Secrets and Lies (Hearts Of Braden Book 4) Read online

  While having a drug education program in place was welcome news, finding out he would have some highfalutin government nutritionist working inside the school for a year was something else. Mabel Loucks had run that school kitchen for as long as he could remember. She wasn’t going to like this one damn bit. He shook his head. No, Mabel wouldn’t take kindly to having some bureaucrat tell her what to cook and how to do it, and she wouldn’t be quiet about it. He wasn’t sure how the rest of the staff would take the news, since Ms. High and Mighty might be treading on their toes, too.

  The problem was, Mabel could rant and rave all she wanted. The school board wouldn’t give up free food and the financial support the initiative would provide. Jackson knew enough to understand the government’s concern over increased drug use and the rise in obesity. Kids needed to eat, and if the school could provide them with two healthy meals and snacks a day, that was one less thing for frazzled parents to worry about, and being aware of the dangers of street drugs wouldn’t hurt either. Personally, he didn’t think the food Mabel offered was a problem, but she loved that deep fryer, and losing it was going to piss her off royally.

  He hoped his registered nutritionist had a thick skin and quick reflexes. He ran his hand through his hair, reminding him to go and see Quinn Howard, the town’s only hair stylist.

  Glancing down at the letter again, he realized he had another problem. Ms. E.L. Jacobson, BSc, R.D., would require an office on the main floor and priority parking. La-dee-dah! She couldn’t walk from the far end of the parking lot like everyone else? Frowning, he visualized a crotchety, old spinster with a sour lemon disposition.

  Why me, Lord?

  She would have to go in with Student Services. They had an empty slot in there that they used for in-school suspensions. It wasn’t big, but it was all he had. If he tried to take Mabel and her ladies out of the small room adjacent to the cafeteria, he’d end up with more than a bruised and battered ego. He was big enough to admit that an angry Mabel scared the daylights out of him just as much now as she had when he’d been a kid.

  As it was, he had to tell her the new kitchen equipment would to be delivered next week, and her precious fryer was on its way out of the building as he watched. Charlie, the town’s trash collector, and Isaac, the school custodian were loading it into the truck now. If she heard the news from one of the busybodies in town, there would be hell to pay. As long as she didn’t quit on him, he could handle her displeasure. He didn’t think Ms. Fancy Pants Nutritionist would be happy having to cook and serve the food herself.

  He turned away from the window walked back to his desk, picked up the phone, and spoke to the school secretary. “Mary, can you get Isaac to come and see me when he has a minute?”

  “Sure thing, Jackson. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Get Mabel on the phone for me. I need to talk to her before she hears it from someone else.”

  “Then you probably should’ve called her yesterday,” she said and laughed. “The woman’s psychic. We all know that.”

  Putting down the phone, he turned to the other problem he had, the one probably responsible for the gray hairs at his temple he’d noticed this morning. The new school year was less than a month away, and he was still short three teachers—someone for grade seven and eight language studies and history, a middle school physical education teacher willing to help out with junior varsity coaching, and a senior math and science teacher. That was the one causing all the headaches. Having Tom Green resign last month and move to the east coast to get married had caught him off-guard. Not that he could blame the guy. The bride-to-be was a senior partner with a major law firm in Baltimore. The couple had been an item years before and had found one another again when she came to Braden in the wake of the tornado to look after her parents. She’d relocated them back east, and Tom had opted to go with her.

  Jackson had three candidates to choose from for the grade seven and eight posting, and a couple to look at for the physical education job, but so far only one person had applied to replace Tom. He wondered briefly if the nutritionist might be willing to help out in a pinch, but then shook his head. Government people weren’t always the most accommodating, and since technically she didn’t work for him, he couldn’t even ask her to do it.

  The phone on his desk rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Mabel’s on line two. She’s in a mood.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.” He took a deep breath and pressed the line button. “Good morning, Mabel—”

  “Don’t you good morning me, Jackson Jacob Harris. Charlie just called to tell me he picked up my fryer from the school and is taking it to be scrapped. There’s nothing wrong with that machine. Sure, it heats up slowly, but once the grease is hot, it works fine. I don’t need a new one.”

  He scratched the back of his head, knowing if Mabel was using his full name, he was in more trouble than he’d expected. “I’m not buying a new one, Mabel.”

  “What do you mean? You’re getting rid of the one I have. How am I supposed to feed those kids without a fryer?”

  “We were approved to test pilot a new Healthy Living Initiative that includes the National School Lunch Program. They’re providing us with brand new kitchen equipment including stoves with double ovens and a gas grill, but we can’t use the fryer anymore. The food we serve has to fit within the NSLP guidelines.”

  She was so quiet he thought she’d hung up, and that wouldn’t be a good thing. “Mabel, are you still there?”

  “Are you telling me I can’t serve any of the food those kids love? No French fries, no pizza, no chicken fingers, no fish and chips? The varsity teams can’t play on nothing but rabbit food.”

  “I’m not saying anything of the kind. They’re sending a nutritionist to work with us for the first year to help us implement the changes. They included a sample menu that I’ll drop by your place on my way home. It’s got pizza on it, burritos, chicken tenders, cheese sticks, fish and spicy fries and a number of breakfast choices including eggs on muffins, breakfast burritos … I think it’s more the way they’re cooked than the foods themselves. There’s a lot of fruit and vegetables as well as cereal and other nutritious snacks. The only things I can see gone for certain are fried foods, and soda.”

  “You’re firing me?” she asked, and he heard the surprise in her voice.

  “Of course not. The woman is here only for the year, and she has other responsibilities like drug education and the need for exercise—you know, the healthy living choices most of us ignore. The cafeteria is still going to be primarily your responsibility.”

  “But I’ll have to do what she says.”

  “Yes. Mabel, it won’t be that bad, I promise,” he replied praying he could keep the peace between his old friend and the nutritionist.

  “All that’s going to cost more money. You’ll see. The kids won’t want it, and I’ll be tossing it out by the bagful. When does this high and mighty nutritionist arrive?”

  He could hear the scheming in her voice and was glad she was planning to take her annoyance out on someone other than him. It might be cowardly, but he would be the first to cave if she brought him an apple pie, and the community needed this program. “According to the letter they sent me, she’ll be here on the Friday before school starts. I thought you’d like to come to meet her before the first day of classes and show her around.”

  “Hell, yes. I’d love that, give her a real Braden welcome,” she answered, sounding anything but welcoming. “What time?”

  He glanced at his desk calendar. “How about eleven? I have meetings with the staff before that, but, we can talk a bit and then go over to the Worthington Arms for lunch.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll take it from there. You’d better tell Charlie to keep my fryer handy. I’ll have it back by Christmas.” She hung up.

  Jackson grimaced. So much for a nice calm start to the school year. He hung up the receiver, feeling faintly sorry for the government worker. Mabel was going to chew
her up and spit her out.

  Mary knocked on the door as she opened it. “Isaac is here.”

  “Send him in.” Jackson picked up the letter again, and copied the name down on a small sheet of paper.

  “Hello, Isaac, sorry to dump this on you, but I need you to clean out that empty office in the guidance department and get it ready for occupancy. Here’s the name I need put on the door.”

  “Will you want a phone line and computer set up in there?”

  “Yes, and find her a dedicated printer, too. The least we can do is make our guest welcomed.” Although, from the sound of Mabel’s voice, she’ll be anything but. “How are the rooms coming?”

  “Most of the school only needed the regular clean-up work it usually did. The seven and eight rooms been spruced up with a fresh coat of paint, and I replaced the desk and filing cabinets. The science lab’s ready, with those new air purifiers installed and running, but I didn’t unpack all those supplies Tom ordered in case the new teacher doesn’t want them, and you have to send them back.”

  “Good thinking, although as I recall, most of that stuff is replacement for breakages last year. What about the gym office?”

  “Cleaned it out and got rid of the broken equipment and stuff that was on hand when I was a kid here,” he laughed. “Plan to paint the walls next week, get rid of twenty or so years of accumulated scents. I’ll do the lady’s office, too. There’s some graffiti on the walls she can probably do without. I was just going to cover them, but now I’ll do the job right. Will there be anything else?”

  “Yeah. I’ll need you to make keys for the new teachers I’ve got to hire next week, and Ms. Jacobsen will not only need keys to the school and her office, she’ll also need a set for the cafeteria, but don’t tell Mabel yet. She’s not very happy right now. Oh, and Ms. Jacobson will need priority parking, so move me over and give her mine. That should do it.”

  “Right away, Jackson.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Jackson turned back to the resumes he’d been examining. Hiring new people was the least favorite part of his job, and looking through documents like these and verifying their authenticity was always a pain. He just hoped he could find the help he needed before the first day of classes. Starting with a replacement teacher was never a good idea, especially not for the seniors who had their whole future riding on this year’s results.

  * * * *

  “You’re ten o’clock appointment is here,” Mary announced as soon as Jackson answered the phone.

  “Thanks. Give me five minutes and send him in. How does he look?”

  The secretary chuckled. “Mighty fine.” She hung up.

  Jackson frowned at the phone before replacing it in the cradle and went into the small washroom attached to his office to comb his hair and straightened his tie. He’d forgotten to call Quinn last week about the haircut, but she’d agreed to fit him in later today. Satisfied that he looked like a man in authority even if his black hair had started to curl at the nape, he returned to the office and stood by the door waiting for Mary’s knock.

  He’d been going over the information on the teachers he’d be interviewing this morning, and while some of his problems had been solved, others remained. With less than a week before the start of the new school year, he was worried. There’d been no other applicants for the math-science position, and he hoped this Micah Thomas would do. The man’s credentials were impeccable, too good in fact, and that alone made Jackson suspicious. Someone with that kind of accreditation could get a job anywhere. Why settle for Braden? He was proud of his school, but he was a realist. Graduates like that usually ended up either in fancier state schools or private industry where the money was substantially higher than the BCR school board paid. For someone raised in Braden, like he had been, working for the local school board was a way to give a little back to the community, but according to the documentation, Micah came from Des Moines, via Dallas, El Paso, and San Diego, and had no reason to want to come here.

  Mary knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Pushing open the door, a smug smile in place, Mary stated, “Micah Thomas to see you, sir.”

  It took Jackson less than a second to figure out what was behind his secretary’s unusual behavior. Instead of the studious, young man he’d expected, given the credentials he’d examined, Micah was an attractive blonde in her late twenties that some of the youngest kids would probably mistake for a real-live Barbie doll. She was as far away from Mrs. Beardsley, his own math-science teacher, as one could get, and for the second time, he wondered why the hell she’d applied for the job.

  “Ms. Thomas,” he greeted, as he smiled and offered her his hand, hoping his shock wasn’t noticeable. “Welcome to BCR. Thank you so much for coming in on such short notice.”

  She smiled showing off perfect, small, white teeth. “My pleasure. I’d anticipated having to do replacement work again this year, so I was surprised to find a full-time position like this one available.” Shaking his hand firmly, she handed him a brown envelope. “These are the references you requested.”

  He reached for it and put it on his desk unopened. “Thank you. I’ll look them over after. Please sit down.”

  Indicating the chair on the right, he sat beside her instead of going behind the desk as he normally would’ve. The lady was easy on the eyes, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. There were three bachelors on staff, four if he included himself, and hiring her might be courting trouble, but since she was the only applicant, he didn’t have a whole lot of choice. They would all be preening like peacocks within the month. It dawned on him that her appearance could very well be what was keeping her from being hired by the big boys. Sexual harassment wasn’t just a buzz word anymore.

  “Your credentials are impressive,” he said hoping he didn’t sound condescending. “You did well on your state certification Praxis II subject test in both math and science, so I can’t find fault in any of that. I see you graduated from Michigan State seven years ago, and since then, you’ve taught in Michigan, Texas, and most recently in San Diego. Braden would be a rather substantial change for you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it will, but this place has a lot to offer. After I graduated, I wanted to travel and interim contracts give me the ability to come and go as I pleased, but I’ve had my fill of short term jobs. I’m looking forward to the smaller class sizes here, and while I’ll miss some of the advantages of the bigger city, I think it’s time I settled down. I thought I’d found that in my last school, but it didn’t work out.”

  He tried not to frown, but her answer had made him more wary than satisfied. He hoped she would give him more than that since he wasn’t sure how deeply he could probe. If she’d been involved in any kind of scandal, the board wouldn’t endorse her no matter how high her grade point average had been.

  “I’ve just ended a long-term relationship, and I didn’t want to stay there with all the bad memories,” she said, as if she’d read his mind.

  He swore there were unshed tears glistening in her eyes, making them look even more attractive than they had.

  “Especially when his new girlfriend works there,” she added.

  He nodded and pursed his lips, knowing only too well, how a situation like that could affect staff morale, especially if some sided with one party while the others didn’t.

  “Math-science teachers are in demand everywhere. There must’ve been another school in California that could’ve used your services.” Moving from a city of over a million to Braden, population one thousand, and that was on a good day, made no sense to him, broken relationship or not. Plus, after the sun and warmth of southern California, why on earth would she want to be in Iowa? As he watched her expressive face, he could’ve sworn he saw annoyance quickly veiled there.

  “I needed to make a clean break. I’m sure you can appreciate that,” she answered with just the right amount of frost in her voice to make him uncomfortable. “But I haven
’t moved to Braden. My aunt and uncle live in Colchester, and I’m staying with them.”

  “Of course, because this is a district school, it’s the only one in the area,” he said nodding. So mind your own business and quit speculating.

  There was nothing suspicious about wanting to go to family when you were aching. He’d done it, and her words reminded him how much he still missed Uncle Jack. It was the reason he had spent more time riding or working in the school this summer and less attending to the improvements he’d planned for the homestead. There didn’t seem to be much reason to fix the place up when he was the only one going to live there.

  “Let me set the record straight, Mr. Harris. I didn’t come here to find a husband. I love teaching, and I just happen to be good at science and math. I want to do my job, help the school improve its SAT scores, and be left alone to lick my wounds.”

  “Understood,” he replied, feeling properly chastised. She might not look like Mrs. Beardsley, but she’d certainly put him in his place just as effectively as the sixty-year-old woman had done twenty years ago. “Let’s talk about the position.”

  Jackson asked her a number of specific questions about the curriculum, explained what subjects she’d be required to teach, and everything else the job entailed including the extra-curricular activities she’d be expected to support. Finally, he brought up the school board’s Code of Conduct for Teachers she’d have to sign. Braden wasn’t really any different from any of the other conservative school boards in the country, which would expect its teachers to be above reproach.

  The lady certainly knew her stuff, and satisfied with her answers, he stood. “I’ll look over your references later today after I finish interviews and get back to you. My recommendation has to go to the board, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem. I assume this is the number where you can be reached?”

  “Yes, it’s a cellphone. You’ll get me directly rather than my aunt or uncle.”