“What were you afraid of, Grace?”

She swallowed hard. It was her chance to tell him about the way she’d once felt about him and the way she’d felt when they’d just gone their separate ways after that one incredible night.

“Of winding up alone and lonely,” she said. “I think maybe I blew my one big chance. I took door number one instead of having the courage to wait for the big prize.”

“We’re just different, you and I.”

“Yes. We are. It’s a good thing we never got together. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” Her chest tightened.

“Who knows what would have happened if things had gone differently?”

She forced a laugh. “Yeah, maybe we would have gotten married and had two-point-four kids.”

“Yeah…maybe.” He put a hand out and touched her cheek. “I’ve got to go now.”

He turned and began walking away.

Grace watched, feeling oddly bereft.

Then he stopped.

And came back to her…

Dear Reader,

June is busting out all over with this month’s exciting lineup!

First up is Annette Broadrick’s But Not For Me. We asked Annette what kinds of stories she loved, and she admitted that a heroine in love with her boss has always been one of her favorites. In this romance, a reserved administrative assistant falls for her sexy boss, but leaves her position when she receives threatening letters. Well, this boss has another way to keep his beautiful assistant by his side—marry her right away!

Royal Protocol by Christine Flynn is the next installment of the CROWN AND GLORY series. Here, a lovely lady-in-waiting teaches an admiral a thing or two about chemistry. Together, they try to rescue royalty, but end up rescuing each other. And you can never get enough of Susan Mallery’s DESERT ROGUES series. In The Prince & the Pregnant Princess, a headstrong woman finds out she’s pregnant with a seductive sheik’s child. How long will it take before she succumbs to his charms and his promise of happily ever after?

In The Last Wilder, the fiery conclusion of Janis Reams Hudson’s WILDERS OF WYATT COUNTY, a willful heroine on a secret quest winds up in a small town and locks horns with the handsome local sheriff. Cheryl St. John’s Nick All Night tells the story of a down-on-her-luck woman who returns home and gets a second chance at love with her very distracting next-door neighbor. In Elizabeth Harbison’s Drive Me Wild, a schoolbus-driving mom struggles to make ends meet, but finds happiness with a former flame who just happens to be her employer!

It’s time to enjoy those lazy days of summer. So, grab a seat by the pool and don’t forget to bring your stack of emotional tales of love, life and family from Silhouette Special Edition!

Sincerely,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Drive Me Wild
Elizabeth Harbison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Meg Ruley who, upon hearing that I had to drive the bus for my daughter’s school, saw the humor I thought was distinctly lacking in the situation and said, “You have to write it!”

Heartfelt things to Ray Plummer of Butler Montessori School in Darnestown, Maryland, who managed to keep a straight face while teaching me everything I needed to know to pass the CDL test and get on the road.

ELIZABETH HARBISON

has been an avid reader for as long as she can remember. After devouring the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden series in grade school, she moved on to the suspense of Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden and Daphne du Maurier, just to name a few. From there it was a natural progression to writing, although early efforts have been securely hidden away in the back of a closet.

After authoring three cookbooks, Elizabeth turned her hand to writing romances and hasn’t looked back. Her second book for Silhouette Romance, Wife without a Past, was a 1998 finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award in the “Best Traditional Romance” category.

Elizabeth lives in Maryland with her husband, John, daughter Mary Paige, and son Jack, as well as two dogs, Bailey and Zuzu. She loves to hear from readers, and you can write to her c/o Box 1636, Germantown, MD 20875.

Rules of the Road for Bus-Driving Single Moms

1. If you’re working for an old flame who has only gotten sexier over the years, fasten your seat belt. It’s bound to be a bumpy ride.

2. When a gorgeous man kisses you, it can be hard to put on the brakes, even when he’s your boss. Observe the speed limit, lest you lose control.

3. Keep a map with you and try to remember to stay on your course, even when other routes look tempting.

4. It’s probably safest to leave the lights on at night.

5. If your bus won’t start, don’t be alone with your boss while he fixes it, lest someone’s engine overheats.

6. Hand signals are always helpful when merging.

7. Back seat driving can be fun.

8. Be warned: Yielding to temptation is almost sure to end in gridlock.

9. If the road ahead is closed, enjoy the detour…. You never know where it might lead.

10. Be sure to check your rearview mirror frequently—you may be surprised by what you see there!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“You ever had to eat a locust?”

For a moment, Grace Bowes—standing in the blazing-hot sun looking for a mailbox that should have been on the corner of Main and Sycamore but wasn’t—didn’t think the question was directed at her. But when it was repeated with more vehemence, she looked toward the speaker and saw a bent old man perched on a bench in front of the Blue Moon Bay Pharmacy, staring at her so expectantly she couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, I haven’t.” She’d never been one to believe in omens, but when the seventeen-year locusts returned to her hometown the same month she—after a fifteen-year absence—did, she had to rethink her position. On several things. “But I haven’t ruled it out.”

The man laughed heartily, revealing a mouth full of holes plus one or two brown stubs of teeth. “Smart girl.” He thumped a gnarled finger against his temple.

“Have you?” She noticed he had a battered hat at his feet with a handwritten sign that said Thank You in an uncertain hand, and an old dented and rusted Partridge Family lunch box by his side. She immediately regretted asking. Maybe that lunch box was full of locusts right now.

“Had to, during the war. Would’ve starved otherwise.” He looked her over with a sharp blue eye. “What war are you fighting?”

Divorce. Betrayal. Single motherhood. The modern job market as it related to a woman whose only real job had consisted of working as a secretary for her father, the local judge, ten hours a week one summer. A lot of wars. “I’m just looking for a mailbox. I thought there was one on this corner.” She had to mail a car payment on a car that was the main asset she’d won in the divorce after her husband, Michael, had left her a note on the bathroom counter, saying he was sorry but their life together hadn’t worked out and he’d found someone else.

“Used to be one right there.” The old man gestured, then shook his head as if something very sad had happened. “Not there anymore.”

“No, it’s not.” Grace glanced at her watch. In ten minutes she had an appointment at the Bayside Jobs employment agency. First she had to mail this payment, hoping to avoid at least one early-morning call mispronouncing her name and threatening unspeakable actions if she didn’t get the car payment in on time. Along with winning the car, she’d won the car payment, thanks to Michael’s savvy at hiding his financial assets.

Michael Bowes. He’d been the golden boy of Blue Moon Bay, Maryland, the captain of the football team and homecoming king to Grace’s homecoming queen. He’d gone to college in the north and she’d followed a year later. Four years after that, they were married and Michael, then a commercial real-estate developer, had ridden a ride of prosperity right into a lovely upper-middle-class lifestyle. When the bottom had dropped out of that market, he didn’t bother to mention to Grace that they were living on credit cards and line of credit advances and a host of bad gambles.

By the time he left—no doubt because thugs with stub noses and barrel chests were threatening to break his kneecaps—he’d accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in liability. He and Grace had had to sell the house and her jewelry and even her clothes. Her yard sales were legendary. And exhausting. When it was all over, she had nothing except bad memories of a man who had once seemed like the Catch of Blue Moon Bay.

She wasn’t sorry the marriage was over. Often she’d felt as if in their life together they’d lacked understanding of each other, and even real interest in each other. Perhaps if Michael hadn’t made the first move, she would have suggested it herself after Jimmy was grown. She’d never know, because Michael had beaten her to the punch.

So she’d packed up their ten-year-old son, Jimmy, and moved back to her hometown to live with her widowed mother in the house she’d grown up in. It was only for a year, she told herself. She’d save enough money to move back north, so Jimmy could be near his friends again, in the town that was his home. And she could be far away from this claustrophobic hamlet.

In the meantime, she’d just get a job here in Blue Moon Bay. Granted, at thirty-three, she should be heading her own household, not lying on the same bed she had as a teenager, counting the same fading roses on the wallpaper, but here she was. She was lucky to have the benefit of her mother’s generosity.

With any luck it would keep her from having to eat locusts.

“You have something to mail?” the old man asked, holding out a shaking hand.

Grace automatically pulled her purse in closer to her body. Too many years in the city. “No, thanks. I was just trying to orient myself.”

“Used to be a mailbox there.” He dissolved into a long, sputtering cough. “Gone now.”

She tried to smile and took out one of the only two dollars she had in her purse. “Thanks so much for your help,” she said, dropping the bill into the hat. She noticed there were only three pennies and a nickel in there and, with a pang of pity for the old man, dropped her other dollar in too. “I really appreciate it.”

“God bless you,” he called as Grace walked away and rounded the corner. “And God bless your family too.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

She looked at her watch again and quickened her pace, hurrying down the shaded street that ran parallel to the old boardwalk a block up. In fifteen years, almost nothing had changed. The salty smell of the ocean still hung in the air and mingled with sweet taffy and caramel corn, though whether the smell was actually there or just a memory, Grace couldn’t say, since it was early May and most of the shops hadn’t opened for the season yet. The pavement was littered here and there with the familiar old Hasher’s French Fries bags, malt vinegar stains dotting the same logo they’d had for at least three decades. It was one of the only landmarks left, now that the once-charming holiday town had fallen in favor of the more exciting Ocean City forty-five minutes away.

Still, a few dings and whistles of arcade games echoed through narrow alleyways full of shops that only opened during the summer when the tourists came to the beach. Grace fought a feeling of melancholy. Around every kite shop, T-shirt shop, and junk-food joint were ghostly memories of bike spills, melting ice cream on muggy summer nights and first kisses in the shadows of doorways and brightly striped awnings.

She stopped at the address she’d written for Bayside Jobs and looked around. It took her a moment to realize 32 Maple Street was the tiny space that used to sell funnel cakes and, for a couple of years in the seventies, had been a head shop.

She paused outside the door and pulled the fabric of her blouse away from her damp underarms. It was a little tight, she’d noticed, thanks to her Oreo therapy, but it would probably be okay as long as she didn’t raise her arms and split the back. If she stood straight, it looked fine. She hoped.

With a quick breath, she heaved the old glass door open and stepped into the cool, dark, mercifully locust-free office. It still carried the faintest whiff of grease, sugar and marijuana.

An unpleasantly familiar stout woman looked up from the desk a few feet in front of her. “Grace Perigon,” she said flatly, her face pink under her now-white hair.

“Ms. Lindon?” Grace gasped, recognizing the voice that addressed her by her maiden name. Ms. Lindon—she’d always emphasized the Ms., leading to rampant speculation among the students about her sexuality—had been the meanest home ec teacher on the east coast, maybe even the meanest in the whole United States.

Students had called her “the Egg Beater” because she’d always seemed hostile, even when baking a cake.

Grace felt the blood drain from her face and pool in the toes of her new discount-store pumps. “I have an appointment.”

“I don’t have any appointment down here for you.”

“You’re in charge here?” Grace glanced around to make sure, once again, that she’d opened the correct door and not, say, an acupuncturist’s or a martial arts studio. “Bayside Jobs?”

Ms. Lindon’s brow lowered further than was aesthetically pleasing. “I am Bayside Jobs.”

That was it. Grace was done for. Except that she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of being done for. She walked slowly toward the large metal desk. The air conditioner hissed in the corner. “Then I must have an appointment with you,” Grace said, in as warm a voice as she could muster.

For a moment, she toyed with the idea of running back outside to take her chances with the locusts.

The older woman took out a vinyl-covered appointment book and studied it intently. “I don’t see you here.”

“Oh.” This was as very bad start. “When I called, I used my married name. I’ll still be using it now, even though we’ve gotten divorced.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, just the usual, I guess. We grew apart—”

“The name,” Ms. Lindon barked. “What is the name?”

She knew damn well that Grace had married Michael Bowes. Everyone did. There were no secrets in this sardine can of a town. But even if she didn’t know the name, there weren’t enough unemployed people in Blue Moon Bay during the summer to fill two lines of the daybook, much less an entire day, so she could have figured it out. For Pete’s sake, Grace could see it was all right there on the page, with just a little doodle of a dog in the corner and some scribbling around the middle of the page. And her name under 11:00—Grace Bowes.

Ms. Lindon looked too long at the page before tapping the scribbled line in the middle and saying, “There it is. You were supposed to be here at eleven, not ten past. Rule number one, Always be on time. Bayside Girls are always professional.”

Bayside Girls? A pang of dread reverberated in the depths of Grace’s heart. It was still 1952 here in Blue Moon Bay, just as it had always been. This was going to be hard to get used to after all those years up north.

She took a deep breath and remembered Jimmy. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Have a seat.” The Egg Beater gestured and waited for Grace to obey, then took out a pen and steno pad that still had the bargain-store price tag stuck to the front. “Now, tell me about your skills.”

Grace thought she was prepared for that question. “Let’s see, I’ve spent the past nine years chairing the annual Bingham Industrialists Golf Tournament.” The pen remained poised over the pad but did not touch it, Grace noticed. “I also organized and edited the Bingham Junior League cookbook in 1996, 1997 and 1999.”

After a painful pause, Ms. Lindon said, “I mean, what kind of marketable qualifications do you have? How fast can you type?”

Grace smiled brilliantly. “Typing isn’t really my strong suit….”

Ms. Lindon looked at her with flat eyes. “Computer skills?”

Grace wondered if her old Atari Pong game qualified. “None to speak of but—”

Ms. Lindon dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair, appraising Grace with a cool eye. “I’m afraid we don’t have anything that suits your particular…expertise.”

The blood that had drained moments earlier began to rise in Grace’s face. “I’m willing to learn,” she said, trying to keep the desperate edge out of her voice.

Something in the older woman seemed to soften. She picked up a large portfolio marked Positions to Fill in a handwriting Grace remembered from her old report cards—Grace needs to learn that she has to work for her grades instead of expecting everything to be handed to her on a silver platter—and leafed through it.

She shook her head. “Mmm. No, it’s as I thought. All of these jobs require the latest computer skills and good typing speed, not to mention experience. Wait—here’s one that will train you—” She squinted and looked closer. “Oh, no. That’s no good.” She clopped the book shut. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything for you now. Maybe if you take a secretarial class and come back, we can help you at a later time.”

Grace refused to give up so easily, even though half of her wanted to concede. “You just said there was one that didn’t require experience.”

Ms. Lindon smirked. “No, that was definitely not for you.”

Grace leaned forward in her seat. “Ms. Lindon, I really, really need a job. Any job.” She hated to beg the help of a woman who clearly wouldn’t share a canteen of water with Grace even if her clothes burst into flames, but she had no choice. “I’m broke.”

The other woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I am sorry for your misfortune, but—”

“I don’t want your pity.” Grace swallowed hard. “I’m not here asking for favors. I have a ten-year-old son to take care of now. I need the work. Please, Ms. Lindon—” she reached out and touched the older woman’s hand “—please tell me what you have.”

A long moment passed, during which Grace wondered if Ms. Lindon would let that tennis ball fall in her court or if she’d just lob it back at Grace by the sheer force of impatience. “All right,” she said at last. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Grace tried to keep calm. “What have you got?”

“It’s at Connor Primary Day School. You know, over on Bayshore Drive?”

Grace nodded, feeling a dull ache grow rapidly in her chest. Dread. Another shoe was going to drop any minute, she knew it, and it would be a size-fourteen stiletto. “I went to school there.”

Ms. Lindon gave her a look of slight skepticism but didn’t say anything. “Well. You may be able to work tuition for your kid into the deal if you get the job. There’s one perk anyway.”

That didn’t sound so bad. She’d kind of like Jimmy to go to the same school she went to, if only briefly. “Really? So what do they need?” She tried to imagine what job Ms. Lindon thought Grace wouldn’t like. “Playground assistant?” she asked, to let the other woman know she was willing to take that kind of job. “After-school care?”

“Bus driver.”

Grace felt as if she’d missed the bottom step of a very steep staircase and fallen flat on her face. “I beg your pardon?”

“They need a bus driver.”

That was it, the other shoe she’d been waiting for. There was a moment’s silence while the news bounced around the room and into Grace’s consciousness.

“If you’re willing to do it, I can call and set up an interview.”

“But a bus driver?” Grace was still back at square one. Visions of meaty tattooed arms and screaming kids came to mind. “But I don’t know anything about driving a bus.”

Ms. Lindon shrugged. “It says here that they’ll train the right person.”

Grace shifted her weight in her seat, which had suddenly become extremely uncomfortable. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

“Nothing.” She pushed the book aside. “You’re clearly not suited for that kind of position, though.”

“But—”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep a special eye out for anything that might work for you and I’ll call you immediately if I see something.” She started to stand up.

“Wait.” Grace put a hand up. “How much does it pay? The bus-driver position, I mean.”

Ms. Lindon looked in the book and quoted a figure.

Grace did some quick calculations and said, “That could work. I could survive on that pay.” She’d carefully budgeted what she needed to save each month in order to be able to move back north in one year. This salary would cover that and leave a little over at the end of the month for incidentals. It would be a strenuously budgeted life, but it would be temporary. “I’ll take it.”

“That’s only if they hire you, of course.”

There was that knot in the pit of her stomach again. “Do you think they won’t?”

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever driven a bus before?”

“No.” Of course not.

The older woman shrugged. “Might not matter. It does say they’ll train. You’d have to interview first, of course. I can only refer you. Whether or not they hire you depends on how that interview goes.” She hesitated before adding, “If you really want to try it.”

“I do.” Grace took a slow breath. She wasn’t going to get sidetracked into a discussion about whether or not she knew what she was saying. “You mentioned there’s a tuition benefit for my son?”

“Says so here. You can talk to Mr. Stewart about that more if you interview.”

Grace noticed that if. “Okay, set up an interview.” She straightened and brushed a fly off the front of her dove-gray Armani suit. She’d bought it in Milan two years ago. Things were different then. “I’ll be a bus driver.”

Chapter Two

The familiarity of the Connor Primary Day School campus was disconcerting to Grace. It was as if nothing had changed in the twenty-some years since she’d attended, except that the trees were a little taller and the buildings looked a little smaller. Hope mingled with melancholy as she parked the car and got out to walk to the old red barn where the garage was located. Was it merely familiarity that was making Grace’s stomach flutter this way, or was it a premonition that she would get the job and everything would—eventually—be all right?

Having always been an optimist, she decided to believe the latter.

The office door was shut when she reached it, and for one terrible moment she feared that Ms. Lindon had sent her on a wild-goose chase. Grace had been so insistent about interviewing for the job that maybe the woman had just sent her out here to get rid of her. Her fear was exacerbated when she knocked and there was no answer. Within a few seconds, she’d almost convinced herself that there wasn’t even anyone here when a movement behind the old mottled-glass door caught her eye. Someone was here. Ms. Lindon wasn’t that mean—Grace had just let her imagination get carried away. She took a quick breath to bolster her nerve and knocked again, more firmly. A voice called out something inside, but she couldn’t understand what it said. Come on in? Or maybe Go away! Or even Get help, fast, I’m being held at gunpoint!

Now what was she supposed to do?

Deciding it was better to go forward with confidence than to appear timid, she opened the door and poked her head in, surprised to find she was so blinded by the sun outside that she couldn’t see in the dark, cool office. “Mr. Stewart?”

“That’s right. What can I do for you?” The man’s voice was nice. Smooth and kind, and she felt herself relax when it reached her.

She stepped in from the heat and said, in the general direction of the voice, since her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the light, “I have an appointment to interview with you. About the job opening here.”

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence while the splotchy figure across the room sat unmoving. Just as he was beginning to come into view, he said, in a voice she was suddenly able to place with absolute clarity, “Grace?”

Her stomach dropped. She imagined it plunking on the ground next to her and bouncing like an india-rubber ball. She blinked hard, and within a few seconds her vision came back to normal.

She almost wished it hadn’t.

There, before her, was a face she’d envisioned a million times over the years, a face she’d never thought she’d see again. A little older, of course, but the same golden tanned skin, now with a faint web of lines around the clear blue eyes. Same dark wavy hair that, in contrast, had always made those eyes absolutely striking. She’d always reacted physically to them, and to the charismatic man they belonged to.

Luke Stewart.

Grace couldn’t have been more surprised to see him if he’d been lassoing steer in her mother’s backyard. God almighty, she’d never dreamed Luke was the Mr. Stewart she was supposed to see. She didn’t even know he was still in town. Not only in town, but here, not ten feet away from her, behind a desk that was piled with papers, the odd piece of horse tack and quite possibly control of her future.

It seemed like twenty minutes that Grace stood there, trying to recapture her breath and find a voice beneath the stomach and heart that had lodged themselves in her throat. It wasn’t merely surprising to see Luke, it was deeply disconcerting. It had always been disconcerting to be around Luke Stewart, but why hadn’t she outgrown this particularly juvenile kind of heart-pounding, lip-trembling, struck-dumb reaction?

Just because once upon a time, a long time ago, she’d thought she’d loved him.

But instead of telling him, she’d married his best friend.

It was Luke who finally broke the silence. “You’re back.”

She nodded. “For a while.”

He held her gaze. She felt as powerless as a mortal in a Greek myth, unable to look away. “I thought you were gone for good,” he said.

Grace hoped she could sound calm and unaffected while her insides raged. “You just never know about people,” she said pointedly.

“No,” he agreed, just as pointedly. “No, you don’t.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, shuffling papers on the desk. “So. How long are you planning to stay?”

“About a year. I want to take my son back to New Jersey as soon as I can. To his friends and his school and all.”

Something flickered across Luke’s expression, but it was gone before she could identify it. “I heard about Michael. I’m sorry.”

Had he heard it from Michael himself? Surely not. They’d been pals in high school, but as far as Grace knew, they hadn’t spoken in years. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugged. “Never did. What are you here to talk about, Grace?”

“I’m here about school business, of course.”

“Of course. How old’s your boy?”

“Ten.” Grace tried to think of something else to say, but she was stymied. She began to be aware of perspiration trickling down the center of her back, and wondered if it was the unusual May heat or this conversation with Luke that caused it.

She was completely over him.

Had been for years.

All of which was for the best, since he had never shared her feelings. In fact, during the three years of high school when they’d seen each other the most, they’d spent about 90 percent of their time arguing.

“So you’re looking to enroll him here for the year.” Luke nodded as if he’d figured out a puzzle. “We should probably move this discussion to my office and start over.”

“This isn’t your office?”

He looked around at the mess. “No. This is the garage. You wanted the main building. It’s just lucky I happened to be here.”

Lucky wasn’t the word that came to Grace’s mind. “This is where I was told to come,” she said, feeling her face grow warm and hating herself for it.

“Someone told you to come to the garage?”

She sighed. “Look, Luke, I’m not here to enroll my son and volunteer for classroom cookie duty, I’m here about the job. So are you going to interview me or not?”

“The job?” he repeated, as if the idea were incomprehensible. “What job?” Though his manner didn’t show it, he must have been rattled, because she’d already said why she was here. “There’s only one job opening here, and that can’t be…driving the bus?”

“Yes.” Grace raised her chin defiantly. “That’s the job I’m here about.”

He laughed. Laughed! “Give me a break.”

“What?”

“Come on. You’re Junior League, not bush league. You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.” Then she added, under her breath, “How many times am I going to have to say that today?”

A year ago, Grace couldn’t possibly have envisioned herself begging to be a bus driver. Someone could have won a lot of money on this bet.

He studied her for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe it.”

“What, do you think this is a joke? Do you think I just blew into town and decided the first thing I had to do was track you down, take some abuse about my marriage, then pretend to beg you for work? Does that make more sense, Luke, than Bayside Jobs sending me here looking for legitimate employment?”

“Actually, I have a hard time envisioning either scenario. But if Mary did send you here to drive the bus, I can’t even imagine what she was thinking. I’m afraid she had you come out here for nothing.”

“Mary?” Who was Mary?

He turned and looked at her sharply, as though he’d caught her trying to making faces at him. “Mary Lindon. You did say you were sent from Bayside.”

“Y-yes.” Mary? Lord, Grace must have called her Ms. Lindon forty times today and the woman hadn’t once stopped her and said, as almost anyone else would have, “Call me Mary, please.” Grace cleared her throat. “Mary thought I’d be perfect for the job.”

“Really,” he said, but his tone said bull.

Grace nodded. She had to compose herself, had to return the tone of this meeting to something less personal, more professional. “Obviously this is a little awkward, since we know each other. Is there someone else I should speak to instead?”

“Someone higher up, you mean?”

“Well…”

“I’m the headmaster,” he said, flatly. “I’m afraid it’s up to me.”

Headmaster? Oh perfect—she’d really blown it then. “Okay. Well, I came here for an interview, like anyone else off the street, so pretend I’m a stranger.” She drew herself up. “Now, are you going to interview me or not?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw for a moment, before he said, “Sure. If that’s what you want.” He jotted her name on the back of a telephone book on the desk and drew a line under it, then looked at her, obviously trying not to smile. “Tell me how long you’ve been driving school buses now, Grace.”

Heat rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “The job description clearly said that no experience was necessary.”

“Maybe not necessary, but it helps. More qualified drivers will have the edge there.” He made a note of it. “You have a commercial driver’s license?”

She heard a single minor piano chord ring ominously in her brain. “Oh, come on, Luke, what do you think?”

He leaned back in his chair and gave her a lazy look that would once have made her toes curl, but now just ticked her off. “I think you’re applying for a job driving a bus, so you must have at least some vague notion of what that job entails.”

She tried to stay calm. “I think it entails starting the engine and driving from place to place picking up children and bringing them to school, which is pretty much what we, in my old neighborhood, called ‘car pooling.’ How different can it be?”

“For one thing, you need a commercial driver’s license in order to do it here.”

“I can get one, right?”

He gave a half shrug that said wrong. “Have you learned your way around an engine since I last saw you?” he asked. By now his face wore the same bored expectation of a negative response that an airline clerk had asking if you’d packed your own suitcase.

This was no time to give up, Grace reminded herself, however tempting that might be. “I can learn.”

He released the pencil, letting it clatter to the desk. Then he leaned back, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not unlike a hissing bus tire that had just run over the sharp shards of her broken heart. “Grace, I ask you this in all seriousness—do you have any idea what’s involved in taking this job?”

She straightened in her seat and smoothed her jacket, instantly regretting the prissy gesture. As a prospective bus driver, she should have brought a toothpick to chew on or something. “Not entirely.”

“For the license test, you’ll need to know the bus’s engine inside-out. They’re going to pop the hood and have you identify and locate every part of the engine, then they’re going to have you get down on your knees and identify the parts from underneath.” He counted his points triumphantly on his fingers. “Then they’re going to ask you what happens if any of those parts fail or wear out, and they’re going to ask you how to fix them.” He gave a small but meaningful shake of his head. “If you pass all that, then you get to take the driving test.”

It did sound daunting, but not as daunting as another registered letter from the IRS. “And you’re saying you don’t think I can do that?”

“I can’t see it, no.” Clearly he was harboring his old hostility toward her. “Point is,” he went on, “I’m expecting to hire someone who already has.”

“What if you can’t hire someone who already has?” she asked. “What if no one like that applies?”

“They will.”

“When do you need a driver?”

“For summer school. In four weeks.”

“Four weeks!” She threw up her hands. “And you’re only looking to hire someone now?”

“You’re not helping your case.”

“I’m trying to help yours. And mine.” She could tell she was getting nowhere with him. She remembered a chocolate bar for Jimmy that she’d put in her purse earlier, and made a mental note to inhale it the second this miserable meeting ended. “Look, maybe I should talk with someone else about the job, since you obviously can’t be objective about me.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m in the unique position of understanding just how wrong you are for this position.” He sighed and softened his voice. “Grace, you’d be miserable. Why are you even here?”

“Because I need work,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And this is the only possibility in town.”

“But it’s not a possibility.”

“It is.” She knew she sounded desperate, but she didn’t care. She was desperate! “You can teach me whatever it is I need to know, and I can take the test and do the job so quietly you won’t even have to think about it again. I might be the best damn bus driver you ever had.”

“And you might hate it and quit after two days.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Well, you’ve already said you’re leaving town next year. I’m not hiring a lifeguard for the summer, I need a bus driver. I need someone who’s going to take the job, do it well and keep it for more than a single school year.” His gaze grew penetrating. “This is nothing personal.”

“Yes, it is!” She jabbed a finger in the air at him. “Personal is exactly what it is. You’re obviously holding something against me from a hundred years ago—”

“Not true.”

“—but if you think it’s easy for me to sit here and beg you for a job, you’re mistaken. If I can get past our history enough to work together, surely you can.”

“We don’t have a history.”

“Of course we have a history! We’ve known each other for eighteen years.” A small hurt flared in her, like a match lit on a windy night. How could he act as if they were total strangers? Maybe they hadn’t always gotten along, but once or twice in their past Grace had gotten the feeling that they had connected on a very deep level.

One instance in particular came to mind.

But now it was as if he was so eager to distance himself from her that he would even go so far as to distance himself from the facts. So she decided to remind him of those facts. “We went to high school together, Luke. You were my husband’s best friend, for Pete’s sake. That’s history.”

“That,” he agreed, “is history.”

She hesitated, unsure as to whether he was agreeing with her about the whole concept or if he was making the point that his friendship with Michael was history, as in kaput.

Because she knew that.

She remembered when it had happened.

Before she could think of something to say, Luke spoke again. “It’s irrelevant whether we have a history or not, because this is about qualifications. And you don’t have them. At least not the right ones.”

“I’ll bet I have better qualifications than most people you interview for this job,” she argued. “Have most of your applicants taken the Red Cross CPR course for infants and children? Can most of your applicants arbitrate an argument between two ten-year-olds? Can any of your other applicants tell the difference between the Robo-Crusier-Insect-Man and the Auto-Alien Transformer?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “You think being able to make that distinction will come in handy?”

Her gaze was direct and serious. “You just never know.”

He studied her quietly for a moment, then, with a small nod, he said, “That’s true. But it doesn’t change my mind.”

“What would?” she asked plaintively.

He took a deep breath. A deep dismissive breath. “Look, I’ve got to admire your determination, but I don’t see this as a good fit. So I’ll keep your number on file and—”

“And what?”

He sighed. “And hope you forget this whole idea.”

“I can’t afford to,” she said, quietly but firmly. “I need this.”

“You’re not half prepared even to take the test, and like I said, summer school begins in just four weeks.”

“But I can learn, like I said.” She raised her chin and challenged him. “Besides, you’re ignoring some rather obvious extenuating circumstances.”

“Am I?”

Grace gathered her energy. “I won’t pretend to be able to read your mind, Luke, but I know you well enough to tell when you’re cornered.”

He raised an eyebrow.

She continued, “You need a driver. As you yourself have just pointed out, there are only a few short weeks until school starts, and—” she looked around the room “—I don’t see a lot of people lining up for this position, no matter how optimistic you may be about that happening as soon as I leave. I need a job. And while I may not have the exact qualifications you’re looking for, I’m willing to learn whatever I need to in order to satisfy your requirements. It seems obvious to me what you need to do.”

There was a long silence during which she trembled under his familiar gaze.

Finally, Luke broke the silence.

“You’re absolutely right. It’s very clear what I have to do.”

Hope surged in her. “Good.”

Luke stood up and gave her a cool appraisal. “Thanks for coming by, Grace. I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but good luck finding something else. And welcome home.”

Chapter Three

Luke stared at the closed door in disbelief.

Grace Perigon.

No, make that Grace Bowes, trophy wife of his high-school partner in crime—it was hard to call Michael a friend—and the only girl who’d ever really gotten under his skin.

Even now, with the perspective of so many years, it was hard for him to say just why she’d gotten under his skin. Sometimes he’d thought he’d hated her. Other times…well, other times, he’d thought maybe it was the opposite.

One time—one short, stupid night—he’d been sure it was the opposite.

But that had passed quickly. And in the end, he’d watched her leave town without looking back while he, all in all, had to say he was glad to see her go. As Michael had pointed out to him, not so subtly, he didn’t have what she was looking for in a guy: money, position and the potential for rapid advancement.

Not that he’d ever let Michael, or anyone else, know of his feelings for Grace.

Michael had just seemed to pick up on the situation himself. It wasn’t that Michael was particularly perceptive, or so spiritually bonded to Grace that he perceived anything extraordinary about her, it was only that he always believed everyone wanted what he had. And he was ace at keeping what was his, whether it was a car or a girl.

Michael Bowes had somehow even managed to get Blue Moon High School to retire his football jersey at the end of his unremarkable varsity run.

The strange thing was that Luke had never known Michael to let go of any of his prized possessions, even after he’d completely lost interest in them. Once in high school Luke had spotted a broken Louisville Slugger in the back of Michael’s garage when they were working on his vintage ’65 Mustang convertible…and Grace was a much finer prize than that Louisville Slugger.

It was hard to imagine Michael letting go of her. Luke had been surprised about it ever since he’d heard the news several months back that they were divorcing. At first he’d half expected Grace to come back to town, but when she hadn’t come right away, he figured she never would. He’d figured he was safe.

He’d figured wrong.

Turned down for a job as a bus driver.

That was bad enough, but she’d been turned down by Luke Stewart, who she never thought she’d have to see again…much less under circumstances like these.

She’d made a mistake with Luke, there was no doubt about it. A mistake, it seemed, he’d never forget. Or forgive. She’d made a bad bargain for her future, and, in the process, wounded his male pride. It was nothing more than a glancing blow to his ego, but he was still willing to use it against her, even under circumstances as dire as those she faced now.

Her life couldn’t get a lot worse than this, Grace thought, kicking a dead locust from the path in front of her and feeling mean. She was living at her mother’s again, with no money and no skills to get a job, even a lousy job. That was another bad bargain she’d made: the housewife bargain. Believing her future to be secure, if not deliriously happy, she’d concentrated her efforts on making a comfortable home for her family. In so doing, she’d let technology and the job market pass her by. Now she could barely even see them in the distance.

So much for saving for her future.

It was beginning to seem entirely possible that she’d be stuck in this sandpit of a town for the rest of her life. She’d become one of those wacky old ladies whom everyone referred to as “Miz Grace.” Except for the kids who would call her dis-Grace, and who would ring her doorbell late at night and run.

She walked across the pretty green campus and thought ruefully of how nice it would have been for Jimmy to go to school here, just like she had done herself. Blue Moon Bay was a far cry from Morris, New Jersey. Here you could see horses from the school room window instead of traffic. Jimmy would love that.

When she got to the small gravel parking lot, she noticed a familiar older man getting out of a shining Lincoln. It only took her a moment to place him.

“Mr. Bailey?” Fred Bailey had been a friend of her parents for years. A lifetime bachelor, he was a big lawyer with offices in D.C. and Annapolis. He’d lived in Blue Moon Bay since he was a young man. In fact, he’d grown up with her mother, and gone to school with her through twelfth grade. They’d even dated briefly before he’d gone off to law school at Princeton.

He’d moved back to Blue Moon Bay six years later, after Grace’s parents had married, and made the 90-minute commute to his offices, remaining a pillar of Blue Moon Bay society. Though Grace hadn’t thought about Fred Bailey in a very long time, seeing him brought back a flood of warm memories. He was so much like her father that she had to fight an impulse to run into his arms. She could imagine how he would smell, of peppermint and pipe smoke. Just thinking about it made her feel more relaxed than she had for months.

“Mr. Bailey,” she said again.

He turned to her, his expression blank.

Her heart sank.

“It’s Grace Bowes…Perigon,” she said, fighting back a sudden overwhelming weakness in her limbs.

His face broke into a wide smile. “Grace? Good heavens, I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” He patted his breast pocket and took out a glasses case. As soon as he put his spectacles on, his eyes grew wide behind the thick glass. “So it is you!” He opened his arms, and she gave him a hug. “Welcome home, child. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you ever since I heard you were coming back. How long has it been?”

“Since Dad’s funeral.”

“My goodness, that’s a long time. Look at you, just as lovely as ever. Your father would be so proud.” He smiled again and clucked his tongue against his teeth. “I still miss the old fellow.”

She smiled, and her chest felt full but her eyes burned again. “Me too.”

“Well, what are you doing here?” Fred Bailey asked. “Not coming back to school, I expect.” He chuckled.

“Apparently not,” she said, a touch wryly.

“Beg pardon?”

She shrugged. “Well, I was here to apply for a job, but apparently I’m not properly qualified.” She resisted the childish urge to say, That mean, spiteful Luke Stewart wouldn’t give it to me.

Mr. Bailey’s brow lowered. “What job? I didn’t think there were any teaching positions open.”

Grace cleared her throat lightly. “It wasn’t a teaching job.”

“Not teaching?” He wasn’t going to let this go. “Was it administrative?”

“It was driving. The bus. Driving the school bus.” There. She’d said it. She’d admitted out loud that she’d been turned down as a bus driver.

It felt even worse now.

“Driving the school bus?” the older man repeated, with the same incredulity he might have shown if she’d said she wanted to become a trapeze artist. “That’s no job for a Perigon. Let’s go talk to Luke Stewart and see if we can’t find something reasonable for you here.” He took her arm and started leading her to the building she’d just left.

“No. Please.” Her reaction was too strong. He dropped her arm, startled. She smiled. “I mean, the driving position really was the one I wanted. It had flexible hours and would allow me to be with Jimmy when there was no school.” She tried to imagine Luke’s reaction if she reappeared with a big gun like Fred Bailey, demanding that a new position of some kind be created for her. “But it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t think I’ll be able to get the license on time.” She didn’t know why she felt like she had to defend Luke’s decision suddenly.

“Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, I must confess I don’t know much about that.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate your concern, but I’ll find something else.”

“I’m sure you will.” Mr. Bailey looked at his watch. “I must go. I’ve gotten so caught up in talking to you, I forgot I had a board meeting. I want to see more of you now. Welcome back, Gracie.”

The endearment took the edge off her anger toward Luke. Nobody had called her Gracie since her father had died.

“Thanks, Mr. Bailey.” The lump in her throat expanded like a sponge. It was silly to feel a melancholy nostalgia for her childhood, but she did. She watched Fred Bailey walk away, noticing his gait was now that of an old man, a little creaky, stiff in the knees. It was then that she really realized that home hadn’t just waited for her, unchanging, while she went off and started a new life up north. Things had moved on here, too. People had died, grown older; some had moved away years ago, never to be seen again.

Thomas Wolfe was right, Grace thought, you can’t go home again.

But sometimes you have to.

“You’ll find something,” Grace’s mother, Dot Perigon, said, patting her daughter’s shoulder sympathetically. “If you like, I could speak to some of your father’s old friends and colleagues. They all loved Daddy so much, I’m sure at least one of them could find something for you to do.”

Grace shook her head and fiddled with a sweating glass of iced tea her mother had put on the table in front of her. There was a twist of lemon and a mint leaf in it, just the way she had always made it. “I’m desperate, but not so desperate that I’m willing to take a job at someone else’s expense. It’s one thing when there’s a job that needs to be filled—” she thought angrily of Luke “—but quite another when someone just creates a position as a favor to an old friend, then has to pay for it.”

“But anyone would be lucky to have you around, helping out.”

“Only if they needed the help, Mom. And I think most of Daddy’s friends have got highly qualified personnel working in their offices already.”

Dot sighed and topped Grace’s glass off with tea from a pitcher. “All right, dear, but I’d be glad to speak with Fred Bailey. Or anyone else,” she hastened to add. “If you change your mind.”

Grace smiled. “Actually, I spoke with Mr. Bailey today.”

Dot looked surprised. “You did?”

“Yes, he was on his way to the school when I was leaving.”

“What did he say?” Dot asked sharply.

Grace was afraid she heard, in her mother’s voice, a determination to speak with her old friend on Grace’s behalf. And Grace definitely didn’t want that. “As a matter of fact, he did offer to twist some arms for me,” she said, deflecting the idea she hoped, before it could take root. “But I told him no thanks.”

“You did?”

“I had to,” Grace stressed. “I don’t want charity.”

“I understand. Still, it was very nice of him to offer.” Dot looked quite pleased. “Very nice.”

“Yes, it was.” Grace took a long draw of the cold tea. “You know, it was almost like having Daddy around for a moment. When I saw him, it brought all of that back to me.”

“I know what you mean,” Dot mused, with a small smile.

“So you’ve known him since high school, right? Mr. Bailey, I mean.”

“Yes, why?”

Grace stirred her tea thoughtfully. “I was just wondering why he never got married.” But she was really thinking, again, of Luke. How come he hadn’t gotten married? Was he going to end up like Mr. Bailey, a lifelong bachelor in Blue Moon Bay?

“I couldn’t say,” Dot answered, looking out the window. “Looks like Jimmy’s having a good time with the Bonds’ old spaniel out there.”

Grace took a cookie off the plate her mother had set out. “He loves dogs.”

“Maybe you should get him one.”

“Mom! I can barely take care of the two of us as it is, despite Michael’s meager monthly payments.” It was then that it truly hit her. She had to take care of herself and her son, and if things continued the way they were, she wasn’t going to be able to. She’d have to…she didn’t even know what she’d have to do. Go on welfare? She shuddered at the thought. “What if I could find a job as a cocktail waitress or something over in Ocean City? Do you think you could keep Jimmy at night?”

Dot frowned. “I don’t want to say no to you, honey, but…well, I sometimes have things to do in the evenings. I just can’t commit to staying home according to your schedule.” She assumed a pleasant expression and added, “But, as I told you, he’s welcome to stay with me any time during the day.”

Grace swallowed her shock. Though she wouldn’t say she’d ever been spoiled, exactly, and she’d always been careful not to take advantage of her mother, at the same time she never thought her mother would say no to her. Especially on something as important as this.

But Grace was well aware that Dot had already been very generous in letting her daughter and grandson move in with her. Grace wasn’t going to argue for more. “Do we still have today’s newspaper?” she asked, trying to sound upbeat, although she felt anything but. “Maybe there’s something there that I overlooked before.”

Right. Like a classified ad offering a miracle to the most desperate candidate. Now there, Grace thought wryly, was a position she definitely was qualified for. High qualified.

“So what’s she doing at night that she can’t reschedule?” Jenna Perkins asked Grace a few nights later. After an unproductive week of job-hunting, Grace had reached the end of her rope. She had to get out. Now she and Jenna were in a crowded downtown bar called Harley’s, shouting to each other over the throbbing beat of a terrible band. Jenna was Grace’s oldest friend and had once shared Grace’s dream of leaving Blue Moon Bay, but she had stayed when the time came to decide. In reflection, it seemed like the better choice. She’d married a carpenter and had twins two years after Grace had Jimmy.

“Think she’s got a secret life you don’t know about?” Jenna went on, then raised an eyebrow. “Maybe a boyfriend?”

Grace laughed. “I don’t think so. Can you imagine it? Mom dating? Good lord!” She shook her head and reached for the peanuts. “Like life hasn’t gotten weird enough as it is.”

“Ten years is a long time to be alone,” Jenna said lightly. “And your mom’s a very attractive woman.”

“Come off it, Jenna. She’s known everyone in this town for sixty-three years. I don’t think anyone new has come in to sweep her off her feet.”

Jenna shrugged. “You never know.”

“You said you had a great job idea,” Grace reminded her, steering the conversation away from her mother. “What is it?”

“Well, you know how I was working in my dad’s shop last month when he and Mom went on that cruise?”

“Sure, I remember.” Jenna’s father was the only jeweler in Blue Moon Bay, and his shop had been there since his own father had established it in the forties. “What do you have in mind? Knocking off a jewelry shop and pawning the stuff at your dad’s?” Grace laughed.

Jenna laughed with her. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. But no, there was a woman who came in like three times while I was working, and she must have spent at least three grand just on big tacky rings and things. Know what she does for a living?”

“What?”

“She reads tarot cards.”

Grace groaned. “Oh, no, you want to be a fortune teller?”

“Wait a minute, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I think I could make a mint off the summer tourists. Probably even enough to keep us going the rest of the year, if that woman is any indication. Although she did say she works in Atlantic City, which, granted, has a bit more tourist traffic. But still, I might be able to make a living off it.”

“Right. You, Bob and the twins, all living off the telling of nineteen people’s fortunes.” Grace shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“There are more tourists in Blue Moon Bay than that and you know it. The town’s going to be mobbed in a couple of weeks, just you wait.”

“Mobbed by Blue Moon Bay standards, anyway.” Since leaving town, Grace had seen “mobbed” on a grand scale. Atlantic City in summer. Walt Disney World in summer. Blue Moon Bay did get a fair amount of tourists and beach-goers, but its reputation as a family-beach town kept the wild singles and college kids away. They went to Ocean City, forty miles from here, for their fun, leaving Blue Moon Bay comparatively quiet. “But it’s not like it’s going to be mobbed with the kind of people who go to fortune tellers.”

“Everyone likes fortune tellers. You should do it too,” Jenna went on, unperturbed. “Say thirty bucks a reading, two readings an hour, ten hours a day, six days a week, that’s…” She paused, thinking.

“Unlikely?” Grace supplied.

She shot Grace a look. “Thirty-six hundred bucks a week, right? With virtually no overhead. I could live with that.” She shifted on her barstool, nearly slipping off. The bartender approached and she shouted an order to him, then turned back to Grace and said, “Now where was I?”

“Dreaming.”

“No.” Jenna speared an olive from the bartender’s supply with a toothpick, then popped it into her mouth. “Tarot cards. Seriously, think about it.”

“How about if you try it and let me know how it works out. In the meantime, I’m going to find a real job.”

“Well, you haven’t so far. I would think you’d be willing to at least consider some untraditional alternative possibilities.”

“You’d be surprised at some of the untraditional alternatives I’ve thought of.” Grace took a swig of the Mexican beer Jenna had ordered for her, but the lime slice got caught in the neck of the bottle. She poked it down and tried again, appreciating the cold, sour taste. Michael would never have come to Harley’s bar and had bottled beer with fruit in it. He’d always preferred the muted cocktail scene at the Seahorse by the bay.

Somehow the fact that her ex-husband wouldn’t like it here made the beer taste even better.

“I hate to ask this,” Jenna started carefully, “but have you thought of borrowing money from your mom?”

Grace shook her head. “Dad’s pension is good, but not so good she that she can support Jimmy and me.” She sighed. “Besides, then I’d be in debt to her, and I’d have to make the money to pay her back, so what’s the difference?”

“All right, but I wish you could just stay here indefinitely. If only there was a job.”

Grace shook her head. “You can’t go back home.”

“But you are back home.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” In truth, nothing felt like home at the moment. Grace felt completely and utterly lost.

She leaned back against the bar and let her eyes fall on the people playing pool across the room. The music of the band pounded through her, and she willed it to shake loose the tension that had become a constant hum inside her head. She had to take at least an hour or two off from worrying, or she was going to have a nervous breakdown. There was nothing she had to think about right now, she told herself, nothing she had to take care of right this moment. Jimmy was home with Jenna’s husband and kids, and there was nothing Grace could do about her job situation tonight. This was a great opportunity to loosen up, and she was going to enjoy it, no matter how hard it was.

As if testing her resolve on that cue, the band started playing “Stand By Your Man.”

Jenna clucked her tongue against her teeth. “They’ve got to be joking.”

“No, God is.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth, than the glass door to Harley’s opened and Luke Stewart strolled in. “Uh-oh. Time to leave.” She set her bottle down and hopped off the barstool.

“What?” Jenna asked, looking in the area of the door. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s wrong.” Grace said in a low voice, pointing to Luke.

“Oh, my God, it’s Luke Stewart,” Jenna gasped. “You haven’t talked to him since high school, have you?”

“As a matter of fact, I talked to him a few days ago. I had to beg him for a job driving a bus at Connor School, and he turned me down.”

Jenna looked at her, surprised. “You had to ask Luke? Why? Is he in charge of the buses?”

“He’s in charge of everything,” Grace said, popping an olive into her mouth. “Headmaster.”

“Oh, my. That must have been hard. How come you didn’t tell me earlier?”

Grace chewed and kept narrowed eyes on Luke. The sight of him brought a warm flush to her cheeks. Residual humiliation and anger, no doubt. “If you’d been turned down as a bus driver, you probably wouldn’t be talking about it much either.”

“Wow. I guess he’s still mad about you picking Michael over him.”

“I didn’t pick Michael over him. I stayed with Michael rather than throw the relationship away over a small, brief, untested crush on someone else.”

“On Luke, you mean.” Jenna pulled the bowl of peanuts across the bar and took a handful.

Grace kept her eyes on Luke. “It doesn’t matter who it was, it would have been stupid for me to throw away a secure relationship because of some silly infatuation.”

“I don’t know. It might have spared you a lot of trouble.”

“And bought me a whole new brand of trouble.”

Jenna nodded her agreement. “Probably so. And you wouldn’t have Jimmy.”

“That’s right. He’s worth it all.” Grace sighed. “Too bad he’s going to have to live on bread and water because his mother can’t get a job, even as a bus driver.”

“Well, why would you want to drive a bus anyway? And why there? Wouldn’t it be weird to go back to your alma mater that way?”

Of course it would be weird. It felt weird even before she knew Luke was part of the deal. “There’s no other work in this town,” Grace said dully.

“Oh, come on, I’m sure someone would hire you. One of your dad’s old friends? You know, as a favor to him?”

Grace winced inwardly. “I’d sooner die than shame Daddy by taking charity from one of his friends. They’d feel obligated, I’d feel pathetic…it would be the same as asking for a handout.”

Jenna shook her head. “You’re just as stubborn as you’ve always been.”

“I’m not stubborn, I’m mature.” She laughed. “Besides, if I worked for the school, I could negotiate tuition for Jimmy into the deal, and we’d keep exactly the same hours.”

“That makes sense. And it is a good school,” Jenna acknowledged with a sympathetic smile. “Jimmy’d like the horses.”

“That’s what I thought. But it’s not like I have the option of taking the job.”

“Well, there are minuses to it too. This is probably for the best.”

“Unemployment, in this case, is not for the best.”

“Surely there’s something else you can do that would fit the bill. Somewhere.”

Across the room, Luke had stopped and was talking to a petite blonde with a heart-shaped butt and a waist the size of Grace’s thigh. Drawing her attention away from the two, Grace pulled the bowl of peanuts over and took some. To hell with fat grams. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find something else,” she said, still watching Luke with a growing constriction in her chest. Nerves. But the anxiety she was trying to escape continued to escalate. Her breath stopped when she noticed Luke glance in her direction, but he didn’t seem to see her.

Jenna followed her gaze and asked, “So why did he turn you down?”

“I’m not sure.” She’d remembered he was great-looking, of course, but she hadn’t remembered just how great-looking he was. The jerk. “I believe he thinks I’m not clever enough to pass the test and then drive the big, bad bus,” Grace said, taking a last sip of beer. Part of her was actually reluctant to leave, but she didn’t trust herself to be entirely civil to Luke if he should see her. “And if I screwed up after he’d hired me, he’d look really bad in front of the board.”

Suddenly, Luke turned and walked purposefully in her direction. It felt as though all the noise and music and people receded into the background. Grace was as acutely aware of him as she would have been if he were following her down a dark alley with a ski mask on.

Before she could turn away and pretend she hadn’t seen him, he raised a hand in greeting, and she had no choice but to do the same.

“The usual,” he called.

“Sorry?” Grace said, at the same time hearing a voice behind her say, “You got it, Luke,” over the din of the band and the crowd around them.

Oh, God, he wasn’t even talking to her. He’d been waving at someone behind her, and she’d waved right on back at him, like a fool. Would this day never end?

He walked right past her without acknowledgment. Then he stopped and stood behind her at the bar, apparently oblivious to her presence. He wasn’t more than two feet away from her back. She could feel the heat of him, penetrating the thin fabric of her shirt.

She slipped some money out of her purse and whispered to Jenna, “Pay the bill and meet me outside.” She had to get away before he did notice her.

“Grace?” Too late. It was Luke’s voice. He’d spotted her.

She turned with as much cool as she could muster. “Oh. Hey, Luke. Did you hire someone for that job from the hundreds of people I saw lined up by the garage when I was leaving?”

He didn’t play along. “I left a message on your answering machine.” His voice was clipped. The bartender handed him a bottle of beer with no glass. He took a gulp of it, then let out a short breath. “You get it?”

“A message?” Grace was mystified.

His eyes, which had seemed such a warm shade of brown earlier, were hard. “You got the job.” His mouth turned up in the smallest ironic smile. “Surprise.”

Grace caught her breath. She was employed? Really? This was too good to be true—or was it? “I don’t understand. The other day you told me I didn’t.”

He took another draw off his drink and set it down, hard, on the bar. Foam bubbled out of the top and ran over onto the gleaming wood bar. “I’ve been outvoted.”

Her excitement turned to apprehension. He was angry about something. Had Mr. Bailey said something to him after all? “What do you mean you’ve been outvoted?” she asked cautiously.

He lowered his chin fractionally and gave her a look that could, under the right circumstances, have been extremely sexy, but which was, instead, downright accusatory.

Something cold slithered down her spine.

“I mean,” he said, with too much patience, “that starting in three short weeks, it’ll be your job to sit on a seat covered with chewed gum, in a vehicle equipped with a Bodily Fluid Clean-up Kit, surrounded by screaming kids. Just like you wanted.” One side of his mouth cocked into a smile. “This must be a dream come true for you.”

His iciness left little doubt that Fred Bailey had indeed leaned on him.

“I applied for that job without help from anyone,” she said defensively.

“And I turned you down without help from anyone.” He drank, then leveled his eyes on Grace. “If it had stopped there, we’d have no problem.”

“What happened?”

“Fred Bailey happened,” he said, confirming her fears. “He strongly ‘suggested’ that I reconsider you for the position, no matter how unqualified you are. What did you do, call him from your cell phone as soon as you got outside?”

“No!” Grace was hurt by the accusation. “I saw him in the parking lot when I left, and he asked what I was doing there. When I told him what happened, he offered to talk to you, but I declined. I had no idea he’d done it anyway, and I’m sorry he did.”

“This is the way things have always worked for you, Grace.” Luke shook his head and took an angry slug of his beer, hammering it back down on the countertop.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“That means it’s always been easy for you. You’ve always known just what you wanted and gotten it.” He lowered his voice slightly and added, “No matter what the cost.”

She railed in anger. “That’s not true. Number one, if you think this is my dream job and I went after it pulling all the powerful strings I could because I wanted it so badly, you’re crazy. And number two, I would hardly say my life is easy. You have a lot of nerve making presumptions of any sort about me.” She caught her breath. “And what do you mean ‘no matter what the cost’?”

He looked as though he was about to fire back at her, then stopped. “That’s none of my business. It’s between you and whoever you make your deals with. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“That’s right, you shouldn’t. You have no right to judge me, Luke Stewart. No right at all.”

“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself from now on.”

“Right,” she said. “Like you always have, huh? Like you even can. You may not say anything, but you have a way of getting your disapproval across.”

“I don’t think you want to have that conversation,” Luke said, in a voice that assured her that she did not.

“I don’t want to have any conversation with you!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re going to find it particularly tedious to work for me, don’t you think?”

She threw her hands up in the air. “So what do you want me to do? You want me to say I won’t take the job?” she asked, fighting the urge to do just that. “You want me to quit before I even start?”

He gave a quick shake of the head. “Oh, no, I don’t want you to quit. I want you to come in tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and start learning the parts of the engine.” He gave a quick, humorless smile. “You had your chance to decline. Now you have to go through with this. We need a driver and, like it or not, you’re it.”

Chapter Four

Three weeks later, Grace knew more about school buses than she’d ever dreamed she would. It was Wednesday, two days before she was set to take the test for her commercial driver’s license and five days before the first day of summer school—when she was supposed to begin driving.

Assuming she passed the test, that was.

It apparently had a first-time failure rate of 49 percent. Grace would have accepted those odds more comfortably if she hadn’t already come out on the short end of the 47-percent failure rate of first marriages.

She and Luke stood before the bus in the early-morning heat. It was not yet nine o’clock. Luke had insisted that Grace meet him on campus every day at 7:00 a.m. so they could get their work done before it got too hot and humid outside. Or so he said. She suspected the early hour was really because he wanted to make this whole experience as miserable as possible for her.

“All right,” Luke said, taking a sip of steaming coffee from a paper gas-station cup. “The test official is going to ask you to go through an outside sight inspection first, identifying all the major parts of the engine and frame.”

“How can you drink steamy coffee on a hot morning like this?” Grace asked. “You know, they make whipped frozen coffees that are really good.”

He gave her a look. “Is it necessary to discuss my drink preferences, or can we just move forward with what’s actually important?”

“Okay, okay. Move on.” She took a deep breath, like an athlete preparing for a sprint. “I’m ready.”

He stepped back and gestured toward the bus. “Then go for it. Tell me everything you’re checking as you do it.”

“Okay.” Her hands tingled with nervousness, but she wasn’t about to admit to him that this was harder than she thought it would be. If he noticed her shake, she’d blame it on the frozen whipped coffee she’d had on her way in. “First I check the headlights, taillights and brake lights, to make sure there are no cracks.” She walked around the bus, looking at all the plastic covers on the lights as she spoke, then stopped where she’d started again. “Everything looks fine.”

“Everything?” he asked, as if he’d caught her in a lie.

“Oh, the reflectors.” She’d nearly forgotten the reflectors again. For some reason she had made that mistake almost every time. She made another round, then came back and looked to Luke for approval.

He said nothing, just watched her impassively.

She wasn’t going to let him rattle her. “Okay, then. Tires.”

“What about them?” His mouth almost lifted into a smile. Almost.

She couldn’t help but admire the curve of his lips. That was something she’d always noticed whenever she saw him. He had a great mouth. Not full and girlish, but not lipless and hard. Just right.

And, she remembered with a reluctant shiver, he’d known just how to use it.

“Tires?” he prompted. “What are you supposed to look for there?”

She shook herself back into the moment. Tires. “The tread has to be four thirty-seconds of an inch, the rims have to be rust-free and smooth. No cracks. Valve caps on. And you can’t just take them off another car in the parking lot like you could with a normal car.”

“Is this the kind of thing you’re planning to say to the cop who tests you?”

She ignored his question and turned to kneel in front of the first tire. She half suspected Luke might have changed it since she went through this drill yesterday, but it looked the same. “So now I’m supposed to take the hubcap off—” she wrestled with it until it came free “—and check the slugs and grease seal.”

“Lugs,” Luke said.

“Huh?”

“It’s lugs. You keep saying slugs.” For the first time in two weeks he smiled. “You’re talking about tires, not guns.”

“I said lugs,” she lied, disarmed by his grin. What a weapon he had there. “You heard wrong.”

“Uh-huh.” He could see right through her.

She’d always been a terrible liar. “Where was I?”

“You mentioned tread, rims, valve caps, grease seals and ‘slugs,’” Luke said. There was a light in his eyes for a moment, but it dimmed quickly and he was back to business. “Anything else?”

Obviously he had something in mind. What was she forgetting now? She repeated the list in her mind twice before it came to her. “Air! I’m checking the air pressure. And making sure there’s no fabric showing through the rubber tire. Although, frankly, isn’t this the kind of thing they check for you at the gas station when you go to full service?”

“You’re not going to full service anymore, Grace,” Luke said. “At least not on the school’s dime.”

He was right—she wasn’t living in a full-service world anymore. Not here or at home. She went back to her drill, checking each tire in turn. “Next I check the wiper blades, the gas door,” she moved from one part to the next as she spoke, “and the running board.” She stepped on it and pushed hard with her foot. The bus rocked.

What would Michael say if he knew she could identify a running board?

“What are you checking for?”

She was ready with the answer. “To make sure it’s secured tightly.”

“Good.”

This was high praise from Luke. She gave a nod of acknowledgment, her mood lightening. “Now, Mr. Tester, if you wouldn’t mind helping me, I need to make sure the lights are working properly.”

“This isn’t a magic show, Grace,” Luke said. Or, rather, growled. “You’ve got to take this seriously.”

He wasn’t going to allow her even a moment of levity, Grace realized. And he certainly wasn’t going to let her act as if they were friends. This was all business, nothing more.

She was lucky he didn’t insist she call him “sir.”

“Forgive me,” she said, stopping just short of rolling her eyes. “But you said I’m supposed to have a second person, in this case the MVA guy looks at the lights while I turn them on and off.”

“That’s right. Just don’t get cute.”

“God forbid.”

“Well, I know that’s gotten you through a lot of things in life—”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been cruising on cute for years now, Luke. It worked wonders with the mortgage holder when Michael left.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Cute got me lots of clams in the bank too. This bus stuff is just a hobby for me.”

He looked at her for a moment, one eyebrow raised and an expression between amusement and exasperation on his face. “You finished?”

“Are you?”

“For now.” He smiled again. Twice in one day. It was a record.

She couldn’t help but smile back. Which really galled her. Was she so desperate for kindness that this little morsel—even from Luke Stewart, who couldn’t be called friendly, much less a friend—made her feel so grateful? “Then if I may continue…?”

He nodded.

She opened the side door, stepped into the already-hot interior of the bus and took a moment to compose herself.

She inserted the key into the ignition and called out as she flipped switches, “Taillights, brake lights.” She stepped on the brake pedal, recited, “Back-up lights,” then put it in reverse. “Tag lights on?”

“Yup.”

“Great.” She shifted back into park. “Now I have to check the engine.” She located the hood latch and pulled it. Then, with false confidence, she stepped out into the sun again, moving in front of the engine.

It was a mess. She’d been over it a thousand times in the past two weeks, taken notes, even drawn a rudimentary picture of it with identifying notes, but when she looked at it with no notes or instruction, she was lost.

She could not let Luke know she was anything less than completely sure of herself. She started with the one part she could identify most easily. “First I check the battery to make sure there’s no corrosion and to ensure that the cable’s on tight.” She did so, slowly and deliberately, while she frantically tried to collect her thoughts and figure out what was next.

He must have sensed her confusion, because, without a derisive word, he leaned over the engine, brushing his arm against hers in the process. “What’s that?”

Her bare skin tingled from his touch, and Grace was disgusted with herself. New low, she noted. It had been so long since she’d been with a man that even this lightest of touches from a guy she didn’t even like sent shivers running through her. Pheromones were blind.

She focused on the part he pointed to. “The, uh, the steering-wheel rod,” she said, her voice weak.

“What about it?”

Steering-wheel rod, steering-wheel rod… A flood of information came back to her, right in the nick of time. “I have to make sure that it’s secure, not loose.”

“Right.” He stepped back. “What else?”

She pictured the drawing she’d done. “I need to make sure the brake-fluid level is correct, and that the brake lines are tight and not leaking.” She rattled the list off without looking away from the engine. She could feel Luke behind her, his eyes on her, and she knew if she turned and looked at him, she’d forget all of it.

“I’d check the power steering,” she continued, pointing to various parts as she went along, “power-steering pump, water pump, carburetor, window-washing fluid.” She was on a roll. “I need to check the alternator, to make sure the clamp is on securely and the wires are secured behind it. Then there’s the heater hose, the coolant, the radiator hose, transmission fluid, and oil dipstick.” She checked it all and turned to him triumphantly. “And that’s it for the engine.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?”

She deflated like a balloon. As hard as she’d tried, as much as she’d concentrated, she’d still managed to forget something.

“You didn’t check your belts.”

Automatically her hand flew to her waist.

“In the engine.”

“I know,” she said, trying to look at him like he was crazy for thinking she’d had anything different in mind. She bent over the engine and tugged at the fan belt. “They shouldn’t give more than an inch.” She turned back to him. “Words to live by, right, Luke? Don’t give an inch.”

“You think I’m inflexible?”

“If the shoe fits…”

“Hey, you’re here, aren’t you?”

She looked at him in disbelief. “Not because of any great flexibility on your part!”

“I’m being more flexible than you think.”

Something in Grace snapped. She was so sick and tired of feeling like a burden to people—to her lawyer, who was letting her pay in installments; to her mother, who was letting them live with her; to Fred Bailey, who had taken it upon himself to get this job for her; and even to Luke, who had been “persuaded” to give her the job against his will and who now had to take the time to teach her the ropes—that she sometimes thought she might just scream.

“Look, Luke,” she said, with as much control as she could muster. “I know you don’t want me here. I know you think I can’t do this, and I know that even if you did think I could do it, you would resent the hell out of the fact that Fred Bailey suggested that you give me the job.”

He gave a short laugh.

She continued without stopping. “I know all of that, but none of it is going to make me quit. All it’s going to do is make me more determined than ever to succeed at this, so you should be glad that, whether you wanted to or not, you just hired yourself the best damn bus driver you could have gotten.” The timbre of her voice rose as she spoke, and she took a moment to breathe and regain her composure. “Now. I’m going to take the test in two days and I’m going to pass it and I’m going to drive the kids to and from school, and I don’t want to hear one more word about how undeserving I am—got it?”

He looked at her for a long moment, during which she doubted the wisdom of her mini-diatribe, then the wisdom of taking the job, then the wisdom of wearing cut-off shorts that made her feel as bloated as a poisoned cat.

The silence went on so long that she was about to ask if he was all right when he spoke.

“Hit your knees,” he said.

Grace’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

He gestured at the ground. “You’re not finished with the test. Hit your knees and identify the parts underneath the vehicle.”

“Oh.” The color came back into her cheeks. “Okay.”

“What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I knew what you meant. I’m supposed to check the parts underneath, front, back and sides. I know that.”

Smiling to himself, Luke watched Grace bend down and look under the front of the bus. He couldn’t help it, he loved the way she looked in those faded blue cut-offs. Her legs were long and shapely, and already tanned even though it was still early in the summer. Somehow those cut-offs reminded him of endless hot summers, and clumsy passion and foolish optimism.

“Luke?”

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t realize for a moment she was speaking to him. “Yeah. Sorry, I was…thinking about something.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You back now? Should I go on?”

“Absolutely, yes.”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat and turned back to the bus, giving him a pretty dazzling view from behind. “I check the stabilizer bar, guide arm, tie rod, tie rod ends—” she emphasized the tie rod ends, he noticed, since that was one of the items she consistently forgot “—brake lines to the disc brakes in front and the drum brakes in back, coil spring, shock absorber, power-steering pump, Pitman arm.” She took a breath. “Make sure there are no leaks in the power-steering box, radiator hose, fuel pump and water pump.” She stood up and slapped her dirty hands against the front of her shorts. “Everything’s okay from the front.”

“Good.” He’d barely been able to keep his mind on the engine parts, so he hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything major. She got down on her hands and knees at the side and started talking again. “All right, here are the transmission lines, and they are not leaking. The cross beams are secure, no cracks or leaks in the mufflers—” she looked back at him “—of which there are two. If you’re to be believed.”

“There are two,” he confirmed.

“It’s just that I’ve never heard of a car having two mufflers,” she said.

“This isn’t a car, it’s a bus, and there are two mufflers on it.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “I’ve just never heard of it.”

“But you’ve seen them,” he said, exasperated. “You’re supposed to be looking at them right now.”

“Well, I am.”

He hesitated. “Grace?”

She looked guilty. “What?”

“Are you looking at them? Are you looking at anything as you identify it, or are you just rattling off a bunch of stuff you memorized?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Does it make a difference?” he repeated incredulously. “Of course it makes a difference!” Grace was hopeless, he decided. There was no way she was going to pass the test unless she was able to charm whoever was administering it. If it was Bob Gaylord or Stan Vanderhof she’d be okay, but if she got Myrna Franz, Grace was in real trouble. “Grace, we’ve spent two weeks going over this damned bus, piece by piece. I know it’s not the most interesting thing you’ll ever do—”

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