Читать книгу Lost & Found Love - Laura Browning - Страница 8

Tabby swiped a tear from the corner of her eye. So much for the fairy tale ending. She should be used to it. Conflict and fear were two things she was way too familiar with. As Tabby stared out the window, raised voices echoed down the long years separating memory from reality. Mama had tried to protect her from Tommy MacVie, largely succeeding up until the time Tabby started school. It was easy enough to hide the artistic talent that had shown up the moment she had first picked up a crayon. Most children weren’t putting together complex compositions, especially ones that already revealed an understanding of life’s harsher realities.

As dusk transitioned into darkness, Tabby continued to sit in the window seat. The memories of a childhood filled with rejection battered her.

Within a week of starting kindergarten, the school was already on the phone. They had samples of her drawings they wanted her parents to see. Her daddy had beaten her black and blue that night, stripping her room of every crayon, marker, and watercolor. He had thrown out every blank piece of paper in the house.

“You are not to draw,” he’d ordered. “Not here. Not anywhere. I’ve talked to the school. If you draw anything other than what the teacher tells you to, I’ll break your fingers. Then you won’t be able to draw.”

She had been five years old. Eighteen years later didn’t make handling rejection any easier. Whatever grounded, realistic self-talk she’d created about her sister—about how they were really strangers to each other, and would have to get to know each other—in her heart she had hoped there would be some instant communion. Instead, Jenny seemed to hate her.

Tabby’s daddy hated her, but she hadn’t understood why. It wasn’t until she’d grown a few years older that she realized drawing pictures of children and women being beaten made adults nervous.

For Tabby it had simply been reality. A reality she was trapped in.

Her art had been her only outlet. Not drawing wasn’t a choice. It didn’t matter that her father thought she was possessed. He followed his own upbringing and tried to beat the evil out of Tabby. With each whack, he told her he would “break” her from her sneaking around, drawing pictures that had to be from the devil. Only the devil would draw such lies.

Except, they weren’t lies. They were the truth that Tabby lived, and she still didn’t understand why her daddy seemed to hate her so. When Mary tried to stop him, he shoved her against the wall and continued thrashing Tabby until she passed out.

Sometimes Tommy’s beatings left welts and bruises. More often they drew blood, but never in places where it showed. Oh no. Tommy was far too smart for that. If Mary tried to interfere or stop him, then he beat her too.

Tabby rested her cheek on her knees as she rocked back and forth in the window seat. She wished Jenny had known just how bravely their mama had tried to defend Tabby. She swallowed, though her throat felt thick and tight.

No matter how her daddy tried to keep her from drawing, Tabby couldn’t stop, not even for her mama. She used the dirt on the playground, any scrap of paper she could sneak out of school. Tabby couldn’t make her unusual artistic ability go away, so she learned to hide it and the horror she lived through at home.

Tabby scrubbed her cheeks, but the tears kept coming as she mourned not only her mother but the relationship it now appeared she would never have with her older sister.

Tabby and her mama had been enablers as well as victims. She knew that now. She understood that she should have spoken up. She had tried to get her message out several times through her pictures, but Tommy had already convinced everyone in the school system that she was simply a disturbed girl they were trying to help.

She didn’t want that following her now. She wanted a new life without the garbage of her past.

And she wanted her sister.

* * * *

Jenny stared at the envelope in her hands as if she had caught hold of a copperhead. Opening it would change everything. She had yet to unseal it, though she’d carried it with her all evening. Evan had talked her into coming back down, but when they did, it was to find the envelope propped against the hall tree and no sign of Tabby. Evan made excuses that she was feeling ill and had decided to go home, but Tyler was the only one still young enough to believe it.

Jenny felt like an idiot, and for the first time since her reunion with Evan last Christmas, she felt his censure. It was there in the tightness of his mouth, the shadows around his gray eyes.

“Are you going to open it?” he asked her now as they lay side by side in their big bed. Evan skimmed through the latest Law Review and didn’t even glance over as he asked the question.

Jenny sighed. She had propped several pillows around herself in an attempt to get comfortable, but with little success. She tapped her fingers on the envelope, seeing the creases in it that showed it had been carried around for quite some time. “It’s not her handwriting,” she said stiffly.

“Whose?” Evan asked mildly, finally closing his magazine.

“My mother’s. I saw some letters she wrote when I was going through my father’s things. This isn’t her handwriting. This is too bold.”

Evan slid his arm around her shoulders and gently squeezed. “There’s only one way to find out what it says and who it’s from. Open it.”

Jenny turned her gaze to him, pleading for understanding. “I—I can’t, Ev. Would you?”

He took the envelope and slid one long finger beneath the flap. His elegant hands were steady as he removed the two sheets of paper. “You want me to read it to you?” At Jenny’s nod, he unfolded the sheets. “It’s dated summer a year ago. Tabby must have carried it with her all that time.”

“Just read it.”

He began:

My Dearest Jenny,

Tabitha is writing this for me because I can no longer write. I’m dying. It began as breast cancer, and I found the lump early on, but I was too afraid to see the doctor. When I did, the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes and beyond. By the time Tabby finds you, I know I’ll be gone. I know you probably won’t have a good opinion of me—after all, what Mama runs off and leaves her young daughter behind? And I’m sure your daddy made sure to point that out.

But I kept track of you, honey. I know you’re a doctor, and I’m so proud of you because I know you’ll be able to take care of yourself. You won’t have to depend on any man for food and shelter. I made sure Tabby was looked after, too, so she can get away from here and never come back. I want her to find you. I want you to find each other. Sisters should stick together.

Tabby is finding out about you as she writes this for me, and I expect she’s as shocked right now as you’ll be when you read it, but you both need to know what happened.

Jenny, as I’m sure you already know, your daddy was a moonshiner. I was still in high school when I first met Billy at the harvest dance there in Mountain Meadow. Do they still have that at Halloween? I was a good girl, but your daddy caught my eye. He was a classic bad boy with his long hair and his fast cars. I guess we were drawn to each other. I was looking for excitement, and he was looking for—I don’t know—maybe someone to corrupt. At any rate, we married against the wishes of my family. When you came along eight months after our marriage, there was talk. A lot of folks around Mountain Meadow and Castle County turned their backs on me. They had already turned them on your daddy and the rest of the Owens family a long time before.

Things went along fairly smooth at first. I pretended I didn’t know how your daddy made his money, and he was content to let me think it was from farming. Then along about the time you turned seven, things got rough. A new sheriff in the county vowed to crack down on what some folks called the Moonshine Capital of the South. Your daddy moved his still off his land onto another man’s farm, but he got caught, and the man was threatening to expose him. Your daddy couldn’t afford to ignore the threat because the man was rich and powerful, so he offered him a deal. What I didn’t know was I was the deal. Your daddy traded my body to keep his still.

“Jesus!” Evan stopped reading and cleared his throat. He looked over at Jenny. “You’re awfully pale, Jen. You want me to quit?”

“No. I want to hear it.”

“All right.” So he continued:

I was too frightened to do anything but what I was told. My family had turned their backs on me, and if your daddy went to jail, I didn’t know what I would do or how I would take care of you, so to my shame, I slept with this man. It went on for several months until I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a whore and knew I had to get out. You see, I was silly enough to fall in love with my lover, but I knew he would never leave his own family. As much as I didn’t want to leave you, I was also afraid to take you. I had no way to support myself, let alone a bright little girl like you. It tore me apart inside, but I knew your daddy would take care of you. Billy might not have been good for much, but he would do that.

Jenny’s hands clenched into fists. Oh, her daddy had taken care of her all right. He had set her and Evan up so that Evan believed she’d slept with half the high school basketball team. It destroyed their relationship to the point it took twelve years for them to find each other again.

So I left. I ended up in Asheville, North Carolina where I met Thomas MacVie. He was a handsome man, a couple of years younger than me, but he was determined to have me. I was anxious too, but for a whole different reason. I realized I was pregnant with my lover’s child. Your daddy wouldn’t touch me while I slept with another man. He kept calling me slut, though he was the one who’d pushed me into his bed. Tommy seemed like the perfect solution at the time.

I didn’t lie to him. I told him I was pregnant, and it didn’t seem to matter to him. He seemed happy about it. He was controlling and strict in his religious beliefs, but I could live with that. He was about as far removed from your daddy as I thought a man could be. And I thought that had to be a good thing.

All I will tell you about that is I was wrong, but I won’t tell you more than that. That’s Tabby’s story to tell if she chooses. If Tommy shows up around Mountain Meadow though, you call the police. I will only ask two things of you, Jenny. Forgive me for not finding you, and I beg you to watch over your sister.

Your Mama,

Mary

There was silence in the bedroom as Evan finished reading the letter. It sat on his lap, beneath his hands. “I wonder why Tabby waited a year to find you? She even mentioned that when I caught her at the farm.”

Jenny shrugged, trying to feign indifference, but the letter left her feeling uneasy and disturbed. Her mother implied Tommy MacVie was not so different from her daddy. Had he done something to Tabby? “Maybe she had to finish school.”

Evan tapped the paper with his fingertips. “Maybe,” he agreed, but she could see the puzzle it presented in his mind. “I wonder what the story is your mother felt was Tabby’s to tell?”

Jenny sat up. She had to pee again. Just one of the inconveniences of advanced pregnancy. “I’m sure I don’t know.” When she came back to the room, Evan was looking over the letter once more.

“You know, the day I met her at the farm, she was running down the hill from Hope’s grave as if the hounds of hell were behind her.”

Jenny wasn’t ready to bend. “Perhaps she saw you and was trying to get away.”

“No. I did dismiss it to begin with as just due to her concern over being caught trespassing, but it was more than that.”

“So she’s got a guilt complex. Maybe she should have.”

“Jenny, it’s more than that. I’ve seen guilt. This was fear. I think your sister’s childhood might make yours look like a walk in the park, and we know how bad yours was.”

Jenny, who was ever practical, shook her head. “I think you’re reading things into it that are simply not there. She’s managed to graduate from college. She had to have some support from home.”

Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to do a little digging and see what I can find out about her.”

“Well, I, for one, am going to get what sleep this baby will allow me.”

* * * *

Joe stood at the door to shake hands with everyone as they filed out following Sunday service. He was anxious, for once, to get home. He thought he’d heard Tabby return early yesterday evening, but her house had remained dark. For now, he’d have to be patient and hide his anxiety with a smile.

Betty Gatewood, one of the most stiff-necked of his parishioners, pumped his hand.

“That was a wonderful sermon, Pastor Joe. What a wonderful illustration using the children from vacation Bible school. I guess we’ve all had to learn a little more about helping each other over the past year, haven’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a grin, thinking back to the truce he and the Presbyterian minister managed to forge between two congregations that had battled for decades. He noticed as the congregation filed out that Tyler hung back, even making some excuse to Jake and Holly about walking home. After everyone else cleared the sanctuary, Joe looked at his young parishioner. “Something on your mind, Tyler?”

The boy shuffled his feet and blushed. “I-I was wondering if you’d seen M-Miss MacVie?”

Joe shook his head. “Not since last evening when I left her with y’all. Did you have a nice cookout?”

The boy dug his hands into his pants pockets. “Well now, that’s the thing, Pastor Joe. Miss MacVie didn’t stay. She left right after she got there. Evan said she wasn’t feeling well, but all the adults looked nervous and wouldn’t look at me, like they do when they’re lying to you. Doc was actin’ funny all evening, too, like she was pi—I mean mad at someone.” Tyler shifted again. “I walked to church this morning so I could knock on her door to see if she was okay, but no one answered. All I saw was the cat.”

Joe squeezed Tyler’s shoulder comfortingly even though another frisson of unease went down his spine. “I’ll check on her when I get everything wrapped up here. Will that suit you?”

Tyler grinned. “Sure. Thanks, Pastor.”

The boy dashed down the steps and ran along the sidewalk. Joe shut the door and headed back to his office. The church treasurer and secretary had totaled the offering and were preparing the deposit. They acknowledged him with a smile as he waved to them before entering his office and shutting the door. Joe looked out the window toward the back of his house and Tabitha’s. Nothing stirred in the thick heat of early September, but he saw the window on the third floor was open to whatever breeze there might be.

Was she working in her studio and hadn’t heard the boy? He’d like to think that, but he couldn’t get his mind off the fact something made her flee Evan and Jenny’s house last night. Thinking of the slam of the screen door he’d heard, Joe realized it must have been Tabby. But she hadn’t been working. There hadn’t been a light on in the house all evening. Unease changed to worry, and he couldn’t explain even to himself why this woman had touched him more than any other.

He tossed his coat and tie over the veranda railing near her back door and rolled back the sleeves on his dress shirt before unbuttoning the collar. He had already banged on the door, but the only thing stirring was the cat. The black feline took one look at him with her golden eyes and disappeared into the bushes around the front of the house. He shook his head. It was downright spooky how much that cat’s eyes looked like Tabby’s.

Joe waited a few minutes more and knocked again. When there was still no response, he swallowed and pushed open the unlocked door, knowing he might well destroy any headway he’d made with her on a personal level by intruding on her privacy now. The kitchen was dark and cool.

“Tabby?” he called. He tried again at the bottom of the stairs, pausing for a moment as he went over things in his mind. Her bicycle was on the porch, and her car was in the drive. He supposed it was possible she’d gone for a walk, but deep in his gut, he didn’t think that was the case. After taking the stairs two at a time, he checked the second floor where he found what was obviously her room from the personal touches: a skirt tossed over a chair back, a brush, and hair bands scattered on a vanity. The bed was neat as a pin, like it hadn’t been slept in.

He ran up to the third floor and slowly pushed open the door of the studio. He hadn’t felt quite this much trepidation since he’d served as a medic in the military. There’d been plenty of times they’d had to enter situations where they had no idea what they might find on the opposite side of a door.

The studio was a mess. A handful of canvases were ripped, their frames broken, and her easel lay on its side. However, the painting of him she had started was carefully propped on the window seat, above the huddled, sleeping form of Tabitha MacVie. She was still dressed in what she’d left the house in last night. Hair that had once been neatly braided now cascaded in tangled strands around a face almost deathly pale in comparison.

“Tabby!” he whispered urgently, rushing over to her side. Calling on his past military training, he put his fingers to the side of her neck. Her pulse was normal. Breathing appeared fine. He felt her forehead only to find it cool to the touch. Relief coursed through him. It appeared she was doing nothing more than sleeping. “Come on, darling,” he coaxed, barely wondering at how easily the endearment slipped off his tongue. “Wake up.”

Her lids fluttered. “Joseph?” her voice was hoarse and her eyes unfocused. “You sound worried. You shouldn’t worry about me. You should always be joyful.”

His gaze skittered around the room again. “What happened, Tabby? Are you all right? Did… Did someone break in? Did anyone bother you?”

At his words she finally struggled to sit up and focus. As her eyes took in the canvases, they widened, panic reflected in them until she assessed what was actually destroyed. “Oh thank God,” she whispered. “It’s only those. Not the ones that matter.”

A trio of canvases lay torn and splintered, and they didn’t matter? Joe looked around again. He spied the one he’d seen yesterday, the one he’d commented looked like Dante’s vision of hell. Its frame was broken and the canvas slashed. Yes, it was a dark painting, but it was brilliant—and it didn’t matter?

He looked into her pale face, into tawny eyes that burned so brightly, and gently stroked the hair from her face. “Tabby, shall I call Doc?”

She shook her head, then did something that shook him to the core. Her hand covered his where it rested against her cheek and she closed her eyes, as if she were trying to absorb his touch into her skin. For a moment, he would swear she purred like a cat. “No. No. I’m fine, Joseph.”

“The police? Jake can get an investigation rolling. We don’t normally have a lot of crime around here.”

“No. There’s no need.”

Confused, he looked around the mess in the studio. Had she done this? But she’d talked almost as if it were a surprise. If she did do it, wouldn’t she know what was destroyed? And why would she destroy her own work? He swallowed, sensing he hovered on sensitive ground. He helped her to her feet, his hands on her arms to steady her as she swayed. His brow furrowed.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he asked quietly, sure she hadn’t had supper or anything since then.

“I don’t know. What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday, Tabby.”

“Oh. Good.”

He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her so she wouldn’t see the shock on his face. She didn’t know what day it was? As his hands stroked her back, he rested his cheek against the side of her head. “I think we should call Doc.”

She shook her head again. “I—I don’t want to see her, Joseph. Not Jenny. It will hurt her.”

He continued to hold her and rub her back. It felt right. “Why will it hurt her, Tabby?” he probed gently.

“It hurt her to see me last night. It makes her remember things that hurt her. I get that.”

His eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. She wasn’t making sense. “Did you already know Evan and Jenny?”

She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “No. I knew of Jenny, but she didn’t know about me. She’s—she’s my sister, Joseph, but she didn’t know. She doesn’t want to know.”

A sob shook her, and his arms tightened. “Ah, Tabby,” he murmured and rocked her. He didn’t probe, didn’t ask questions. He had figured out long ago that silence often elicited more information. But in this, Tabby surprised him once again because she volunteered nothing else. Instead, her arms crept around his waist, and he wondered again at how right it felt to hold her. Her body curved into his as if it had been made to do exactly that. He leaned his cheek against her silky hair. He wanted to do so much more than simply comfort her that it scared him. He’d managed to stay clear of getting entangled into any kind of relationship, and a relationship with this woman wouldn’t be easy or simple.

“You’re so peaceful, Joseph,” Tabby whispered. “I heard it in your voice the first night here. But you sounded lonely too. You don’t seem that way now. You must have found what you were looking for.”

His fingers stroked through her dark hair and tilted her face to his. “You heard all that in my voice?”

She withdrew from him and grimaced. “Don’t mind me. I’m tired, I guess.” She looked around the studio. “Don’t worry about this. I was exorcising some demons I guess you might say.”

Whatever the moment, he realized it was gone. He turned her loose, shoved his hands into his pockets, and swallowed. “Those must be some pretty powerful demons. I’ll help you clean up, then why don’t you get a shower and a change of clothes? I’ll go down to your kitchen and cook some brunch—that is if you don’t mind sharing a meal with me?”

Tabby glanced around the studio. “I—I can do that.” She glanced back at him, and Joseph nearly took a step back at the loneliness he saw in the depths of her gaze. “Would you—do you have time—I mean I know it’s Sunday, and you’ve probably got another service later, but could you sit for me again? Just for an hour?”

“Sure.” When he saw the relief in her expression, he knew he would do almost anything to keep that haunted look off her face. Together they began to straighten the mess. Joseph noticed she was careful to avoid showing him any of her other paintings, but big deal. Some people were superstitious about that kind of thing.

“Would you sing to me again?” she asked as she set her jar of brushes back on the table next to her now upright easel.

“Yes,” he replied in a voice suddenly gone husky. All day and all night, if need be.

They parted ways on the second floor, Tabby to her room and Joe to the back stairs leading into the kitchen. A few minutes later, Joe glanced around the airy room as he finished the scrambled cheese and tofu he’d sautéed with mushrooms and basil.

It had taken no more than a quick glance in her refrigerator to figure out she didn’t eat meat…. And he had tried to tempt her with burgers on the grill. Way to go, Taylor. For a man who truly appreciated the finer points of a good cheeseburger, this could be a problem. Tabby leaned against the counter nearby, watching him cook.

They took their plates to the kitchen table, the occasional tinkle of utensils against dishes the only sound.

“Where is your cat? I never see her when you’re around.”

Tabby shrugged. “Here and there,” she said vaguely. “Probably perched in a tree. Katie Scarlett is an observer of the world. She was dropped at the shelter. I think she’d been abused.”

“You named your cat after Scarlett O’Hara?” Joe asked with a chuckle.

Tabby grinned. “I had an old tom I picked up off the streets. He had one eye and a rather rakish air about him, so I named him Rhett.” She shrugged. “It seemed to fit.”

“Shadow might be as fitting for her, as invisible as she always seems to be.”

Tabby smiled slightly. “Katie is a creature of the night.”

“Like her mistress?” Joe asked, arching a thick brow. “I see you burning a lot of midnight oil.”

Tabby shifted, suddenly seeming a little ill at ease. Joe was sorry for that. “I paint when the mood strikes me.” She jumped up and put their plates into the sink. “Speaking of which, you promised to sit…and sing.”

He followed her upstairs, his gaze locked appreciatively on the gentle sway of her hips beneath the filmy mid-calf length skirt she had on. Her hair hung loose, still damp from her shower, falling sleek and straight to just below her waist. Such long hair was rare these days. Most women chopped it off short. Joe gulped, wondering what it would feel like spread out over him.

When they reached the studio, she casually replaced her painting of him on the easel before she picked up a portion of canvas frame they must have missed. When she caught him watching her, she blushed.

“I’m sorry you saw this. I would have eventually stripped them and painted over them.”

“Tabby, the one I saw was very, very good,” he commented.

She paused and looked at him steadily. “They would never be for sale. They were personal. Call them therapy if you like. It helps me work out things, you know? And this,” she threw out, swinging her elegant hand in an arc to encompass the ruined pictures, “was simply the final part of that therapy.”

He could see the subject was closed. He had yet to gain her trust, but he got that. “Where do you want me?”

She glanced up from where she was already mixing colors on her palette. “The stool where you were the other day is fine.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulders and began to fill in the canvas with broad strokes. She stared at him intently, but not in a way that made him uncomfortable. “Sing for me,” she prompted softly. “I want to hear angels.”

He felt himself blush and she laughed. It was a beautiful sound, and the effect on her expression was startling, turning her classic beauty into something earthy and sensual. Joe could only stare.

After an hour, she smiled. “Thank you. I don’t want to keep you any longer. You must have evening service to prepare for.”

“I do. Can I ask you a stupid question?”

Tabby smiled quizzically. “Sure.”

“Just what were you going to eat last night if you had stayed at Evan and Jenny’s house? I mean, it’s obvious you’re a vegetarian.”

Tabby shrugged. “Salad, potatoes…then as soon as I got home a big bowl of hummus and crackers.”

“Hummus?”

She laughed. “It’s a mixture of chick peas, sesame paste, and a few other ingredients all mashed together. Lots of protein and healthy fat.”

“Mmm. Kinda partial to cheeseburgers, myself.”

Tabby tilted her head. “You did all right with the tofu earlier.”

“I was trying to impress you, and I didn’t want my halo to slip.” He was unrolling his sleeves and trying to button his cuffs again when she put down her palette and came around to help him.

“Here,” she offered quietly, “let me.”

He watched her bent head as she quickly fastened his cuffs. Acting on instinct and the urge overwhelming him, Joe lifted her chin with his fingers, but while his eyes lingered on her soft lips, he simply leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her forehead. Slowly, he reminded himself.

“Thanks,” he murmured. She nodded and turned away from him to go back to her painting. He puffed his lips in frustration, unable to tell if it had affected her at all. But why should it? All he’d done was kiss her forehead. Smooth. He watched her a moment longer. Tabby was back in her own world. Was it even a place she would allow someone else to see?

He shook his head and walked quickly down the steps. When he stepped out onto the veranda, Katie Scarlett opened her eyes from her resting place on his suit coat, uttered one last purr, and leaped down onto the porch to rub gently around his legs. Joe smiled at the cat as he picked up his coat and tie. The nagging feeling he was being watched made him glance toward the street where two ladies in flowered dresses now scurried down the sidewalk. Joe closed his eyes briefly and groaned. It looked like the church ladies were already on full alert.

* * * *

Tabby stared at the emerging portrait of Joseph and smiled. It did almost appear that he had a halo. She hadn’t seen Joe at all on Monday but chalked it up to him already having plans for Labor Day. For her part, it gave her time to work on his painting as well as go over her lesson plans for the upcoming week. She would be at the elementary school all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the other three days of the week would be split between middle and high school classes since both shared the same campus.

Nerves made it difficult to get to sleep Monday night. Her student teaching hadn’t been nearly as nerve-wracking because she’d always worked with a veteran teacher, but now she was on her own. What if the kids didn’t like her? Tabby shook her head. That was silly. She had gotten along just fine with the students during her student teaching, particularly the younger ones. Everything would be fine.

But everything was not fine. When she hurried outside in the morning, her car wouldn’t start. It was too far to walk. She looked at her bike and her watch. She had time to ride. It would mean being on time instead of early. With a resigned sigh, she ran back upstairs, pulled on her cycling pants, stuffed her no wrinkle skirt into her backpack, grabbed her helmet, and rode her bicycle to school. Since there was no bicycle rack at the elementary school, Tabby had to go in and ask the principal if it was permissible to bring her bike into the building. Mr. Underwood’s eyes popped at her arriving in cycling pants.

“Certainly, Miss MacVie, but I do hope you have more suitable attire for the school day?”

Tabby held her book bag in front of her, feeling suddenly indecent and embarrassed. “Yes sir.”

“Very well. Use the staff restroom to change before you leave this office.”

She felt humiliated. It set the tone for most of her day. While the students seemed to adore her, many of the teachers, older women who were themselves mothers, looked at her askance. A few even glared, and Tabby began to wonder if she had committed some horrible breach of etiquette during her workdays the previous week, but she couldn’t remember any of the women acting hostile toward her then. They had been a little reserved, but she had expected that. She was new and not from around Mountain Meadow, but today she was even getting a cold shoulder from the new kindergarten teacher. About the only one who did treat her normally was Mr. Powers, the P.E. teacher, who had seen her arrive on her bicycle, and Tabby noticed his eyes kept straying toward her butt.

By the end of the day, she was exhausted and frustrated. It was frightening to think that her third, fourth, and fifth grade students behaved more maturely than her colleagues. When she noticed Mr. Powers lingering around the front door, probably waiting for her to come out with her bike so he could see her dressed in her cycling pants, Tabby sneaked out a back door and took the long way around. She arrived home hot, sweaty, and tired. She carried her bike up onto the veranda and took off her helmet.

Hearing someone behind her, she spun around, trying to control the stab of panic that hit her. Joe stood there with a can of Coke in each hand.

“You looked like you could use this,” he commented dryly. He was dressed casually in khaki shorts and a polo shirt, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “How was your first day?”

Tabby started to say fine automatically, then let her book bag fall to the porch.

“Terrible.”