A Singular Honeymoon

by Leigh Michaels

  A Singular Honeymoon

  by Leigh Michaels

  http://www.leighmichaels.com

  Copyright 2011 Leigh Michaels

  First published 1994

  All rights reserved

  Cover illustration copyright 2011 Michael W. Lemberger

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A rustle in the back of the room caught Sharley’s attention, and she looked up from the paper she was grading. It was the middle of a Friday afternoon, with just ten minutes to go until recess, and it would be no surprise if her second-graders were getting restless. But twenty small heads were bent over a math quiz...

  No, Sharley corrected. Nineteen students were taking a math quiz; one was using the test sheet to make a paper airplane. She sighed and beckoned him to the front of the room. “If you’ve finished with the test, Josh, you may, very quietly, take up another activity.”

  Josh gave her a gap-toothed grin, smoothed the folds out of his quiz, and went over to the window near her desk. “Miss Collins, look at the pretty red bird,” he said a moment later in a loud whisper.

  Sharley glanced toward the glass feeder just outside the window. The children filled it every morning, and their efforts had been rewarded through the entire winter. Today, a bright scarlet bird preened his feathers between bites of birdseed.

  “Do you remember what that bird is called?” she asked Josh.

  He frowned and finally shook his head.

  “It’s a cardinal,” Sharley said. “You can tell by the orange beak and the funny peak on its head. Now can you remember if a red cardinal is a male or a female?”

  Josh’s frown cleared. “It’s a girl,” he declared. “’Cuz girls always get to wear the brightest colors.” He came back to her desk and patted the sleeve of her electric blue sweater. “And they get the sparkliest stuff, too,” he added, pointing at the full-carat diamond in the ring on her left hand. “I don’t see why they should, though.”

  Sharley turned her hand so the diamond caught the light. It certainly sparkled, even under the flat fluorescent lights of the classroom, but it was not as brilliant as Spence’s eyes had been on the night he had slipped the ring onto her finger...

  This, she reminded herself, was no time for daydreaming. “Are you certain of your theory about colors, Josh? It isn’t always true in the case of birds, at least. That’s a male cardinal.”

  “Truly? He’s a boy? Hot dog.” His eyes brightened and he headed back to the window.

  Sharley turned her attention to his quiz. He hadn’t even missed the tricky questions. Well, there was another thing to add to her list of homework this weekend...think out a half-dozen new ways to challenge Josh at math. That would get her through six more school days, if she was lucky.

  The quizzes began to arrive at her desk in a flood, and the noise level in the room rose as students turned to other activities. By the time the recess bell rang, only two were still working over their papers, and Sharley had to prompt them to finish. She was a bit late herself in heading out to the playground to supervise, and she was still buttoning her coat as she pulled the classroom door shut behind her.

  In the hallway, the other second grade teacher paused and laughed. “That will fix me,” Amy Howell said cheerfully. “Trying to sneak something past you is worse than trying to fool my kids.” She held out a box. It was about a foot square and two inches thick, brightly wrapped in foil paper with an enormous white bow on top.

  Sharley looked at it doubtfully. From the way Amy was handling the box, it obviously weighed almost nothing. “What’s the occasion?”

  Amy groaned. “The girl’s getting married in just over a week and she says What’s the occasion! I couldn’t exactly give you this at your shower yesterday, because the principal would have had a heart attack.”

  Sharley’s eyebrows arched delicately. “Then I suppose I shouldn’t open it in front of the students, either.”

  “Or your Aunt Charlotte,” Amy murmured. “She doesn’t strike me as the type who would appreciate this sort of gift. But I’ll bet Spence is. I’ll leave it on your desk.”

  Sharley laughed and pushed open the heavy glass door that led to the playground. Everything looked and sounded normal; childish shrieks came from the tetherball pole and the group of rope-jumpers. Off in a corner, several little girls were slowly marching up and down in a row. Each one of them had her hands clasped together in an almost prayerful attitude. Each held her head tilted just so. And each small foot was lifted high, then set down with precision on the asphalt.

  Playing wedding, Sharley deduced. It had been a popular game around this particular playground for almost three months — since just after Christmas vacation, when Sharley had told her students in their sharing time that after spring break she would no longer be Miss Collins, but Mrs. Greenfield...

  Three months! Such a terribly short time to accomplish everything — and yet now that her wedding day was almost here it hardly seemed possible that so many weeks had flown by. Just eight more days and she would put on that elaborate satin and lace gown —the most beautiful gown in the world, her students had declared yesterday, as they begged her to describe it one more time — and walk down the aisle to an altar where Spence Greenfield waited.

  Spence...wonderful, handsome, brilliant Spence, who could discuss anything from nuclear physics to the theory of relativity to how the world economy really worked. But he had chosen to spend his life with a woman whose definition of science was teaching Josh the difference between a cardinal and a woodpecker, and who counted the day a success if one more student learned to make correct change for a dollar...

  Not that there was anything menial about her job. Second grade laid the foundations for a child’s whole attitude toward learning and life, and if that wasn’t important, Sharley didn’t know what would be. Besides, she loved being around kids, where the unexpected was the rule of the day.

  And there was nothing wrong with her brain, either, even though Amy Howell had a point when she announced that sometimes after a long day with twenty seven-year-olds she felt as if there was spaghetti between her ears.

  Still, Spence could have married anyone at all. And right up until Christmas, Sharley hadn’t been so sure that he wouldn’t. It wasn’t that he’d been dating anyone steadily, but he hadn’t seemed to be paying much attention to Sharley, either. He had come to dinner now and then, when her Aunt Charlotte had invited him. But that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to see Sharley; it could have been simply because her Uncle Martin was his boss. And though they had always found plenty of things to talk about on those evenings, it hadn’t been anything personal — just politics and books and community affairs.

  Of course, all that had been before the company Christmas party...

  A small hand tugged at her sleeve and an anxious little-girl voice asked, “Didn’t you hear the bell, Miss Collins?”

  The children were already lined up at the entrance, waiting for her to lead them in. Sharley shook her head at her own preoccupation.

  It was a good thing they had decided on an early wedding, even if it had caused calamity with her schedule all spring. Fitting a wedding and a honeymoon into a brief spring break wasn’t easy, but it was worth the effort. Next Thursday was the last day of school before the vacation began. On Friday she’d do her last-minute shopping, have lunch with her bridesmaids, and fit in a massage and a manicure. The wedding would be Saturday, and then she’d have a whole week alone with Spence in Nassau, at a resort where Aunt Charlotte had assured her they needn’t see anyone but the room-service waiter unless they wanted.

  A whole week, with nothing and no one to in
terrupt. It would be heaven...

  In order to have a whole week in Nassau, however, she was stretching her spring break. Since she wouldn’t be back yet when school took up session once more, she would have to leave a couple of days’ worth of lesson plans for the teacher who would fill in for her. How had she managed to let that slip her mind so completely?

  Easily. There hadn’t been room in her head for anything but Spence since Christmas.

  After the final bell, Sharley settled down at her desk once more and began mapping out a strategy to keep a whole classroom full of inquisitive heads — and fingers — occupied for two full days.

  Amy Howell looked in half an hour later. “Are you still hitting the books?”

  Sharley pulled off her reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Come on in, Amy. Do you think my substitute can handle a spelling bee?”

  “Depends on who it is.” Amy folded herself into a small chair in the front row and stared at the brightly wrapped box on the corner of Sharley’s desk. “Haven’t you opened that package yet?”

  “I was afraid to, in case the president of the PTA happened to stop in.”

  “I’ll stand guard. Come on, I’m dying to see your reaction.”

  “That’s the other reason I haven’t opened it,” Sharley admitted. But she slid the blade of her scissors under the tape and pulled the foil paper loose. Stamped atop the black box inside was the logo of the House of Dreams. “A nightie?” she speculated. “Honestly, Amy.” She lifted the top off the box. Inside, nestled in yards of bright red tissue paper, was the sheerest and shortest black lace negligee Sharley had ever seen.

  “Well?” Amy picked the garment up by two tiny spaghetti straps. “What do you think Spence will say when you come out of the bathroom wearing this on your wedding night? Or perhaps more to the point, what do you think he’ll do?” She giggled. “Honestly, Sharley, you’re turning beet red.”

  “It’s the reflection of the tissue paper.”

  “No, it’s not. Come on, darling, you’re going to marry the man. Don’t be a prude.”

  That wasn’t the case at all, Sharley thought. The fact that a woman was willing to wait for her wedding night didn’t mean she was a prude. And it didn’t mean she had an easy time of controlling her impulses, either. Sharley had no reason to worry about a lack of desire; there had been several times in the last three months when it would have been very easy to throw common sense to the winds... But of course Spence understood why this was so important to her.

  He might not exactly appreciate her feelings, Sharley thought with a glint of laughter, but he understood.

  In any case, she wasn’t about to try explaining her reasoning to Amy, who would probably hoot rudely at the idea that any woman who had been engaged for three months hadn’t yet slept with her fiancé.

  Amy seemed to have taken the silence for what it was — all the answer she was going to get. She dropped the scrap of black lace back into the box. “You’ll have to let me know if it lives up to its name,” she said. “It’s called a ring negligee because it’s so delicate you’re supposed to be able to pull it through a man’s wedding ring.” She frowned a little. “Though, come to think of it, if a man has a wedding ring—”

  “He ought to be wearing it instead of experimenting with the lingerie, don’t you think?” Sharley wondered if the stunt would work. She suspected it would; the lace was extremely fine and sheer. Besides, she’d playfully tried on Spence’s wedding band the day she bought it. It was wide and heavy, and twice as big around as her own delicate engagement ring. She folded the lacy garment neatly into the box. “Thanks, dear. I’ll tell you — within reason — about the reaction.”

  Amy grinned. “I hope for your sake I’m not disappointed.” She reached for the small framed snapshot on the corner of Sharley’s desk and held it out at arms’ length. “He’s one extremely good-looking man. I always was a soft touch for a guy with a dimple in his chin.” She put the frame back on the desk.

  Spence’s warm smile gave such a tug to Sharley’s heart that she couldn’t help smiling back. Amy was right; he was a handsome man, with dark hair and classic features. The cleft in that strong chin was an unexpected note, of course — but Sharley, too, had a soft spot for masculine dimples. At least, she thought, for that particular one.

  But it wasn’t good looks and dimples she had fallen in love with, but things like the twinkle in his gray eyes — so strong, even on paper, that it demanded a response. He’d been particularly mischievous the day she’d taken that picture, she recalled. She had stopped by Hudson Products on an unseasonably warm January day with a picnic basket and an invitation to a stolen lunch hour. Spence had come out of his office and leaned against his secretary’s desk, with his arms folded across the front of a very nice gray cashmere sweater, and Sharley had snatched her camera from the basket…

  “Doesn’t she bother you?” Amy asked. “Spence’s secretary, I mean.”

  Sharley glanced at an out-of-focus figure at the edge of the photograph. “Wendy? Of course not.”

  “She’s so attractive.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, darling,” Sharley said, in her most sultry voice, “so am I.” She let her fingers trail through her golden blonde hair in a sensuous gesture and batted her eyelashes for good measure.

  Amy laughed. “Especially in black lace, I’ll bet. What are you doing this weekend? Resting up for the wedding?”

  “No such luck, I’m afraid. I have lists of things still to do. And Aunt Charlotte was supposed to help serve desserts at the scholarship fund-raiser Saturday, but—”

  “But she’s feeling poorly, so you get to do it for her? Honestly, Sharley, she’s always passing on to you the things she doesn’t want to do, on the grounds that she doesn’t feel well enough.”

  “Quite often she doesn’t. After her stroke a few years ago, it’s a wonder she feels up to doing anything at all. Besides, she and Uncle Martin do so much for me that standing in for Charlotte and cutting a cheesecake now and then is nothing.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Amy murmured. “She could have given up altogether.” She pulled herself up out of the tiny chair with a groan and said, “I’d better finish my lesson plans, too. And guess what I’m going to do all weekend.”

  “I’m afraid to,” Sharley said frankly. She put her glasses back on and opened a textbook.

  “I’m going to think very hard about what to give you and Spence for a housewarming gift.”

  Sharley wadded up a subtraction worksheet and threw it at her. Amy ducked it and headed for the door, grinning.

  *****

  The afternoon air was deceptively mild, and the breeze held the first false promise of spring, Sharley thought as she walked home that afternoon. Her long wool coat was far too heavy; she’d have taken it off except that she didn’t want to carry it. If this sort of warmth kept up over the weekend, a full-fledged epidemic of spring fever would race through the school — and next week, before the break began, would seem very long indeed.

  Sharley saw several of her students along the way. Living in the neighborhood and walking back and forth was rather like being a cop on the beat, she thought sometimes. For one thing, it reminded her that her students were simply kids. For another, she often noticed something earlier that way, before it became a problem at school. Like cliques and sibling rivalries, for instance, or the moving van which was parked by the Hollisters’ house. Did that mean Amber Hollister’s mother was carrying out her longtime threat to leave her husband and kids and go back to the East Coast? Sharley made a mental note to check on that first thing Monday morning. Amber had been awfully subdued today...

  Sharley turned the corner into what Amy referred to as the Mansion District. In the six blocks between the school and her home, there were ranch houses, Colonials, bungalows. Most were neat and well-kept, and all were on good-sized lots. But none of them could compete with the executive houses which lay along winding streets and cul-de-sacs
a little farther from the center of town. Some of those homes were legitimately mansions.

  The Hudson house was one of them. It was deceptively simple from the outside — only one story tall and set well back from the street at an angle on a block-square lot. From the street, in fact, a passerby who peeked through the tall fence could see little more of the house than a low mass of pale gray brick, with bay windows and dark burgundy trim. And because of the trees and shrubs and bushes, it was impossible to see the other buildings at all from the street. The garage, the pool house, and the gardener’s cottage were all hidden away inside the ten-acre tract.

  Sharley paused beside an intricately worked wrought iron gate and dug through the pocket of her portfolio for the key. This side entrance to the estate had been seldom used in the last few years, but it was the quickest way across to the gardener’s cottage — the simple, solid little house that Charlotte and Martin Hudson were so generously renovating for the newlyweds.