Page 10 of Second Start: Family
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An internal clock more strident than any alarm told Hall it was morning. He jerked his stiff neck ruthlessly then stumbled into the kitchen, where he began his Thursday by downing the last three aspirin in the bottle with a mouthful of cold coffee.
A new day was dawning.
CHAPTER THREE
“So, how’d your talk with Hall Quick go last night?”
Kenzie glanced toward where Molly and Lizzie Quick stood under a cottonwood, talking earnestly, and sending occasional looks her direction. She didn’t want them to know the teachers were discussing their father.
Vicky plopped onto the bench beside Kenzie while they watched their classes’ combined enrollment of seventeen, ranging from six years old to thirteen, amuse themselves in the bright sun of an early September noontime. They hadn’t had a chance to exchange more than good-mornings before the kids arrived — the ancient bus delivering them early for some reason — so this was Vicky’s first opportunity to quiz her.
Kenzie grimaced. “What talk?”
“You didn’t talk with Hall? I figured when he didn’t stop by my trailer, you two must have hit it off.”
“We stopped short of hitting,” she said dryly. In the light of day, her behavior appeared less justified, not to mention falling well short of an optimal start with the father of two students.
She had Vicky’s full attention. “You didn’t like Hall?”
“I have no basis for liking or not liking him. We had an unproductive initial conversation, simple as that.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Kenzie might have made that a bit more emphatic than necessary.
“Okay. Putting that aside, what did you think of his looks.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t notice? I know for a fact you’ve got your sight, and you possess your share of brain cells. It must be your blood. It must be green or yellow or something. It’s sure not red. Because I don’t know a red-blooded woman who wouldn’t at least notice Hall Quick.
“The face. The body. The availability. A man who looks like that with half a brain, all his teeth, and without a wife riding shotgun isn’t that easy to come by around here. All those magazine articles might tell you how men outnumber women in the west. What they don’t tell you is you have to drive three and a half days to see one. And you could be on the road for months finding another one the quality of Hall Quick. He’s got both halves of his brain and all the other equipment you could want.”
Kenzie said tightly, “There are rules about teachers socializing with a current student’s parent.”
Vicky laughed. “Not around here there aren’t. There are so few people around here that if you made rules like that there’d never be any socializing at all.”
“Then why don’t you snap him up?”
“That ship sailed when we were kids. Never launched, in fact. I was the olderwoman. We’re friends.”
“Well, we’re not. We argued. No, that’s too dignified. We squabbled.”
“You did, huh?”
Kenzie faced the other teacher. In the short time she’d been in Wyoming, she’d truly come to like Vicky Otter. She was smart, generous, funny, friendly—and sometimes irritating. She demanded, “What’s that tone supposed to mean?”
“Miss Kenzie?”
Kenzie jumped at Molly’s voice at her elbow. She and her sister stood two feet away. How long had they been there? What had they heard?
“Yes, Molly?”
The child strung out words on a single exhaled breath. “Miss Kenzie, our daddy would like you to come to supper Sunday, you should come at seven o’clock to our ranch, anybody can give you directions, just ask for the Q-T Ranch.”
“He’s sorry for missing the conference,” announced Lizzie.
