by Jeannie Watt
“The roosters have come home to roost.” She frowned. “Cal got the better of him. For now, anyway.”
“I don’t want to know.” Lola focused on the floor once again.
“You don’t,” Finn agreed. The store was quiet and Chase was in the warehouse inventorying stock. “If you don’t need me, I’m going to clock out.”
Lola waved a hand, very much as Mike had done, and Finn headed back out into the weather. Fifteen minutes later he parked as close to the house as he could get and dashed through the rain to his front porch. He shoved the key in the lock and had just turned it when he heard the noise. A faint mewling.
He cocked his head and held still, wondering if he’d imagined the sound.
Nothing.
He opened the door and then heard it again. A faint thread of sound winding its way through the pounding rain.
Finn stood, half in and half out of the house, listening. Then he scuffed a foot over the porch and the soft cry sounded again. A baby...something.
He pulled his ball cap down tighter, stepped out into the rain and walked about the porch to crouch at the side opening to see if he could find anything. No, but he could hear the sound more clearly. Hoping against hope that he wasn’t about to rescue a small skunk, he got down onto the wet grass and eased himself under the porch on his side. He stopped halfway in, his legs still sticking out in the rain, and waited a moment to get his bearings. The baby had gone silent, so he rolled over onto his belly to get a better view. There, in the far corner where the ground sloped up toward the foundation making the space between ground and porch way too tight for him, was a small gray kitten.
Oh man.
He scooted farther under the porch. “Come here, baby.”
The kitten hunched back into the corner, so Finn continued to inch forward, until his back hit the joists above him and then he reached his arm out as far as it would go. The kitten shrank back again, but he managed to get hold of the nape of its neck with two fingers and drag it toward him. The baby let out a distress howl that would certainly have brought a mother to the rescue, if one was in the vicinity. Finn had a bad feeling that she was not.
Slowly he pushed his way backward out from under the porch and into the soaking-wet grass. Once he was able to sit upright he put the kitten to his chest, where it immediately stuck its tiny claws into his coat, clinging like a cocklebur. Finn put a hand over the small animal and got to his feet.
“So where’s your mama, little guy?”
The kitten pressed against him as Finn walked up the steps and in through the door he’d left open. The furnace was blasting away in response to the cold air that had come into the living room while he’d been belly-crawling under the porch. Finn shut the door behind him then went into the bathroom for a hand towel, which he used to rub the shivering kitten.
His best guess was that if the little guy had a mother, she would have been there with him during the deluge, keeping him warm. Finn held the kitten up in front of him. His eyes were mostly open, which made him around two weeks old and nowhere near weaned. The kitten opened his mouth as if to cry, but nothing came out, so Finn curled the little guy up under his chin, tilting his head to make him a warm pocket, then reached for his phone.
“Hey,” he said when Mike answered. “We have kitten milk replacer, right?”
“I think so.”
“Would you look?” Otherwise he was going to have to start calling the larger ranch supply stores or see if he could find a vet.
“Yeah. We do,” Mike said when he came back on the line.
“I have an orphan kitten. He’s skin and bones. Barely two weeks old.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“I can come to your place. Or the store.”
“Naw. Wait there. I wouldn’t mind an excuse to escape. Cal’s here.”
“Enough said. Could you round up a feeding bottle and an eyedropper?”
“You bet.”
Finn hung up the phone and closed his eyes as the baby snuggled into him, his little nose poking at Finn’s neck. “Hang tough, buddy. Mike’s on the way with the grub.”
When Mike got there, he agreed with that the kitten was probably an orphan. “Look how skinny he is.”
Finn handed the kitten over to Mike, who cupped him in one large palm, then read the directions on the milk replacer package.
“You’ll need a hot-water bottle or something to keep him warm.”
“I have a heating pad. I’ll put it under a towel.” Finn heated the water, whisked in the milk replacer. “Mom did this once,” he said. “Remember? Raised a whole litter.”
Mike smiled a little. “Yeah. I do.”
Between the two of them, they managed to get most of a feeding into the kitten, instead of onto him. Even though he sputtered and protested the strange delivery method, he soon got the hang of the bottle and pushed his little paws against Mike’s hand as he fed him.
“Going to name him?”
“I’m going to call around to the vets on Monday and see if they know of any mama cats who might take him.”
“You sure about that?” Finn frowned at Mike, who grinned a little. “Women love guys who raise orphan kittens.”
“I think I can get a woman without a kitten.”
“Kitten couldn’t hurt.”
“Are you really in a position to be giving love advice? What happened with the date Cal set up for you?”
Mike’s mouth tightened briefly. “I’m going. It’s only polite. It’s not her fault that Cal went too far.” Finn opened his mouth, but Mike held up a finger. “Don’t you dare give me any pointers on modern customs or safe sex.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
But he bet that Cal and Karl had.
“Have you talked to her?” he asked his uncle.
“Emailed. She wrote back and... I’m going on a coffee date next weekend.”
Finn gave him an innocent look. “If you want to take the kitten, just let me know.”
* * *
MOLLY WALKED OVER to her printer and took out the stack of practice exercises. She had mixed feelings about talking Finn into staying in her class. On the one hand, she’d been the reason he was going to drop the course, and since she believed she could help him, it was a good thing to do. As far as maintaining peace of mind and enjoying teaching the class... Finn had a certain effect on her. Not the he’s-so-dreamy effect he’d had on her during high school—up until the fateful date, that is—but something deeper. Baser. More hormone-driven. He was a hot guy, and he unsettled her in a way that Blake never had. She couldn’t get a handle on how it was different, and that made her uneasy. She liked to understand these things. Understanding helped one avoid unexpected disaster, and Finn had disaster written all over him, but she persisted in keeping him in her classroom.
Molly set her papers aside, planted her elbows on her desk and pressed her fingertips against her forehead. This wasn’t a problem. She was in control of her life and well aware that a guy like Finn—unpredictable and untethered—didn’t fit into her master plan. It wasn’t as if he could shove his way into her life in the same way that he was shoving himself into her thoughts.
“Excuse me... Molly?”
She looked up to see Jonas—a high school senior who was taking college courses during his final year of high school—standing in the doorway. She hadn’t asked her students to call her Ms. Adamson, but most did. Especially the high school students. “Yes, Jonas?”
“I’d like to discuss this grade.” He set the second essay assignment, which she’d returned less than an hour ago, on her desk.
“What can I help you with?” Molly asked, looking at him over her glasses.
“This is only the third week of class, and frankly, I don’t believe you’ve taught us enough to grade so harshly.”
Molly almost laughed. She’d given him a B-minus, and if he thought the three or four comments she’d written on his paper were bad, he should have seen Finn’s paper. “I’m setting the bar high,” she said gently. She’d taught community college classes long enough to know that many students graduating from high school were not fully prepared for college-level courses, and some were stunned to find out what was expected of them.
“I don’t understand how setting the bar high is helpful.”
“It gives you something to shoot for.”
“At the expense of my GPA?” His eyebrows rose in an imperious way.
“Apparently so. And Jonas, this is a very good paper. But there’s room for improvement, which is why it’s a B and not an A.”
He frowned at her and waited, as if expecting her to suddenly say, “Just kidding. You can have your A.” When she didn’t, he raised his chin and said, “You should know that my parents donated land to this college.”
“That is very generous of them.” Molly spoke matter-of-factly. “And I’m certain that your parents want you to leave this place with an actual education.”
“They want me to be successful.”
“So do I.”
Jonas opened his mouth, then closed it again. His lips flattened and then he picked the essay up off her desk.
“I’d be happy to go over that with you.”
He pulled in a long breath, as if barely containing his impatience at her obvious stupidity, then abruptly turned and stalked out of the office just as Georgina was coming in.
“Who was that?” Georgina asked as she craned her neck to watch Jonas walk down the hall.
“That is trouble with a three-hundred-dollar backpack.” Molly just hoped her message sank in. She didn’t need trouble at this point in her new career.
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently he’s not used to constructive criticism.”
Georgina made an exaggerated O with her mouth. “Guess you’ll be more careful in the future.”
“Guess so,” Molly said. “What’s made you so happy?” Her little sister was practically vibrating with excitement.
“I have a date. With Chase.”
“Big surprise there,” Molly said with a wry smile.
Georgina curled a dark hank of hair around one finger. “I called him.” Her eyes danced. “I figured why wait for him to screw up the courage when I could make the first move. He seemed really happy to hear from me, so...we’re going to coffee on Wednesday, which is the day he gets off work early.”
“Good for you.” He’d seemed like a nice kid, and it was only because her own relationship had blown up so spectacularly that Molly always felt a stab of protective worry for her little sister. And in hindsight she wished she hadn’t so blithely shrugged off her mother’s concerns about Blake.
“I don’t know,” her mother had said, thus putting a pinprick in her bubble of happiness when she’d told her she was not only moving in with Blake—she was buying a house with him. “You two are so opposite.”
She and Blake had been opposites. He’d been outgoing and energized by being around people, while she’d found social events exhausting. She loved quiet weekend mornings, and unless they involved sex, Blake was bored by them. They’d been good together in other ways, though, each bringing strengths to the relationship that the other drew upon. Blake had helped Molly gain confidence, come out of her shell. Molly had helped Blake organize his life and had enjoyed keeping the home fires burning while he was on the road. But ultimately Blake had been Blake and had followed in his father’s footsteps. And as long as he was discreet, he fully assumed that Molly would follow in his mother’s.
It’d killed her when she found out that he was cheating. It was only after he was gone from her life that she started seeing cracks in what had appeared to be a solid foundation and was a bit stunned at how completely she’d turned a blind eye to things she should have been paying attention to.
“Are you coming home for dinner before class?” Georgina asked.
Molly looked at the piles of papers covering her desk and gave her head a slow shake. “I don’t see that happening.”
Georgina knew better than to argue with her. “I’ll have the leftovers in the fridge—just in case you forget to grab a sandwich.”
“Thanks.” Because Molly didn’t feel like eating then. She felt edgy and it was all because of the guy she’d talked into not dropping her class.
* * *
FINN TOLD HIMSELF that it was no big deal going back after missing two classes, but he felt as if all eyes were on him when he walked into Molly’s classroom—maybe because they were. She was at the front talking to a guy whose name might have been Denny. He’d pay closer attention tonight, try to learn his classmates’ names, because he told himself that if he walked back into this classroom, it was for the long haul. Come hell or high water, As or Fs, he was going to finish this class. So what if he felt stupid about what he didn’t know? That was what this was all about—catching up.
But he still felt self-conscious, as if everyone in the room knew that he hadn’t learned squat about English in high school. That there’d been an unspoken—or hell, who knew? Maybe it had been spoken—conspiracy to pass him along so that he could bring athletic glory to the school. What if everyone here knew that he was a walking cliché—the dumb jock?
Debra waved at him and he went to sit in the chair directly behind her. She turned, hooking her elbow over the back of the seat.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” she said in a motherly tone.
“Neither did I.” She frowned and he said, “I had some...scheduling difficulties and I was going to drop the class.”
She leaned a little closer. “What changed your mind?”
A belly ring?
That wasn’t the real answer, but he certainly thought about that belly ring every now and again. “I was able to work things out in a different way.”
Debra reached out to pat his arm. “Well, if you need a study buddy, you just give a yell.”
Finn smiled in spite of himself. “Thank you.” Like he was going to show the depth of his lack of knowledge when everyone else seemed to be miles ahead of him.
“Okay, everyone,” Molly said when the guy she’d been talking to took his seat front and center and opened his laptop. “Time to begin.”
Debra turned around to face front as Molly started class, squaring her shoulders and lining her pencils up on her desk. Just as she’d done during the first class, Molly’s gaze panned over the class, over him, without stopping. But evidently she knew he was there because her lips curved ever so slightly before she started speaking again. That was when it occurred to him that she hadn’t known whether or not he was actually going to show up.
“Last week we worked on using appropriate transitions. This week we’ll talk about choosing verbs that convey meaning and feeling...”
Feeling. Yeah.
He was feeling pretty self-conscious. Maybe a touch stupid. What the hell was a transition? He slid his phone out of his pocket and surreptitiously looked it up. Ah. He raised his head as Molly turned off the lights so that they could see the interactive whiteboard better.
After a quick review of transitions, she conducted a brief refresher on verbs and various tenses. Then Molly handed out a sheet on which they were to pick the better of two verbs to convey a specific meaning. “Remember—you want to paint pictures, evoke feelings, but you don’t want to be hokey.”
“That can be a thin line,” the guy he thought was named Denny said.
“Good point. It’s all about context.” Molly drifted by his desk then, lingering just long enough to say, “I have some makeup work for you. If you could stay for a few minutes after class, I’ll explain it to you.”
�
��Sure.”
“It’s easy,” Debra whispered over her shoulder.
For you, maybe.
Finn started reading the verb practice sheet, tapping his pencil on the desk as he considered what made a good, non-hokey verb. Debra was done by the time he hit number four of ten, but Finn kept his head down and soldiered on. He wasn’t quite done when Molly said they’d start discussing choices, but what the heck? And that was when he noticed that his paper was not the same as Debra’s—he had about half as many questions to complete as she did.
Hell. He had a remedial verb sheet and he still hadn’t gotten done. A flush started working its way up his neck as he felt himself shutting down. He was even worse off than he’d imagined. Son of a bitch.
Molly gave the class more work, laying the sheet on his desk as she walked by. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Not only did she think that he was stupid, she’d proven it.
“Get this one done and let me check it before you leave.” Molly continued to pace through the classroom, answering questions and making comments. Finn sat staring at the paper. Finally, he put his head down and went to work, flinching a little when Debra put her pencil down.
“I’m finished,” she said. “Do we have homework?”
“Just a reading assignment. More verb work.” She set a paper on Debra’s desk. “You can leave early if you need to.”
“Thank you.” Debra gathered her belongings and made a signal to her friend Susan, who was also finishing up.
If students weren’t to leave until they turned in the exercise, then Finn hoped Molly had a cot somewhere, because even though his assignment was once again shorter than Debra’s, he didn’t see himself getting done any time soon.
The exodus began shortly after Debra had taken her leave and it wasn’t long before Finn and Denny were the only people left in the room. Molly sorted papers and clipped them together, and finally Denny rose from his seat and brought her his completed work.
“I went through everything twice.”
“Excellent strategy,” Molly murmured. Finn got to his feet while Denny grabbed his backpack and brought his paper up.
