Page 41 of Past Tents

I relaxed into his arms, happy to have the excuse to dance with him while my colleagues were all paired up. I avoided making eye contact with Jefferson, who was off in a corner dancing with a blond woman I didn’t know.

One song changed to the next, and Clay shifted his rhythm to match it every time. “Clay Meadows, you can dance,” I said, tipping my head back to catch the sheepish smile on his face. “Who knew?”

That’s when I noticed Principal Pindich standing near the bar, eyes glued to us. It unnerved me as usual, and I was grateful to have Clay as a buffer.

He noticed where I was looking, then spun me around so I was out of Pindich’s line of sight.

“May I cut in?” The saccharine voice to my right belonged to Rosalie, a substitute teacher who’d been filling in a lot due to the recent spate of illnesses. She must have just arrived because this was the first I’d seen—or heard—of her tonight.

“Oh, um...” Clay dropped his hands from me and I felt a blade slice through my chest. Pure jealousy at the thought that he’d prefer dancing with the young, flirtatious Rosalie.

“Sure. Yeah,” I said, taking a step back. Rosalie wasted no time, pressing herself up against Clay and putting her hands on him. He threw me an apologetic glance, eyebrows raised helplessly. “Probably time for me to head home anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow, Clay.”

He nodded as Rosalie threw her head back and draped her arms around his neck. Clay swept her across the floor with the same careful grace he’d offered to me. Nothing special about either one of us. Clay Meadows could waltz willing women in his sleep. Jefferson’s words came back to me.Don’t mess with his head.

Funny. It felt more like he was messing with mine.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

CLAY

When twenty students showed up in the early morning hours, dressed in sweatpants and a ragtag assortment of outdoor gear, I barely looked up from my extra-large coffee cup, which I would need to pull double duty today. Not only did I need to carry an outsized load for two miles uphill, I needed to rally enough energy to motivate the stragglers to do the same.

Yes, most of the students who signed up for the trip were gung ho about spending two nights in the mountains, but there were always two or three who’d thought it sounded like a good idea when they signed up and came to have second thoughts five minutes into the trip. They’d have to hike two miles uphill like everyone else, with me encouraging them all the way. And at their age, I doubted I could entice them with the offer of their favorite colored Skittles like I used to do when I was a camp counselor.

When the last students straggled in looking every bit worse for whatever partying they’d done the night before, I smiled my most encouraging smile, welcomed my intrepid students onto the bus, and shoved each kid’s backpack into the luggage area,which was a sea of gray, some dark blues and greens, and a lot of khaki and tan.

And then a flash of bright red. It caught my eye the same way a cardinal would entrance a bird-watcher, and my eye followed the color until I saw the rest of Ally’s puffer coat emerge after she closed the trunk of her car. I watched her heft a dark gray backpack onto one shoulder like she was slinging on a bookbag, even though its size made it—and her—list to the side. And I watched her walk toward me in a pair of black yoga pants tucked into the wooly beige socks she wore with her hiking boots.

It was hard to believe only a week had passed since she’d wandered hesitantly into my yard to practice camping. Now she looked every bit the wilderness pro, and I had no small amount of pride in having opened her eyes to the beauty of the outdoors.

Ally’s hair tumbled over her shoulders from under a navy-blue beanie which made her eyes look even brighter than eyes had any right to be. My heart began hammering in my chest in an alarming way at the sight of her.

Ever since I’d let the idea into my head that Ally might feel a fraction of the heat I felt humming in my veins, I’d been able to think of little else. Fortunately, after many years of camping, my packing list was rote and I’d written down all the instructions for the students, because I wasn’t having much luck staying focused on camping.

Hell, at this point, I needed to cop to being pretty much out of my mind with obsessive thoughts about Ally, and none related to her skills as a chaperone.

Which was why I grunted at her like a Neanderthal when she got on the bus and took the seat across from me. “Not late,” she said,pointing at herself with both thumbs. It was then that I noticed her pristine white mittens.

“Nice work. Keep those hands warm. Though they probably won’t stay white for long.”

She waved a hand. “They’ll be fine. I have a pair of work gloves for the grungy stuff. These are just to keep me warm when it’s chilly or whatever.”

Her smile disarmed me, along with the sparkle in her eyes. “I’m sorry, are you the same woman who professed to hate the outdoors? Why do you seem excited about this?”

She fixed her stare on me, and I felt a surge of heat crawl over the back of my neck. My throat went dry. I felt uneasy. Then she leaned in, bringing her face closer to mine, so close that I could smell the citrusy scent of her skin. I inhaled gratefully, wanting to capture the essence of it.

She whispered against my ear, “Because if it’s anything like the night in your yard, I’m going to have a great time.”

Pulling back, she settled in her seat, smiled once more, and turned to look out the window. I yanked my hoodie over my head and turned to do the same, willing my racing heart to calm down. And more importantly, worrying about how to get through a weekend around Ally without getting a hard-on in front of twenty teenagers.

Logic would have dictated having Ally hike behind me where I couldn’t fixate from fifty feet away on the globes of her ass beneath her heavy backpack. But no, I’d asked her to hike in front of the group, and now I could hear her laughter like wind through the trees and watch the pale strands of her hair catchthe sun as she moved up a set of switchbacks just above where I hiked behind the stragglers of the bunch.

Back and forth, we’d been weaving up this long set of switchbacks since we left the bus behind in the parking lot. “How many more?” I heard one of the students ask Ally for the tenth time.

“Just a couple. Don’t worry,” she huffed, a Mary Poppins of the trails.

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