soft buzz of her cell phone pulled Ariel Martin’s attention from the ninth-grade English paper she was grading. It was good that she’d been engrossed in the essay—the student had obviously done an outstanding job. It was not so good that long shadows had drifted across the classroom floor while she was reading. It was late. Later than she’d realized.
She grabbed her phone and read the text that had come through.
Want to grab some dinner later, Ari?
“No, Easton. I do not,” she muttered, shoving the phone back in her purse without responding.
Easton Riley was a nice enough guy—a math teacher who’d coached the football team to regional victory the previous year—but she wasn’t interested.
She had her hands full teaching summer school, tutoring on the side, getting the classroom ready for the long-term sub who’d be taking over from mid-September through December when she had her baby. The last thing she needed or wanted was a relationship complicating things. She’d lived that for five years—always at another person’s beck and call, always worrying about what someone else wanted or needed.
She hadn’t thought marriage would be that way. She’d thought it would be a mutual effort—two people working together to reach a common goal. She’d been wrong. She had the divorce papers to prove it, filed in Nevada and finalized three weeks later. Not what she’d wanted. She’d wanted couples counseling and pastoral help. Mitch had wanted someone else.
That had hurt. What had hurt more was how adamant he’d been that she get rid of the baby she learned she was carrying a week after Mitch had filed for divorce. An abortion, that’s what he’d demanded. He’d even tossed cash at her, screaming that she’d better get rid of the kid or he’d do it for her.
That had been the first time she’d been scared of her ex-husband. There’d been other times after that. The fact that he’d died in a fiery car wreck a month later should have given her a sense of relief, but she’d felt trapped by all the memories—good and bad—of their marriage. Las Vegas had never been her dream. It had been Mitch’s. They’d graduated from the University of Arizona and chased after the things he’d wanted—money, fast cars, expensive toys. She’d been happy to go along for the ride, because she’d loved him.
Love wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
She’d learned that the hard way, and now she was back in her old hometown, teaching at the high school she’d attended, trying to get ready for the daughter she’d be raising alone.
“We’ll do great, munchkin,” she said, standing and stretching a kink from her back. She glanced at the clock that hung above the classroom door. 5:45 p.m.
Mia McKeller’s brother was late. Again.
Ariel understood that the guy was busy. The Desert Valley police had had their hands full the past few months—murders, drug runners, attacks, arrests. Rumors and speculations had been running rampant through the town, and Ariel had wondered if she would have been better off staying in Vegas. At least there, she had some anonymity. There’d been no sweet old church ladies knocking on her door in the evening, handing her casseroles and asking questions about her married state, her plans for the baby, her decision to raise her daughter alone. In Desert Valley, everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. If they didn’t, they wanted to know. The problem was, Ariel didn’t want to explain her marriage, Mitch’s death, the fact that she wasn’t nearly as sorry about it as she should be. She didn’t want to lie, either, so she found herself hedging around questions, giving half answers and partial truths. She preferred authenticity, but it was hard when there were so many things she couldn’t or wouldn’t say. Yeah. She preferred straight-up answers.
She also preferred being on time.
Something that Tristan McKeller seemed to be opposed to. At least when it came to his meetings with her.
He seemed like a nice guy. They’d spoken on the phone several times, and he’d gone out of his way to introduce himself at church. She hadn’t needed the introduction. She’d seen him in town, walking with Mia and his K-9 partner. Her first thought was always that he made a handsome picture—tall and dark-haired, one hand on his sister’s shoulder, the other on the dog leash. Her second was always that he really seemed to care about Mia.
And yet, he couldn’t seem to make it to their meetings on time.
She grabbed her cell phone, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. Tristan had had to cancel two previous meetings due to his job as a K-9 officer. He’d apologized profusely, and she’d been happy to reschedule, but summer school was drawing to a close, Mia’s English grade wasn’t improving, and if she didn’t pass, she’d wouldn’t be able to join her friends in tenth grade the following year. As Mia’s guardian, it was up to Tristan McKeller to ensure his sister was aware of the ramifications of her decisions to not turn in assignments, not attend class, not participate.
Of course, he’d assured Ariel that he’d been talking to Mia, working with her and trying everything he could think of to motivate his sister. Nothing was working, and they were going to have to come up with a new plan. She’d explained it all to him Sunday morning when he’d pulled her aside after church and asked if Mia’s grades were improving. He’d wanted to be prepared for bad news at the meeting, he’d said, a half smile softening the hard angles of his face.
She’d noticed that.
Which had irritated her.
No more men. Ever. That was an easy enough promise to keep to herself.
Ariel sighed, grabbing the writing prompt she’d be using for Monday’s composition class. She might as well get it photocopied now, because she had a feeling Tristan would be canceling again, and once she heard from him, she was going home. She had a crib to put together. The baby was due in five weeks. Plenty of time to get the nursery ready, but whenever she got started, she thought about how it was supposed to be—two people choosing colors, two people picking wall art, two people putting the crib together—and she stopped.
She couldn’t keep stopping.
Babies came whether the parent was ready or not.
She walked out of the classroom, the smell of chalk dust and floor cleaner filling her nose. Desert Valley High was smaller than the Las Vegas prep school where she’d spent the first five years of her teaching career. The main hall split into two wings, and she turned to the left, bypassing the girls’ restroom, the library, the cafeteria. The teacher’s lounge was just ahead, the photocopy machines tucked into a cubby there.
She walked into the room, smiling at the little sign one of the teachers had hung on the refrigerator door—a smiley face with Smiles Don’t Happen Here scrawled across it.
Not true, of course.
Desert Valley High was a nice place to work—good teachers, good principal, good kids, supportive parents. A dream come true, really.
If a person still had dreams.
Ariel’s had all died when Mitch had thrown the cash at her and screamed that he wanted her and the baby gone from his life.
“Cut it out,” she muttered, sliding the prompt into the copy machine and closing the lid. The last thing she needed to do was dwell on the past. She had an entire future to plan out and live. She also had a baby who would need her to be strong, focused and positive.
Somewhere in the school a door slammed shut, the sound faint but audible. Tristan McKeller. It had to be. The rest of the staff had gone home for the night. Ariel had been alone in the building since the head custodian, Jethro Right, had told her to lock the main doors when she left.
That was one of the nice things about being in a school this size. She had a key to the main door and could come and go as she pleased.
She left the machine and hurried into the corridor.
At least, she tried to hurry. The baby was gaining weight rapidly at this point, the heaviness of the