rumbled, Fiona gasped, he groaned and angled his
head to deepen the kiss.
“Ms. Mac! Ms. Mac!” The cries, exultant, urgent,
came closer.
Somebody was in the kitchen. Brain like sludge, he
slowly realized that several somebodies were there.
Calling her. Which meant…
Oh, crap. He was still processing what those voices
meant when she began to struggle.
“The kids! They’re coming!”
“Yeah.” He let go of her and stepped back, shaking
his head in an attempt to clear it. “God.”
Her hands had gone frantically to her hair. “Do I
look…?”
“Yeah,” he said again. “You do.”
Her finger-combing was making it worse.
He reached up and took her hand. “Stop. They’re
not stupid.”
“Ms. Mac? Where are you?”
“In here,” she called. “Working on laundry.”
The door swung open, hitting John in the back.
He swore as his hip gave a scream of protest.
Tabitha’s anxious face peered around the door at
him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay,” he said between gritted teeth. “My fault.”
Just as well if she thought he was keeping his back
to her because muscle spasms kept him immobile.
Mussed hair on their pretty teacher was one thing;
seeing his erection was another.
“We hear the snowplow,” she said. “I mean, it has to
be the snowplow, right?”
“Unless a helicopter is passing over, it’s got to be the
snowplow,” John agreed.
A couple of the other kids crowded in behind her.
Over her head, Hopper asked, “Should we send someone
out to meet them? So they know we’re here? Because
if they don’t plow your road as far as the van…”
“They always do,” John said. Nothing like half a
dozen teenagers squeezing into the small room with
him and Fiona to kill the mood.
“But they might be in a hurry or something.”
“They probably know we’re here,” Fiona pointed
out. She had grabbed an already folded towel and
started refolding it the minute the door opened. “You
know Mr. Schneider probably let the highway department know we were stranded up here.”
“You mean, you think they’re actually looking for
us?” Kelli marveled at the idea.
“Maybe we made the news,” speculated someone
just out of sight. Amy. Had to be Amy. “High School
Students Stranded.” Enraptured, she capitalized every
word. “They probably interviewed our parents and
showed pictures of us and everything.”
“We’re famous.” Hopper poked his head between
Kelli and Tabitha. “Wow. We’ll be girl magnets.”
“Guy magnets,” Kelli amended.
A babble of voices ensued. Fiona’s eyes met
John’s, every-so-briefly. Amusement, disbelief. Despite her mussed hair, pink cheeks and swollen lips—
and, oh yeah, the closed laundry room door—her
students hadn’t given a thought to what she and John
had been doing.
They were adults. Invisible. Not worth speculating
about.
“Okay, okay,” she said, raising her voice in that way
only teachers could do, effortlessly slicing through the
babble and bringing silence. “John? Should we all
bundle up and go out?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll go up and meet
them. Dieter, Troy, Hopper. You three, too, in case we
need the manpower to get the van back on the road.”
“Yes!” They scattered, taking the protesting girls
with them. Why couldn’t they go, too? They were
strong! They could…
“You okay?” John asked Fiona.
She nodded and set the now twice—or was it
thrice?—folded towel onto the stack. “You?”
He nodded ruefully. “They were good as a cold
shower.”
“Icy.” She sighed. “We’re still leaving you with
work. Including dirty dishes.”
“I’ll have nothing else to do after you’re gone,” he
pointed out, resisting the temptation to touch her again.
“Yeah, you will. I’ll bet you can hardly wait to
reclaim your blessed solitude.”