been teaching for five years now.”
“You don’t look old enough.”
Two personal observations in a row. Were either compliments?
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“So you started teaching right out of college.”
Fiona nodded. “I’ve been working on my master’s degree at Portland State for several years. Summer quarter and sometimes an evening class.”
“Better salary?”
She sighed. “Of course. But also, I’m learning. I used to think I wouldn’t be interested in administration, but maybe someday.”
This was when the conversation was supposed to become reciprocal. Yeah, I thought about minoring in education but…
Even though he didn’t say anything in response, he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave the small laundry room. In fact, she was suddenly aware of how close he was to her, and of how alone they were even though she could hear the kids’ voices coming from the kitchen. Not that she wasn’t aware of him every time she saw him, but now she found herself noticing the deep chocolate shade of his eyes, the fact that he’d apparently nicked himself shaving that morning—and how fresh and puckered that scar was.
When her gaze touched on the scar, something flared in his eyes and he took a step back.
Before he could speak, Fiona said hurriedly, “What about you? Before…Iraq. Were you career military?”
For a moment he didn’t answer, and she thought he wouldn’t. Then, with obvious reluctance, he said, “No. National Guard. Before, I was an engineer.”
“Really?” Oh, no; had she sounded surprised? Please God he hadn’t noticed. “What kind? Did you design bridges?”
“I was a mechanical engineer. Mainly robotics to increase workplace safety.”
“From that to innkeeper.” She’d meant the words to be light, but she could tell he didn’t take them that way.
A muscle spasmed in his jaw. “That’s right. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” He walked away, his limp pronounced.
Why had her asking about his past distressed him? Had he had some kind of breakdown when he got back from Iraq? Like the Vietnam vets who’d gone to live in the woods? Was the only difference that he’d been able to afford to buy this place?
The kids were all in the kitchen, Willow as usual looking shy and apart from the group, Erin equally apart but serenely so. John was nowhere to be seen. Fiona carried a basket upstairs and collected dirty clothes.
Going back through the kitchen, she said, “Boys, you get KP duty this morning. When everyone’s done eating, it’s your job to wash the dishes.”
Inevitably Hopper grumbled, “Why us?”
“Because we’re all going to take turns.” She surveyed the table. “Tabitha, Erin and I are going to make lunch. Willow, Kelli and Amy will do the lunch dishes. Dinner we’ll discuss when it gets closer.”
Smiling, she left them groaning and whining. Some of them had looked shocked enough, she had to wonder if they were required to do chores at home. That was the thing with a ritzy private school—the kids came from a whole different world than the one in which she’d grown up. They were more sophisticated in many ways than the teenagers with whom she’d gone to school. They compared Thai food at a restaurant to food they’d had in Thailand, snorkeling off Belize to experiences on the Barrier reef. They wore designer clothes, had every electronic gadget and drove BMWs the minute they turned sixteen.
But there were also huge gaps in their knowledge. They spoke of maids instead of having to carry out the garbage. She doubted most of them knew how to mop a kitchen floor or scrub a toilet. Maybe even how to wash dishes, although they were smart kids—they’d figure it out. They seemed not to have been expected to be responsible for much of anything. She had one student in her U.S. History class who’d wrecked two cars since March, and both times his parents had just bought him a new one.
Many of her students were great kids; some, like Erin, were clearly driven. But others were spoiled and simply marking time. She had two this year in Knowledge Champs that she suspected were merely padding their résumés for college: Amy and Troy. Amy was also one of the weakest participants. But Troy was different.
As a senior, he was on the A team. He was smart. But she’d also found him to be lazy. He often missed practice. His grades were top-notch, but when she looked at his file she saw that he had participated in very few extracurricular activities in his first three years of high school. That had changed this fall, when he joined Knowledge Champs and won a part in the fall musical.
Well, it wasn’t her business, but it would be interesting to see how they responded to her expectations if they were stranded at Thunder Mountain Lodge for long.
And even more interesting, she decided, as she set the washing machine to a normal cycle and started picking out light-colored garments, to see whether John Fallon opened up to her—or started hiding out in his quarters.
Of course, she shouldn’t care, considering she’d never see him again after the snowplows came through. What was it he’d said? I prefer the solitude. But then, with the way he looked at her sometimes, she wondered whether that was true.
Would he tell her how he’d been hurt if she asked? Or would he be offended by her nosiness?
She frowned and closed the lid on the washer. Probably the latter, and she wouldn’t even blame him.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was an enigma: an intelligent, well-educated man who’d presumably had a high-paying job and yet was now cooking and cleaning up after strangers at this remote lodge, glad when he had his midweek solitude. A man who hid his pain, who had been dismayed by the sight of the woman and kids on his doorstep but had been kind in large and small ways since then. He was a man who looked as if he badly wanted to kiss her, and yet he seemed to have forgotten how to flirt.
More assumptions on her part, Fiona thought with a sigh as she headed back to the kitchen to see how the kids were doing with cleanup. She was tantalized by him, so, ergo, he must be attracted to her.
Because she was so irresistible, of course.
Another sigh. She was pretty on a good day, which this was not. True beauty, she’d never achieve.
Face it: she was unlikely to have a shot at learning what had wounded John Fallon psychologically as well as physically. And, honestly, even if the attraction was reciprocal, where would they go with it, living several hours apart as they did?
Stick to fixing the kids’ problems.
“Watch it!” she heard one of the boys say, followed by the crash of a dish shattering on the slate floor.
Fiona winced and hoped the man she’d been obsessing about was out of earshot. Clearly she would have to supervise the kitchen crews.
It might have been far more interesting to have been stranded here without eight teenagers.
GETTING THE KIDS out the door was a chore, even after John went to the effort to round up a fair selection of parkas, gloves, hats and several pairs of boots. One girl—Amy—didn’t want to go. John was sympathetic until she started to whine.
“It’s cold.”
“Come on, you gotta be on my team,” Hopper coaxed.
“I don’t like getting cold.”
“But you ski!” one of the other girls said in apparent surprise.
Her lower lip was getting pouty. “Not when it’s snowing like this.”
Troy