Lessons in Love: A Western Romance Novel (Long Valley Book 8)

by Erin Wright

  Money and Sarah…those two topics combined together were guaran-damn-teed to piss him off, and sure enough, he felt the anger boil up slowly inside of him like a sleepin’ volcano comin’ to life.

  “Oh, she has money aplenty,” he growled, turning back to the fixture and gettin’ to work. “She got the max child support allowed under Idaho state law, which she don’t need since her parents up and died, leaving her a fortune.” He bit down on his tongue, feelin’ guilty for saying it. Her parents had never cared much for him but he hadn’t wanted them dead. He certainly didn’t wish roads covered with black ice on them.

  He’d feel a whole lot worse about them dying if Sarah hadn’t taken their life insurance payout as the excuse she’d been waiting for for years so she could divorce him.

  She went for the max amount of child support possible not because she needed it, but because she knew it’d make Elijah’s life miserable.

  And boy howdy, had she succeeded.

  “I don’t know what the arrangements are between you and Sarah,” Hannah said primly, “but I can say that Brooklyn’s clothing appears to be from last school year, and much too small for her at this point.”

  “How do you know?” he growled, refusin’ to look down at her as he continued to work on the light. “Did you ask her?”

  “No, I didn’t need to. Her pants said it all.”

  He stopped and stared down at her. Hannah stared back up at him.

  “They split today. Afternoon recess. She sat down in the swings and they just ripped apart.”

  He gulped, horrified. “Why didn’t she tell me?” he whispered to himself. He’d seen her after school. She’d been chattering away about some art project they were working on in class. She didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout her pants tearing apart.

  Hannah shrugged. “She was probably embarrassed. The recess aide took her down to the principal’s office and had her change there.”

  “Change? Into what?”

  “A spare set of pants. We keep a big box of clothing down at the office for kids in case they ruin theirs by puking on them, bleeding all over them, or splitting them wide open on the swing set.” She laughed a little, and Elijah grinned back. Just for a moment.

  Then he turned back to the light fixture and got back to work. Dammit all, he needed to concentrate.

  With his tongue tucked firmly between his teeth, he pulled the ground wire into place as he thought over what Hannah had just said. If she were telling the truth – and he couldn’t figure why she’d lie about somethin’ like this – then the $200 that Sarah had claimed that she absolutely had to have to take Brooksy school shopping were spent on something else.

  He’d been forced to pay his truck payment late ‘cause of sending that money to Sarah, which had cost him a $50 fee. If she’d cost him that money just so she could go clothes shopping for herself…

  He bit down hard on his tongue. He could strangle Sarah with his bare hands some days, he really could.

  “Brooksy ain’t shown me any new clothes this year,” he told Hannah as he continued to thread the wires through. He was too embarrassed to look the teacher in the eye as he spoke ‘cause he should’ve seen this for himself. He couldn’t believe he let Sarah pull this one over on him. “Usually, Brooksy likes to show off all of her new clothes to me. This year, I gave her momma the money to take her shopping and then thought nothin’ more ‘bout it. I’ll talk to Sarah this evening.”

  And wring her scrawny little neck the next time I see her.

  “Thank you,” Hannah said formally. “The school district can’t say anything to her about sending Brooklyn to school in ill-fitting clothing; if she were to send Brooklyn to school in shorts and flip-flops in the middle of a blizzard, we could talk to her about that. But we can’t critique a parent’s clothing choices just because they’re too small or large or out of date. That isn’t our business.”

  Elijah nodded his understanding and then climbed down the ladder. “All done,” he told her. Her eyes shot back up to the light fixture overhead.

  “Really?!” she breathed. “So quickly?”

  He leaned over and flipped the light switch, flooding the room with steady fluorescent lighting.

  “That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. She looked up at him, her gaze plainly saying that he not only hung the light fixture for her, he’d also hung the sun, the moon, and the stars for her.

  He shifted on the balls of his feet uncomfortably. It felt nice – real nice – to be the guy who solved problems for a woman again.

  Too nice.

  “You’re just brilliant with fixing things,” she told him. “I could’ve watched a hundred YouTube videos and still not have been able to fix that thing. It’s been giving me headaches for a good long while now; I can’t believe it’s fixed just like that.”

  He felt red creep up the base of his neck and he rubbed at it, trying to wish the tell-tale blush away. Other than Brooksy, he hadn’t had a woman say nice things to him in a real long time, and anyway, Brooksy weren’t a woman.

  He forced himself to make eye contact with Hannah, and then found himself wonderin’ what her big blue eyes would look like without those thick lenses there to make ‘em look like they was passing in front of a funny house mirror.

  He would never know, of course, but he sure wanted to.

  A lot.

  Chapter 12

  Hannah

  She was standing there, thinking he was a magician with a screwdriver one minute, and then he was leaning towards her the next minute. She froze in place, the absolutely insane idea running through her head that he was going to kiss her.

  He couldn’t / wouldn’t / shouldn’t kiss her, though.

  Right?

  And then his hands were pulling her glasses off and even as the world went wavy and indistinct, she heard him say, “I just…I wanted to know what you looked like. Without ‘em on. I’ve been wondering ever since the start of school…”

  He trailed off and was just staring at her, or at least she assumed he was staring at her – it was hard to tell, honestly – and she held her breath, her heart beating out of her chest. Maybe him kissing her wasn’t such an insane idea after all. Maybe he was going to kiss her and maybe she’d let him and maybe she’d like it. Maybe—

  He shoved the glasses back on her face, crooked and the earpiece for her left ear sticking into her ear canal rather than going over her ear and then he was walking away, his footsteps echoing as he hurried away from her.

  Hannah pulled her glasses off and settled them back onto her face even as her heart slowed from its crazy rhythm to a painful one instead.

  He’d wanted to know what she looked like without her glasses on, and the answer sent him quite literally running away from her.

  What had she been thinking? Of course he wouldn’t think she was beautiful. She’d been a senior when he was a freshman. She was the Secretary of the Early Spinster’s Club. No man thought she was beautiful, but especially not a man like Mr. Morland.

  And she was okay with that, truly she was. She was happy with her life, just the way it was.

  She wiped the tear off that was trailing down her face.

  She couldn’t be happier, honestly.

  Chapter 13

  Elijah

  The echoing screams of happy children rang in Elijah’s ears, making his head hurt. He didn’t mind listening to Brooksy scream and yell – well, there was that one note she liked to hit that made his eyes cross – but a whole passel of children…

  There was a reason why he cleaned inside of the school while the kids was outside at recess.

  The waitress slid their meat lover’s pizza in front of them with an apology. “I don’t know how the cook lost that part of the order,” she said for what must’ve been the millionth time.

  “It’s fine – no problem at all,” Aaron said sweetly, giving the harried waitress his best charmin’ smile. She smiled back and leaned over to pick up a dirty napkin, lettin’ her shirt gape away
from her oversized chest as she went.

  “We’re good,” Elijah told her curtly before she could really start to moonin’ over his older brother. He always were the charmer out of the two of them and could talk the socks right off a girl – quite literally – if he put his mind to it.

  Pickin’ up on the none-too-subtle briskness in Eli’s voice, the waitress straightened up and told ‘em to holler if they needed anything else before she hurried off, leavin’ the dirty napkin behind.

  Must not’ve been so important after all.

  Aaron shot him a disgruntled look.

  “What?” Elijah said innocently, scanning the ball pit for Brooksy and her friend, Juniper, to make sure they was still playin’ and havin’ fun. Which, seriously, who names their child Juniper, for hell’s sakes? When Elijah first met Juniper’s mother, he’d made a joke about her daughter developing a gin drinking problem.

  She didn’t exactly start rollin’ around on the ground with laughter at the joke, that were for damn sure. It took a real long while before Juniper’s mom had let Brooksy come over and play again.

  After that, Eli kept his mouth shut when meetin’ other parents, especially the mothers. He didn’t mind pissin’ ‘em off – no skin off his nose – but it weren’t fair to Brooksy when she were punished for it.

  He spotted them climbin’ up the ladder for the slide, screamin’ and laughin’ as they climbed like little monkeys over it all. Their cheese pizza had come ages ago and they’d already finished, so they could go apeshit over the ball pit and slide and leave him and Aaron in peace for a moment.

  “She seemed interested,” Aaron grumped, bringing Eli’s attention back to their conversation, or more specifically, his whinin’. “A couple more refills of my Coke, and I’d probably have her phone number.”

  Elijah rolled his eyes. Aaron was a collector of phone numbers and he left beautiful women in his wake everywhere he went. By this time next week, he’d probably have four more phone numbers to add to his list. He was only three years older than Elijah, but he were apparently tryin’ to single-handedly make up for Eli’s lack of experience with girls. Probably thought he was protecting the Morland name or somethin’.

  Speakin’ of girls…

  Elijah took another peek at Brooksy and Juniper to make sure they was still laughing and screaming with delight, and then turned to Aaron. “Do you know Hannah Lambert?” he asked, just as his brother took a big bite of his meaty pizza.

  Aaron chewed for a second, giving Elijah a chance to snag a piece of his own, and then said around a mouthful of cheese and ham chunks, “You mean that mousy chick over at the school? Wouldn’t say ‘boo’ if you lit her hair on fire?”

  “Yeah, that one,” Elijah said slowly, although he didn’t particularly care for how Aaron described her. There were a lot more to Hannah than that. When he got her to talk, why, she could be downright funny when she put her mind to it.

  “What about her?” Aaron asked around another mouthful of pizza.

  “I was just trying to decide if…well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m losin’ it or not. The other day, I’d swear she were the prettiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on.”

  Aaron gaped at him for a moment, and then started laughing. “Were you drunk?” he finally asked when he could breathe again.

  “Of course not!” Elijah snapped, pissed at Aaron for his reaction. He didn’t hafta be such a dick all the time. “I was at the school, working. Fixing her light – the ballast was goin’ out. And then, I don’t know…she was standin’ there.”

  Aaron smirked at him and Elijah just knew that he was holding back another round of laughter. He punched his older brother in the shoulder as hard as he could, because dammit all, he deserved it.

  “Ow!” Aaron howled, rubbing at his shoulder. As a cop for the county, Aaron spent about as much time lifting weights as Elijah did mopping floors, so his shoulders were huge, muscles bulging everywhere. Eli didn’t hurt him a bit and they both knew it. “What’d ya do that for?” Aaron demanded.

  Eli ignored the question. “She can be pretty sometimes,” he announced. “When she ain’t wearin’ her glasses,” he added after a moment.

  “I thought you were trying to decide whether or not she was pretty,” Aaron reminded him.

  “Well, maybe I’ve decided!” Elijah half-shouted and then settled back against his chair, taking another bite of his now-cold pizza while he scanned the ball pit for Brooksy and Juniper. There they was, having a ball fight and screeching up a storm the way only happy little girls could.

  At least someone were havin’ a good time.

  He turned back to Aaron, who was staring at him with one eyebrow cocked. “What?” he asked defensively.

  “You need to just ask her out already,” Aaron said bluntly. “Go on a date with her, get a little action, and get her out of your system.”

  Easier said than done. As suave as Aaron was with girls, that’s how godawful Elijah was with them. They was a terrifying group of human beings, no doubt about it.

  “I…I don’t know how to ask a girl out,” he finally admitted. “I’ve only done it one time, and I ended up datin’ her for years and then being trapped into marriage. I don’t exactly have a lot of experience with this. And what if Hannah ends up just like Sarah?”

  “First of all,” Aaron said in his best I’m-the-older-brother-so-I-know-everything voice that Eli just absolutely detested, “Sarah is batshit crazy. Let’s just get that out of the way. You can’t go around thinking that every girl is going to end up like her. She’s no measuring stick to measure shit by. And second of all, you ask Hannah out by asking her out.”

  Helpful as always.

  “But…but there’s Grindr and Tindr,” he protested, “and people swipin’ left and right on their phones and I don’t know…I don’t know how to do any of that.”

  Aaron let out a sharp burst of laughter. “Brother, Grindr is for gay guys trying to find someone to hook up with. So unless there’s something you need to tell me, you can skip that one. As for Tindr, that’s how you meet the chick. You’ve already met Hannah. Now all that’s left is to ask her out, bang her, get her out of your system, and move on with your life.”

  That was what Elijah needed to do, of course – one night of some hot ’n heavy sex and then move onto greener pastures – but still, hearing it being said out loud like that, so disrespectful…it rankled him.

  He popped the last of his pizza crust into his mouth and chewed for a moment.

  “I still don’t know how,” he finally admitted. “You just walk up to a girl and say, ‘Hey, lady, wanna go see a movie with me?’”

  “I’d try using her name instead of ‘lady’ but sure, that’s the general idea.”

  Elijah glared at him. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, asking his brother for advice. Dumbest idea he’d ever come up with.

  “You can always bring flowers or chocolates with you,” Aaron added. “Girls like ‘em. Ups the chances she’ll say yes.”

  Eli brightened. Finally, a useful piece of advice. He knew Carla down at Happy Petals – she’d been a few graduating classes ahead of him, but unlike some other assholes he could think of, she’d never been snobby to him ‘cause she was older and thus thought she was better.

  He’d ask her for help – Carla would know what to do.

  Chapter 14

  Hannah

  Amidst the hustle and bustle of an overflowing Muffin Man, yet another meeting of the Early Spinster’s Club came to order.

  Which mostly just meant Hannah was picking at her healthy fruit-and-nut muffin, trying valiantly to convince herself that it tasted just as good as a donut would, while Michelle ate a chocolate-glazed donut with little sighs of ecstasy.

  Hannah glared at her friend, which, of course, just made Michelle up the volume on her groans of pleasure to orgasmic levels.

  Why do I like her again?

  Before Hannah could decide if her choice of friends meant she was masochi
stic or not, Carla caught her eye. She was bouncing up and down in her seat excitedly, which, to be honest, wasn’t exactly earth-shattering news. Excitable and friendly to all, she was the most genuinely happy person Hannah had ever met. She’d chosen the store name of “Happy Petals” on purpose, after all, and never did a store name fit its owner better than that one did.

  Finally, at her whit’s end and incapable of listening to the ever-louder groans of happiness emanating from Michelle for one moment longer, Hannah pointedly asked Carla, “What’re you so happy about?”

  She took another dried-fruit-filled bite of her muffin and told herself that she liked it.

  Which wasn’t a lie. It was good. It just wasn’t chocolate-glazed-donut good.

  “I can’t tell you,” Carla said mysteriously, her whole body practically vibrating from the desire to do exactly that. “I can’t break client-florist confidentiality.”

  Michelle stopped making groans of ecstasy long enough to bust out with, “What?” while Hannah was shaking her head at Carla and saying, “There is no such thing.”

  “There is, too,” Carla said firmly, “and I’m not gonna break it. You just…keep your eyes peeled. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Michelle understood what Carla was hinting at before Hannah did, and snatched Hannah’s glasses off her face. Hannah made a wild grab for her glasses but Michelle held them easily out of reach, mostly because Hannah couldn’t see well enough to know what she was grabbing at.

  “What do you think?” Michelle asked Carla over Hannah’s whispered pleas for her glasses back. “I’m thinking we oughta call Mor-Vision and see about getting Hannah into a pair of contacts.”

  The blob that was Carla moved around a bit in what Hannah imagined was a nodding motion. She was squinting as hard as she could, trying to bring the world around her into focus, even just a little, but it stayed the wavy, blurry mess it always was without her glasses on.