A nervous titter escaped Ellie’s lips, but eating dinner with Arnie—at the ranch or anywhere else—wasn’t on her to -do list. Or, more importantly, on Arnie’s list, despite what he’d said about Ellie’s intelligence and looks. Those words had been for Vanna’s benefit, hadn’t they?
“It’s sweet of you to ask. But you know, I’m still settling in.” She gave Mindy another quick hug. “We’ll get together soon, I promise.” Sometime when Arnie is far, far away.
“But you and Arnie used to have a thing going. I thought you’d want to—”
“That thing was a long time ago, Mindy.” Ellie didn’t imagine for a moment that Arnie would want a repeat of their past. “Sometimes you just can’t go back.”
Waving goodbye to Mindy, Ellie ushered her daughter outside.
A few minutes later, as she pulled into the driveway of her mother’s house, she thought about how the tension between her and Arnie—the undercurrent of anger he exuded—was her fault.
In a small town such as this, she would be seeing him often. She needed to clear the air. Apologize. Whether he acknowledged or accepted her apology was up to him.
She needed to make the effort.
Chapter Five
Wiping her sweaty palm unobtrusively on her skirt, Ellie braced herself Thursday evening for whatever might happen at the school board meeting. She kept a smile on her face, desperately trying not to let her nerves show. Whatever happened tonight was important to the future of Ability Counts.
Standing at the back door of the Potter Creek Elementary School multipurpose room, she greeted parents and supporters of Ability Counts as they arrived. She gave each person one of the campaign-style buttons she’d ordered in Manhattan so they could demonstrate the community’s support to the school trustees.
They were, after all, elected officials.
“Hello, Mrs. Axelrod,” she said, handing Nancy’s mother a button. “Thank you for coming tonight.”
Mrs. Axelrod pinned the red, white and blue button on the lapel of her lightweight jacket.
Smiling, Ellie turned to greet the next parent coming in the door.
Instead of a parent, however, it was Arnie who wheeled into the multipurpose room, Sheila trotting proudly along beside him. Dressed in a long-sleeved Western-cut shirt with a turquoise bolo tie, Arnie looked every bit the contemporary Indian chief come to take charge. His white shirt set off his sun-burnished complexion, and the squint lines formed a fan at the corners of his eyes.
“Looks like you’re the flower girl passing out roses at a wedding,” he said.
Her eyes flared at his mentioning a wedding, and she struggled to dismiss the comment as meaningless. “As you know, we’re hoping for a sea of red, white and blue to influence the board members.”
“Hope it works.” He patted his chest right over his heart. “Pin away.”
She hesitated. Everyone else had pinned on their own button.
Trying for casual, she handed Arnie the box of pins, took one and bent down to pin it on his shirt. Her face close to his, she caught the hint of mint on his breath and the faint aroma of a woodsy aftershave on his smooth cheeks.
Her fingers trembled as she slid the pin through the fabric of his shirt.
“Careful. I bleed easy.”
She lifted her gaze from the pin to his eyes. Dark. Deep as a mountain pool. Captivating. They immobilized her with their intensity.
She pricked herself. “Ouch!” Stepping back, she sucked on the tip of her finger, tasting blood.
His lips curved up ever so slightly. “Maybe I ought to pin it on myself.”
“Good idea.” A tremor shook her voice, and she licked her lips. She handed him the pin, which he attached to his shirt with ease.
“Nothing to it.” The amused crook of his brow caused a little flip of Ellie’s stomach.
Only when he wheeled down the aisle did Ellie take another breath. That man had the most amazing effect on her, not that it mattered. Obviously, her effect on him was negative, a keep-away-from-me reaction, as though she were the carrier of a dreaded disease.
Except he’d asked her to pin the button on him.
The closest she’d been to him in the past eight years.
A shiver raised gooseflesh on her arms. Close enough for a kiss.
The multipurpose room had begun to fill, and the school trustees were beginning to take their places on the risers at the front. Five of the six trustees were men; two of them she recognized as merchants in town. The one woman, who looked to be in her sixties, was wearing an Ability Counts pin. No doubt Vanna’s friend and a supporter.
When the chairman gaveled the meeting to order, Vanna signaled Ellie to come sit next to her in the front row. She started forward before she realized she’d have to squeeze past Arnie, whose wheelchair was parked at the end of the row, in order to get to the seat Vanna had indicated.
So be it. Being up front to support the expansion of Ability Counts was part of her job. Her career. Arnie would simply have to live with it.
So would she, Ellie thought as she eased past first Sheila, then Arnie, to take her seat.
“How’d we do for supporters?” Vanna asked.
Ellie showed her the box of pins. She’d started with fifty, and now there were less than ten.
Vanna smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. “Our families are loyal. The trustees have to give us that.”
Ellie agreed. But that didn’t mean the trustees would vote their way. Based on her research, no school board in the state of Montana had yet approved a charter school, claiming all the limited tax dollars should be used to support public schools. If Vanna could pull this off, it would be amazing.
It didn’t take long to get through the agenda to the request from Ability Counts.
“I believe Ms. Coulter wishes to speak to her request,” the board president said.
Vanna stood. “I do, Mr. Wright. Thank you.” She made her way to the podium.
Ellie remembered having Patrick Wright as her government teacher in high school. Retired now, he’d been an adequate teacher, she supposed, although the subject hadn’t been of much interest to her. Now she wished she’d paid more attention.
“Honorable trustees, ladies and gentlemen,” Vanna began. “I’m sure most of you are aware of Ability Counts Preschool and our specialized program to integrate disabled youngsters and mainstream them with ‘normal’ children. Although, in my view, every child is an individual with unique abilities, so using the term ‘normal’ is a misnomer. I’m grateful that a good many of our parents and friends are here this evening to support turning Ability Counts into a charter school.” She turned to the audience. “Thank you all for coming.”
Vanna went on to describe studies that proved the value of early mainstreaming of disabled children, the benefits to the normal students as well and the advantages to the community such a school would provide.
Then she invited Arnie to speak.
He wheeled himself to the podium. Vanna handed him the microphone before she took her seat again with an audible sigh and an expression that suggested she was bone weary.