Читать книгу The Rancher's Twin Troubles - Laura Altom Marie - Страница 10

Why wasn’t Josie surprised Dallas had chosen to make a mockery of her suggestion?

Tuesday morning, on Weed Gulch Elementary’s sun-drenched front lawn stood not one pony, but two. The docile pets put up with dozens of stroking little hands. For the students who weren’t enraptured by cute creatures, there were cupcakes—dozens! Box after box of whimsically frosted treats, each sporting either plastic cowboy or cowgirl rings. In the center of the mayhem stood Dallas Buckhorn wearing jeans and a blue plaid Western shirt, accompanied by leather chaps, a Stetson hat and boots. Oh—the mere sight of him made her heart flutter, she’d give him that, but from a teaching standpoint, he’d ruined her whole day.

How was making construction paper analog clocks and then learning to read them going to top this?

“Miss Griffin!” Bonnie and Betsy ran up to her, hugging so hard around her waist that Josie nearly toppled over.

“Did you see what our daddy brought?”

“I sure did…” And we’re going to have a nice, long talk about it. “Are those your ponies?”

“Uh-huh,” Betsy said with a vigorous nod. “Mine is named Cookie because she has chocolate chip spots.”

“Mine’s Cinderella,” Bonnie noted. “Just like the princess because she has long, blond hairs.”

“Those are wonderful names.” Josie was glad she’d worn capris and sneakers as the lawn she marched across was still dew-soaked. “You two were clever to match them so well to each pony.”

“Thanks!” both girls said, skipping alongside her.

Before dashing ahead, Betsy shouted to her sister, “Come on, Cinderella pooped!”

Giggles abounded.

Thank goodness the older kids were already in class or off-color bathroom jokes would already be spreading. When it came to potty humor, fifth and sixth graders were experts.

“I’ve got a man here to clean all of this.” Josie had been so focused on what she’d say to Dallas that she hadn’t noticed he’d come up beside her.

Hand to her chest, she said, “You startled me.”

“Sorry.” Nodding toward the shrieking kids, he added, “I knew the ponies would be a hit, but I didn’t expect a riot.”

“When it comes to kindergarteners, it doesn’t take much.”

“I’m seeing.” His smile rocketed through her. Despite his many faults, he was undeniably handsome. Never more so than now. It was clear he belonged outside. The sun lightening his Buckhorn-blue eyes. Glancing over his shoulder, he signaled to an older man who knelt alongside Bonnie, helping her with her pet.

“Yeah, boss?” The man’s easy smile, laugh lines at the corners of brown eyes and weathered skin had Josie guessing him to be in his mid-fifties. His playful spirit around the kids made him seem much younger. Like Dallas, he wore Western wear complete with a cowboy hat.

“Josie Griffin, meet Henry Pohl. He’s worked our ranch longer than I’ve been alive.”

Shaking Josie’s hand, the man winked. “I wouldn’t say it was that long. You are getting a tad long in the tooth.”

In under twenty minutes, Dallas was true to his word and had begun loading the ponies into a custom, miniaturized horse trailer attached to a shiny black pick-up. The Buckhorn Ranch emblem of two battling rams had been stenciled on both doors.

While settling the children into their daily routine of standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, stilling for a moment of silence and then getting out their printing paper to practice writing their new letter and number, she watched Dallas through the wall of windows overlooking the school’s front lawn.

Firmly, yet gently, he corralled the suddenly stubborn animals into their temporary home. With Henry’s help, Dallas soon had all of the cupcake liners and white bakery boxes in the trash, leaving the area looking untouched save for sneaker tracks trailing through silvery dew.

Josie’s students fidgeted and fussed. Too hyper from cupcakes and fun to want to settle into their routine. The childlike part of her she didn’t often let escape sympathized with them. Outside, it was shaping up to be a beautiful fall day. She had dreaded Dallas’s visit, but was now surprised to be anticipating his return to the room.

“YOU DO KNOW YOUR CIRCUS broke about sixteen school rules?”

Dallas took another bite of his ham and swiss sandwich and shrugged. “Way I see it, my girls need to know I’m not here to punish them. I want them and their friends to be happy I’m in for a visit.”

Josie Griffin pressed her full lips together like there was a whole lot she wanted to say, but was holding back.

“Out with it,” he coaxed, biting into a pear. It was the first one he’d had in a while. Firm, yet juicy and sweet. Kind of like he’d imagine kissing Josie would be—that is, if she’d ever erase her pucker. Not that he’d done a whole lot of thinking about kissing the teacher, but cute as she was, he wouldn’t have been normal if the notion hadn’t at least crossed his mind.

For the twenty minutes while the kids were at recess, Josie had suggested they hang out in the teachers’ lounge. The room was unremarkable save for a pleasantly efficient window air-conditioning unit and grown-up chairs. Dallas hadn’t realized how many muscles in his back could possibly ache until he’d spent his morning pretzelled into munchkin chairs.

“Since you asked…” Her eyes narrowed. Was she fixing to yell at him again? “I didn’t invite you here to throw a party, but observe your daughters in their daily setting. My hope is that they’ll soon grow comfortable enough with you being in their surroundings to revert back to their usual naughty behavior.”

“Whoa. What you’re essentially saying is that you’ve set a trap you hope they spring?”

She at least had the good graces to flush. “I would hardly call a long acknowledged child psychiatry technique a trap. More like a tool. I can sit here telling you about the girls’ sins until I run out of breath, but that still won’t make you a believer. I want you to catch them in action. Only then will you understand how disruptive their pranks are to my class.”

“And if they turn out to be the good kids I expect them to be?”

She damn near choked on a carrot stick. “Not that I’m a betting woman, but if I were, I’d put down a hundred on Bonnie and Betsy finding some form of trouble by the end of the day.”

“You say that with such glee,” he noted, wadding up his trash. “Like you want my daughters in hot water.”

“Far from it. They need to understand that school is for learning, not horseplay. But wait—with this morning’s stunt, you’ve pretty much blown that lesson out of the water.”

“For the record—” he eased his legs out in front of him to cross at the ankles “—Cookie and Cinderella aren’t horses, but ponies.”

JOSIE WAS BEYOND MORTIFIED when Thursday morning had come and gone and still the twins hadn’t so much as dropped a pencil shaving. Had she been wrong about them? Overexaggerated their penchant for mischief?

“Hungry?” Dallas asked as twenty-one squirming bodies raced for the door.

“I am,” she said, motioning for the line leaders to guide them to the hand-washing station. “It’s fried chicken day. Want to brave the cafeteria?”

“Is it safe?”

She laughed. “On turkey tetrazzini day,” she wrinkled her nose, “not so much, but you’re actually in for a treat. Mashed potatoes and white gravy with big yeast rolls. If we’re really lucky, chocolate cake for dessert.”

“I’m in.” His white-toothed grin was made brighter by faint golden stubble. Not enough time to shave before beating the first bell?

After getting everyone through the line, Josie turned to Paula the lunch lady and said, “Please give Mr. Buckhorn a double serving and put it on my tab.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Heaping on gravy, the bosom-heavy brunette asked, “How’s your cat? Heard he had a sick spell.”

“Better, thanks.” Josie loved how everyone in the school was an extended family. What she lacked for company at home, she more than made up for at work. “How’s Teddy’s job hunt?”

“Great.” Her sixteen-year-old had been saving for a car. “He starts at the drive-in on Friday.”

“Wonder—”

“I hate you, Thomas! Take your stupid cake!”

Josie peered through the serving-line door just in time to see Bonnie fling a chocolate square at poor little Thomas Quinn. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she then smashed it into his hair.

“I hate you, too!” Betsy hollered. “Bonnie’s a princess and you should’ve just given her the stupid cake.”

“Girls, knock it off!” Dallas said, surging into the melee.

Thomas started to wail and showed no signs of letting up. “Sh-she g-got cake on my new g-glasses!”

“Let me clean those for you, bud.” Dallas set his lunch tray on the table and then took the boy’s gold-rimmed frames. To Josie, he said, “Be right back.”

“Th-there’s c-cake on my shirt, t-too. Mommy’s gonna yell.”

“No she won’t, sweetie,” Josie assured the boy. To the twins, she demanded, “What were you thinking?”

Hands on her hips, Bonnie said, “He should’ve just gave me that cake.”

“Yeah,” Betsy said, adopting the same pose.

“I’m Bonnie Buckhorn.” Wearing a satisfied grin, Bonnie added, “Daddy says I’m one half of a perfect bunch and that I can do whatever I want.”

After handing Thomas his freshly cleaned glasses, Dallas grabbed the collars of his daughters’ matching pink T-shirts. “Ladies, we need to talk.”

IF DALLAS HADN’T SEEN the whole incident with his own eyes, he never would’ve believed it. Steering the girls into their quiet, dark classroom, he said, “Put your behinds in your chairs.”

“But, Daddy,” Bonnie whined, “why are we in trouble when Thomas was the one being mean?”

“We gave him cupcakes,” Betsy thoughtfully pointed out.

Dallas rubbed his throbbing forehead. “You can’t just take your friend’s dessert. It’s wrong. And—”

“You tell us we can do whatever we want.” His eldest by a minute held his stare.

“Yes, but, hon, that doesn’t give you the right to do bad things.” Was everything else his girls had been accused of true?

“We aren’t bad, Daddy.” Betsy left her chair to crawl onto his lap. Bonnie soon followed.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Bonnie wrapped her chubby arms around his neck.

“Both of you need to get it through your pretty heads that just because you’re Daddy’s princesses, that doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want. At school, you have to follow the rules.”

Bonnie chimed in with, “Miss Griffin never said we couldn’t put cake in Thomas’s hair.”

The statement was so ridiculous, Dallas had to chuckle. “Honey, I can think of very few situations where you should put cake in anyone’s hair.”

“Do you still love us?” Betsy asked.

Hunching over, he made growling, tickle monster noises, attacking their rib cages to the accompaniment of shrieking laughs.

Now that both girls had been scolded, it felt good to return to their usual Buckhorn family fun.

“WHO WANTS COFFEE AND DONUTS?” Friday morning, Josie halted her walk around the classroom to see Dallas and his girls wielding snacks.

“Me, me!” The majority of the class didn’t even bother raising their hands before running over to claim their share.

Betsy and Bonnie beamed.

Thomas sank down in his chair.

“Stop!” Josie hated always being the bad guy, but this was ridiculous. “The school has a healthy snack policy and last I checked, coffee and donuts aren’t on the list.”

“But it’s Friday,” Dallas complained, sounding suspiciously like his daughters. “Plus,” he nodded across the room, “as an apology, my girls wanted to give a special offering to that little fella.”

If Thomas scooted much lower, he’d have dissolved into a puddle on the floor.

“I don’t care if it’s Christmas,” Josie argued, “you’re not caffeinating my kindergarteners.”

“You’re impossible.” Turning his back on her, he said to his crew, “Come on, girls.”

“Where are you going?” Josie asked, following them into the hall.

“Teachers’ lounge. Or will you deny your coworkers a happy start to their weekend, too?”

Beyond furious with the man, she folded her arms and watched them go. Unfortunately, back in the classroom, she was met with much whining and pouty stares.

Nipping that behavior, she refocused her students on their daily writing practice. When Bonnie and Betsy returned with their father, she already had their tablets and pencils ready to go.

“You’re a killjoy,” Dallas noted once she sat at her desk to finish writing next week’s lesson plans.

“And you’re a child disguised in a grown-up’s body.”

“A man’s body,” he said with the slow grin she’d grown to alternately hate and adore. Every time he pulled this stunt, he was usually trying to get himself out of hot water. No wonder his children were such a mess. Look who they had for an example! Worse yet, Dallas wielded that grin like a weapon. Same as his daughters, he knew how to pour on the charm.

“You’re impossible.”

“Thanks.” He had the gall to combine his grin with a wink.

How, she didn’t know, but Josie managed to survive the morning and lunch hour and even afternoon recess without suffering a meltdown. Everywhere she went there was Dallas, being generally helpful and offering to pass out papers. Which only put her that much more on edge.

Friday afternoons, she always introduced an art project that was fun, but also worked on building a sense of community. For this week’s lesson, she’d had the children draw names of a friend. Once paired up, they would then create each other’s portraits with finger paint.

After letting each student pick a cover-up from the pile of men’s and women’s oxford shirts she’d collected at yard sales, she passed out the oversize paper and spent a few minutes going over ground rules.

“Now,” she asked once she’d finished, “raise your hand if you can tell me where the paint goes.”

Megan Brown was first. “On the paper!”

“Right. Excellent.” Over the years, Josie had learned to never underestimate the importance of explaining this point. “Does anyone have questions?”

Thomas raised his hand. “I forgot how to get the lids off the jar thingees.”

“Like this,” Josie said, holding up a plastic container from the nearest table. “Just twist, and then carefully set your lid on the table. Stick your hand in one finger at a time to get your paint. Kind of like your finger is the brush. Make sense?”

He pushed up his glasses and nodded.

“Any other questions? Okay, let’s take the lids off our containers and begin.”

Since the twins were on opposite sides of the room, Dallas spent a few minutes with one before moving on to the other. When he was with Betsy, Josie happened to be alongside him. “My girl’s pretty talented, huh?”

“A future Picasso,” Josie said in all seriousness. Betsy had indeed captured her friend Julia’s essence in a primary colored abstract extravaganza.

“Their mom was pretty talented.”

Looking up at her dad, Betsy asked, “What’d Mommy make?”

A wistful look settled on his usually stoic features. It softened him. Gave him a vulnerability Josie hadn’t before noticed. “She used to set up her easel and watercolors by the duck pond and paint for hours. I teased her that her long hair rode the breeze like weeping willow branches.”

The warmth in his eyes for a woman long gone knotted Josie’s throat.

“Sometimes she’d paint what she saw.” He tweaked his daughter’s nose. “Other times, especially when she was pregnant with you, she’d paint what she imagined. Like one day sharing a picnic with you and your sister.”

“Sounds amazing,” Josie said. “I’ve always wanted to be more artistic.”

Upon hearing her voice, Dallas suffered a barely perceivable lurch—as if until she’d spoken, he’d forgotten anyone but he and Betsy were even in the room.

“Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat. Did he even know what she’d said?

“Stop, Bonnie!” Megan began crying. “I don’t wanna get in trouble for you!”

Josie’s stomach sank. So much for her peaceful afternoon.

“What happened?” she asked upon facing a horrible mess of what she presumed was Bonnie’s making. Her entire paper was coated with paint, as well as the table and carpeting underneath.

“Well…” Bonnie planted her paint-covered fists on her shirt. “Since Megan is tall, I ran out of paper. I tried getting you, but you were talking to Daddy. I didn’t have anywhere else to paint, so I painted the floor.”

The girl stated her actions in such a matter-of-fact way that they nearly sounded plausible. Nearly.

Don’t yell. Keep your composure.

“Bonnie,” Josie said after forcing a few nice deep breaths, “just because you ran out of paper, that doesn’t give you the right to complete your project wherever you’d like.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” the girl sassed. “My daddy is, and he—”

Dallas stepped up behind her. “—would like you to follow him to the cleanup closet where you’ll get a bucket and sponge to clean your mess.”

Looking at her father as if he’d spouted bull horns, Bonnie’s mouth gaped. “But—”

“Move it,” Dallas said, not even trying to hide his angry tone.

An hour later, Josie had gotten everyone tidied and on their way home for the weekend. Back in the classroom, Betsy sat cross-legged on a dry patch of carpet. Dallas had found a roll of brown paper towels and sopped the areas where Bonnie had scrubbed.

On her way inside from putting her students on buses, Josie had stopped by the janitor’s office and he’d assured her that his steam cleaner would tackle the job. By Monday morning, no one would ever guess the vandalism had taken place. Josie hated thinking of a small child’s actions in such harsh terms, but Bonnie had known exactly what she’d been doing.

“Almost done?” Josie asked.

“Uh-huh.” Bonnie looked exhausted, but that hardly excused her from the consequences of her actions. According to the classroom discipline chart, this was a major offense. Punishable by missing the next week’s recesses.

“Miss Griffin?” Betsy asked. “If we buy you a present, can you stop hating us?”

“Why would you think I hate you?” Josie asked, hurt by the very notion.

“Because you always look at us with a frowning face.”

The knot returned to Josie’s throat, only this time for a different reason. The Buckhorn family packed quite the emotional punch. “I’m not making a mad expression, sweetie, but sad. When my students break rules on purpose, it makes me feel like I’m not a very good teacher or you would’ve known better.”

“I guess.” Tracing the carpet’s blue checkered pattern, the girl didn’t sound convinced.

Dallas took his wallet from his back pocket. “Clearly, Bonnie and I are not going to be able to make this right without a shop vacuum. If I give you a couple hundred, think that’ll cover the cost of getting someone out here to clean?”

“This isn’t about money,” Josie said, saddened that he’d even asked. “The custodian will handle whatever you can’t get up. But, Bonnie, what lesson have you learned?”

The little girl released a big sigh. “I learned if I paint the floor, I don’t wanna get caught.”