Suddenly Married Read Online Free Page A

you’re going to make me cry.”
    “Don’t want to start up any waterworks, now do we?”
    Dara focused on their hands. He’d been jerking her arm up and down like a pump handle. “I’ve heard of trying to get blood from a turnip,” she teased, “but I don’t think this is the way you go about it.”
    Chuckling, Westfall let go of her hand, gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “If there’s anything I cando,” he said softly, “ anything, you just ask, you hear?”
    “Thanks,” she said, heading for the door. “I will.”
    “You’ll come see me once in a while, won’t you? Let me know how you’re doing?”
    Another nod, one hand on the doorknob. “Now, let me leave before I start blubbering all over this gorgeous green-and-orange carpet of yours!”
    She closed his office door. Could things get any worse? she wondered. The second anniversary of her mother’s death was just around the corner; in a week, her father would have been gone six months. Then there was the news about his so-called embezzlement. And now she was out of a job. If you had any sense, she said to herself, you’d make reservations and take that cruise you’ve been saving up for.
    Immediately, she shook her head. No telling what Noah Lucas might do on Kurt Turner’s behalf while you’re off in the sunny Caribbean worrying yourself silly.
    The janitor flung open the door, rolled his oversize metal trash can inside. As he banged and clanged down the hall, a huge gust of wind whipped in behind him, blowing the papers from Dara’s hands and scattering them across the floor. Some fluttered out the door; others skidded under lockers. “That cruise is gone with the wind, too,” she muttered as she gathered the papers that hadn’t escaped.
    Look at the bright side, she told herself. Now you have two projects to distract you from the Pinnacle mess—Sunday school and job hunting!
    As she headed for her cubicle in the teachers’ lounge, something told her neither would be a very good diversion.…
    * * *
    The weather bureau was predicting snow. Lots of it. But it wasn’t supposed to start until late afternoon, which meant Sunday services and Dara’s class would take place as scheduled. If TV meteorologist Norm Lewis was right, there’d be no school tomorrow, and if her students had heard his report, they’d be too busy looking out the windows to learn much of anything this morning.
    It was a good chance to put Naomi King’s advice to the test: “You can’t teach the little ones with ordinary lessons. If you follow the teacher’s manual, they’ll be bored and restless.” The art project had worked quite well last week. Why not incorporate more of the same into this Sunday’s lesson?
    She’d purchased five jars of peanut butter, a bottle of vanilla, ten boxes of confectioners’ sugar, two rolls of waxed paper, a monumental stack of foam bowls, three rolls of paper towels and a huge can of crushed peanuts at the grocery store yesterday. Dara could hear in their puzzled voices that she’d piqued her students’ curiosity when she called each last evening and asked that they bring one of their fathers’ old shirts to class, but it was nothing compared with the inquisitive looks on their faces when they marched into the room and saw the supplies, standing in a tidy row on her desk.
    “I’ll answer all your questions as soon as we’ve said our opening prayer,” she promised. “Who’d like to do the honor?”
    At first, Dara thought she might have to do it herself, as she had last week. Then one tiny hand slid hesitantly into the air.
    “Thank you for volunteering, Bobby,” she told him. “Now, let’s all close our eyes and bow our heads.”
    The children immediately complied.
    “Go ahead, Bobby.”
    “Dear Lord,” he began in a sweet, angelic voice, “we thank You for getting us here safely. God bless Miss Mackenzie for being our teacher…” He hesitated for a moment before concluding. “And for bringing all the