Chapter 2
two
CHRISTY
My head fell onto the wooden desk with a thunk.
Silas was married.
A half-crazed cackle teased my vocal cords. I stifled it. Of course he was. He and Lemon had only been together for a total of…I actually didn’t know. According to him, he and Lemon had kissed the day before Beach Week began. So, less than a month.
Who drops the anchor that fast?
No man I’d ever known.
I groaned, lifted my head a few inches, and let it crack against the desk again.
A man who’d been pining over a woman his whole life, that’s who. Two people who’d known each other for years and already lived together for three months, that’s who. A couple who couldn’t wait to kick the bedroom door closed whenever they wanted, that’s who!
I was such an idiot.
My phone rang, and I lifted my head to see who it was. I squeezed my eyes closed for a second before putting it on speaker. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, Christianna. How did your first day go?” she asked, but not in the concerned or hopeful tone of a normal mother who wants her oldest daughter to succeed at her new job.
Though I’m sure a tiny part of her wanted that.
My mother loved me. I knew that. But right now, she was still angry that I’d taken a serious detour from her life plan for me.
If I replied that there had been four fights, three drug busts, and the entire school had burned to the ground, she would’ve given me a fat “I told you so,” and a “that’s what you get for leaving Laramie,” and hopped on the next plane to pack me up and move me home.
I pressed my palms against the cool wood of the desk and ran my hands over the top, trying to calm myself.
“It was fine. Everything’s great. The teachers and staff are very welcoming.
” I left out the part where the cafeteria oven had caught fire, burning the pizza that was supposed to feed every kid on the first lunch shift.
And I skipped over the two boys who’d been caught smoking weed in the bathroom during second period. I’d had to expel them. On my first day.
“And Silas? How’d he take the news that you’re his boss?
” Her tone was a touch proud that somehow I’d wrestled the job out of the school board’s hands before he could get to it, and a touch hurt that the cowboy she’d grown to love was not going to be her son-in-law.
I actually hadn’t confirmed that yet. Only that our relationship was on the rocks.
And technically, I wasn’t his boss. The Seddledowne School Board was.
But there was no point in arguing with her.
“It was okay…I think. His first day isn’t until Monday. But he seemed fine with it.” It was a lie. I mean, yes, he’d acted unruffled. But there was a terrifying fire in his expression too.
“Maybe now that he sees you’re a force to be reckoned with, he’ll come to his senses.” It was almost a question and I hated the hope in her voice. “Tell him your dad is still willing to cut him in on the ranch if he’ll reconsider.”
I rolled my eyes. Mom could’ve lived in the eighteenth century, no problem.
Love? Romance? Sure, if you happen to find that, great.
But to her, marriage was a contract. A negotiation where two people used each other for whatever they most wanted.
For her, it had been children. For my father, it had been a ranch.
My mom’s family, the Lawsons, owned more land in Wyoming than the next three richest families combined.
More than five hundred thousand acres broken up into three parcels.
Yup. I was Laramie royalty—if that were a thing.
Silas could’ve been a proprietor in one of the biggest ranches in Wyoming.
As a matter of fact, my dad had tried to basically bribe him into the family the first time I brought him home to meet them.
Because no way could Christy land a decent man without some kind of strings attached.
Silas had simply lifted an eyebrow, slid his arm around my waist, and said, “I’d live with Christy in a trailer by the creek.
” Then he’d shrugged. “My family has a ranch in Virginia.” It’s one of the things I loved about him.
Had loved about him. I rubbed my temples. Silas was past tense and the sooner my brain remembered that, the quicker my heart could do the same.
“Christianna?” Mom nudged.
May as well swallow the bitter pill. “Silas is out of the picture for good.”
Mom scoffed. “Surely, you can work things—”
“He’s married,” I yelped and barreled on before she could comment.
“He and Lemon are together now. And he looks really happy.” He had.
Even after finding out that I was the principal, there’d been a gleam in his eye that I’d never seen before.
A sparkle that said he’d live in a trailer by the creek with Lemon if he had to.
If this job didn’t work out. No. He’d live in an un-air-conditioned tent.
Lemon had gotten my “trailer.”
I resisted the urge to crack my forehead on the desk again.
“Miss Thornbury?” A teenage girl called from the main office adjoining my smaller one. School had ended an hour and a half ago. The only people left in the building were the janitors and the girls’ volleyball team.
“Principal Thornbury?” A second female student called.
“Mom, I have to go.” I pressed end, knowing she’d shoot me a text telling me how hurtful I was being. I may have been avoiding her more than usual since I left Laramie.
I walked to the door and poked my head out. Oh, it was Anna, Silas’s niece, and another girl about the same age.
I waved even though they’d already seen me. “I’m here.”
I smoothed my hands down the front of my faux leather pencil skirt.
Normally, I wouldn’t be nervous about two teens approaching me, but I’d practically had a nervous breakdown in front of Anna at the beach.
There was no telling what she’d told her friend.
Or what they’d spread to other students. So yeah, my nerves were on high alert.
Anna strode through the office with more confidence than I felt at that moment. More confidence than I’d possessed as a freshman in high school. If there were any residual hard feelings from the beach, she hid them well.
“Hi, Anna.” I offered her a gentle smile.
She studied me for a moment with a quizzical brow, as if my presence answered a question for her. I’d seen her earlier in the cafeteria, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed me. At what point in the day had she realized I was the new principal?
Gathering from both of their tiny, tight spandex shorts, they were on the volleyball team.
“I’m Principal Thornbury.” I offered my hand to Anna’s friend.
She eyed it like I might give her some kind of disease, but gave me a dead-fish handshake. “Brooklyn.”
Okay.
Anna’s phone was in her hand and she glanced at it as if to gain courage from something on the screen.
“I think we have a problem,” she said. Then she brushed a stray piece of mocha-colored hair out of her eyes.
This girl was the kind of pretty I wish I’d been at her age.
Heck, the kind of pretty I wished I were now.
Sophie had been a blonde with blue eyes.
But Silas had said Anna’s father was Italian.
I could see Sophie in her—the cheekbones, the smile.
But her complexion was tan, and she had dark eyes with lashes most women would kill for.
If she never put on a speck of makeup, it wouldn’t matter.
“What’s going on?”
Her chocolate eyes were wide and worried. “Ms. Whorley, our coach, just quit. Like walked right out of practice.”
My forehead crunched. “Why would she do that?”
Brooklyn let out a loud sigh. “Because she does nothing. She’s the definition of mid. Told us to play Queens and sat on her phone for the first hour and a half of practice. Just like every other day. So when Coach Byrd—”
“That’s the varsity coach,” Anna interjected.
Brooklyn plowed on. “Got fed up with it, he started coaching—”
Anna lifted a hand but didn’t wait for her friend to stop. “Because we’re his future pool of talent, you know? In a year or two, we’ll be his varsity team.”
Brooklyn continued, a geyser of monotone words.
“That got Whorley off her phone real quick. But she still didn’t start coaching.
Instead, she glared at Byrd for like ten minutes.
Like how dare he. And of course, he ignored her because, like I said,” she shrugged, “she’s mid.
So then she told him she did not have to be treated this way.
She did not get paid enough for this. And stormed out of the building. ” Brooklyn made duck lips. “Lame AF.”
I snapped two fingers and pointed at her. “Watch it. I know what that means.”
Brooklyn shrugged. “Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry though and I couldn’t tell if she was an apathetic punk or if it was her personality to be this vanilla.
Whatever emotion Brooklyn was lacking, Anna made up for it—evidenced in every line of her worried face.
I couldn’t blame her. I knew Silas had worked with these two all summer, trying to get them ready for tryouts.
I could imagine the heartbreak, after all that preparation, to think your team was now going to fall apart.
I gave them an easy smile so they’d know I wasn’t ruffled. Hopefully, they’d feed off of my energy. “Are you girls alone in the gym?”
Anna shook her head. “No. Coach Byrd is still there…for today. But the rest of the team is freaking out because we don’t have a permanent coach. And our first game is Monday.” Her eyes darted around my face, hoping for a miracle. Brooklyn still looked unfazed.
“Where’s Mr. Alvarez?” This was more of an athletic director situation. I handled the academic side of things. Sports weren’t part of my contract.
“Sksksk.” Brooklyn fake laughed and immediately went straight-faced again. “Out with the football team, as always. He doesn’t care about girls’ volleyball.”