To Protect and Serve (13 page)

             
Nancy spoke of her humiliation at their last disastrous anniversary dinner, as well as later when she finally gave up and said yes, Jonathon could have his divorce.

             
Doug had sat quietly throughout Nancy’s story, just holding her hand and noticing how much she seemed to blame herself.  From where he sat, Jonathon was a class-A jerk.

             
Nancy was quietly looking at Doug’s hand surrounding hers.  Then she watched as he gathered both her hands in his.

             
Doug then looked into her eyes and said the perfect words.

             
“He was a fool to let you go.” 

             
Nancy’s breath caught and held before she shakily replied, “Well, I’ve always thought so.”

             
With that, both of them smiled and laughed.

             
Just then the band came back from their break and started up with a raucous song that had Doug and Nancy heading for the dance floor to join the crowd in their line dance.

             
Nancy loved the way that she always found Doug right next to her, or she’d bump into him and he’d “have to” put an arm around her or a hand on her waist.

              Doug loved it even more than Nancy and that was saying something!

             
Neither of them could remember ever having had a more fun evening EVER in their lives.  All too soon, it was time to go home.

             
The motorcycle ride was heavenly.

CHAPTER 10

             
The next day, Nancy went through the motions of teaching, but found herself frequently staring off into space, which would normally have caused her students to wonder, except that they were all still in sugar comas from the previous evening’s festivities.  Things worked out well that day in class.  For once, teacher and pupils were on the same level.

             
She finally quit trying to teach anything new, and put on one of the movies in the Red Curtain Trilogy by Baz Luhrman.  At least it was Shakespeare.

             
While her students got into the story of unrequited love between two people their own ages, Nancy was thinking the rest of her date had gone very nicely.  And when Doug had walked her to her door at 11:55 pm, he’d taken both her hands in his, thanked her for a wonderful evening and then kissed her on the corner of her mouth.

             
And let me tell you!  That soft kiss was more erotic than any full-on, open mouthed kiss that Nancy had EVER had!  She’d tingled all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.  And a few places in between.

             
And every time she replayed that kiss, she felt the same sparks shoot through her again. 
Oh!  Good grief, Nancy!  Get a grip.
It was an innocent kiss.
  Yeah?  Then why did it make her blood sing? 
Maybe because it had been years since a man showed any interest?
  Yeah. That must be it. 
ANY kiss from any guy would have caused this reaction.

             
Liar
.

             
There was something about Doug that was so different.  She couldn’t understand why some woman hadn’t scooped him up yet.

             
“Ms. Adams?  Excuse me, Ms. Adams?”

             
Nancy brought her attention back to the classroom and realized that the DVD was skipping and her students wanted her to fix it.

             
“Ms. Adams?  Are you all right?”

             
“You bet, Diandra.  Just suffering from a little sugar shock myself.”

             
Eventually the bell rang and Nancy exhaled and relaxed while the students filed out for the weekend, calling good-bye to her.  She straightened her desk and then sharpened all the pencils that she kept in a coffee can decorated like a panda bear on her desk.  It had been one of the numerous crafts gifts that one of her students had given her over the years.  And she’d kept every one of those gifts.  She was finally erasing the chalkboard when she heard someone’s throat clear behind her.

             
Doug had walked into her classroom after the students had left, only to find Nancy stretched up onto tiptoes while she was erasing the board.  He found his throat close when her curvy backside moved from side to side in time with the eraser moving across the chalkboard.  He cleared his throat and was about to say her name when Nancy swung around and found him standing just across the desk from her. 

They were both holding their breaths and then slowly smiled at each other while silently exhaling.

              Nancy was the first to find her voice.  “Hi!”

             
“Hi, yourself.” 
Brilliant Doug.  Say something else
.

             
“So, how did you survive the day after Halloween?” 
Well it wasn’t witty, but it would do.

             
“It was the usual.  You’d think someone would come up with a way to have Halloween on Fridays every year.  It would sure make life easier.” 
Good!  You sound almost normal, Nancy.

             
“Look. I know there’s some unwritten rule somewhere that I’m supposed to wait at least three days before calling you after a date, but I was in the neighborhood ... well actually I wasn’t, truth be told.  I decided to stop by and see if you’d like to go out again tonight.”  Doug wasn’t sure if he’d made any sense, but he hoped Nancy had understood him.

             
When she didn’t answer right away, Doug realized that he’d just assumed that she wasn’t doing anything else.  Wow, that was stupid!  For all he knew, she had dates lined up for months to come. 
Pretty arrogant, Saunders!

             
“I’m sorry.  I know this is short notice, and I’m sure you probably already have plans.  Would you rather make it next week?”

             
“No.”

             
No?  As in ‘No, I don’t want to go out with you next week?’ or ‘No, I don’t want to go out with you at all, ever again?’
  Doug looked down at his hat that he was turning around in his hands.  He felt foolish.  Unwise for coming by the day after their first date.  Daft for just assuming she’d want to go out with him again. Brainless for standing in front of her desk like some recalcitrant 6th grader talking to their teacher.

             
“Tonight.”

             
Tonight?
  He glanced back up into her face.

             
“Doug, I know I’m supposed to play coy and hold back and make you wait another week for our next date, but I just don’t want to.  I had a really great time last night, and I’d love to go out with you tonight.”  Nancy had decided that playing by The Rules wasn’t going to work in this case.  For all she knew, he’d be injured in the line of duty, and she’d spend the rest of her life wishing she’d grabbed the bull by the horns -- speaking metaphorically, of course.

             
Doug’s smile said it all.  “Great!  I’ll pick you up at 8:30 after I get off my shift.  Would you like to catch a movie?”

             
“Yes.”  Nancy’s smile answered his.

             
“All right.  You pick out the movie.  Is it okay with you if we take my bike again?”

             
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  Nancy felt revved.  Another date!  Yes!  And this time she wouldn’t have to get up at 6:00 am the next morning in order to get ready for work!

             
Doug took a couple of halting steps towards Nancy and she shyly reciprocated.  They met at the side of her desk and he leaned down to give her another soft kiss on the side of her mouth.  She was really starting to like his kisses.  When he pulled back and smiled into her eyes, all she could do was grin back at him.

             
He settled his cap on his head, pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and grinning from ear to ear, put them on.  He gave Nancy a little salute and walked out of her classroom.

             
Nancy stared as he exited, thinking,
Wow!  How did someone like THAT want to date someone like her?

             
If she’d known that what Doug had thought about all day was a lot more than just a date, she would have blushed from head to toe.  Too late. She was already blushing.  Wait.  Hang on.  It was another hot flash.

             
Nancy groaned and grabbed for the tissue box.  As she swabbed her forehead, she had the thought that maybe she was just too old for this sort of thing.

             
Shaking her head ruefully, she decided, maybe so, but she was sure going to have fun while it lasted.  It had been quite a while since a male -- a REAL male -- had made any moves on her at all. 

             
Mr. Parks, the short, overweight science teacher didn’t count.  ‘Come see my new Bunsen burner,’ my eye!

             
Nancy hummed while she finished straightening up her desk, before she locked up and left for the day.

             
She hoped Kate was home and could help her find another outfit.

CHAPTER 11

              Actually Kate was thinking about the fact that she didn’t have a date and it was Friday night.  Oh, she’d been asked out, but she just didn’t want to go out with Joey again.  And Brett had turned out to be a flake.

             
The person she really wanted to go out with was that cute doctor from the emergency room.  He was smart, funny, competent and above all, responsible.   But, short of having an emergency, she just didn’t see any way of ever seeing him again.  And she didn’t think that pretending to have some emergency was the way to go about getting his attention.

             
She knew that Dr. Darren Coburn was single because she’d asked her friend Hilary who worked at the hospital in admitting.

             
“Kate, all the gals working here are after him.”  Hilary’s news wasn’t particularly upbeat.

             
“Okay.  But is he serious about anyone?”  Kate had decided that she was tired of sitting back and having some guy find her.  She’d made the decision that she needed to go after what she wanted.

             
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to go about it.

             
“He hasn’t seriously dated since he started working here last March.  At least not that anyone here knows about.”

              “Hil, do you know his schedule?”  Kate held her breath, hoping against hope that Hilary wasn’t going to laugh at her.