Page 2 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

“Right.” She knew Joe was only half kidding. But then, he always used humor to enforce the rules. That was one of the things she liked so much about her boss. He was kind and reasonable. She knew she was one of his favorites. Not in an icky way—with his bald head, tall frame, and slightly rounded middle, he gave off the air of a benevolent father—and he was a genuinely kind person.

She’d always been grateful for his help when she was a confused teen. He’d even pulled strings to get her a job at the town diner, Pie in the Sky, when she lost her job at the craft store after she’d gotten suspended her senior year. Somehow, he’d seen something in her that she hadn’t been able to see herself, and it had changed everything.

That was all part of her dark past, and life was so much better now. Any remaining rebel that remained in her had been quashed at nineteen when her brother Kevin had suddenly died, along with his beautiful wife, in a tragic car accident that had left their tiny baby girl orphaned. After that, she’d made peace with Brad and stopped pushing limits. In fact, Kevin’s death had turned her into a person who rarely took risks. Life was too short, family meant everything, and rocking the boat was something you did as a teen but not when you’d matured.

Her own experiences had taught her to dig beneath the surface of her students’ behavior. She, more than most, understood how one teacher could make a difference.

Joe put an arm around her shoulder and dropped his voice. “You sure I can’t convince you to renew that contract? I hate to start the job search if there’s some hope ...”

“True love calls,” Sam said with a shrug. It was calling her to Boston to be with her almost-fiancé Harris.

“Can’t it call you closer to home?” Jess added.

“All right then,” Joe said. “C’mon, Evan. I’m feeling restless. Let’s stir up some excitement, maybe confiscate some weed or something.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“Bye, ladies,” Evan said, leaving them with a little wave and a polite smile.

“He’s a nice guy, Jess,” Sam said a little mournfully. Okay, so he was tall and a little on the thin side. He was probably athletic—you simply couldn’t tell under his baggy clothes.

“Maybe he is nice. But I have no interest in physics.” She wrinkled up her nose as if she’d saidBlack Deathinstead ofphysics. “We have nothing in common.”

As they watched Joe and Evan disappear into the crowded gym, Jess said, “I wish you weren’t leaving. Who else is there to save me from Mrs.Higgins?” The grand dame of the English department, she’d been teaching there since Hawthorne walked the earth. Okay, maybe just since Hemingway. “Don’t go, dammit. Who will I complain about Mr.Malone to? And my students. My awful, awful students. You can’t go!”

“I’m only going to Boston,” Sam said. To a brand-new high school there, even though Harris had insisted she didn’t even have to work unless she wanted to. The same melancholy pricked her heart as always whenever she thought about leaving Mirror Lake for good. “Maloney Baloney is a cool boss. And deep down, you love your students.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “You probably won’t even miss me as you shuffle between your new place and Harris’s parents’ beach house in Nantucket, while I stay here and slave away, struggling to teach teenagers to be literate.”

“You know you can come up any weekend you want,” Sam said. An edge of panic pierced her stomach. She knew she should be thrilled to be moving with her boyfriend to a dignified old row house with tons of character, with access to a gorgeous beach house to escape to any weekend. It was important for Harris to start his political career in the Boston area, where he was from, and she would be by his side. Love required some sacrifices, right?

Her new life would be perfect.Everything she’d always wanted so desperately was about to come true. She’d found an amazing guy with noble ambitions and big dreams. One day they’d be married with a real family, something she could barely remember since her parents had died when she was five, and Brad and her grandma Effie had taken over raising her and her brothers.

Her stomach flopped again. What was wrong with her, anyway?

She wasn’t ungrateful. Harris was just so busy building his career. He had lots of stress, not to mention all the driving back and forth he and she both did on weekends. Things would calm down a lot after they were finally together in the same city—she knew it. They’d make love more often, because it had been a while. Yeah, actually quite a while. She’d make his life easier for him and he’d relax more, then she’d relax more, and be able to enjoy all this good fortune that had come her way.

Right?

The pulsing beat of a too-familiar song suddenly pumped through the gym, compliments of the student band, Wild. A group of girls in the front row started dancing, waving their arms, and singing along to the lyrics of Lukas’s signature song, a serious earworm called “You Don’t Know Me,” which blasted around Sam’s head and made it throb.

She hated that song. No, she really Hated. That. Song.

Calm down, she reminded herself. There was no way in hell Lukas would show, and once the kids realized that, they’d stop talking about him and playing his obnoxious music.

Jess raised her voice over the noise of the band. “Those girls actually think Lukas Spikonos is going to show up here. I mean, you don’t think he will, do you?” Her words held a hefty edge of doubt. Her tone suggested that Sam of all people might actually have a clue whether the elusive singer would ever have the guts to show up in his hometown again.

“There’s no way. I hope they won’t be too disappointed.”Lukas Spikonos. The mere sound of his very Greek name evoked all the exotic sensuality of ancient, sun-kissed isles like Santorini or Mykonos, which rhymed with his name. Not to mention his very Greek looks, from his rich bronze skin, the color of sand in some exotic desert, his dark, haunting eyes, and his over-the-collar hair, as sinfully black and shiny as pitch.

Every molecule of his long, lean body was rebellious. Risky. Thank God Sam was so over him. She had enough maturity and distance from her naïve nineteen-year-old self to realize that no matter how attracted to him she’d been, their breakup, painful though it was, had been a blessing in disguise.

“When did you get so pessimistic?” Jess asked. “You’re usually thefunteacher. Supporting dreams and all that.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Ever since the kids sent that video toThe Ellen DeGeneres Show, they’ve been out of control. But his PR person said his schedule was too booked. Plus, he hasn’t been back here for six years.”

“He has to show up sometime if he ever wants his car back.”

Sam scowled. “You meanmycar. I have all the repair and auto-body bills to prove it.” She headed for the gym floor. “I’d better get out there and start ungluing a few kids from each other.”

“He could come, you know,” Jess called. “Mirror Lake’s his hometown.”

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