“I’m thinking about trying one of those dating sites,” Sienna heard as she walked inside.
“Really? I don’t know if—”
As soon as she saw Sienna, Polly Preston’s mouth snapped shut. She sat next to Harmony Donaldson on one of two couches in the room. Today the teachers both wore long tunic sweaters and corduroys in muted colors. Do they plan their outfits each day? Sienna chided herself for the catty thought. Stop it. Maybe being best friends from the time you could walk meant you ended up with not only the same job but the same fashion sense. Sienna wouldn’t know.
“Oh, hey, Sienna,” Harmony said. “How’s it going?”
Sienna headed straight for the bagels and cream cheese on the table under the window. A coffee maker and microwave sat beside it, next to a copier and a bulletin board with various flyers pinned to it. “I’m good,” she said after grabbing a bagel and pouring a cup of lukewarm coffee. She leaned against the table. “Little bit of a rough morning, but I think we’re under control now.”
“Think the weather’s getting to everyone,” Polly said. She nibbled at a croissant. “My kids were off the wall this morning too.”
“Glad to hear it wasn’t just mine.”
Harmony crossed one slim leg over the other. “So how many hot guys work out at Springer Fitness?”
A lump of bagel lodged itself in Sienna’s throat. “I’m sorry?”
The brunette ran her fingers through her hair. “I know Mike Springer’s pretty good eye candy. I don’t know about the others though. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it to go there.”
“I guess it depends on whether you’re going for the guys or the workout.” She tried to ignore the disappointment that crept over her at the memory of last night’s kiss gone wrong.
Harmony winked at Polly. “Can’t it be both?”
“A gym is as good a place as any to meet someone,” Sienna said. Or, apparently, turn off someone. She still didn’t know what she’d done to make Mike turn tail and run. As if on cue, her cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. She glanced down and saw his name on the screen.
“But do professional guys go there, or is it mostly meatheads?” Harmony went on.
This is the first time I’ve ever been in a conversation about husband hunting. Sienna slid her thumb over her phone to silence the ringer and send Mike’s call to voicemail. “Combination of both, I’d say. Pine Point is pretty blue collar, from what I remember. If you guys live in Silver Valley, why don’t you work out there?”
Polly looked at Harmony and giggled. “Well, the owner isn’t nearly as nice to look at, for one.”
Harmony’s lips curled up. “No, he’s definitely not. Plus, my ex-boyfriend goes to the gym in Silver Valley a lot,” she added. “And he’s the last person I want to see.”
“Oh.” Sienna nodded. “I get that.”
Polly brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “It’s not super easy to meet someone around here.” She played with her bracelets. “I’m getting older by the day.”
Sienna couldn’t imagine either of them to be pushing thirty, but then again, she’d gone to college with a few women who considered it a failure if they didn’t graduate at twenty-two with rings on their fingers.
“I’m sure you’ll meet someone,” she said. She almost added something about online dating sites being a decent option too, but then she bit her tongue. I don’t think I was supposed to hear that.
“Bye,” Polly said. “Hope your afternoon goes better than your morning did.”
“Me too,” Sienna answered, but they were already gone. She pulled out her phone and listened to Mike’s message.
“Hey, thought I might catch you at your lunch break. Sorry about yesterday. Give me a call when you can.”
She frowned, played the message again and tried to gauge the tone behind his words. He sounded matter-of-fact, polite, and sincere. Nothing else. She sighed and put her phone back in her pocket. A return call would have to wait until after school. Even better, maybe she’d stop by the gym and see Mike in person.
The weather warmed up, so they marched outside for recess. Sienna stood at the edge of the playground and watched the twins chase each other around the swings. Caleb crouched next to the snow gauge, walking back to her every so often to report his measurements, and Silas was content to stand near the bottom of the slide and clap as the other children came down.
The only student she couldn’t keep track of was Dawn. Sienna scanned the playground on a regular basis, but every so often Dawn’s blond braids would vanish, and Sienna would have to hurry over to one of the monitors. “Have you seen her? Red plaid coat, blond hair?” She thought about adding that Dawn didn’t speak, but that wasn’t useful to anyone.
Dawn always turned up. One time she was standing behind a tree, pressing her fingers against the bark and counting the marks it made on her skin. Another time she’d ventured over to the older kids’ side of the playground and was watching a snowball fight. Just before they came back inside, she walked around the corner of the school, where Sienna found her staring up at the fringe of icicles hanging from the roof.
“Honey, you can’t just walk away like that,” she said for the third time. She took Dawn’s mittened hand, but the girl pulled away and ran ahead of her back into the building. By the time three o’clock rolled around, Sienna was exhausted.
“Bye, bye, see you tomorrow,” she called, waving as each of her students walked to their buses at the circular drive in front of the school. Her neck ached, her head spun, and she needed a workout in the worst way. She wasn’t keen on having whatever weird conversation might develop with Mike, but avoiding Springer Fitness was the last thing she wanted to do.
She walked to the office to check her mailbox. Two memos, one about next week’s faculty meeting and one about new field-trip policies. Sienna tucked them under her arm and glanced at Jenny James’s door.
“Is she around?” she asked Hillary, the secretary behind the desk. Hillary, who could’ve been anywhere between forty and seventy years old, wore a flowered dress and a heavy silver cross around her neck. Her gray hair crossed in two braids across the top of her head, and when she spoke, Sienna could hear a faint German accent.
“She is, but she is not to be disturbed.”
Sienna blinked. The door with the Principal, Mrs. James placard in the center of it remained securely closed. “Okay. I’ll catch up with her tomorrow. Just had a question about ordering supplies.”
Hillary produced a catalog from the top drawer of her desk. “I have ordering forms. You can return them to me.”
“Oh, thank you.”
She wouldn’t have given any of the conversation a second thought, except when she walked to her car a few minutes later, the blinds in the principal’s office jerked up for a moment. Behind them, looking out into the bleak winter day, Sienna saw Jenny’s face. It looked like she’d been crying.
Chapter Eight
“Hi, stranger.”
For a second, Mike kept his head bent over his spreadsheet. He hadn’t expected her to come to the gym. Part of him hadn’t even expected her to return his call. Sienna’s voice teased everything south of his waist and made him think things damn near unspeakable. He cleared his throat, hit Save, and finally looked up.
“Hi.” Did she ever not look gorgeous? His gaze took in a simple ponytail, minimal makeup and no glamorous outfit today, but that didn’t matter. Her light brown eyes sparkled above a green turtleneck sweater, and her smile grew when he said her name.
“Hi yourself.”
“How’s the teaching going?”
“Up and down. Harder than I thought it would be, but the kids are pretty cute. And smarter than people give ’em credit for.” She paused. “I got your message earlier. Maybe we can talk after I’m done working out?”
“Sure.”
“I’m gon
na hit the weights until I can’t stand up.”
“That doesn’t sound too smart.” Except it would allow him to come to her rescue, sling an arm around her waist and help her to a stool at the smoothie bar while he rubbed her shoulders and—
No! Stop thinking that way.
Mike spent the next hour doing his damnedest not to watch Sienna as she moved between the free weights and the Nautilus machines and finally ended up on the elliptical. She wore sleek black workout pants that ended just below the knee, which meant if he looked—not like he was—he could see every inch of smooth, caramel-colored bare calves.
Her arms and legs pumped back and forth, and her ponytail swung from side to side. She had earbuds in and her iPod clipped to her arm. Wonder what she listens to? Mike forced himself to turn away yet again.
“Hey, good-looking.”
For once, he was glad to see Chantell. Today, the forty-something-year-old wore a bright yellow tank top and matching yellow and black patterned tights. “Hello, yourself. Trying out the new kickboxing class later?”
“You know it.” She ran one finger down her water bottle, collected condensation, then popped the finger in her mouth.
Mike pressed his lips together to keep from grinning inappropriately.
“I was wondering if I could get a quick hour in with you first,” she went on. The finger went back to her water bottle, then back to her mouth.
“Ah, let me check my schedule.” He turned to look at the white board calendar on the wall behind him. “I do have a client coming in at five forty-five.”
“That gives us twenty minutes,” she said with a wide smile. “Meet you in the fitness room? I really want to work on my core today.” She patted her ample belly and sauntered off.
Her core. Good Lord.
“She certainly is one of your most faithful clients, isn’t she?” Sienna materialized from the other side of the desk.
“That she is.”
Sienna wiped her face and chest with a towel and then draped it around her neck. “Got a smoothie for me? Extra shot of protein?”
“Coming right up. Strawberry or mango?”
“Surprise me.”
Hell. Why did everything she say have a double meaning? Mike squatted to dig out the ingredients from his mini fridge behind the counter.
He added ingredients, set the blender to high for thirty seconds, and then poured her smoothie into a tall glass.
“Thanks.” She took a long sip and ended up with foam on her upper lip. She snaked her tongue out to lick it away, and Mike’s groin stirred. “So about yesterday,” she began.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rush. It always seemed best to apologize to women straight off.
“For what exactly? Kissing me? Or pushing me away like I had the plague?”
He cleared his throat. “Ah, the second part.” Hell, he wasn’t sorry at all for kissing her. He was only sorry he had too much goddamn baggage to enjoy it.
Another sip of smoothie. Another swipe of the tongue over her lip. “Any particular reason for that?”
Mike cracked his knuckles. Bad nervous habit he’d picked up ages ago, but he couldn’t help it. “I’m just thinking it’s better if we don’t go down that road.”
“No?” Her brow crooked as if to say they were already halfway down it.
“You’re not staying in Pine Point any longer than a few months.” He spread his hands wide. “And I’ve got a lot on my plate with the gym. Seems like commitment isn’t in the cards for either one of us right now.”
She set down her glass and folded her arms on the counter. “Fair enough. So how about dinner as friends?”
“Friends?” He couldn’t recall ever doing that before, not with a woman anyway. “Don’t you, ah, have friends at school?”
Her face darkened. “I don’t really have any friends here at all.” She ran her fingers through her ponytail. “That sounds pathetic. I just mean I didn’t keep in touch with people when I left, and you’re pretty much the only person I’ve had a normal conversation with since I got back into town.”
He cracked his knuckles again. “Gotta be honest, I’m not sure I’ll be any good at that. Friends, I mean.” Be nice. His mother’s words echoed in his mind.
“I like you,” she went on. “You’re smart, you’re a workaholic like I am, and I think we get along. You’re right. I’m not planning on staying in town. But there are a lot of months between now and June, and I could really use dinner and a drink every once in a while with someone who can hold his own while boxing.”
He let out a sigh. He’d never had a friend like that, except for maybe Zane. He thought for a long moment. What the hell? He could give it a try. At the very least, it would make his mother happy.
“I close up here at five on Fridays,” he finally said. “How about we meet at six o’clock at Marc’s Grille?”
“Sounds perfect. See you then.”
Chapter Nine
“Counter or booth?” asked the waitress that met Sienna at the door of Zeb’s Diner the following night.
“Oh, counter is fine.” She pulled off her gloves and tucked them inside her purse. After a faculty meeting that had run until almost five, she hadn’t felt like either the gym or the grocery store, so here she stood. She chose a stool between a man eating solo and a woman sitting with her three- or four-year-old daughter. The woman had dark circles under her eyes, and the edge of a fresh bruise peeked from under her shirt sleeve.
“Something to drink?” asked the waitress. She gave Sienna a funny look, her gaze lingering a little longer than necessary.
“Decaf, please. I need to warm up,” she told the woman with the dyed-orange hair tucked into a messy bun on her head. Josephine, read the name tag over her ample left breast.
The waitress handed her a full mug and pushed over a plastic sugar container and two non-dairy creamers.
“How long have you worked here?” Sienna asked. From what she recalled, Zeb’s was the heart of Pine Point, both geographically and figuratively. It had to hold a secret or two. The people who worked here had to have borne witness to some kind of gossip.
The man sitting down the counter looked over and grinned. “Too long, right, Josie?”
Josie let out a long whistle. “About twenty-six years. Woo-whee. That’s a long time, ain’t it? Give or take. I left for a few months when I got married, but that didn’t take, so here I am.”
Twenty-six years, exactly Sienna’s age. She didn’t remember the woman, but then she and her mother had never stepped foot inside Zeb’s. They’d never had a spare dime to eat out. “Did you grow up here?” she asked. She itched to take out her notepad.
“I did.” She handed Sienna a menu. “I’m a Pine Point girl, born and raised.” She pointed at the man. “Same’s this fellow.”
“Now, Josie, I wasn’t born here,” the man said. He was eating apple pie and had dots of whipped cream in his beard. He winked at Sienna. “Moved here when I was all of two years old.”
“And you never lived anywhere else?”
“Nah.” The man returned to his pie. “This is a good town with solid people. Sure, cities might have fancier places to shop or eat dinner, but no one knows you in cities. They’ll steal from you any chance they get. Why would I want to live anywhere else?”
“Maybe the weather,” Josie said. “If I can save up some money, I might look into one of those condos down in Myrtle Beach. Better place to pass January and February than this frozen tundra.” She slapped her palm on the counter, and Sienna jumped. “Now I recognize you.”
“I’m sorry?”
Josie leaned forward and rested her chin on one palm. “You’re the Cruz girl. Lived here when you were younger, right?”
“Ah, yes.” Her cheeks warmed. “Sienna.”
Josie snapped her gum and shook her head. “Such a sad
thing when your mama passed on.” She looked at the man. “You remember that, Sam? Remember that pretty Spanish woman who used to stop in here sometimes?”
“Oh, no,” Sienna said. “I think you must have her mistaken for someone else. My mom…” never would have come in here, she almost finished, but Josie nodded and snapped her gum with vigor.
“Sure she did. Used to come in on Friday afternoons when the owner was sellin’ the day-old bread and pastries for seventy-five percent off.” She stopped suddenly, as if aware she’d said something wrong. “Wasn’t just your mama, of course. Lots of people came in. The price of bread in the grocery store always was a damn crime. Still is, the way they jack up those prices and…” She dropped her gaze and turned to make a fresh pot of coffee.
My mother shopped here? Sienna’s face burned even hotter. It made sense, of course. Her mother had stretched every dollar.
“Where did you get that dress?” one of her classmates asked. “It looks like one I had a long time ago.”
Seven-year old Sienna twisted her hands in the patchwork skirt. “My mom gave it to me. For my birthday.”
The classmate, Stella something-or-other, studied her with beady eyes. “Well, it looks a lot like one my mom took to the Salvation Army last month.” The girl took an extra brownie from the serving line and walked off to join her friends at the popular table in the center of the cafeteria.
Sienna left her tray sitting on the line and bolted to the closest bathroom she could find. She’d loved this dress from the moment her mother brought it home. Now she wanted to rip it off and throw it in the garbage.
“Honey?” Josie’s gum popping brought her back to the diner. “You want some more time, or are you ready to order?” She moved down the counter and cleared plates in front of the woman and child. The little girl yawned, and her chin almost hit the counter as her eyes drooped in sleep.
Spring Secrets: Pine Point, Book 3 Page 5
