Coming Home to Paradise (Sisters in Paradise #3)

Chapter 14

In spite of the cold weather, when she reached the school that afternoon, Rae’s insides were still warm from the kisses she had shared with Gunner. She had hoped to have time to discuss their future—if there was one for them—but he had gotten called out for a domestic disturbance and had to leave.

Since she wasn’t ready to go home or even stop in at the winery and visit Ophelia, she drove to the school parking lot and sat in her car for an hour. She weighed the pros and cons of a relationship with Gunner and asked herself if she could merely be feeling sorry for him and his daughters. She didn’t have a single answer when the end-of-the-day bell rang and kids began to swarm out of the building. Teenagers who had vehicles tossed books and backpacks into their cars or trucks and drove away from the parking lot. Some of the younger children were picked up by their parents. Others climbed onto the yellow school bus that waited to take them home.

Rae remembered hating the fact that the Paradise was close to the last stop for the bus she and her sisters had taken home each afternoon. She couldn’t wait to get off at the end of the lane and walk to the house, most of the time lingering behind the other six to suck in the fresh air and get away from the sweaty smell of a busload of kids.

“And yet, sitting here for more than an hour in the quiet hasn’t gotten me a bit closer to an answer for my dilemma about Gunner,” she said out loud, and then another question popped into her mind. “Do I really want to teach little kids, or even keep those girls?”

Are you having regrets? the voice in her head asked.

“No, I am not! Just as surely as that rainbow over Gunner’s new home was an omen for him, all these things falling into place in my life are signs that I’m going in the right direction,” she answered.

The parking lot cleared out and left only a few cars behind. The buses had driven away, and no more parents waited for their children. Yet, Rae still couldn’t answer the question that kept playing on repeat in her head. Finally, with only five minutes left until her appointment time, she opened the truck door and slid out of the driver’s seat.

She opened the front door, and the familiar smell of the school wafted down the hall to meet her. She took a few steps toward the principal’s office—a place that Bo actually knew much better than she did—and Holly came out of a classroom right ahead of her.

“I was just finishing up with the sub who’s working for the kindergarten teacher. She just told me that she won’t be back tomorrow. Think you could go to work earlier than we talked about?” Holly asked.

“Are you serious?” Rae asked.

“Very much so,” Holly answered. “Walk with me up to my office. Pre-K and kindergarten together have a total of ten kids. Five in each grade. Christmas break starts at the end of the day on Friday, December twentieth. We resume classes on January sixth for the second semester. You would only have to work two weeks and two days until the holiday starts. That would give you a chance…”

“I’m in,” Rae said before Holly could finish.

Holly opened the door into her office and stopped dead in her tracks. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t have anything else to do for the rest of this week, and I think you were about to say that these next two weeks and two days would give me a chance to see what teaching is all about.” Rae went on into the office and sat down. “Where and what do I need to sign?”

Holly sat down at her desk. “If things work out for you to teach full-time next year, we’ll need copies of your transcript and credentials. Did you take the Texas tests?”

“I did, and I’ve kept my teaching certificate current. I’ll email it over to you when I get home,” Rae said.

“Why did you do that when you…?” Holly frowned and paused.

“When I worked on the police force?” Rae finished for her and shrugged. “I have no idea because once I started, I really thought I’d always be a policewoman for the rest of my life, but I’m glad I did. If your teacher decides to return next year, maybe there will be another position opening up that I can fill. Or I might take the test to teach forensic criminology at the high school level. I have a lot of options, but this job will give me a feel for teaching.”

“Sub work does not come with benefits, but if things work out for you to teach next year, we’ll get all that going then,” Holly said.

“I understand that,” Rae told her. “I’m covering my own insurance for now.”

“We sure miss your two sisters here at the school. They were excellent teachers,” Holly said.

“Do I have to live up to their standards?” Rae joked.

“Of course not,” Holly was quick to answer with a nervous giggle. “I’m sure that, with your background, you will do a fine job of corralling and teaching the kids.”

“Thank you,” Rae said, “and I was teasing.”

“I knew that,” Holly declared.

“Anything else?” Rae asked.

“I hear that Gunner Watson is moving to this area and bringing his twin girls to enroll them in Prairie Valley School in the next few days,” Holly blurted out.

“Yep, and I’ll be helping take care of them. I’ll take them home each evening and keep them until Gunner gets there,” Rae said. “I’m sure he’ll fill out the permissions paperwork when he comes in to talk to you.”

“Are y’all dating?” Holly asked.

“No, but I’ve been teaching the girls’ Sunday school class,” Rae answered.

Holly picked up a pencil and fiddled with it. “Do you realize how ornery they are?”

“I understand they can be, but they seem to like me, and I’ll be here to help with any problems,” Rae assured her.

Holly tucked a strand of her chin-length red hair behind her ear and then pushed her glasses up further on her nose. “Gunner’s wife, Stacey, and I are…were…cousins. Aunt Rosie is a sister to our grandmother who passed away a few years ago. Stacey was the love of Gunner’s life, and he was devastated when she got cancer. That’s probably why he lets those girls get away with their antics.”

Holy smoke, Rae thought, everyone seems to be related in this whole county—if not by blood, then shirttail kin.

Was Holly giving her a subtle warning that she didn’t know what she was getting into by taking on the babysitting job?

“Aunt Rosie brings them to the family reunion, and we are all on pins and needles until they leave, and that is putting it mildly,” Holly said with a long sigh. “I hate to say it, but I’m not looking forward to having them in my school. I had no idea he was moving up here until this morning when Aunt Rosie called to warn me.”

“Maybe a move to a smaller school is just what they need.” Rae had to fight to keep the chill from her tone. If she taught at the elementary level, this woman would be her supervisor, so she had to be nice, but her first instinct was to tell Holly where she could go and what kind of sunblock she might need. With Rae’s education, she could always homeschool the twins.

Holly barely nodded. “Gunner has dated a few women in the past couple of years. Aunt Rosie says he won’t ever have a chance at another relationship until the twins are grown. They sabotage every woman he gets close to. Just giving you a heads-up and fair warning in case he does happen to ask you out.”

“Thank you,” Rae said with a graciousness that she sure didn’t feel. “So, back to the job. May I see my classroom?”

“Sure thing. The janitors haven’t cleaned it yet so it’s a little messy,” Holly stood up and led the way back down the hall.

***

All the way home that afternoon, Rae kept telling herself that Holly had a right to her opinion. She couldn’t fault the woman for thinking the way she did since she had spent time around Daisy and Heather at family reunions. Rae was sure that Aunt Rosie kept her up on the gossip about Gunner’s girlfriends and about how much she didn’t want to keep the twins anymore.

“I handled them in Sunday school,” Rae told herself, and then Endora’s words about how badly the girls behaved at church came back to her as she turned into the lane leading back to the Paradise. Bo had come close to calling them hellions, but Rae saw something else in them—pain and a need to be loved.

“Cut them some slack,” Rae said as she parked in front of the Paradise. Seeing all the Christmas decorations lit up softened her mood a little bit. No doubt about it, she was in bad need of a shot of holiday spirit. She had had the right attitude when the committee told Endora about the cookbook funds, and that morning when they had finished the Christmas quilt to auction off for the missionaries. Then there was the peace that Gunner talked about and she had felt at his new house, and the breathlessness of his kisses.

“Then Holly sucked it all right out of me,” Rae said.

You are not their mother and never will be, so slow your roll . Aunt Bernie’s voice was so real that Rae looked over her shoulder to see if the old gal was in the back seat.

“Hey!” Bo slung the truck door open and slid into the passenger seat.

“You startled me,” Rae said.

“You look like you could chew bark off the pecan trees and spit out toothpicks,” Bo said. “You better start talking or you’re going to explode.”

Rae’s could hear her own voice getting colder with each sentence when she told Bo about what Holly had said, and she finished with a sigh. “And I agreed to start working for her tomorrow. She’s going to be my boss.”

“Endora and Luna loved her, so give her a chance,” Bo said. “You are just being defensive because you’ve fallen in love with those girls. Honey, they can be little terrors. Believe me, I know from working with them at the church these past six months. But you must have gotten your bluff in on them, or else they need someone like you to guide them.”

“I know, but…”

Bo patted her on the shoulder. “But you are playing mama bear, right?”

“Gunner kissed me,” Rae blurted out, “and I liked it, and now I don’t know what to do about my own feelings. Maybe that’s why I’m so…”

“Worried about whether you might just be a rebound since he’s finally moving on?” Bo asked.

“That entered my mind,” Rae admitted with a long sigh.

“Think, Sister,” Bo said. “You just told me that Holly said he had dated a few women, but the girls sabotaged them all. He’s already moved on in his heart if he went out with others. Getting out of the house he shared with his wife is simply the physical part of what has already happened. If you like him, then…”

“Open the door and invite him in, right?” Rae asked.

“Yep, just like Mama said about opportunity. It’s tough to chase it when it’s a mile down the road.”

“But what if…?” Rae started.

“If we built our lives on what-ifs, we would live in isolation.”

“Are you preachin’ to me or to yourself?” Rae asked.

“Mostly you, but I need to hear the sermon too. I could really like Maverick, but my mind tells me that if I’m here in this area to settle down, I had better steer clear of him.” Bo opened the door and got out of the truck. “It’s cold out here. Let’s take this conversation inside where it’s warm.”

Just thinking of Gunner’s kisses chases away all the cold and warms me up, Rae thought as she followed her sister into the house.