“Oh, my goodness!” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “They’re making bets on us.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s all over town already. Which means you might as well go out with him and see how you like him.”
“But I, I,” she stammered, so flustered she almost didn’t know what to say. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been worried about conflict of interest and my ethics. Isn’t that a problem, going out with a parent of one of my students?”
“Whether you go out with him or not, that attraction is there, and can affect you.” He nodded. “Have you given the boy anything he hasn’t earned?”
“No, of course not,” she said.
“And you’re keeping all this in mind when you’re grading the boy, and not favoring him in the classroom.”
“I try to give each child equal attention to the best of my ability.”
“The fact you’ve been worried about it says it all,” he said. “We’re a small community. Everyone knows everyone else. You’re not going to have the impartiality that comes from not knowing people. You may come to know an entire family and then one of their children is in your class the next year. You just keep on as you are, and you’ll do fine. I trust you to do the right thing when grading your students.”
Totally floored by what he’d told her, she stood still when he moved forward.
Pausing at the door, he turned and said to her, “Better to face a thing head on than to pretend it isn’t there.” Then he opened the door and went inside.
Shaking herself out of her pause, she went through the door behind him and then on to her classroom. She needed to close everything down for the day, and then go home and figure out what she was going to wear tonight.
I’m going to dinner tonight with Travis and his son.
It was as if the universe was conspiring to get them together. Even her principal thought they should. She’d never in a million years have dreamed of that happening and felt like pinching herself.
* * *
At home,she parked, carried her things in, and then hopped in the shower. After she got out and dried off, she had to decide what to wear. She hadn’t added much to her wardrobe, because she hadn’t been working long enough and it was a drive to any of the stores who sold clothing, she opted for the red shirt with the American flag on it again.
He’d liked it last time.
It seemed like a good choice.
Doing her hair and makeup for the second time that day, she watched the clock to make sure she wouldn’t be late. Once she was ready, she double checked herself in the mirror one more time before heading out the door.
As she came down the three short steps of the little trailer, she was renting, onto the yard to walk to her car, she got a strange feeling.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she shivered, though it wasn’t chilly out yet. It was that old feeling from before that felt as if someone was watching her.
This was a feeling she’d had many times in the past, even back when she was in college, but when she’d talked to her college counselor about it, they’d both agreed it must be her nervous energy. Because when she looked around, there was never anyone there.
But that had been before Mortimer grabbed her in the parking lot.
By the time he tried to take her, she’d become so used to brushing off what she’d told herself was probably just nerves, that she hadn’t been careful, hadn’t listened to her intuition. It had been easy for him to sneak up on her.
This time, she was paying attention. She always paid attention when she left her home to go anywhere, since her situational training at the Three C’s Ranch.
Better to look around and see nothing than to look straight ahead and be surprised.
She turned in a full circle, slow, but she didn’t see one person.
It’s just nerves. I’ve been nervous about having dinner with Travis. This is just more of those jitters.
Ignoring those nerves, she got in her car and drove to Travis’s house. At six o’clock sharp, she pulled up in front of his little bungalow style house with his truck parked beside it.
Scotty ran to answer the door, and then shouted over his shoulder, “She’s here!”
“Hello Scotty,” she said.
