by Erin Wright
Lessons in Love – A Western Romance Novel
Long Valley – Book 8
Erin Wright
Wright’s Reads
Copyright © 2018 by Erin Wright
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
To my dearest Hannah:
You’re making a difference in this world. Don’t ever forget it. You are what this world needs.
~*~
To my dearest husband:
Thanks for putting up with me, even during Release Week. You’re a saint, to be sure, and even better, you’re a saint who cooks me dinner. There is no better kind of saint out there.
Author’s Note
Elijah Morland is a “good ol’ boy” from Idaho whose grasp on the English language has a distinct *ahem* country flair to it, shall we say. The scenes written from his point of view are clearly marked as such; please don’t think that the improper English is all a mistake that needs to be corrected. Elijah is telling the story, so it’s being told just how he’d say it.
I wanted to make that clear upfront so I could head off any nasty grams from readers wishing to be helpful, wanting to help me fix all of these “mistakes.” I’ve spent the majority of my life in Idaho, so writing his part of the story came as easily to me as going down to the local diner and listening to the old farmers and ranchers shoot the shit over breakfast. These are my people. :)
With that, enjoy!
Chapter 1
Elijah
Quick Note: If you enjoy Lessons in Love, be sure to check out my offer of a FREE Long Valley novella at the end.
With that, enjoy!
* * *
August, 2018
The sun were just peekin’ over the horizon, sendin’ bright rays of light straight into his eyeballs. He blinked against the pain and scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to push the burnin’ pain away.
So. Damn. Exhausted. He was gonna go home and sleep for a week. Maybe two.
Ah hell, who was he kidding. He was gonna go home to try to sleep during the day – which ain’t never worked, not real well, anyway – and then he was gonna go on back to Mr. Petrol’s that night and start this hellish nightmare called his job all over again.
He yawned so hard his jaw cracked, and he rubbed at his eyes again, then began slapping his cheeks lightly. He just had to stay awake for a few more minutes. He didn’t live real far away from Mr. Petrol’s, thank God. He could…
What the hell?
He pulled off into the Cleveland Elementary School parking lot and stared up at their reader board.
OPEN - FT JANITOR POSITION W/ BENN. APPLY INSIDE.
Suddenly, he felt a whole lot more awake.
Like, a whole lot more awake.
“A position at the elementary school,” he said softly to himself, and then began to laugh a little. “A position at the elementary school. Oh, what would Sarah have to say about that!”
He jumped out of his older-than-dirt truck, slamming the driver’s side door closed as he gleefully hurried up the sidewalk towards the admin office. He’d dropped Brooksy off enough at school that he knew just where to go.
Hot damn! A full-time job with benefits, during the day, right here in Sawyer, Idaho. I don’t give a rat’s ass if I hafta scrub toilets with a toothbrush – I’ll do it!
This – this was what he’d been lookin’ for, for months now. But with his smarts and skills…no one’d wanted him.
He shoved that thought away. He didn’t need to be a college graduate or even a smart guy to push a broom around. Which was damn good, since he weren’t neither.
“Can I help you?” Mrs. Worsop asked over her half-moon glasses, looking up at him from behind her giant wooden desk. She’d been the secretary for the school since he were a kid, and from what he could remember, she’d been old back then. Did she have some sorta secret stash of the Fountain of Life hidden away in that desk of hers? Nothin’ else explained how she could stay ancient – but not die – for decades at a time. “Are you here to register Brooklyn for school?” The elderly woman was cranin’ her wrinkled neck, tryin’ to peer around him as if he were suddenly gonna pull his ten-year-old daughter out of his back pocket like some sorta elaborate magic trick.
“No, I ain’t here for that. I’m here ‘bout the janitor job. Has it been filled yet?”
Honest to God, just askin’ the question terrified him a little. It’d be just his luck to find out about the position right after they’d gone and hired somebody else. He ain’t seen nothin’ on the board out front before about it, but then again, he couldn’t rightly say as he paid much attention to the shit they put up.
“The…the janitor job?” the secretary echoed faintly, staring at him in disbelief. “And just how long have you been harboring a deep-seated desire to clean toilets, Mr. Morland?”
“It’s always been somethin’ I wanted to do, actually,” he said with a straight face. “Forever,” he added.
Please, please, please.
He’d get down on one knee and beg if that’s what they were wantin’. He wouldn’t like it none, but he’d do it.
Mrs. Worsop just stared at him, one eyebrow arched, waitin’ for him to crack and tell her the truth.
He just stared back, not blinking.
Anything for Brooksy. Anything at all.
“Well,” the older lady finally sniffed when the silence became so awkward, people a block away were probably feelin’ antsy and didn’t even know why, “the interviews are tomorrow morning. Here’s the application.” She pulled a double-sided piece of paper out of a cabinet drawer and handed it over to him. “You just fill that out and come on back. Eight in the morning is when they start.”
He took the paper and thanked her proper-like, scanning it as he headed back towards his truck. Now alls he had to do was figure out how to sell the principal on the idea that he’d never wanted nothin’ as much as he wanted to mop and wax floors.
If I’m there in the classroom with Brooksy, cleanin’ it…well, there’s not a damn thing Sarah can say about it. It’s not like she can demand I quit my job that’s payin’ for the child support, right?
Elated, he did a fist pump in the air. Hells to the yes. He didn’t consider himself to be a real smart man, but at that moment, he was king of the world.
Chapter 2
Hannah
Hannah Lambert looked over the class roll for the year, double-checking that each child on the list had been assigned a desk on the seating chart. The names of Dayton and Tahlia caught her eye – they were both younger siblings to students she’d had in the past. It was always fascinating to see the differences between siblings. Was Dayton going to be a hellion like his older brother had been? It could be an…interesting school year if Dayton was even vaguely like his brother.
Speaking of hellions…
Her eyes stopped on the name of Brooklyn Morland. Just yesterday in the teacher’s lounge, the teachers had been gossiping about who was getting which student, and Brooklyn’s fourth grade teacher, Mr. Pettengill, had asked who’d been “stuck with that Morland girl” this year. Hannah’s neck had flushed red with anger at his
tone, and she’d been debating if she could get away with saying nothing at all when another teacher had ever-so-helpfully piped up and informed everyone that Hannah had her this year.
Thank you, Betsy. Really, you’re awesome.
Every eye in the teacher’s lounge had swung towards her, pinning her to her chair. Even now, a day later, she felt herself covered with goosebumps just remembering the ordeal. Despite having worked at the Cleveland Elementary School for the past twelve years, the idea of speaking in front of a group of adults…
Terrifying.
So, of course, she hadn’t said a word; she’d just smiled a little at the group as she’d died inside.
No, worse – she hadn’t died inside, which meant that she then had to listen as Mr. Pettengill began detailing Brooklyn’s fall from grace. Oh, she’d been such a “sweet young thang” when she’d started the fourth grade but she’d quickly turned into a beast and he’d had to keep a firm hand with her.
Which was, of course, when Mr. Pettengill began lecturing Hannah on how to take care of an unruly child like Brooklyn; to make sure that she knew from Day One that Hannah was watching her and would punish her for the tiniest of infractions.
Which was when she died a little more inside.
There were days – like, 365 of them per year – where Mr. Pettengill resembled a boot camp instructor more than a fourth grade teacher.
Finally – fin-a-lly – the conversation turned to gossip about other students, and the focus moved off Hannah, which meant she could breathe normally again. Honestly, if she’d had any idea how much she’d need to interact with adults as a teacher, she probably would’ve picked another profession. Maybe she could’ve been a deep sea diver where all she would have to interact with were sharks.
Sharks were honestly preferable to Mr. Pettengill, and didn’t that just about say it all.
She heard a knock on the door of her classroom, yanking her back to the present. “Come in,” she called out as she looked up to see who was there.
Mylanta!
As if thinking about the daughter had conjured up the father, there stood Mr. Morland in the doorway, his slim frame bulging with just enough muscles to make a girl drool.
‘Just enough muscles to make a girl drool?’ Where did that come from?
She shot to her feet, her chair skittering backwards and slamming into the painted cinder-block wall behind her. A deep red blush started at her toes and quickly worked its way up her body, staining her cheeks a flaming red she was just sure could be seen from outer space. Some satellite was probably being steered off course right now by the sheer luminescence of her cheeks.
“Hello, Mr. Morland,” she said formally, trying to ignore the state of her cheeks and the fact that her darn chair was still sliding, ever so slowly, along the wall.
Stop rolling. Any day now. You can stop moving. Really, you can.
Mr. Morland walked in, his dark eyes tracking the progress of the errant chair, and then he turned them back towards her, and she was pinned into place yet again. They were this fascinating gray-green color that she’d never seen before; cool, aloof, but just a hint of something more beneath that.
“Hello, Miss Lambert,” he replied just as formally as her, pulling on the brim of his cap. Her chair, thank the Lord above, had finally come to a stop. Hannah could just see it out of the corner of her eye, listing to the side drunkenly. She really needed to buy a new one, but that meant not buying any classroom supplies for the year and if she had to choose between a nice chair for her or pencils and markers for her students…
Drunken chair it was.
“Are you…” She cleared her throat, trying to get the croak out of it. Adults were just tall children, she reminded herself.
Very tall, very handsome children.
Hmmmm…actually, not too tall – the perfect height, really, especially for a person of short stature like her.
Okay, so that wasn’t helping.
“Are you…are you here to talk about Brooklyn?” she finally got out. She scrambled inwardly as she talked to remember how old he was in relation to her, and made the vague guess that he was three years younger, maybe four.
A younger man…she didn’t do younger men.
Ever.
Something her libido was apparently choosing in that very moment to forget.
“Oh!” he said, his brow wrinkled in surprise. “No, actually, I didn’t realize she were gonna be in your class this year. My ex were the one who signed her up for school. I’m the new janitor here now that Mr. Longspee’s retired, so I just wanted to say howdy to everyone and let y’all know that I’m gonna be the one cleanin’ in here.”
As he spoke, his rich voice with a thick hick drawl sent sparks up her arms. She scrubbed at them and then held them against her chest, hugging herself. Anxious to give herself something to do – anything that didn’t involve looking Mr. Morland in the eye, that was – she hurried over and began tugging her errant chair back towards her desk. “Well, welcome,” she said over her shoulder, concentrating fully on the listing chair. She didn’t need to use every bit of concentration on the chair, but she wanted to, since the chair was a lot safer than Mr. Morland was.
Considering how her body felt on fire at that moment, nuclear explosions seemed safer than Mr. Morland.
Which was patently ridiculous. He’d graduated from Sawyer a handful of years after her, so she’d seen him occasionally at pep rallies, the grocery store, a football game…
But she’d never felt like this before. Not that she’d disliked him; it just hadn’t occurred to her to like him.
Until today, that was. Suddenly, her body and libido were all sorts of awake and paying attention.
Now?! Right now you choose to sit up and pay attention?!
A couple of months ago, when Mr. Kiener had asked her out for coffee, all her libido had done was curl up in the corner and take a nap. It didn’t help that he was 20 years her senior and missing some of his teeth. He was a nice enough guy; a widower looking for someone to cook for him now that his wife was gone.
Yeah, her libido had taken a real long snooze that day.
“Is there anythin’ I need to work on or do for you here in your classroom?” Mr. Morland asked. He was busy looking around the room, apparently searching for a project to tackle, and she tried to control the panic flooding through her at the thought of him spending lots of time in her classroom, doing things.
Anything at all.
Like, breathing or something.
“No,” she squeaked, and then cleared her throat. “No, we’re ready for the new year. Thank you, though.” She was so formal, her back so rigid, she would’ve been right at home in one of those atrocious whale-boned corsets women wore in the 1800s.
She knew she was being dumb.
She knew that this gut reaction to his presence was ridiculous.
a) She was an old maid;
b) She was never getting married – everyone knew that;
c) He was a younger man;
d) He was apparently now her coworker; and
e) He was the father of one of her students.
She couldn’t have special ordered someone to be less suitable for her.
Too bad her twisting, turning, trembling stomach didn’t agree.
Mr. Morland pulled on the bill of his ball cap, murmured, “Have a good one,” and then was gone out the door. On his way to go torture another teacher with his muscles and his eyes and his tight butt.
Okay, so maybe Mr. Pettengill wasn’t exactly panting over Mr. Morland’s gray-green eyes and tight butt, which was not fair, honestly. Why did they have to affect her like this?
Hannah collapsed into her chair and stared at the empty doorway.
She was in trouble, all right.
Chapter 3
Elijah
September, 2018
“I checked my account,” Sarah slurred, clearly already most of the way through a bottle of wine, “and there ain’t nothin’ in
there yet.”
Elijah clenched his jaw so tight, he was a little worried it’d take an act of God to pull it apart again. “I already told you this’d happen,” he ground out. “There’s a gap between my last paycheck at Mr. Petrol’s, and my first paycheck at the school district. I’m gonna be two weeks late. I told you ‘bout this when I got the job at the school.”
“But how am I shupposed to pay my bills?” she whined. “I need zhat money.” He heard her taking a loud slurp of what was probably more wine, even as her words ran together so much, he almost couldn’t understand her.
The thing was, she didn’t need his money. Not really. With the money she’d inherited after her parents died in that godawful car wreck, she were pretty much set for life. It was why she’d finally told him to go screw himself; that she was gonna divorce him. She didn’t need to pretend to love him anymore, as she so bluntly put it, just so she could stay married to him and live off his income. She was a rich woman now.
A-yup, after about two days of genuine mournin’ for her parents, her tears dried right up when she realized how rich she were about to be.
So no, she didn’t need his child support payment each month. She loved makin’ him pay it, knowin’ it made his life just that much more difficult to afford, but she didn’t need it.
The truth was, she were pissed ‘cause he’d done the run-around on her. He’d figured out how to see their daughter without gettin’ permission from the courts beforehand, and if there was one thing Sarah hated, it was losin’. It weren’t that she loved their daughter that much – she weren’t capable of it – but she hated not coming out on top, no matter what.
