Chapter 2
Molly Mayhew waved at Lucy and her handsome father, and then encouraged the rest of the stragglers out the door toward the cafeteria (She steadfastly refused to call it a cafetorium. Buddy Thomas was spot-on in his assessment. Yuck.) When the last family unit crossed the threshold of her classroom, Molly shut the door and collapsed into a small molded plastic chair next to a kidney-shaped table.
She loved teaching. She loved interacting with the children. Plastering a smile on her face and making small talk with parents? No so much. There was a reason she’d stayed in the lower elementary grades for most of her career.
Molly picked up the school newsletter and examined her photo which was prominently displayed under the banner proclaiming “Welcome New Additions!” All these new teachers looked so young. Hell, they were young – most of them fresh out of college She was the only veteran teacher who was a new hire. Thankfully no one had asked her why she’d left her previous school, because she hadn’t figured out a pat answer that didn’t leave the door open to a more embarrassing line of questioning. She figured that stories would start filtering through the school system grapevine any day now, if they hadn’t already. Once that happened, she could offer excuses and posit alternate justification until she was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t matter; therefore, she was just going to stay mum until she couldn’t avoid speaking up.
She shook her head and sighed, and then decided that she didn’t need to stay any longer because she had all the next day to finish setting up her room. So Molly began to gather up her belongings to head home for the night. She was standing by the door, taking one last look at the classroom, when a spot of sparkly magenta caught her eye. Frowning, she crossed the room and picked up a smallish crossbody purse that was made from the happiest purple glitter fabric she’d ever seen. To add to its sparkle, a sequined letter “L” was emblazoned on the side. Molly had an immediate suspicion as to who the purse’s owner was: Lucy Thomas. While Lucy had on practical denim shorts and a heather gray t-shirt, said t-shirt had a very sparkly magenta star embroidered on the front, and her shoes were tied with glitter shoelaces.
“Well, Miss Lucy. It’s not every day that a student gets something put in the lost and found before even starts.” Molly chuckled, and then exclaimed with delighted surprise upon discovering that the sequined material changed colors from purple to an aqua blue as she ran her fingers over the material.
“How cool is this?” she murmured. “Six-year-old me would kill for something like this. Hell, forty-year-old me would kill for a pencil skirt in this material. Talk about releasing my inner mermaid.”
She heard a soft chuckle and whirled around to see Buddy Thomas standing in the doorway. The man’s amused expression told her he’d heard every bit of her fawning over the shimmery accessory.
“I see you found Lucy’s bag, not that it’s hard to miss.”
Molly felt her face heat, but she just shrugged and handed the purse to Lucy’s father. “Here you go, Mr. Thomas—”
“Please, call me Buddy. Mr. Thomas is someone I’d rather not think about.”
Molly paused at his remark, filing it away for examination at a later time before remarking, “I’m glad it got back to her before the first day of school. She seems like a child who likes her routine.”
The two of them stood in silence, Buddy shifting his weight nervously. He shook his head and sighed. “Aw, hell. I need to talk to you any way. Do you have a moment?”
Molly blinked. Should she be talking with this man, alone, when the school was obviously almost empty? Buddy’s earnest expression convinced her to hear him out. “Anything for a student, Mr., I mean, Buddy.” She inwardly cringed. Her “anything for a student” mantra is partially what got her into such a pickle at the last school. Well, shoot.
He smiled again, but it wasn’t the large, confident smile from earlier; conversely, this smile was tight and a little bit uncomfortable.
“Lucy’s mother is . . . not a consistent presence in our lives. She was supposed to be in town tonight but she didn’t end up being available.” He cleared his throat and gave Molly another weak grin. “Lucy is a child who thrives on consistency and her mother’s lack thereof is . . . an issue.”
Molly nodded. In almost twenty years in the classroom, she’d seen the entire range of parental involvement, everything from deliberate neglect to the worst sort of helicopter parenting. At least Lucy’s father seemed to be diplomatic about his relationship with Lucy’s mother. She waited for him to continue.
“So, if there’s any issue that you need to be apprised of, should I call the school? Send an email? Last year, the teacher insisted that I email the principal, which was fine, but one time she didn’t get the email until mid-afternoon, and Lucy’s mother had come up to treat her to taking her to lunch. It didn’t turn out very successfully.”
“Oh – wait just a moment.” Molly went to her desk and pulled out a box of brand new business cards. “I just got these today. My email address at the school is listed, as well as the general school email and the phone numbers. Use any of those whenever you need to give me a heads up about Lucy’s situation.”
She handed him the card, being very careful to avoid touching his fingers with hers.
“Thanks, Ms. Mayhew. I appreciate it.” Buddy picked up the sparkly bag that Molly had laid on the desk and held it up. “Lucy will be glad to get this back. She usually doesn’t leave her things but I think the excitement got to her. Have a nice evening.” He inclined his head and slipped out of the classroom, lifting his hand in a wave before he left.
Molly glanced at the clock and was shocked at how late it was. She and Buddy had talked much longer than she realized. She gathered up her things again and this time, didn’t pause to look over her room. She stepped out in the hall and turned to lock the door, belatedly remembering that she’d not put her classroom key on her wristlet yet.
Huffing a quiet curse under her breath, she balanced her big tote between her hip and the wall as she rummaged through the contents, searching for the one key.
“Did you lose something, Molly?”
Molly shrieked, startled by the man’s deep voice.
“Melissa said you were still down in your classroom and was getting worried,” the man continued. “I offered to see what was taking you so long so she could finish wrapping up this little show-and-tell session.”
Molly sucked down a calming breath and turned to face the man responsible for throwing her while life into turmoil.
“Boone! You scared me half to death, sneaking up on me like that.” She gripped the found key in her hand. “What in the world are you doing here anyway?”
“Since you didn’t see fit to return my calls, I couldn’t share the good news with you, darlin’.”
Molly narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust Boone Cash as far as she could throw him. “Couldn’t share what good news?”
“Molly, I am a single man, free and clear. Imagine my surprise when I was looking over the school newsletter and saw that you, my absolute favorite elementary school teacher, had taken a position at my youngest’s new school.”
“Scott’s here at Hembree Springs? Okay, back up, Boone.” She squeezed her eyes closed, hoping she appeared more nonchalant than she felt. “You moved to Roswell?”
Boone laughed. “Oh, honey, no. I’m still in Buckhead. Justine and the kids moved to Roswell because of, well, you can guess . . .”
Molly’s nostrils flared. Oh, she just bet she could guess. “Out of all the houses in Fulton County –”
“North Fulton . . .”
“Right, North Fulton – she just happened to pick one that was in the boundaries of my new job. Just happened to do that.”
Boone shrugged. “I might have nudged her a little bit.” He focused that megawatt smile at her. “But Molly, I don’t think you heard me, sweetheart. I am single. And now that you don’t have to deal with all that . . . negative baggage from the old school –”
“Oh, there you two are.” Melissa Simpson, the principal of Hembree Springs Elementary stood at the end of the hall with her hands on her hips. “I was hoping that I wasn’t going to have two missing persons on my hands.”
Molly, relieved to no longer be alone with Boone, set off down the hallway at a brisk clip. She could hear Boone trying to talk to her, but she pretended to not hear his excuses and platitudes. Really, it was for everyone’s good that she was ignoring him, because if she listened or thought about him too hard, she was liable to shove her practical, sturdy shoe directly up his ass.
“I’m sorry about that, Melissa. A student left her bag in the room and her father came to retrieve it and we got to talking,” Molly apologized.
Melissa waved her off. “It’s fine. I just got worried when you didn’t come down to the reception. I should have known you were speaking with a parent. But now, let’s get on out of here. We’ve got an early, early day tomorrow.”
“That’s right, we do.” Molly affixed her brightest, perkiest, teacher-iest grin her face. She turned to Boone. “Morning is going to come super-duper early, isn’t it?”
She could see Boone’s horrified expression out of the side of her eye as she traded chirpy goodbyes as she got in her car. She turned on the engine and waved, waiting until Melissa got in her own vehicle. When Melissa began to make her way out of the school parking lot, Molly took off behind her, continuing to ignore Boone who had crouched in preparation to spew some sort of cockamamie apology at her. No sir, she was through listening to Boone Cash’s bullshit. She stared straight ahead and turned up the radio. The only thing that she was going to think about for the rest of the evening was the new school year, and she would be damned if Boone Cash was going to ruin her new start.
Matchmaker releases October 2017
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