Page 12 of Before You Can Blink
“Now, tell me, Daisy Morrison. What brings you to Rust Canyon?”
Her pink tongue darted out to catch an errant drop of whiskey, forcing me to bite back a groan. “A job.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “What is it that you do for work?”
“I’m a teacher.”
I pressed a single finger to the bar top. “You teach here?”
“Well, nothere.“ Daisy gestured around the bar. “But in Rust Canyon, yes.”
My head cocked to the side. We didn’t get many newcomers to our tiny town in the middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma. “Pardon me for askin’, but how did you find yourself all the way out here? I can tell you’re not from around these parts.” Her voice carried no trace of the twang that everyone who had been born and raised here seemed to have.
She let out a heavy sigh. “It would seem the demand for teachers is lower than the supply of them graduating. I spent a few years working as a substitute, but as time went on, my job search kept expanding west, hoping to find a permanent position with my own classroom. When it reached the Great Plains states, I saw a listing for a full-time teacher needed in Rust Canyon and applied. Now, here I am, hoping it’ll look good to have experience on my resume while I keep searching. I don’t plan to stay here long-term.”
You and me both, honey.
“What grade do you teach?”
“I’m certified for K-6, but right now I’ve got the first graders.”
I chuckled. “Ah, the tiny terrors.”
“They’re actually quite sweet,” Daisy protested.
The same dreamy smile that all the girls got when talking about children curved on her lips, and alarm bells sounded in my brain. That smile was enough to tell me she wanted babies someday, and that was not somethingin my plans. There wasn’t room for a family on the road, and I already knew I’d be a shit father. I was too selfish, too reckless to take on that responsibility.
If I was smart, I’d call it a night now and walk away before I got in too deep with someone who wanted more than I was willing to give. But something I couldn’t explain kept my ass glued to that barstool beside Daisy, eager to learn everything there was to know about her.
Hours passed by in a blur, and I discovered she was used to uprooting her life. As the daughter of a naval commander, Daisy had lived in California, Hawaii, and even Japan before settling in Virginia, where she was granted a reprieve from the constant moving. She shared that the rigors of military life had been too much for her mom, who’d split when Daisy was a kid, so it had been just her and her dad since she was six, and they shared a close relationship. I joked that, between the two of us, we had a full set of parents.
I cataloged every bit of information about her that she was willing to give. Her favorite flower was tulips. Her favorite color was yellow. She liked animals but had never owned a pet. When she was ten, she had appendicitis, and that was the only time she’d ever been in the hospital.
When I caught her yawning, I checked my watch to find it was closing in on 1 AM. And only then did I realize it was a Wednesday night.
Guilt crashed over me for keeping her out so late when she had work in the morning. “Conversation was so good I lost track of the time.” I pushed off my stool and offered her my hand. “Can I give you a ride home?”
Daisy’s palm slid against mine as she stood. “That’s really not necessary.”
I frowned, wondering if, after the evening we’d shared, she was giving me the brush-off. That didn’t sit quite right with me, and I tried again. “It’s no trouble at all. Town’s small enough that even if you were in the opposite direction of where I’m headed, it wouldn’t be much out of the way.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that . . .”
“Then what is it?” I pressed.
Sucking in a deep breath, Daisy said on the exhale, “I am home.”
My eyes widened as my brows shot up. “Here? In the bar?”
“Not in the bar. Above it,” she clarified. “I’m renting the apartment upstairs.”
I choked out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re tellin’ me our new schoolteacher is living above the bar?” When she shrugged, I mused, “That’s gotta be . . .”
“Loud?” she supplied. “Oh yeah. Why do you think I was down here? A nightcap is usually enough to dull the noise coming through the floorboards so that I can fall asleep.”
Shit. That was less than ideal.
“But the rent is low enough that I can afford it, and they’re nice enough to let me lease month to month in case I get an offer on a teaching job elsewhere.”
