by Jeannie Watt
“I’ll be happy to go over the grades with you,” Molly said pleasantly. “I have copies of his work here.” She indicated the folder she held in her lap.
“We have copies,” Mrs. Simon said in a clipped voice. She turned to the dean. “What we would like is for these papers to be graded, blind, by another instructor. Then we can compare those marks to the marks of Ms. Adamson.”
Molly gave a nod. It seemed fair to her. A burden on whomever had to grade, but her marks were reasonable. The Simons were not.
“We would also like to have other papers included. A general sampling.”
The dean looked as if he was about to draw the line at that request, when Mr. Simon added, “We have it on good authority that one of Ms. Adamson’s students is passing her class despite a distinct lack of ability.”
“How do you know he’s passing?” Before Mr. Simon could answer, the dean turned to Molly. “Do you have any failing students?”
“Not at the moment.”
Mr. Simon smiled with a touch of cold smugness. “We want his papers graded blindly, too.”
“We can’t do that. Privacy laws—” The dean sucked in a breath and pressed his lips together. “May I have a moment alone with Ms. Adamson?”
The Simons exchanged looks, then rose to their feet. Molly didn’t look at them as they left. Instead she focused on prying her fingers loose from the arm of the chair. After the door closed behind them, the dean’s shoulders literally slumped. He was a nice guy, but by no means a tower of strength.
“Well?” he asked.
“I have a student that I’m differentiating for. He has a disability.”
“Diagnosed?”
She shook her head. “But it’s pretty obvious that he’s dyslexic.”
“Yet no diagnosis, so no Americans with Disabilities provisions. Are you grading him more easily than Jonas?”
“He’s working to the best of his ability. Jonas is skating.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Now Molly’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve been helping him. A lot.”
“Are his grades reflective of his abilities?”
“Not at the moment, but he’s improving.” She raised a hand. “I know. Not the answer to the question. No. They are not reflective.”
“You’ve put me in a bind here.” An odd expression crossed his face. “Please tell me this isn’t the student that Jonas accused you of being amorous with?”
Molly opened her mouth. Closed it again. She couldn’t truthfully say they weren’t amorous.
The dean put his elbows on his desk and pressed his fingertips against his bowed head. “I want to keep you.”
Molly’s stomach tightened. “I want to stay.”
He raised his head, his expression grim. “Two choices. You give all of your students a writing assessment to be completed by Wednesday. Or you get permission to share this student’s work. Either way, another instructor grades. I can tell you which one would be less work for said instructor.”
“I’m sorry about this,” Molly said. “I honestly was trying to get him up to the point where he could pass the class without discouraging him. He had years of work to catch up on.”
“I understand the motivation. However...it’s now a problem.”
Molly let out a sigh. “I have copies of his work. I can obliterate the name so as not to violate privacy laws.”
“Please have those to me at the end of the day.”
“Do you want me to continue this meeting with the Simons?”
The dean’s eyebrows lifted. “And risk getting into the log?” He shook his head. “You have class and I have waters to smooth.”
As did she. Waters to smooth. Confessions to make.
* * *
MOLLY SMILED AT FINN as he walked into her classroom, and he smiled back. That was the last contact they had for the next hour, but Finn sat in his truck and waited for Molly to leave the building. As she walked by his vehicle he rolled down the window and she said simply, “Your place. We need to talk.”
He nodded and drove away. Fifteen minutes later, Molly pulled up at his house.
He opened the door and she slipped inside under his arm, glancing behind her as if checking to see if she’d been followed.
“This isn’t good,” he guessed, reaching out to pull her against him.
She breathed deeply, as if drawing strength from him, then eased back. “Not good.” She took a backward step, hugging her arms around herself. “I don’t know how to begin to say this.”
“Yeah?” he asked softly.
“Things happened that I can’t get into, but the bottom line is that your work is going to be graded by an outside instructor.”
“Why?”
“To prove that I’m guilty of favoritism.”
Finn went still. “Are you?”
“No, but it might look that way.”
“I thought this...stuff...you were doing was aboveboard.”
“It is,” she said fiercely. “By the end of the class you would have earned your grade.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know that I totally buy that.”
“What do you think I’m doing, Finn? Stringing you along so that I can nail you at the end? By the end you will have an honest C.”
“But right now?”
“High D.”
“On a good day.”
“It’s better than when you walked into my classroom.”
“Yes. My F days.”
“You’ve come miles.”
He had. But miles still didn’t mean average, which were the grades he’d been given—on his remedial papers.
“Can you trust me on this, Finn?”
He let out breath, shifted his gaze to the opposite wall. “Looks like we both need to work on trust.”
“I guess.” She started to move past him, toward the door. “I’m sorry this happened. It wasn’t my intention.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home?”
He shook his head, his body stirring as her gaze jerked up to his. “Not unless you really want to.”
Her lips parted as she stared up at him, and he reached out to take her glasses by the bows and slowly pull them off.
“Now I’m blind.”
“So I can take you where I want you to go.” He brought his hands up to push her silky hair back over her shoulders. “Will you come?”
“Loaded question,” she said softly.
He took her face in his hands, held it as he kissed her, waited for her to make her decision. It took only a matter of seconds for her to answer his question, pull him closer, deepen the kiss. She wanted him. Didn’t trust him, or maybe didn’t trust herself, but wanted him all the same.
He swung her up in his arms, and still her lips clung to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on as he carried her down the hall to his room.
“A real bed?” she murmured. “Uptown.”
“I’ll show you uptown.” He nudged the door open with his toe and then kicked it shut behind them.
* * *
AFTER MOLLY LEFT, Finn pulled a beer out of the fridge and settled on his sofa. He didn’t bother with the lights or the television. He needed the quiet and didn’t mind the darkness.
He was a D student.
An honest to goodness D student...unless Molly had been amping up his grades even more than she let on.
Why would she do that? To encourage him? Because she liked him? Because she felt sorry for him.
The last thought made his stomach twist a little, but he knew that wasn’t the case. Women like Molly didn’t sleep with guys they felt sorry for. So was he going to become a teacher with Ds in English? He proba
bly wouldn’t be the first.
But what if he couldn’t handle the other English classes he needed for his degree? What if, as a teacher, he had to write long reports and evaluate...things? Like student writing? Molly had told him that writing was becoming more and more important in all aspects of education. His weak point was the new buzzword.
Finn took a long pull on the beer. Did he want a career that made him feel inadequate? Wasn’t that why he was trying to get out of the feed store? So that his specialty in life wasn’t lifting grain?
At least if he fabricated metal, he’d have a specialization, a name for what he did. There was nothing wrong with owning a business. It was damned tough work, but a person was either wired for business or he wasn’t. Finn wasn’t. He wanted to work with his hands and he wanted to pass those skills along.
It now appeared that he needed to get real and accept that he’d be working with his hands only. He needed to shift his goal and move forward with Plan B. It wasn’t as prestigious in his mind as Plan A—Finn Culver, teacher, but it was still a career he could be proud of. He could hone his skills, take a couple fabrication classes or maybe finish an entire course, since his skills were for the most part self-taught. He was good, but there were still things to know.
He brought the beer can up to his forehead, pressing the cold aluminum against his skin. There was no shame in shifting and adjusting goals. His real goal, as he saw it, was to do something he felt good about while at the same time becoming the kind of dependable nine-to-five guy that Molly was looking for. He could fit into her Mr. Right mold...and as crazy as it was after only a matter of months, that was exactly what he wanted to do.
* * *
“WHY DO EGGS never peel right when you need them to?” Georgina asked as she picked off tiny bits of shell, trying to make deviled eggs for Mike’s barbecue.
“Something to do with a guy named Murphy and his law,” Molly murmured. She was half looking forward to the barbecue and half dreading it. Allie would be there, with her husband-to-be, whom Molly knew of but had never met, as would Jolie and Dylan and Elaine. A nice group of people. A nice reason to relax and enjoy one of the last pretty fall weekends before winter set in, but she still felt unsettled about it.
She’d obliterated Finn’s name on several examples of his work—the least differentiated. She’d included his final essay, which was short, but not bad. His latest research paper. Again, short but not bad.
But she had been generous on the grades, to make up for the way she’d treated him before. That wasn’t what she was supposed to do, but she’d discovered during her first years of teaching that encouragement and praise worked better than punitive measures for students who were willing to work to improve themselves. And damn it, Finn was trying.
He might also have sunk her.
She wasn’t going to allow her thoughts to go that way. Not today.
“What time is Chase coming by?”
Georgina looked up from the eggs. “He’s not coming. He has some family issues. One of his little brothers got into trouble and he’s dealing with it.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Underage drinking.”
“Ah.” Molly sat down to help peel eggs. “Where’s the mother?”
“She’s not well.” Georgina frowned as she removed the last bit of shell from the egg she held and then placed in the bowl to be rinsed.
“How not well?”
Georgina shrugged. “I’m not sure. Chase has to take care of the kids a lot, though, which is hard when he works two part-time jobs. I think that’s one reason he loves hiking so much. He can get away. Really away. Where no one can contact him about the latest emergency.”
Molly concentrated on her egg, somehow keeping herself from asking Georgina how deeply she wanted to get involved with a guy who had to spend most of his time putting out fires for his family.
“I heard that Chase’s dad died in prison.”
Georgina’s dark gaze came up. “Yes. Hepatitis. Not a shanking.” She held Molly’s gaze for a long moment as if challenging her to make something of it. She wasn’t going to. Not now, anyway, before they were going to an event. But they were going to talk at some point. Meanwhile, she kept hoping that the new would wear off and that Georgina would find a nice college guy from a similar background as their own.
The street was lined with cars by the time Molly and Georgina left their house with the cake and the eggs, which had come out very well, if Georgina did say so herself. Elaine opened the door and ushered them in.
“Mike’s out back, preparing the grill,” she said.
“Great. How are you feeling?”
“Good. Good.” She smiled, but Molly got the impression that she was tired of people asking about her health even if she was understanding of the fact that they need to.
She went into the kitchen where Finn was digging around in the fridge. He looked over the door as soon as she set foot in the kitchen and she felt an instant tug of attraction. He smiled at her, then went back to his search for whatever.
After setting the cake on the table, she followed her sister out the back door to the yard where the rest of the guests were relaxing in lawn chairs. Allie waved her over and the guy sitting next to her got to his feet. Molly had to tip her head back to see his eyes.
“Molly, this is my fiancé, Jason Hudson.”
“Nice to meet you.” He smiled congenially as his big hand swallowed hers. She’d known him by reputation only, since the former professional wide receiver had graduated from high school before she and her family moved to town.
“Same here.”
Dylan and Jolie were on a blanket in the shade of the big apple tree that dominated the small backyard and Mike was at the grill, just as Elaine said. Cal and Karl were milling around nearby, both holding cans of beer and wearing loud Hawaiian shirts.
“Where’s Buddy?” Molly asked Mike after saying hello.
“Safe in the house. I can’t keep as close of an eye on him out here and he’s still mighty small.”
Mike the protector. She could see why he was so upset about Elaine, in addition to having lost two other people in his life. She patted his shoulder and went to join Georgina and the rest of the Brody-Culver-Hudson clan under the tree. When Elaine and Mike approached, Jason and Allie vacated their chairs and stretched out on the grass. Jason settled his big hand on Allie’s thigh and she casually settled her own hand on top and leaned back against him. Just as with Jolie and Dylan, she was struck by the level of sheer contentment. She’d been content once, too. Believed in the dream. The dream could happen...but it was a bitch when it didn’t work out.
But her dark thoughts didn’t keep her from smiling when Finn joined them, sinking down into the grass beside where she was stretched out and propped on her elbows. He waited until the rest of the group was discussing new restaurants that had recently opened to lean closer and ask, “Doing okay?”
“Nervous for this upcoming week.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
She dropped her head back to look at him. “This won’t affect you.”
“It’ll force me to face the hard truth.”
“The only hard truth is that Jonas is a butt.”
Finn laughed. “Maybe he’ll grow out of it.”
“Not unless he leaves home soon and life gets a couple good swipes at him. As it is, he’ll be protected for the next ten years.”
He lifted a few hanks of her hair from the ground where it had pooled behind her and let them slide through his fingers and drop to the grass. It was an intimate gesture and one that Georgina caught. She sent Molly an “ah” look and then smiled a little.
Cool.
Elaine got out of her chair and Mike was instantly out of his, too. “I need to start cooking dangerously,” he said. Elaine smiled at
him and the two of them ambled toward the house.
“They’re together because of me, you know.” Cal beamed like a proud parent.
“Good job,” Georgina said.
“Yeah,” Cal agreed. “I wish they didn’t have this health challenge ahead of them, but at least Elaine’s not facing it alone. She has us.”
And that was true.
The dinner was excellent—steaks, side dishes, homemade ice cream and pies. Molly ate until she was full, then ate some more. Elaine started cleaning up and Mike tried to stop her, but she waved him off. He opened his mouth as if to try again, then seemed to change his mind. Molly got to her feet and went into the house under the pretext of using the restroom, but instead intercepted Elaine in the kitchen.
“I’m going to help and you aren’t going to stop me.” She turned on the water in the sink as if to emphasize the point.
“You can help,” Elaine said. “I just don’t want Mike to be doing everything for me.”
Molly smiled a little. “I can take care of that.” She pulled out a phone and sent a text to Georgina that said We’re doing dishes. Mike’s not invited.
A few minutes later Georgina and Allie showed up at the back door, each carrying two serving dishes in each hand.
“Jolie stayed to manage Mike. She’s better at it than the rest of us,” Allie said.
“Who would have thought doing dishes could be fun?” Georgina remarked ten minutes later as she finished wiping the counters. She went outside to help Allie clean the picnic table and grill while Elaine stood with her hands on her hips, studying Jolie and the guys parked under the tree.
“I’m impressed she was able to keep Mike in check.”
“He’s driving you crazy?” Molly asked gently.
Elaine turned her gaze toward her. “He’s the best guy, but...now that I’m sick, he treats me as if I’ll break. He does everything for me, but he won’t touch me.”
“Ow.”
