know what you’re thinking . . . that old thing?”

Charlie stared at her feet. “Well . . .”

“Charlie believes in contemporary plays,” Sis called to the front of the room.

“I don’t believe in them, Sis. I simply prefer them.”

Dusty dropped the playbooks on his desk, adding to an array of papers, pens, and files that Clara Pressley would have demanded he set to rights. “But A Christmas Carol is a classic.” He raised his hands dramatically. “A classic, I tell you.” He looked at her again, mischief glinting from his dark eyes. “You don’t have anything against Dickens, do you?”

“Not personally,” she shot back. “I never met the man.”

Dusty crossed his arms and rested his hip on the desk. “But I assume you at least appreciate his writings.”

Charlie shrugged. “As much as I have to. I teach his works, but I like to allow my students to discuss whether or not he’s . . .” Her words faded.

“He’s . . . ?” Dusty prompted.

Sis coughed out a laugh behind her granddaughter. “I believe the word she’s looking for is relevant.”

The Scott Eastwood brows shot together in the middle. “Relevant? Charles Dickens is megarelevant.” He reached for one of the playbooks, curled on the edges. “Do you even know the story behind the story?”

Charlie shook her head, trying to remember what she might have learned along the way about the writer and his short work. “It was published in the mid-1800s.”

“Eighteen forty-three,” Dusty supplied.

New heat rose within her. She swallowed hard, ready to spar with what limited information she had. But before she could, the classroom door jerked open and a flock of teenagers walked in.