CHAPTER THREE

      FINN LEFT THE EVCC campus feeling drained and in deep need of a beer. No wonder there was so much drinking on college campuses. Although he wondered if regular students found sitting through a basic English comp class as challenging as he had. He’d sweated over that damned essay, typing a single sentence while Debra, at the computer next to him, seemed to be blasting out pages.

      At least he could type, but he wasn’t fast. It’d been so long since he’d put thoughts down on paper that the whole process seemed foreign to him. But he’d done okay in the end, talking about how his parents’ divorce had affected him as a teen and managed a page and half. Hopefully Molly would go easy on him, realizing he hadn’t been in the classroom for a while. Hopefully...

      Once he was on his way home, his tight muscles started to give. He rolled his neck and shoulders, told himself that the hard part was over. He’d sat through one class; Molly hadn’t embarrassed him, or even looked at him more than a couple of times...although that last look she gave him had him shifting in his seat.

      Molly Adamson—he wouldn’t forget her last name again after tonight—didn’t look mousy anymore. A couple of times as she was answering student questions she’d become animated and he’d been surprised to see dimples appear at the corners of her mouth. She’d smiled and gestured, and then seemed to remember that he was in the room and instantly became the English Teacher.

      She clearly was aware of him and probably still thought he was the king of assholes, but he felt better about the course walking out than he had walking in. He was also now less intimidated by his math class on Thursday. As long as it wasn’t taught by someone he’d once screwed over, he should be good.

      * * *

      MOLLY BIT THE END of her pencil as she read through Finn’s essay for the second time. The first time she’d thought he’d been putting her on, playing with her, so she’d skimmed over it, expecting to find some kind of punch line at the end. There was no punch line, so she’d turned back to the first page and started reading again. He hadn’t written about a moment, but rather a summer. His parents had divorced and he’d gone to live with his grandfather, Mike, while they sorted things out. It was the first time he hadn’t played summer ball because he’d been too ripped up inside, but he’d pretended to his friends that he had a shoulder injury.

      Molly had had no idea that might Finn Culver’s life had been anything other than perfect during high school. He never showed a sign. But it wasn’t the experience she was grading. It was the writing, which wasn’t good.

      His sentences were short and to the point, but more often than not, he used clauses instead of sentences...and sadly, the sentences/clauses were the strongest part of his writing. As far as structuring meaningful paragraphs, it was as if someone had fired a shotgun of disjointed thoughts at the page—and there were a lot of thoughts, since he’d dealt with a season—summer—rather than a moment as assigned.

      Molly leaned back and tapped the pencil on her teeth. He couldn’t be serious. Could he?

      She had to assume he was. He was paying for the course.

      Finn, the sports hero, had obviously not spent much time in English class and now he was suffering the consequences. That piper, which people spoke of paying, was now making an appearance in Mr. Culver’s life, and she was in the unhappy position of having to point this fact out to him.

      She marked his paper, the last of the evening, and slipped her grading folders into her bag as the phone rang. Please, don’t be the plumber canceling...

      “Molly? Hey.” She froze at the rich deep tones of her ex’s voice. “Molly?” he repeated.

      “Yes.”

      “How’re you doing in Big Sky Country?”

      “I’m doing well, thank you.” If she didn’t make small talk, he’d get to his point and they could end this conversation all the sooner.

      “I’m doing pretty good down here in Arizona, too, thanks for asking.”

      She drew in a breath, but kept her mouth shut. “The season is winding down, but it’s been a good one.”

      “What do you need, Blake?”

      “I need the sale of the house to hurry along so I have some money to live on during the winter.” Twice the small house they’d shared had been in escrow and twice it had fallen through as the market fluctuated.

      “And I’m supposed to do that how?”

      “Would you let me borrow some money against the sale?”

      “Are you kidding?” She used to be nicer about this. So much nicer.

      “I need it.” His voice went flat.

      “No.” Blake was still having trouble getting it through his head that she wasn’t in the make-Blake’s-life-easier club anymore. When he hit a wall, the first person he’d turn to, if he didn’t have a current girlfriend, was her. For old time’s sake. Because he’d made mistakes. Because he’d always loved her best.

      Because he was a narcissist and she’d been stupid.

      “Molly, I don’t have the resources to get through the winter.”

      “Get a job.” She ended the call, then scrolled through her menus and blocked his number. There. Problem solved.

      She should have done that the second time he’d called for a date. But no. She’d been blinded by his beauty, in awe of the fact that the gorgeous guy who sat next to her in English 405—an athlete, for Pete’s sake—wanted to go out with her. And he’d continued to go out with her. At first she thought he’d wanted help with his studies, but he did all right in his classes without her. That was when she’d given herself a good hard look in the mirror and realized that she really wasn’t that different from other women her age—she only perceived herself as different. As lacking in areas that other woman took for granted. Blake had even seemed charmed by her awkwardness and because of that, it had started to fade.

      Her gift from Blake—a jump start to her self-confidence.

      If she owed him for anything it was that, but not enough to lend him money. Especially when his behavior at the end of their short marriage had knocked her newfound self-confidence sideways.

      She was still getting over a few of the knocks.

      Molly pushed the thought aside. She’d moved back to the Eagle Valley because she’d been happy here. There’d been the usual high school traumas—cough, homecoming with Finn, cough—but in general she’d been a happily invisible nerd, with happily invisible nerdy friends. In Eagle Valley she’d found a sense of peace she’d never gotten anywhere else.

      And it was a thousand miles away from Blake.

      Yet still he called her to make things better.

      She walked down the hall to her bedroom, glancing into Georgina’s room as she went by. One wall was stacked