weekend.’
‘What a good idea. It’s not scary at all,’ she said, warming to the man as well as to the son. ‘We like new friends, don’t we, girls and boys?’
‘Yes.’ It was a shout, and it made Misty smile. In this sequestered town, any newcomer was welcomed with open arms.
‘Are you here for long?’ she asked. ‘You and your…family?’ Was Mrs Adonis introducing another child to another class?
‘There’s only Bailey and me, and we’re intending to live here,’ he said, stooping to load Bailey’s paintbrush with brown paint. Being helpful. But Bailey checked Strawberry’s photograph again, then looked at his father as if he’d missed the point. He dipped his brush in the water jar and went for red.
His father grinned and straightened, and held out his hand. ‘I’m Nicholas Holt,’ he said, and Misty found her hand enveloped in one much larger, much stronger. It was a truly excellent handshake. And his smile…
Manly Good Looks didn’t begin to cut it, she thought. Wow! Forget Greek Gods. Adonis was promptly replaced with Nicholas.
She was absurdly aware of her braid, still dripping down her back. She wanted, quite suddenly, to kill Frank. It was his job to give warning of new parents. Why wasn’t he in his office when he should be?
She didn’t have so much as powder on her nose. It was freckled and it glowed; she knew it did. Her nose was one of the glowingest in the district. And five feet four inches was too short. Where were six inches when she needed them? If Frank had warned her, she might have worn heels.
Or maybe not.
‘Miss…’ a child called.
‘I’m sorry; we shouldn’t be disturbing your class,’ Nicholas said and she managed to retrieve her hand and force herself to think schoolteacherly thoughts. Or mostly schoolteacherly thoughts.
‘If Bailey’s to be my student, then you’re not interrupting at all,’ she said and turned to the child who’d called. ‘Yes, Laurie, what do you need?’
‘There’s a dog, miss,’ Laurie said from across the room, sounding agitated. ‘He’s bleeding.’
‘A dog…’ She turned to the window.
‘He’s under my table, miss, in the corner,’ Laurie said, standing up and pointing. ‘He came in with the man. He’s bleeding everywhere.’
Help.
There were twenty-four children looking towards Laurie’s table. Plus Nicholas Holt.
A bleeding dog…
There were kids here who’d make this up but Laurie wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a child with imagination.
Laurie’s table was in the far back corner, and the row of shelving behind it made for a small, dark recess. If a dog was under there…it couldn’t be a very big dog.
‘Then we need to investigate,’ she said, as brightly as she could. ‘Laurie, can you go and sit in my teacher’s chair, please, while I see what’s happening?’
Laurie was there like a shot-the best treat in the world was to be allowed to sit in his teacher’s big rotating chair. With the way clear, Misty would be able to see…
Or not. She stooped, then knelt. It was dark under the table. Her hands met something wet on the floor- something warm.
Blood.
Her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. Yes, there was a dog, cowering right back into the unused shelves.
She could see him clearly now, cringing as far back as he could get.
An injured dog could snap. She couldn’t just pull him out.
‘Can I help?’
He was Adonis. Hero material. Of course he’d help.
‘We have an injured dog,’ she said, telling the children as well as Ad…as well as Nicholas. ‘He seems frightened. We all need to stay very quiet so we don’t frighten him even more. Daisy, can you fetch me two towels from the swimming cupboard?’
‘Do you know the dog?’ Nicholas asked as Daisy importantly fetched towels. He was standing right over her, and then he was kneeling. His body was disconcertingly solid. Disconcertingly male.
He was peering underneath Laurie’s table as if he had no idea in the world what his presence was doing to her.
What, exactly, was his presence doing to her?
Well, helping. That was a rarity all by itself. Misty was the fixer, the one who coped, the practical one. She did things by herself, from necessity rather than choice.
She didn’t often have a large attractive male kneeling to help.
Often? Um…never.
‘Do you know the dog?’ he asked again and she got a grip on the situation. Sort of.
‘No.’
‘But he’s injured?’
‘There’s blood on the floor. Once I have the towels, I can reach in…’
‘It’ll be safer if I lift the table so we can see what we’re dealing with. Tell you what. If we move the kids back, it’ll give him a clear run to the entrance. If he wants to bolt, then he can.’
‘I need to see what’s wrong.’
‘But you don’t want a child getting in the way of an injured animal.’
‘No,’ she said. Of course not.
‘I left the outside door open from the porch,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry; that’s how he must have come in. I can shut it now. That means if I lift the table and he bolts we have a neat little space to hold him.
She thought that through and approved. Yes. If the dog was scared he’d run the way he’d come. They could close the classroom door into the porch and they’d have him safe.
But to trap an injured dog…
This was NYP. Not Your Problem. That was what Frank would say. The School Principal was big on what was or wasn’t his problem. He’d let the dog go, close the door after it and forget it.
But this wasn’t Frank. It was Nicholas Holt and she just knew Nicholas wasn’t a NYP sort of guy.
And in the end there wasn’t a choice-the dog didn’t give her one. She knelt, towels at the ready. Nicholas lifted the desk, but the dog didn’t rush anywhere. The little creature simply shook and shook. He backed harder into the corner, as if trying to melt into the wall, and Misty’s heart twisted.
‘Oh, hush. Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you.’
This little one wasn’t thinking of snapping-he was well past it. She slipped the towels around him carefully, not covering his head, simply wrapping him so she could propel him forward without doing more damage.
He was a cocker spaniel, or mostly cocker spaniel. Maybe a bit smaller? He was black and white, with black floppy ears. He had huge black eyes. He was ragged, bloodstained and matted and there was the smell of tyre rubber around him. Had he been hit?
He had a blue collar around his neck, plastic, with a number engraved in black. She knew that collar.
A couple of years back, Gran’s ancient beagle-cross had slipped his collar and headed off after a scent. Two days later, he’d turned up at the Animal Welfare Centre, with one of these tags around his neck.
This was an impounded dog. A stray.
No matter. All that mattered now was that the dog was in her arms, quivering with fear. There was a mass of fur missing from his hind quarters, as if he’d been dragged along the road, and his left hind leg looked…appalling. He was bleeding, sluggishly but steadily, and his frame was almost skeletal.
He needed help, urgently. She wanted to head out to her car right now and take him to the vet.
She had twenty-four first graders looking at her-and Nicholas was looking at her as well. NYP? She had problems in all directions.
‘He’s hurt.’ It was a quavering query from Bailey. The little boy had sidled back to his father’s side and slipped
