on the other end of campus.”
He took in the stack of boxes she’d already filled. “You’ve made progress.”
“I’ve been packing a little at a time,” she said. “It’s mostly the reading area that’s left.” With a nod, she indicated the far corner, separated from the main room by a floor-to-ceiling peeling plywood facade shaped and painted to look like a whale’s yawning mouth. “Though I won’t be sad about leaving ol’ Jonah behind. I inherited him from the previous teacher, and if you ask me, kids aren’t all that excited about going into the bowels of a mammoth mammal to enjoy their books.”
Grabbing up a couple of empty cartons, she ducked beneath Jonah’s flaking, pearly whites. Teague followed, and they both approached the shelves of books set against the walls. Floor cushions were scattered about for those children brave enough to read inside the whale. Teague took one of the boxes from her. “Is there a method...?”
She waved a hand. “Just how you find them on the shelves would be great. I may reorganize them differently in the new classroom. I’m trying to decide if I want to come up with an enticing theme for the reading niche or just go the simple route. The truth is, I don’t have the skills to construct anything on a Jonah scale.”
His first handful of books made a soft thud against the cardboard. “What would you choose instead of a whale?”
“A castle, maybe? Something that would ignite their imagination.”
“I remember from my visit last year that they’ve got imagination to spare.”
She laughed. The kids had wanted to know if he had a Dalmatian, if he’d ever rescued someone stuck in a toilet—that was from last year’s resident bad boy, Barrett—what he dressed as for Halloween since so many kids dressed up like the fireman he was. “Still, I try to infuse excitement into anything that has to do with reading or letters. We even use my old pom-poms. Boys and girls.”
He stopped. “Huh?”
“Close your mouth, Mr. Macho,” she said, grinning at him. “We have arm gestures that represent the alphabet. The kids can’t wait to be the class cheerleader of the day—the one up front with the big tufts of plastic streamers.”
“I’d like to see that,” he said.
“I’ll arrange for a demonstration when you come in again on Career Day.” When you come in. Damn, she thought, replaying the words in her mind. That wasn’t separation, now, was it? But she couldn’t deny her kindergarteners one of their favorite visitors. Firefighters were the rock stars of the five-year-old set.
Teague removed a full box from the reading area and came back with an empty one. As he scooted past her, his foot knocked over a lidless plastic bin, spilling its colorful contents. “Oops. Sorry,” he said.
“No problem.” They both knelt, both reached for the same piece of red-and-white fabric. Their fingers tangled.
An electric spark seemed to jump between them. Her gaze lifted to his face and she saw that he was staring at her with a new, dark intensity. It scrambled her pulse, evaporated the air in her lungs and made her want to lean forward. Lean into him.
He shot to his feet, breaking the contact. “Whoa... I...” His hand rubbed his face and he shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “What’s that?” he asked.
“I...” He wanted her to explain that combustible reaction? Then she noticed he was looking at the red-and-white item in her hands. “Oh.” To cover up her fluster, she jammed it onto her head. “It’s part of a costume. Cat in the Hat. I wear it when we read Dr. Seuss.”
His brows rose. “You wear the whiskers and the tail, too?”
She stuffed the hat back in the plastic bin. “And the red bow tie, if you must know the truth.”
He returned to emptying the shelves of books. “I didn’t think you could still surprise me, Polly,” he murmured.
What did that mean? Was he referring to what had just happened when they touched, or did he merely mean her penchant for dress-up? “I’m a woman of mystery,” she told him.
“What, you’ve got a Mata Hari costume in there?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
When he focused again on the books, she plucked out a pinafore, a mob cap and granny glasses from the costume bin and quickly put them on. “Not Mata Hari—Old Mother Hubbard.”
Turning, he burst into laughter. “Really, Pol? You go to all this trouble?”
“And more,” she said. From one of the higher shelves, she picked