HER OVARIES WERE MELTING. OR exploding. Or something.

Ísalind Magdalena Rain-Stefánsdóttir, known to everyone but her father as Ísa Rain, told herself to step away from the window. Right now. Before the object of her fascination saw her and she turned as red as her hair. But her feet refused to move. Like a junkie, she had to have just a little more. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, her fingers curving over the edge of the window ledge.

He wasn’t human.

That was the only explanation.

No one was that perfect. Like soda-commercial perfect. Her toes had curled at first sight of him, but she’d managed to resist temptation for an hour. Then she’d peeked out because she couldn’t help herself, and what was he doing but taking off his T-shirt! That was just wrong. It didn’t matter if he was getting hot and sweaty doing all that manual labor fixing up the school’s gardens; it simply wasn’t fair to the female sex for him to take off his T-shirt and reveal all that rippling, golden muscle.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he was wearing khaki work shorts, and they were short enough to reveal the edges of a tattoo that circled the upper part of his thigh. Ísa wanted to run outside and order him to put on some damn clothes. How was she supposed to keep her head down and concentrate on her lesson plans when he was out there exuding male pheromones like they were going out of style?

“Ms. Rain, what’s so interesting?”

Jumping at the sound of the principal’s voice, Ísa turned—and tried not to look too guilty. Thank God she’d finally conquered the blushing that had tormented her through her teenage years. Sometimes Ísa thought she’d spent ages thirteen to seventeen alternating between carrot orange and tomato red.

Her mother had not been impressed.

“How,” Jacqueline had asked, “do you expect to negotiate multimillion-dollar deals if you can’t maintain a poker face?”

Never mind that Ísa had never wanted to wheel and deal in the boardroom. Her desires were softer, yet far more subversive. They involved poets and novelists and a world of imagined wonders that CEO and financial powerhouse Jacqueline Rain simply could not see. At times Ísa was sorry that her mother had no ability to experience the magic that colored Ísa’s world.

The rest of the time when she was around her mother, she usually had to fight the urge to go homicidal.

“Nothing,” she said brightly to the principal. “Just taking a break.”

After fixing the long chain around her neck, the older woman walked over to the window. “Nice view.”

Ísa felt her cheeks go hot red in flagrant disregard of all her commands and thoughts to the contrary. Mumbling something incoherent, she went to stand by her desk where she shuffled paper around just to give her hands something to do. She should be mortified—and she was—but she was also disappointed at losing that “nice view.”

Principal Cafferty laughed. “Admiring a fine hunk of a man is hardly a crime, Ms. Rain. If I were twenty years younger, I’d do more than get an eyeful.” A wink that made Ísa burst out in laughter herself.

“Maybe we should give him detention for having abs-of-distraction,” Ísa suggested after catching her breath.

“Ah, but then he might feel compelled to put his T-shirt back on. And that would be a crime against womanhood.” Expression solemn but for the dancing light in her eyes, Principal Cafferty walked over to lean her hip against the opposite side of Ísa’s desk. “I just came to see how you were. You’re still okay with spending your summer teaching the evening class?”

“Of course.” It was only a single ninety-minute class per week, which, when you threw in the preparation involved as well as the student work she’d be reviewing, worked out to about five hours overall. “Adult students who want to study poetry will be a nice change from fifteen-year-olds who think English class is the third circle of hell.”

Violet Cafferty grinned. “I had a little pushback when I hired you, young as you are in comparison to the other staff, but the students have excelled since your arrival. You’ll have to tell me how you do it.”

“Music,” Ísa replied, finding her feet again as they settled on her favorite subject. “Good music, good lyrics—that’s poetry too. Once I make them see that, they’re willing to come along with me for Shakespeare and modern lit.”

“I’m glad you’re with us, Ísa.” The principal, a bone-thin woman of forty-something with a penchant for tailored pants paired with brightly colored shirts, straightened from her leaning position. Today’s choice of suit was a vivid red that would’ve made Ísa look like a stoplight but was sophisticated and elegant on Violet Cafferty.

“If you need anything,” the other woman continued, “or if you have questions about student enrollments, there’ll be a skeleton staff in the office for forty-five minutes on the days you’ll be teaching—they’re to arrive twenty minutes prior to the beginning of the class so you can clear up any outstanding issues.”

After getting Ísa’s nod, Principal Cafferty said, “There’ll be two other adult classes going on at the same time as yours. Diana Eastin and Jason Jeng will also both be present at the school on those evenings.”

Ísa already had all that information but listened regardless. She knew Violet Cafferty was going over it again because Ísa had just completed her first year at this school—and it didn’t help that Ísa still looked ridiculously young. Her appearance occasionally made people forget she wasn’t a new teacher straight out of training.

Maybe the principal was just being extra cautious because this was Ísa’s first time teaching a night class. Her previous school had only offered sports and craft classes at night. Ísa and her best friend had taken one on fencing and had nearly succeeded in stabbing each other to death three times in a single lesson.

The fencing master had given them children’s wooden swords the next time around.

“We’ll be fine,” she said once Violet Cafferty paused. “Have fun on your vacation and don’t worry about us.” Ísa had long ago conquered the crippling shyness that had hamstrung her as a teenager plucked from a tiny village school in one country and thrown into a massive high school in another.

Not surprisingly, her accent, red hair, and weight had quickly made her a target. A hint of the accent remained even after all these years, she still had the red hair, and she’d never be as thin as Principal Cafferty even if she ate nothing but celery for a month, but she’d quickly learned strength as a survival strategy.

Then there was her mother. With the Dragon, it was either fight or die.

“Rarotonga looks beautiful,” she now said to the woman who’d put Ísa’s career on the fast track by hiring her to teach at one of the most prestigious public schools in the country. “Is your friend from New York already on her way there?”

Violet Cafferty nodded. “She’s champing at the bit to ring in the new year in a bikini rather than buried under a foot of snow.” A beaming smile. “Sun, surf, and bottomless margaritas, here we come!”

The principal left the room soon afterward, telling Ísa she’d be available in her office for thirty more minutes before she was officially on summer break. Tempted as Ísa was to return straight to the window and her own personal gardening porn show, she kept her head down and finished up her lesson plans; having never before taught adults, she was building in a lot of room for discussion and for following avenues her students wanted to explore.

It took her just over an hour.

She couldn’t help glancing out the window when she was tidying up, but the gorgeous, sweaty gardener with ink-black hair, no shirt, and a sexy tattoo around his thickly muscled thigh was gone. “Drat.”

Disappointed, she packed everything into the pink satchel with white flowers that she’d bought with her first paycheck. Some people said pink clashed with red hair, but Ísa didn’t care. The bag was pretty and it made her happy.

As her little sister Catie had once said, “Life’s too short to waste on boring accessories.”

After doing a final check to make sure she had everything and that the room was set up for her first adult class next week, she was about to walk out into the otherwise empty hallway when her phone rang.

It came up with no name, just a local number.

Guessing it was a welcome call from a local store whose loyalty program she’d recently signed up to because of how much she loved their fifties-style dresses, Ísa answered with a cheery “Hello.”

“Ísa?”

Astonishment froze her in place. That voice…