The Teacher by Meg Gray Page B

email. She zeroed in on the results column. Behind her,
Stacy sat with her legs crossed and one hand covered her eyes.
    “What does it say?” Stacy pleaded.
    “Negative. Negative. Negative...” Emma scanned
down the list. “Every single one of them is negative, Stace.”
    “Really?” she said, rolling back to the
computer and crashing into the back of Emma’s knees. She clapped excitedly when
she too scanned all the results. With a sigh of relief, she deleted the email.
    There was a knock at the door and they
all turned toward it. “Come in,” Stacy called and James entered.
    “Hey,” he said, looking at all of them.
“Peter’s available tonight if you two are.”
    Stacy looked at Emma and she felt her
stomach turn, she wasn’t in the mood for a date tonight and Seth must have read
the look on her face. He knew her so well.
    “We’ve got that thing tonight,” he said,
looking at her.
    “Right,” Emma agreed and nodded. “That
is tonight isn’t it? Yeah, um, tonight probably isn’t good.” She folded her
arms in front of her.
    “Okay,” James said obviously
disappointed. “Is there a good day for you next week?”
    Emma looked at Seth again. “Won’t you be
at your sister’s?” he threw in.
    “Oh yeah. I will. I’ll be at my
sister’s.” Emma was going to be watching her nieces while Audrey finished the
last of her Christmas shopping, but it didn’t necessarily interfere with her
evenings. It was a lie, but she really didn’t want to go on this date. She met
Peter last month and the entire time she spent talking to him, he watched other
girls from the corner of his eye. He was not into her and she was not into him.
    Stacy looked from Emma to Seth and
rolled her eyes. “We’ll figure something out,” she offered to James with a
smile before he walked away.
    “You two are awful, you know that
right?” Stacy said, picking up her purse. “Now, let’s go celebrate. I’m
thinking chocolate.”
    “You two go on ahead,” Seth said as he stood.
“I’ve got to get to the gym. Congrats on not having gonorrhea, Stace.” He
pumped a thumbs up in the air and Stacy returned his sarcastic gesture with one
of her own, only she used a different finger.
    “Come on girl,” Stacy said, linking her
arm through Emma’s. “Let’s go to this place I know where you can sit and sip
chocolate from a cup. It’s sinful, but then you can tell me all about why you
don’t want to go out with James and Peter.”

Chapter
Ten
    This visit was shaping up to be like all
the others. Marcus’s brother, Luke, called last Friday before their
grandfather’s party, claiming the plane had been grounded and he had no way out
of Denver. The soft giggling Marcus heard in the background made him think
there was another reason Luke wasn’t finding his way out of town. Without the
distraction of one more person, all of the focus fell on Marcus and Brayden…and
not in a good way.
    Marcus’s mother paraded every available
woman she could dredge up in front of him. His father dragged him to the office,
“just to help out here and there.” When Brayden wasn’t being ignored, he was
hammered with commands: stand up straight, don’t fidget, speak up, or be quiet . They were both restless to get home and with tomorrow being
Christmas Day, it meant their little vacation was halfway over.
    Marcus lifted Brayden’s arm and then
dropped it against the sheets. Brayden groaned and smacked his lips. Marcus
held his breath and waited. Groaning again Brayden rolled to his side and
curled his arms and legs in. He was sound asleep.
    Marcus pulled the covers up to his son’s
shoulder, brushed the blond hair from his forehead, and whispered, “Just one
more week, Bray, and we’ll be out of here.”
    From the high shelf in the closet,
Marcus pulled the paper shopping bags Gretta packed for him. They were full of
presents for Brayden. The bags banged against his legs, making a crinkling
sound and Marcus froze. He checked over his