A Holiday to Remember. Lynnette Kent
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shop, Jayne? I could go with you, in case that weirdo comes back.”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to head back to the school. Tonight is our official end of term dinner—tomorrow the students leave for winter break.”
“Well, y’all have a good evening, then.” He slapped the hood of the Jeep. “There’s snow coming, you know. Better put chains on your tires.”
Jayne nodded. “A fairly big storm, from what the weather report said. We might get six or eight inches.”
“I heard a foot,” Steve said. “I’ll drive by and check on you over vacation, be sure everybody’s doing well.”
“I appreciate it.” Jayne lied with a smile, then put the Jeep into gear. Steve’s personal interest was getting harder to discourage, though she couldn’t help being grateful he’d stepped in this afternoon. Who knew what might have happened if the stranger had kept hold of her?
But he wasn’t a stranger now. He had a name—Chris Hammond, grandson to Charlie Hammond. Neither name seemed the least bit familiar. But he had asked if she grew up in Ridgeville, which implied that the person she resembled had lived here. No one else in town had ever mentioned that she looked like someone they knew. Maybe Mr. Hammond was mistaken. Delusional. Drunk.
No, he hadn’t been intoxicated. She would have smelled alcohol on his breath, they’d been that close. But Chris Hammond had smelled of soap and fresh air. She’d felt his body heat as she stared up at him for that moment, and sensed the strength in his hand. Strangely, she could still feel his touch, like a band of tender skin around her upper arm.
Though he seemed harsh, with his unruly hair and stubbled cheeks, she’d seen something desperate and sad in his eyes. Bedroom eyes, her grandmother would have called them, with those lazy, drooping lids. He had a beautiful mouth. His smile would be intriguing. Irresistible.
She was so caught up in her thoughts she almost missed the school entrance, braking hard to avoid cruising right by.
“Since when do you spend time daydreaming about men?” she asked herself, slowing down for the drive through the forest surrounding the Hawkridge School. “You don’t have time for romance, even the imaginary kind.”
She’d seen three of her teachers fall deeply in love this past year, which probably accounted for the unusual direction her thoughts had taken. As the headmistress of a school housing three hundred girls, each with her own set of problems, plus the staff and faculty required to deal with those students, Jayne rarely had a spare moment to herself. She didn’t waste time wondering about a different life or a family of her own. As far as she was concerned, Hawkridge gave her plenty of family and numerous children to look after. Getting involved with a man would simply mean another set of needs to meet.
And the one commodity she would not run out of anytime soon was needs to be met.
Her secretary accosted her as she walked in the door from the staff parking lot. “They’ve upgraded that snowstorm—we’re in for eighteen inches, at least. Starting tomorrow night.”
Jayne nodded. “E-mail all the parents and advise them to be here early, so they can be out of the mountains by noon. Ask them to reply at once, and call any you haven’t heard from by midnight or can’t reach via the Web.”
One of the kitchen staff knocked on Jayne’s office door before she’d had a chance to take off her coat. “Cook says the market shorted her on the roast beef order. Even accounting for vegetarians, the portions won’t stretch to cover all the girls and teachers.” The traditional Hawkridge end of term dinner featured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, so this tragedy assumed immense proportions in the kitchen.
Jayne would have settled for a bowl of soup. But she gave the issue a moment’s consideration. “Does she have chicken?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ask her to serve chicken to the head table, and present a platter of chicken to the girls’ tables along with the beef.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Three girls appeared in the outer office, needing to consult with the headmistress over an incident of name-calling and missing bubble bath. Two teachers wanted to discuss a discipline problem. Her secretary returned with the news that one set of parents and one guardian grandfather had called to say they couldn’t possibly pick up their daughters before the snow started, and they’d decided to wait the storm out at a luxury hotel in Asheville, an hour away.
Jayne dropped back into her chair. “Terrific. Two more girls for the break. Who are they?”
“Monique Law and Taryn Gage.”
“Ah.” Monique, a junior, had waged a private war with beer and cocaine since before arriving at Hawkridge two years ago. She managed well as long as she stayed at school, but when she went home, the local crowd and its addictions consumed her. Maybe a snow-enforced vacation at school would help her break the cycle.
Taryn, one of their new students this year, had already been isolated in the infirmary three times as a result of her temper tantrums. The abusive home environment she’d been rescued from explained her rage, but she would have to learn to handle that anger without violence.
Jayne got to her feet as the warning bell for dinner rang. “I might have more of a challenge on my hands than I realized, staying here alone with seven girls. Do you suppose there’s someone else on staff who has no plans for the holiday and would like to help?”
Her secretary pulled a doubtful frown. Jayne nodded. “Right. I didn’t think so. Well, I’ll worry about that later. First, the faculty procession into dinner.”
Standing at the head of the double line of teachers, she allowed herself an appeal for assistance from a higher power. “I could use some backup, here. I can’t do everything myself.” As she passed between the rows of tables in the dining hall, she saw girls eyeing the platter of chicken with doubt.
“Please,” she murmured, with a harried glance heavenward. “At least make the chicken taste good.”
“DAMN FOOL, that’s what you are, going out in the snow.”
Wrapping a scarf around his neck, Chris smiled to himself. “It’s not snowing yet, Charlie. The weather report says the snow won’t even start till after dark.”
“What do they know? I’ve lived my whole life in these mountains and I tell you it’ll be coming down hard and fast by four at the latest.” Still with a full head of hair, gray now instead of brown, his grandfather scowled at him.
“Well, I should be back here long before the roads get bad. I just want to ask some questions.” He’d told Charlie about yesterday’s encounter.
“You showed me that picture on your phone and, yeah, she does look like Juliet. But don’t you think I would have heard if Juliet Radcliffe had returned? There’s been neither hide nor hair of that girl seen around here since the two of you crashed up on the mountain.” The old man grabbed Chris above the elbow and stared at him through round, rimless glasses. “She died that night, Christopher. You’ve known it for twelve years. Why would you suddenly start doubting?”
Chris patted the chilly fingers. “Because…because I feel it. There’s something in this woman’s face that I know as well as I know my own. And she’s so close to what Juliet might have looked like now. How could that be?”
“They say everybody has a double.” Still as tall as ever but on the thin side, after losing fifty pounds to illness, Charlie looked even older than his seventy-eight years.
“Maybe. But in the same North Carolina mountain town? Not likely.” He grabbed his helmet off the kitchen table and turned to look at his granddad’s worried face. “I’ll be back for dinner. Put that meat loaf I bought at the market in the oven with a couple of potatoes. We’ll have a good meal, a few beers and watch the ball game on TV. Okay?”
Charlie