Page 39 of Second Start: Family
This time her grin left the self-deprecating part out, because it was for those two girls … and the man in front of her.
Abruptly, his grin slid away. “Are you married?”
She tipped her head. “Even if the word didn’t get around — which I assume it would have — don’t you think you would have noticed a husband the night you came to my trailer about the conference? I suppose he could have been gone at that moment, but…”
“I knew you didn’t have one with you, that doesn’t mean you don’t have one. You wouldn’t be the first teacher who used this job as a timeout from a marriage. Few months here and they mostly decide marriage isn’t that bad.”
“Few months? But the contract’s for a year.”
“Yeah.” He’d gone serious. “Listen, if you have trouble … well, there’s not a parent on the school list who doesn’t have a shotgun, if you ever need backup.” His look intensified. “But I live closest.”
“Uh, thank you. I’m sure we won’t have any problems, but … Thank you.” She looked over his shoulder toward the refreshment table up front. “I better check if we need to make more coffee.”
“Thought you left something on in your trailer.”
“Right. Right. I’ll check the coffee right after that.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kenzie left him with a genuine smile, but Hall did wonder about that earlier frown.
No denying it was behind his impulse to follow her out.
That and noticing from the start how she hung back from the crowd of workers.
It wasn’t like she was shy. She’d sure had no problem squaring off with him on first meeting. And being straightforward in every meeting since.
What had her on edge about these people?
Because that was the impression he got of her practically fleeing out the back door after an innocuous exchange with Cambria, from what he’d heard of it.
And that sense he had that trouble cast a shadow on her.
Oh, hell, maybe he was overthinking this. Because there had been that smile toward the end.
Quite a smile.
Perfectly natural it had an effect on him.
*
“Kenzie? Can you come help me?” Bexley’s voice floated to her from inside through the open window a couple hours later.
“Sure. Where are you?”
“Your classroom.”
Kenzie weaved her way around construction supplies and between people hammering, drilling, stringing wire, and more.
Peering around the classroom she barely recognized as hers, she spotted Bexley. Avoiding the beehive of activity at the wall that separated the classrooms, she made her way around the pyramid of plastic-covered desks in the center to the far corner.
“I’m here, Bexley,” she said to the back of the woman’s head. “What do you need?”
“Here. Stand right here and hold this.”
Herewas inside the new storage closet being created in the corner of her classroom. It also would buffer the rest of the room from cold air let in when the back door was opened.
“Hold this shelf right there. No, turn around and face the front. Facing the back was a bad move on my part. Don’t do what I did, do what I say.” Bexley chuckled as she positioned Kenzie under the piece of wood, her hands up and bent back so her palms supported the underside. “He’ll be back in a minute to screw it in. He needed a new battery for the drill.”
