Maybe This Time (The Educators Book 3) Read Free

with motivational sayings graced the walls. The bulletin boards displayed poetry, essays and projects students had done. Plain and simple, she loved it here. She’d just removed her coat when the wall phone rang. The caller was the principal’s secretary asking her to come immediately to the office. It was urgent, Sheryl said.
    Grabbing her purse, she hurried out and down the hall. It was a long enough walk that thoughts she’d promised to keep at bay at school plagued her…
    Here?
    Oh, God, yes! How did you know?
    I feel like I know your body.
    You do…oh, Gage, yes. Yes.
    The sex in that obscure hotel room with Gage whatever-his-last-name-was had rocked her world. The next morning, she’d been chagrined to have jumped in the sack with him, but that whole night—they didn’t sleep those precious six hours—had been amazing.
    “Stop it!” she mumbled to herself when she was almost at the administrative office. “Concentrate on school.”
    One of her girls was in early, too, and stopped Delaney in the hall. “Ms. Dawson, did you hear what happened to Steph yesterday?”
    “I think I’m about to.”
    “She got into it bad with Mr. Speranza.”
    “Hell.” Oops, she had to learn to control her cussing. “Pretend you didn’t hear that, Lily. I’ll see you in class.”
    At least she knew she why she’d been summoned. Sheryl greeted her then led her to Dylan’s office. She stepped inside and saw Stephanie Grayson, with her usual sulky expression on her face, seated next to a man whose back was to her.
    Dylan Kane, their principal, and the reason that Delaney was at the high school, nodded to her. “Thanks for coming so soon, Ms. Dawson. Stephanie refused to talk until you got here. Please sit.”
    As she took a chair next to the girl, she squeezed her arm and glanced over at the man who must be her father.
    “Delaney Dawson, this is Gage Grayson, Stephanie’s father.”
    Oh, wow.
    Oh, God.
    Jesus.
    She was in trouble now. The man who explored every inch of her body, more than once, the man who moaned when she touched him, was Stephanie Grayson’s dad?
    Well, at least now she knew his last name.
     

 
    Chapter 2
    Gage Grayson sat open-mouthed when the woman he’d made love to with an abandon he hadn’t felt in years sat down at the conference table. Who knew she was about the only adult in the world his daughter liked? Damn it! His troubled relationship with Steph didn’t need this complication.
    Today Delaney wore a pretty red dress that hit below her knees, with some kind of patterned stockings—that covered her unicorn tattoo--and clunky shoes. In her ears were the same sparkly studs he’d nibbled on that night. One side of her hair was pulled back by a rhinestone clip.
    Images flooded him, one as they’d deplaned in Rochester…
    Will I see you again?
    I’d like that, Gage. Very much.
    Give me your phone number.
    She’d scribbled it on a napkin. The number and Delaney. No last name.
    He cleared his throat. “Hello, Ms. Dawson. Nice to see you again.”
    “You know her?” Stephanie asked, her tone horrified.
    “We met in Atlanta trying to get back to Rochester on the same plane.”
    “We didn’t know we had anything in common,” Delaney added quickly.
    Like hell, he thought. Our moves were so in sync it was spooky.
    Forcefully, he turned his thoughts away from the incredibly erotic night to his child, who was in trouble again.
    The principal started the meeting. “Okay, Stephanie, we have Ms. Dawson here. You said you needed her or you wouldn’t talk. We’ll let that threat ride and get down to what happened with Mr. Speranza yesterday.”
    “Where is he, anyway?” she asked as she flicked the paper edges of her spiral notebook with her thumb.
    “Stephanie, don’t change the subject.” Kane’s tone was firm. “Talk.”
    “He hates me. Nothing I do is enough.” She glanced at Delaney. “He took my journal in class yesterday. You said those are private. What if he reads