Nola chuckled. “I’d forgotten. It looks like a castle, doesn’t it?”
Garrett nodded and swallowed at the same time. “Some of the girls call it Hawkwarts. You know, like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books?”
“There is a resemblance.” Built by railroad magnate Howard Ridgely in the late nineteenth century, the brick-and-stone house possessed its share of pointed turrets, plus acres of diamond-paned glass in its casement windows and hundreds of feet of iron railing around its porches and balconies. The overall effect should have been forbidding, like the setting for a gothic novel.
But instead, after twelve years away, Nola had the strange impression that she’d been on a long, difficult journey and had now, finally, come home again.
The car stopped beside the entrance. As Nola stepped onto the cobblestone driveway, girls’ voices floated through the open doorway from the main hall, competing with the sounds of birds twittering in the trees.
Garrett scrambled out behind Nola and went immediately to the rear of the car. “I need to get Homer to some water.”
Lifting the lid of the trunk, the driver said, “I’ll bring your bags in, Ms. Shannon. Just have someone tell me where I should put them.”
She turned to him and extended her hand. “I will. Thank you for everything. You’ve been a good sport.”
He grinned. “Hey, it’s not my suitcase that turtle’s been traveling in.”
Nola rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Garrett started up the steps, but then hesitated and turned back to wave at the driver. “Thank you for the ride,” he said, his cheeks flushed. “Me and Homer woulda had a long walk.”
The driver returned a two-fingered salute. “No problem.”
Nola joined Garrett on the steps. “Where do you think you’ll find your father?”
“In his office or at a meeting or something.” The boy picked up Nola’s case and climbed the remainder of the stone stairs, leaning a little to the side with the weight of the turtle. “He said he’d be done about four o’clock.”
“That gives you at least an hour to wait.” As they stepped inside, the tall case clock by the door began to play the Westminster chimes, a sequence as familiar to Nola as her own breath. The huge entry hall—fifty feet square, according to the Hawkridge Student’s Manual—had always been an afternoon gathering place for students, and nothing had changed there, either. Singles, pairs and groups of girls sat cross-legged on the black-and-white marble floor tiles, leaned against mahogany-paneled walls or perched on the steps of the circular staircase with its wrought-iron banister, studying and gossiping, arguing and laughing, as they’d done for more than forty years.
To the casual observer, the scene suggested a very expensive, very elegant private school for girls. But Agatha Ridgely, Howard Ridgely’s only child, had dedicated the estate and her fortune to a special cause. For most of these students, the Hawkridge School was the last resort, a final chance to turn their lives around before their behavioral problems—and the criminal-justice system—took over.
Having rung the chimes, the clock gave three sonorous strikes—marking the time for Nola’s appointment with the headmistress. Before the last note died away, a door on the right side of the hall opened. The woman who stepped out smiled as the entry hall instantly went silent.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice low but clear. “I won’t start cracking the whip until Monday morning at eight.”
Judging by their laughter, the girls did not feel particularly threatened.
When she saw Nola, the other woman quickly crossed the floor. She wore a white shirt, dark blue slacks and sensible shoes, but her colorful sweater was decorated with cartoon characters—a crazy rabbit and his roadrunner pal, plus a wise-cracking duck and a bald little man with a rifle.
Her smooth skin revealed she was younger than she’d first appeared. Her chestnut-brown hair, combed back to fell in waves over her shoulders, showed not a single strand of gray.
“Nola, there you are! Welcome to Hawkridge. I’m Jayne Thomas, the ringmaster of this circus. Please forgive the noise—spring break has just ended and the girls are catching up on each other’s lives.” She took Nola’s hand without really shaking it, then looked down at Garrett. “Helping with the luggage, Garrett? That’s nice of you.”
“Uh, not exactly.” He shifted Nola’s case to his other hand. “She let me borrow it.”
The headmistress widened her eyes. “For what?”
“Homer,” Nola said. “A turtle he found on the road.”
“Oh, Garrett.” The headmistress now looked quite distressed, indeed. “Tell me you didn’t put a turtle in that beautiful suitcase.”
“He was gonna get hurt in the trunk,” Garrett explained. “Ms. Shannon said I could.”
“Oh, dear.” Jayne Thomas placed a hand on Nola’s shoulder. “Garrett’s well-known for his collecting habits. He keeps an entire menagerie of injured animals.”
“I’m glad I could help.” Nola smiled. “I hope his father won’t mind one more addition to the collection.”
“Dad doesn’t care.” Garrett glanced up at the curved balcony running around three sides of the entry hall. “There he is now. Dad! Hey, Dad!”
He ran to the circular staircase and started up, lugging the suitcase with him, dodging the girls who lounged on the steps, talking and laughing. “Come see what I found, Dad. It’s the coolest box turtle, ever!”
Somewhere out of sight, a man said, “A box turtle, so early in the spring? I guess this warm spell has brought them out of hibernation.”
His voice hadn’t changed, and Nola would have recognized it anywhere. The years rolled back, and she was eighteen again…
…standing at the foot of the staircase on a hot August afternoon, when a gorgeous guy wearing jeans and a navy sports jacket stepped through the front door. He slipped his backpack off his shoulder, looked in her direction and grinned.
“I’m Mason Reed,” he said in a delicious southern drawl. “The new physics teacher. And you are…?”
In love, Nola answered silently. Totally and forever in love. With you.
Chapter Two
“There’s Mason, now.”
Jayne Thomas’s voice brought Nola back to the present. In the next moment, he descended into view on the staircase, but then quickly crouched down to peer at the turtle Garrett—his son, Garrett—revealed in Nola’s suitcase. Through the iron balusters, she could see that Mason’s hair was as dark as she remembered, the same silky brown as Garrett’s. Worn a little long, the relaxed waves brushed his jacket collar and the curves of his ears and his eyebrows. Still lean and flat waisted, he straightened up without visible effort.
“Where did the bag come from?” he asked his son as they headed down the stairs. “That’s a pretty fancy carrying case for a box turtle.”
“I got a ride from the highway,” Garrett explained. “It was the coolest car, Dad, with a fridge and a food cabinet and everything. The lady in the car gave me the suitcase.”
Mason stopped, braced his hands on his hips and glared at his son. “What have I told you about accepting rides from strangers?” The drawl had hardened, developed a sharp edge.
“It’s okay, Dad. She’s a teacher.” At the bottom of the staircase, Garrett led the way to where Nola stood, paralyzed, beside Jayne Thomas.