I still loved my job at the school, and every day brought something different with the various age ranges I taught. I’d thought I was just going to get the high schoolers, but I was relieved now that it wasn’t just limited to them. Which brought me to now, watching ninth graders interpret and paint their own version of Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory piece. I’d told them to look at it and the description I’d given them of what it meant and why he’d painted it like that and then create their own versions of it. And so far I was really impressed.
Which was why it pissed me off when two minutes later the fire alarm started wailing, meaning that we had to leave the building and head to the far side of the football field.
Making my way through the chaos that followed it (even though every school will tell you that every single alarm was done in a calm and controlled manner), I led them out of the back doors and stopped short when I saw the Townsend men, Alex, Ellis, Logan, Raoul, and Dave all standing there with their arms crossed over their chests. In this day and age, with everything the world was going through, no town was immune to the threat of terrorism, so seeing them like this immediately made me worry that the school had been targeted.
Giving Dave a smile, I walked past them, even more determined to get the kids away from the building now. It wasn’t until I was halfway across the field that the noise of a siren started wailing, sounding like it was being blasted through speakers – which it turned out that it was.
“Keep going, kids,” I ordered, watching as Dave made his way toward me with the others following behind. “Go and stand in your lines and wait for Mrs. Hepburn to call your names.”
Not once did I look away from the determined strides of the man I woke up with every morning and fell asleep with every night, unless he was working. As he reached me, he put his hands in his pockets, his face set almost in a frown as he looked down at me.
Taking a look around us, I saw everyone watching us like we were their entertainment. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Hurst said grimly, coming up behind Dave. “Seems the sheriff here needs to ask you a few questions.”
What the hell?
Lost for words, I couldn’t do anything except stand there and wait. None of the men were smiling, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t started to worry about the future of the panties I was wearing. Thankfully they were blue, so Dave wouldn’t miss them too much.
“Tabitha Newton,” he rumbled in a deep voice filled with authority. “We’ve reason to believe that you’re responsible for some missing property.”
There was a chorus of gasps from the students, and I saw the principal walk up to stand beside me.
“What do you mean? I haven’t taken anything,” I argued, starting to feel a little pissed off. He knew me better than this, and he’d chosen this location in front of my pupils to do it in? I felt betrayed, I was furious, I was going to kick his ass, I was going to take Katy back and get her ovaries and hormones put back in, I was…
Reaching for my hand with both of his, he fiddled for a moment, and when his hands moved away, it left me with a pink diamond sitting on my finger. I was too shocked to say anything, instead lifting it up closer to my face to look more closely at it, my hand shaking as I took in the different angles inside it.
One thing that did hit me was an important question – why the hell couldn’t this man ever do anything normally?
Just then, he fell down to one knee in front of me and raised his voice. “Fireball, will you marry me? Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”
Some women might have jumped up and down and screamed, or even burst into tears, but I wasn’t them. No, I was the fireball Tabitha Newton… And our relationship hadn’t started out with an easy yes, so why would I give him one now?
“No,” I replied loudly, knowing full well he wouldn’t take it as my answer. Maybe he’d call my bluff and say bullshit, maybe he’d say tough shit, maybe he’d even…
Cold metal closing around my wrists had me narrowing my eyes at him as he stood up and shrugged. “Ok, then.”Two hours and five minutes later…
I hadn’t considered his addiction to arresting me until he got his own way, or at least not in the middle of proposing to me. If I’d thought being accused of theft in front of the school was embarrassing, being thrown over his shoulder while he’d read me my rights had been much worse.