LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      GRACE BEVERLY TACKED the last finger painting to the corkboard, then stepped down off the footstool. She smoothed her hands over her hips and surveyed her work. This classroom wasn’t hers—not officially. She was only covering for the full-time preschool teacher’s maternity leave, and she had a little over two weeks left here. But she’d gotten attached to this classroom with the sand table, the reading carpet in the middle, the puppet theater in the corner...and the twenty-three little live wires she was teaching every day.

      Grace had grown up in Eagle’s Rest, Colorado, and she’d come back for this temporary job. Teaching positions were hard to come by lately, and she hoped some experience on her résumé would help with that. In three weeks, she’d be covering another maternity leave in Denver, and she’d applied for multiple full-time positions for September, but there would be hundreds of applicants. She needed a full-time teaching position if she was going to have any kind of financial stability, but her chances were slim. Fingers crossed.

      Grace picked up an errant hand puppet and returned it to the proper box. Then she pulled her fingers through her long chestnut waves. By the end of a day with twenty-three preschoolers, her feet ached in her high heels, but her heart was full.

      A tap on the door drew her attention, and she turned as the school principal came into the room. Mrs. Mackel was middle-aged and had a kind smile. The principal had a little blonde girl at her side—a wisp of a thing with big blue eyes and small hands clutched in front of her.

      “Hello, Miss Beverly,” Mrs. Mackel said with a smile. “We have a new student starting tomorrow, and she and her dad wanted to say hello.”

      “Hi there,” Grace said with a smile. “I’m Miss Beverly, and it looks like I’m the lucky teacher, doesn’t it?”

      A small smile tickled the corners of the little girl’s mouth. But those round blue eyes remained solemn and cautious.

      “What’s your name?” Grace asked softly.

      There was silence from the child, but a deep voice behind the principal said, “Poppy Austin.”

      Grace froze, her heart skipping a beat, then hammering to catch up. Her gaze whipped up as a familiar man stepped into the room. “Billy?”

      “Hey.” He smiled, that same lopsided grin of his that had always made her melt. He was tall and lanky, with broad shoulders and dark brown eyes... He pulled his cowboy hat off, revealing close-cropped hair, and tucked the hat under one arm. “When they said Grace Beverly was teaching preschool, I couldn’t believe my luck.”

      “Yes, well...” Grace looked toward the principal, who was watching them with a mildly curious expression. “Billy and I were friends,” she explained.

      “Well, I’ll let you catch up, then,” Mrs. Mackel said with a nod. “Poppy here is starting in your class tomorrow, and she’s had a lot of change lately. So we’ll have to take that into account.” To Billy, she said, “But I think she’ll have a wonderful time in Miss Beverly’s room.” Then Mrs. Mackel bent down to Poppy’s level. “And you can come say hello to me any time you like.”

      “Okay,” Poppy whispered.

      Mrs. Mackel straightened herself and shook Billy’s hand. “Feel free to stop by if you have any more questions, Mr. Austin.”

      Billy thanked her, and Mrs. Mackel left the classroom. Silence closed around them, and Grace regarded her old friend. It had only been three years since she’d seen him last, but he’d aged. There was a sprinkling of premature gray at his temples, and some lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

      “What do you mean, we were friends,” Billy said. “You’re talking like that friendship is in the past.”

      It was in the past, but maybe Billy was the last to figure that out. When Billy left town with Grace’s best friend, Tracy, three years ago, Grace had made the painful choice

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