Chapter One

      The pig refused to cooperate, creating a problem bigger than Green Acres and Big Valley put together. Jenny Wright needed to kiss this piece of pork in the next two and a half minutes so she could usher her third-graders back inside—before the principal caught her necking with a mammal on the school lawn on a Friday afternoon.

      Dr. Margaret Davis was from the old school and didn’t think Jenny’s rewards program for her students’ achievements did much more than waste time. Everyone in town knew the principal was hoping to be appointed superintendent next year, so she’d been cracking down on anything that made her—or her school—look bad. Jenny doubted Dr. Davis would like the pig much.

      Heck, even she didn’t like it much right now, and she’d hired it to be her pucker partner.

      “Come on over here, Reginald,” she whispered to the rotund pink animal. “One quick kiss and then you can go back to the farm. Nice bowl of slop waiting for you, I hear.”

      Reginald grunted, plopping down onto the new spring grass. He heaved a sigh and closed his eyes.

      The circle of third-graders around Jenny began to laugh at the recalcitrant swine. Kissing a pig as a challenge to the kids to read one hundred books before the end of spring term had sounded like a great idea two and a half months ago, when Reginald was wallowing on a farm far away. But now that the pot-bellied three-hundred-pound beast was actually here, he didn’t look very appealing.

      She’d never be able to eat bacon again, that was for sure.

      “Go on, Miss Wright, kiss him!” Jimmy said.

      “Kiss the pig! Kiss the pig!” The chant spread through the twenty-five kids like a verbal wave. The April breeze carried it across the school lawn, into the open windows, bringing a few heads out to see what was happening.

      She’d made a promise and she’d stick to it. If there was one thing Jenny Wright did, it was keep her promises. Especially to her students.

      She tamped down the wave of nausea in her stomach, then came around to Reginald’s face, got down on her knees in her black capris and, before she could think about what she was about to do, pressed her lips to Reginald’s velvety snout.

      He snarled, jerked awake and backed up quickly. Then he let out a squeal and dashed toward the bright pink “Animals Where You Want ’Em” truck. His handler, Ed Spangler, a tall man in overalls and a straw hat, laughed and helped Reginald up the ramp and into the back of the truck. He shut the door, then circled to the front. “Old Reginald hasn’t moved that fast in ten years. Must be one heck of a pucker you got there.”

      “Gee, thanks. I think.” Jenny dug her check out of her pocket. “Here you go.”

      “Oh, no need to pay me, ma’am. I haven’t laughed that much in ages. Plus, the paper got a snapshot of your date with Reginald. I’d say that free publicity makes us about even.” Ed gestured toward a young man holding a camera and standing across the street. “I thought this might make a good story, so I called the Mercy Daily News myself.” He thumbed the strap of his overalls and nodded.

      “This is going to be in the paper?” Oh Lord, her career was over. Might as well start scouring the Help Wanted section now. If there was anything Dr. Davis disliked more than Jenny’s unconventional teaching methods, it was publicity about Jenny’s teaching methods.

      A tension headache began to pound in her temples. She pressed her hands to her head, then tucked her hair behind her ears. She would deal with this later. Preferably after a lot of Tylenol and a huge platter of nachos.

      Stuffing the check back into her pocket, she spun on her heel and flapped her arms at her class like a mother goose. “Come on, children, back inside.”

      “Miss Wright, what’d the pig taste like?” Jimmy Brooks asked.

      “Yeah, was he all boogers and slime?” Alex Herman had a fascination with all things nasal. He’d even fashioned a nose for his clay project in art class.

      “Eww, Alex. That is so gross.” Lindsay Williams made a face and took a step away from him. “Miss Wright wouldn’t really kiss a slimy pig anyway. She has taste.”

      “In what?”

      Lindsay shrugged. “I dunno. In animals, I guess.”

      Not in men, Jenny thought. As far as love lives went, she’d be willing to bet Reginald had better luck than she did. Finding a man wasn’t high on her priority list right now anyway, not while she was so consumed with her class. All relationships did was complicate her life. Jenny had had enough complications to last her until she was eighty.

      “Okay, that’s enough. We need to get back to work.” Jenny pulled open the outside door to her classroom and led the children inside. They took their seats, amid a steady stream of pig chatter and chair squeaking. Then she moved to the front of the room and clapped her hands. After a moment, the children quieted down and faced her. As always, a small thrill of triumph ran through her when her class ran like clockwork. To Jenny, a civilized and orderly class proved she was doing a good job. “Now, you all have done a wonderful job on the first level of the reading challenge. But, we still have a ways to go.”

      The class let out a collective groan.

      “I’m willing to make it fun,” Jenny said. “If you’re willing to put in the work.”

      “Are you going to dye your hair green this time? I really liked the pink,” Jimmy piped up.

      “Uh, no. Not this time,” Jenny said. Dr. Davis had nearly gone into cardiac arrest when she’d seen the fuchsia hair Jenny had sported as a first-quarter class incentive.

      “How about making us another giant ice cream sundae?” Lindsay rubbed her belly. “I didn’t eat dinner at all that day.”

      Lindsay’s mother hadn’t been happy about that either. She’d called Dr. Davis to complain, resulting in another black mark on Jenny’s teaching record. “Er, no, no sundaes.”

      “Well, what then?” the class asked.

      Jenny put on a bright, work-with-me smile. “We could read just for the fun of it!”

      “Nah. That’s boring.” Jimmy said. “We want a prize.” Twenty-five nine-year-old heads nodded in agreement.

      She’d created a monster. The children now expected rewards for making their class goals.

      Maybe Dr. Davis had a point.

      No, she refused to entertain that idea. Her third-graders needed every boost they could get to raise their reading level. This past winter, Mercy Elementary’s scores in the state achievement tests had come back at their lowest levels in years and the school had been placed on probation. Losing their accreditation was a very real possibility, if something didn’t happen. Jenny couldn’t change every class, but she could darn well change her own.

      In the last few years, her class had become her main priority in life. It wasn’t that she’d set out to become the stereotypical spinster elementary school teacher. It had just happened that way, after too many failed relationships and one broken heart that refused to heal. And it was a heck of a lot easier to concentrate on the children than on why Jenny attracted bad dates like steel filings to a magnet.

      “I’ll think of something,” she said, rubbing at her temples again and returning her thoughts to the class. As long as it didn’t involve pigs or hair dye, she figured she’d be fine.

      “Miss Wright?” the school secretary blurted over the loudspeaker. “Can you come down to the principal’s office please? I’ll have Miss Rhodes cover your class.”

      “I’ll be right there,” Jenny said.

      Jimmy