by Annie Jones
“I guess this is my cue to thank you for a lovely meal and say it’s time for me to head home.” Polly stepped away from the girls.
The girls all groaned and followed after her.
“You don’t have to go yet.” Hayley thundered down the steps to put herself directly on the path in front of Polly.
“We’ll take our bath really fast if you promise to read to us before bed.” Juliette’s feet barely hit the ground as she rushed up to Sam and spun around in front of him as if she expected him to back her up. “That’s okay, right, Daddy?”
“It’s okay with me…” Sam cringed at playing the big softy. Was he trying to pretend to himself that it was only the girls who wanted Polly to stay a little longer? “But Miss Bennett just said she needed to go.”
“She didn’t say need,” Hayley corrected.
Sam drew a breath to launch into a lecture about not badgering their guest when Caroline moved around from behind Polly, looked up, and as she stroked the dog’s muzzle, said quietly, “Oh, please, Miss Bennett, please stay long enough to read us a Donut story after our bath.”
It was like a double sucker punch to the gut for Sam, hearing Caroline’s earnest plea and yet not sure how he felt about Polly reading his late wife’s story to his matchmaking daughters. “I don’t think that’s such a—”
“I printed out a few copies. Let me get you one,” Gina, who had been waiting at the open door, volunteered.
“Girls, really?” Sam put his hands on Juliette’s and Hayley’s shoulders and urged them up the steps alongside him. “We invited Miss Bennett out for dinner, then let her help clean up, dragged her all over the farm and now we’re trying to make her do bedtime-story-reading duty?”
“I hardly think of it as a duty,” Polly said softly.
“But you’re our guest.” Sam reached her side.
“That’s right, and company gets to pick.” Hayley made a break and headed for the front door, swinging it open.
“You want to pick to read to us, right, Miss Bennett?” Caroline asked so softly that Sam wasn’t quite sure he heard it or just imagined she’d expressed it with her eyes, so like her mother’s, fixed in fascination on her new teacher’s face.
Polly looked at him, silently asking for his approval or for him to make an excuse so she could back out without being the bad guy.
Sam smiled and shook his head. Never in his wildest dreams could he see Polly as the bad guy. The wrong girl, here at the wrong time, yes. But bad guy? “I think Marie would have liked knowing Caroline’s teacher would one day read the story she wrote to the girls.”
Polly smiled a smile that Sam could not get out of his mind the whole twenty-five minutes it took for the girls to get quick baths, get into their pajamas and climb into bed.
Gina had done bath duty, then stayed to clean up the bathroom and get damp towels in the laundry.
Max stopped in to tell the girls good-night, then grumpily excused himself to his own room saying his “boss” expected him to be at work on the lunch- counter project bright and early.
Polly had taken that time to take the dog for a walk and read over the text of the book once, saying she wanted to do it justice.
Sam appreciated that on many levels. Still, when the time came for the big “performance,” he just could not stand by and watch Polly with the girls reading aloud Marie’s words. Words written so those girls would not forget their mom and the love she and God shared for them.
“‘Three precious girls with blue eyes and red curls…’” Polly began to read from the pages that Gina had typed up and printed from the story Marie had written by hand a year before her death.
Sam turned away at the girls’ room door.
“That’s about us.” The hushed excitement in Caroline’s voice carried all the way into the hall.
Suddenly instead of hitting the stairs, heading for the front door, getting as far away as good manners would allow, Sam’s footsteps slowed.
“I know it’s about you three.” Polly’s tone was kind and warm. “In fact, looking at you all here now, it’s like having your mom’s book spring to life right in front of my eyes.”
Sam had often felt that very thing, but hearing Polly discuss Marie so openly in front of the girls hit him hard. Then when he heard the familiar old creak of the rocking chair that Marie used to sit in to sing to the girls or comfort them in when they had a bad dream, the sound practically knocked the air right out of his lungs.
He spun around to rush back into the room, wanting to put a stop to it all, to spare his daughters the same angst that had his chest tight and his jaw clenched. “Maybe this isn’t such a good—”
“We think about our mom whenever we say our prayers,” Juliette said softly.
Sam froze just outside the door, looking in at the precious faces of his girls gazing adoringly up at Polly in the nearby rocking chair.
“Do you say prayers, Miss Bennett?” Hayley asked outright.
“Yes, I do. And I know that God hears them. Prayer is a powerful thing.”
“Do you pray for something special, Miss Bennett?” Again it was fearless Hayley who forged ahead.
“Not for something, as in to get something, but…” Polly’s expression grew slightly somber. “I pray for my students and the school and my family.”
“And Donut,” Caroline prodded.
Sam peered in to find three little girls sitting on one bed with a funny-looking, long-bodied dog stretched out across them all, managing to get some part of himself petted by each one of them. The contented animal struggled to keep his eyes open.
Polly reached out and stroked the dog’s head. “And Donut.”
“Don’t you miss your family, Miss Bennett?” Hayley asked.
“Well, I haven’t actually been away from them for very long, and I can talk to them whenever I want.” Polly leaned back in the rocking chair.
“We miss our mom.” Caroline’s voice was strong but still.
“I am sure you do, but isn’t it like a little visit from her whenever you hear the story she wrote for you?”
“It is, but we don’t get to hear it very often,” Juliette said.
“But you can hear it now,” Polly assured them.
The papers rattled. The rocker creaked. Polly took a deep breath, then launched into the story about Donut, the dog who couldn’t do anything right and only wanted to be loved. She did not miss a beat or stumble over a single syllable. She used her voice to convey every emotion and sentiment.
For the first time since he had heard the tale from Marie’s lips, Sam found himself reminded of the message behind the story—that God meets us where we are and loves us even though we are not perfect.
Sam leaned back against the wall of the hallway outside the bedroom and waited as the story concluded and Polly said good-night to each of the girls.
He leaned into the doorway just as she finished up and promised the girls he’d be back to check in as soon as he saw Donut and Miss Bennett to her car. Donut—yes, even he couldn’t fight the urge to call the little guy that—reluctantly but obediently clambered down from the bed and padded softly to the hallway.
One by one Juliette, then Hayley slid from Caroline’s bed and got into their own. Polly rose from the rocker and wriggled her fingers to the girls as she told them good-night and thanked them for inviting her out, telling them it was the very best time she’d had since arriving in town. She slipped by Sam and into the hallway where she told Donut to go on downstairs because it was time for them to go.
Sam stretched his upper body, his hand braced against the doorframe, but he kept both feet outside the threshold. “Good night, girls. Thank you for being such good hostesses to Miss Bennett. Now say your prayers and go to sleep.”
“But—” Hayley sat up on her bed with her legs crossed.
“Prayers, then sleep,” he reiterated, cutting off any last-ditch efforts at matchmaking, at pleading for them to keep the dog. Well, at least for them to make those pitches to him. What they would pray about, he could just imagine, and thought it best not to hover with Polly so near to listen in on their requests. “I love you guys.”
“We’re not guys,” Juliette called back before all three sweet young voices joined to call out, “We love you, too, Daddy.”
Sam started to pull the door shut but not before Caroline could add, “And Donut, too!”
Sam shut his eyes and pulled the door closed until it clicked. He took a deep breath, then turned around, took a step and almost tripped over his guest. He had to put his hands on her upper arms to keep from bumping into her.
“I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds talking to the girls about their mom. I tried to be careful, but I also had to be honest.” Polly did not flinch but held her ground, looking up at him with the most sincere eyes Sam had ever seen. “I wondered when they started asking questions if I should have followed your example and moved on without looking back right after dinner.”
“I like having you here.” He did not take his hands from her arms. Even though they stood in the open hallway, it felt as if the two of them were tucked away from everyone else in the world.
“It was a lovely dinner. I’m glad I came out to your family farm, too.”
“I didn’t mean the farm. I meant—” he searched her face, then leaned down, his face just above hers “—here.”
“Oh.” The single syllable made her lips so kissable.
And so he kissed her. Not a long or lingering kiss, but a sweet, stolen one, brief but still able to convey that he had wanted to kiss her from the first time he had come across her in the driveway.
She raised her hands and he half expected her to push him away, but instead she wound her fingers into the fabric of his shirtsleeves and that’s where they remained even after the kiss ended and Sam stood there losing himself in her eyes.
“I guess I’m the one who should apologize for overstepping bounds now,” he murmured.
Polly shook her head, her black hair swaying softly. “That would only apply if I had set up a boundary and you crossed it against my wishes.”
“Well, a good host always tries to do as his guest wishes.” He leaned in again and for an instant their gazes met. He looked deep into those kind, innocent eyes. He should pull back, turn and walk away. No good could come from this. There was no future here, regardless of what they wished.
Sam had learned the hard way in life that wishing was a waste of time. The only thing that helped was to keep moving in the right direction. Kissing Caroline’s teacher was definitely the wrong direction.
And yet, he shut his eyes, leaned in and pressed his lips to hers again. For a second time there was nothing but the two of them, no past, no future, no rush.
Then the quietest gasp broke through to his conscious mind.
They jumped apart.
“Who was that?” Polly’s head whipped around from the direction of the stairway to the dimly lit hallway lined by the family members’ bedrooms.
Rustling came from behind the girls’ door.
Down the hall, the door to Max’s room rattled, then clicked shut.
From the stairway came Gina’s way-too-obviously-loud “conversation” with Polly’s canine houseguest. “Hey, little fella, where’s the rest of the crew? They didn’t send you down here all by yourself, did they?”
“It doesn’t matter who it was—somebody saw what happened between us.” Sam stepped back, his head bowed as he gathered his resolve.
“I know.” Polly touched his arm, his cheek, then she, too, took a step back. “We have to make sure no one sees us doing that again.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t, under other circumstances, like to—”
“You don’t have to explain. I’m Caroline’s teacher. You have your rules. This is how it has to be.” Polly held up her hand and retreated a step, still facing him. “School starts Monday. I won’t have any reason to see you or the girls until…well, until Caroline gets to class then.”
“Polly, if it were just me—”
“But it’s not. It’s the girls and your late wife and me and Donut, and…I get it, Sam. I don’t like it, or maybe even agree with it, but I get it.” She shook her head, then turned and hurried downstairs where Gina and the dog were waiting in the foyer.
And Sam let her go. As she has said, she was following the example he had touted time and again. No looking back. Keep moving forward.
He heard the front door shut. Then the car doors open and shut again. The engine started. The quiet little hybrid car chugged off. Not until the front door opened and shut again and he heard Gina moving around the first floor did Sam finally plod slowly down the steps. Knowing he would not see anything in the fading light but the empty drive leading to the country road, he stood at the door and gazed out the window that overlooked the porch. What he was looking for, he couldn’t say. He only knew that he would never look around this place, the place where he had grown up and where he had retreated into the depths of his deepest pain, in the same way. After this evening, whenever he helped clean up the dishes or tucked his girls in he’d remember Polly there. And Donut, too.
And Sam wasn’t sure he didn’t kind of like the idea.
Chapter Eight
On the first day of school Polly woke up a full half hour before her alarm went off.
“Finally,” she huffed, pushing off the covers and swinging her feet to the soft, braided throw rug by her bed. Glancing back over her shoulder at the sunrise just beginning to peek through a space between her closed drapes, she yawned and scrubbed her fingertips through her hair. “That was one of the longest weekends of my entire life!”
A soft snort from a certain golden-brown, adorable mutt seemed to challenge her.
“I guess that’s one thing I didn’t take into account when I moved to such a small town. Not a lot for a stranger to do besides work and go to church, especially if that stranger is an unmarried young lady trying to avoid that town’s favorite single dad.” She tried to keep it all light and cheerful, knowing she was only trying to convince herself of what she was pretending to tell her still-sleepy-eyed friend nestled in his doggy bed. “But I did get a lot more posters made to try to find you a home.”
She made herself smile when she said that even though the very thought weighed heavy on her heart. After the visit from Deb Martin and still no calls about the lost pet, Polly had switched from looking for owners to looking for a forever home for the little guy.
She stretched and purposefully avoided looking at the new photo of the sweet dog’s face above the caption I Could Be Yours.
“Did I say longest weekend of my life? I should have said the loneliest weekend of my life.” She shut her eyes and willed herself not to go all misty-eyed over the thought of saying goodbye to what seemed to be her only connection in Baconburg. But after days of people telling her the Goodacre triplets were asking about the dog, Polly knew she couldn’t keep the animal and keep her peace of mind. “I’m probably just missing my family, right?”
The truth was, she was missing a family that was not her own and never could be.
More than once on Saturday she had wondered what the Goodacre girls…and their dad…were up to. On Sunday morning she had tried to not get too distracted while looking around to see if they attended the small community church she had gone to at the invitation of a fellow teacher.
But today the week started all over and and the new school year would be under way. Polly couldn’t wait to get into her classroom. She dressed and walked the dog and filled his water bowl and gather
ed her things and…dressed again. The outfit she’d planned out a week earlier suddenly seemed too young and fun. A week ago that might have seemed like a good idea, to project the image of an energetic teacher brimming with new ideas. But now?
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Polly muttered her mother’s warning as she slipped into her navy blue pants and lavender shirt. But that’s what she wanted to do, to make a new first impression on Sam Goodacre, and on his daughters, when they came in this morning escorting Caroline into her new classroom.
“Yes, I look like a no-nonsense professional educator,” she told herself with one last glance in the rearview mirror as she parked. “Not like a lost cause.”
Thoughts of Sam, the triplets and the dog she was trying to place in a home of his own only added to Polly’s already-churned-up emotional state. So when Brianna Bradley, one of the other two second-grade teachers, rapped on Polly’s car window, Polly nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Hurry up!” Brianna motioned to Polly to get out of the car. “You’re on parking-lot duty!”
“Parking…what?” Polly popped open the door and climbed out.
“I know, it’s a rotten thing to do to the new teacher, but we’re stuck until we get some parents to volunteer tonight.” She pushed Polly toward the front of the school. “All you have to do is stand here and remind parents to keep moving thataway.”
Brianna pointed toward the drive with Exit painted on it.
“But—”
“Go drop your things off in your room and flip the light on. You can come inside five minutes before the bell rings. The hallway teachers will keep things in order until then.” More pushing. “Say, do you still have that dog? I thought you’d have found a home for him before now.”
“Um, yes, I…” She started to ask how Brianna knew about Donut, then glanced back to see the other teacher swiping dog hair off her sleeve where it had brushed against Polly’s clothes. Polly looked down at the dark slacks in glaring daylight to see golden-brown hair clinging here and there. She sighed. So much for that first impression.
