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      To all the kids everywhere who live in fear of bullies.

      You are not alone.

       Chapter 1

      Cassie Greaves felt the winter nip in the Conard County air as she left her small rental house to head for school. The rising sun to the east cast a buttery glow over the world, and the trees that had fully turned a few weeks ago were now shedding their brilliant cloaks, leaving behind gray, reaching fingers. She scuffed her feet through the dry leaves and almost laughed from the joy of it.

      For much of her teaching career, all seven years of it, she had taught in much warmer climes, places where there might be only two seasons, or at most three. Part of what had drawn her here was winter, the idea of being cold, of needing to bundle up, and cozy evenings with a cup of something hot as she graded papers or read a book.

      Having grown up in the Northeast, she had found a growing desire to need extra blankets at night, to awake some morning and hear the world hushed under a fresh snowfall.

      As romantic as her image was, however, she also knew there would be parts she wouldn’t exactly enjoy, but this morning she didn’t want to think about them.

      She wanted to think about that invigorating nip, the possibility of rediscovering her Nordic skis and the school she was coming to enjoy so much. It was smaller than she was used to, only eight hundred students in the entire high school. And even with budget cutbacks, her classes were smaller. It was easier to get to know her students, and she was beginning to recognize most of the faces that walked the hallways.

      Hallways. Another thing she liked. At her last few schools, there had been no hallways, only covered walkways, which meant moving from an air-conditioned classroom out into the heat, only to walk into another air-conditioned classroom. At times that setup had its charms, but she actually liked having interior hallways again.

      She smiled and hummed to herself as she walked the four blocks to the high school. There she taught math for all four grades, which gave her days quite a bit of variety.

      It had also taught her some lessons. A lot of her students had no interest in advancing to college. They were planning to take over their parents’ business or ranch and she had discovered a need to rewrite math problems in ways that seemed useful to them. Unlike some other places she had taught, many students here weren’t content to just do the work because it was required.

      Plus, in perfect honesty, the students’ backgrounds encouraged her to find meaningful ways of phrasing problems because there was so much homogeneity in the things that concerned them. Her elementary algebra class didn’t look blankly at her when she asked them to calculate the storage space needed for a certain number of bales of hay. They went home, measured the bales—round or oblong, depending—and gave her answers based on a practical exercise. Now how cool was that?

      Discovering the volume of a grain silo, working with board feet of lumber, sketching out plans for a shed, figuring out how many acres of pasture for a herd of a certain size—all those things enlivened them. Consequently she was discovering a new love for her subject herself.

      Drawing in a deep breath of the chilly air, she decided this place was growing on her even more than she had hoped.

      When she arrived on the campus, Lincoln Blair was standing outside. He was the football coach and science teacher, an absolute stud of a man who had so far remained reserved, even unapproachable, although everyone else seemed to like him a lot.

      In her mind she had dubbed him “Studley Do-right” because he was appealing enough to make her constantly aware of him, sort of like an itch in her libido. He had dark hair, astonishingly bright blue eyes and there was something about him that always made her think he must have descended from a long line of Celtic warriors. Square-jawed, weathered a bit from sun and wind, with narrow hips he unconsciously canted in a way that made it impossible for a woman not to notice them.

      She gathered from things the other teachers had said that he owned a ranch that had been in his family for generations, and he worked it as time allowed, which probably explained that weathered look. Regardless, while most of the teachers had certainly been welcoming enough, his air of reserve truly set him apart.

      Not that she should probably blame him. She’d had enough experience with men who wanted nothing but a fling with her, and had concluded there must be something essentially wrong with her. On the other hand, she reminded herself that getting involved with a colleague was seldom wise, and in a small town like this, it might even be a wider problem if people noticed and started talking.

      Nor

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