Country Hearts

by Cindi Madsen

  “Thanks for bringing back my horse. Need a ride home?”

  A ride would be nice. But then she might do that forgetting thing, the way she’d forgotten how cold it was until she’d been halfway here with his horse, thinking it was a farther walk than she’d realized. The way light traveled through darkness could be so misleading.

  Jemma waved a hand through the air. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a quick jog.” Not that she’d be jogging it, but then again, maybe it would be good motivation to try jogging.

  “Just take my truck. I’ll come get it tomorrow morning.”

  “No need. Being on my own is something I do have experience in.” As she reminded herself whenever she landed in a difficult situation, she was a strong, independent woman. Her parents had been on the older side when they’d had her, and by the time she’d reached high school, she’d helped around the house and had done most of her paperwork and college applications herself. So she was used to diving headfirst into the unknown and getting things done.

  Sometimes it’d be nice to have help, but she couldn’t learn to rely on it.

  Wyatt pressed his mouth into a firm line. He seemed to be having some kind of internal struggle. “At least text me and tell me you got in safe? Or I’ll never be able to sleep.”

  She supposed that was a sensible request. She dug her phone out of her coat pocket and typed in his name, then extended it so he could enter his number.

  Their fingers brushed as he returned it to her, and a tingle coursed up her arm and settled at the base of her neck.

  He walked her to the door, swung it open, and gripped the wooden frame. “Good night, Jemma.”

  The tender way he said her name caused more fluttering and tingling. She hated to go, more than because of the cold breeze nipping at her skin, but again, that was all the more reason to.

  “Good night, Wyatt.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Miss Monroe, why don’t you have a husband?”

  No surprise, the question came from Chase—the kid seemed to be filled from the bottom to the top with questions. And stories about working on the farm with his grandpa.

  After talking to his mom again, Jemma had made a deal with him that he could wear his cowboy hat along with his spurs on certain days as a reward, and since the hat was a couple of sizes too big, it wobbled slightly every time he looked up or down.

  Idly she wondered if Wyatt had been like that growing up, and she couldn’t help smiling at the thought of him as a little rambunctious cowboy.

  “Well?” Chase asked, and now every set of eyes was on her, curiosity swimming in the depths. To make it fair, hats were a reward for everyone who’d hit the highest two colors on the behavior chart, so several of the students had them on.

  Jemma sat on the edge of her desk and crossed one ankle over the other. “I guess I just haven’t met the right person yet.”

  “I’ll be your boyfriend,” Luis, one of her shyest students, said.

  “I appreciate that, Luis, but I need a boyfriend my own age. Someday. Right now, teaching you guys keeps me plenty busy.”

  “But what about when you go home?” Sydney asked from her seat in the first row.

  “I have Señor Fluffypants.”

  One of the girls glanced at the bunny, happily sleeping away in his kennel, her forehead all scrunched up. “But he doesn’t talk very much.”

  “Which is nice, honestly. No one interrupts my TV shows or asks me a question when I’m trying to read a book.” Half true. While he didn’t disturb her reading time, sometimes her bunny was too quiet. He always listened, but he didn’t say much back.

  “My sister always talks so loud during my show. And at the dinner table.” This from Parker, the boy who’d decided to wear a Raiders hat, which seemed to be quite the controversy among the other football fans. He smacked his palm to his face and sighed as he dragged it down. “She never stops talking, and it makes me so tired.”

  Jemma stifled a laugh. She didn’t want him thinking she was laughing at him, but it wasn’t the first time one of her male students said something about how much girls talked.

  “Sounds lonely,” Bailey said, a sad note to her voice.

  A twinge Jemma didn’t expect tugged in the center of her chest. Sometimes it was lonely, in spite of assuring herself she was fine—and she was. But occasionally she longed for someone to come home to. To cuddle up with and talk to about her day, whether it was good or bad.

  The last thing she wanted was for her class to worry about her, so she pulled out a smile. “Luckily, I have all of you to talk to.” It was one reason why she’d been drawn to teaching, especially this age group. She got to be part of molding these malleable minds, often before the world seeped in and jaded them.

  Their obvious concern made her fondness for them grow even more. Something often happened in adulthood, where people forgot to slow down and thank each other for the little things. Forgot to tell each other how much they cared.

  One of the hardest things about teaching was seeing kids who were sad or had trouble at home. It always made her feel so helpless, and about the only thing she could do was make sure they knew how much she adored them. “You guys make me happy. I constantly tell Señor Fluffypants about how I have the best class ever.”

  They all seemed placated by that, and she instructed them to get out their colored pencils. “We’ve got twenty minutes to finish our solar system drawings, and then we’ll go to the music room so we can practice the songs for the play.”

  They’d read through it yesterday, and today they were learning songs. “Tomorrow, you’ll get your assigned parts so you can start memorizing your lines.”

  Art time was always popular, even with her students who struggled through other subjects. Now that she’d been teaching them for a full week, she was also getting to know the students better and becoming more comfortable with her daily routine—including the part of it that involved watching the weather, scraping the sidewalk, and maneuvering snowy roads. She’d learned to wear her snow boots until she reached the school parking lot, and then she’d change into the fun type of footwear that earned befuddled frowns from Wyatt.

  Not that she’d seen him since the night he’d taught her to build a fire.

  So that she wouldn’t focus too much on her misbehaving thoughts—seriously, why did they drift to him so often?—she walked around the classroom. She peered over shoulders, complimenting the students and admiring how detailed, yet varied, their drawings were.

  Jemma paused next to Bailey, who had on an opalescent pink hat with closed eyelashes and a unicorn horn. Hat day was quickly becoming as much of a reward for her as it was for her students.

  No surprise, Bailey’s solar system had more colors than most, and Jemma opened her mouth to say she liked the star outline of a horse that looked to be running around Saturn’s ring.

  Bailey set down her purple pencil and pressed her lips together, like she was deep in thought.

  Jemma almost walked on so as to not disturb her, but then Bailey said, “My dad’s not married, either.”

  Her mouth opened and closed, but Jemma wasn’t sure how to respond. In the end, she went with a noncommittal hmm.

  “Sometimes I worry that he gets lonely.”

  Jemma smoothed a hand down Bailey’s thick, curly ponytail. “Oh, honey, I wouldn’t worry about that. He has you.”

  The tension in the girl’s shoulders loosened. “Yeah, that’s true. And I talk a lot. Once he told me that his ears were tired, and I told him that sometimes my ears get tired, but my mouth never gets tired.”

  A laugh slipped out this time, but Bailey giggled too.

  Then it was time to put away their supplies and head to the music room.

  As Jemma walked her class down the hall, she decided that in spite of having no idea what the future had in store, this was a good ex
perience, one she’d needed. It made that whole mess of having Simon tell her he only liked her as a friend in the midst of losing her job feel further away.

  She was also starting to like the quirkiness of this town and its people, and how different each day felt.

  For the first time since her arrival in Haven Lake, she thought she’d definitely made the right decision by jumping into the adventure of coming here.

  Wyatt pulled up to the elementary school, getting lucky and finding a parking spot fairly close to the main entrance.

  He was a few minutes early, and he considered climbing out of his truck, walking up the grassy hill and standing near the classroom door Bailey would come skipping out of. He rarely arrived with enough time to do so, but the primary problem with that idea was why he wanted to.

  He hadn’t seen Jemma in four days, since the night she’d returned his horse. He’d replayed their moments in front of the fireplace far too often.

  The long list of reasons why he shouldn’t be thinking about the woman ran through his head again: she was a born-and-raised, bona-fide city girl; she was his daughter’s teacher; and he didn’t have time to date anyway.

  It’d be a lot easier to ignore the flicker of interest if it wasn’t the first time he’d experienced that sensation since Andrea had left. He needed to remember that flickers turned into flames that could burn you, and a big no thanks on that.

  Still, Jemma was new in town, and he wanted to know if she’d figured out her fireplace, and he really should make sure she wasn’t freezing every night in her house. After all, it was the neighborly thing to do. The very least he could do after being so short with her that day she’d gotten stuck in the snow, even though he had apologized the other night.

  Just because being prepared and self-sufficient had been hammered into him from an early age didn’t mean he had to be so impatient when other people hadn’t had the same lecture. Since his conversation with Dempsey, he’d contmplated the “grumpy” thing, and had decided he’d work on not blocking everyone out.

  Might as well start now.

  The door to his beat-up feed truck creaked as he pushed it open and then slammed it closed. He had to hip-check the door in order to get it to fully shut, but his other truck was in need of a new alternator and currently in pieces in his oversized mechanic garage.

  People did a double take as he walked past, as if he were the Boo Radley of the town. He’d been in the coffee shop a week ago, so he wasn’t sure why they all gaped as if they’d forgotten what he looked like.

  Clearly this had been what his best friend had been talking about, so he worked to put a smile on his face, regardless of how weird it felt to walk around grinning like a loon for no reason.

  “Wyatt?”

  He spun at the familiar voice. His sister stood there, his brand-new niece wrapped up in the fabric carrier draped around her chest, his chunky two-year-old nephew on her hip. “Lori. What are you doing here? Did I miss you enrolling my prodigy cowboy in school early?”

  He bumped fists with his two-year-old nephew, Logan. “When are you going to come ride the tractor with me?”

  “Tractor! Tractor!”

  “Thanks for that,” Lori said, her smile saying she was teasing but the words coming out with a hint of exhaustion.

  “It’s just nice he still gets excited. Nowadays if I ask Bailey Rae, she sighs and tells me that her outfit isn’t meant for farm work.”

  “Well, her outfits rarely are. I guess we should trade for a night. Logan can ride a tractor, and Bailey Rae can go shopping with me.”

  Logan reached his chubby hands toward Wyatt, and he took him from his sister. He didn’t know how she carried them both. His nephew was built like a linebacker, all solid and compact, and he was struggling slightly with not being the baby anymore.

  His niece fussed from inside of the draped fabric, making grunting, squeaky noises, and Lori swayed back and forth. “As for why I’m here, my neighbor had an appointment that ran late, so I’m picking up her son. He’s also obsessed with tractors and four-wheelers.”

  “Sounds like my kind of kid.” Wyatt tossed Logan a couple of inches in the air, grinning back at him as he giggled. “For a second, I wondered if I’d asked you to pick up Bailey Rae and then forgot about it.”

  “No, but if you ever need me to…”

  “Thanks, but you’ve got plenty on your plate.” His sister’s husband was a nice guy, more into accounting than ranch work. He also traveled quite a lot for his job, and despite how much that left Lori to do by herself, she still volunteered to help neighbors and friends all the time. She had a heart of gold, one he didn’t want to take advantage of, and he could never repay her for the countless times she’d helped out since he’d transitioned to single parenthood.

  The bell rang, and kids streamed out of the classrooms in a steady flow. Wyatt stepped closer to the door Bailey would exit, his heart thumping faster as he anticipated seeing Jemma.

  Every day when he asked his daughter how school was, it was Miss Monroe this and Miss Monroe that, which was yet another reason it was hard to avoid thinking about Jemma.

  Clearly his daughter was smitten with her new teacher, and while her other teacher was good, Bailey Rae was more excited for school these days. And heaven help the person who brought up the upcoming Valentine’s Day play, because she could talk about it for hours, ignoring any and all attempts to change the subject, and keep on going till she fell into bed.

  “More than anything in the world, I want to play Cupid,” she’d said last night as he was tucking her in. One thing he’d learned was that “more than anything in the world” lasted anywhere from a day to a year.

  He’d finally gotten the covers snug when she’d sat up. “I don’t care if he’s typically a boy. Daddy, you know I can shoot love arrows as good if not better. I’m a much better shot than the boys in my class.”

  Wyatt hoped she wasn’t bragging too much about that during class, but he couldn’t help experiencing pride over it. While she was so over tractor rides, his bow and arrow lessons had stuck.

  As usual, she was the last one out of the classroom, and of course she’d hung back in the doorway to talk to her teacher. Jemma’s eyes met his across the space, and the smile that curved her lips made him forget what he’d been thinking.

  “Hey.” She stepped closer and aimed that killer smile at his nephew. “Who’s this cutie?”

  “This is my nephew, Logan. That’s my sister right…” He turned to find where she’d gone in the crowd and found her looking back at him, a smug twist to her features. Great. He’d definitely hear about this from her later.

  Why had he thought meeting his daughter at the door and saying a quick hello to her teacher with a whole bunch of people watching on was a bright idea?

  Lori stepped forward and gave a little wave. “Hi. Lori Gibson. I’ve heard such good things, and it’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Aww, the kids here are so sweet. They have the best stories too.”

  “Actually, I heard a wild story about you on your first day,” Lori said. “They said you had to deal with snakes dropping from the ceiling.”

  Red crept across Jemma’s cheeks, but she laughed. “Just one snake, luckily, although he was big enough to count as two or three. I didn’t know if I was being pranked or initiated, or if I’d just moved to the backwoods.”

  “What about a snake?” Wyatt asked, surprised he hadn’t heard the story. He glanced at Bailey Rae.

  His daughter shrugged. “There was a snake. Chase was on it, so I knew we were safe. But Miss Monroe screamed real loud—like, Mrs. Hembolt opera loud.”

  Jemma put her hand over her mouth, he suspected to cover a laugh. “I didn’t expect it, and it was a giant snake, so yeah, I screamed. What would you do if a snake was suddenly dangling over your head?”

  “Help him down, of
course,” Wyatt said. “Poor thing doesn’t have arms or legs.”

  Jemma shuddered. “It’s not right, not the way they move or their forked tongue or…” She shuddered again, and he laughed, wishing he’d been there to see it.

  Also wishing the tiniest bit he’d also been the one to take care of the snake and save the day, which was silly, and seriously, where was his head at? He’d obviously lost his mind.

  “Well, Bailes, guess we’d better get going.” He shifted his nephew to his other hip and placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. He told himself to get moving, to not ask the question that would lead to more talking and more of Jemma smiling and more of that churning in his gut…

  But he couldn’t help himself. “Did you, uh, ever get your fireplace figured out?”

  The gems in her dangly earrings caught the sunlight as she shook her head. “I haven’t had a chance to pick up wood yet, but I hear there’s a storm coming this weekend, so I’m going to for sure buy a bundle or two before then.”

  “Good, good. I’d suggest more like four or five. Just to be safe.” He didn’t have anything else to say, and now he was noticing that most of the other students and parents had cleared out. Here he was keeping Jemma, and she probably had things to get to. “See you later.”

  “Later,” she said.

  Wyatt walked Lori to her van to help her juggle all the kids. Once everyone was loaded and belted inside, she turned to him and gave him a knowing smirk that sent prickling apprehension along his skin. “Now I get it. Why you decided to wait at the door.”

  “Careful. Little ears…” He tipped his head toward his daughter, but she was pulling funny faces, making the other kids giggle. He lowered his voice. “She’s my neighbor and Bailey Rae’s teacher. That’s it.”

  “She’s also pretty.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”