Secrets Unveiled Read Free Page B

painful.”
    “I’ll say.” Angie adjusted wire-framed glasses over the bridge of her narrow, upturned nose. “They send their regrets and hope you’ll be able to find a replacement to chaperone in time to keep to the trip’s schedule. They don’t want to let the kids down.”
    “A replacement…” Maggie’s heart sank. “But our departure time is just an hour away. The bus is scheduled to pull out at nine this morning, and you know as well as I do that the Jarvis’s were my last resort. All of the other parents are working or”—Maggie scrunched her nose as she considered the other options—”not interested in traipsing around the zoo with a posse of energetic five-year-olds—especially with the threat of chilly rain looming on the horizon.”
    “My mom’s not working today.” Angie eased into the room, pulling the glasses from her face and swinging them by one wire arm as she often did when troubled or worried. Now, her green eyes were shadowed with concern. Fresh out of junior college, she’d snagged the secretarial position at the school when it came open just a few months ago, and fretted when things didn’t run smoothly. “You know she likes to volunteer here whenever she can. Maybe she’d be willing to stop by and help out. I can call her and—”
    “Miss Andrews, Miss Andrews, look!”
    Maggie turned toward the doorway as Gemma skipped through in a flurry of unbridled energy. A piece of paper fluttered in her hand, the signature orange color indicating it was one of the permission slips for the zoo that Maggie had run through the photocopier. Maggie knew it was the second copy issued since the first had, according to a wild tale related by Gemma, been reduced to a sloppy mess of drool-splattered fibers by a mischievous mutt named Oscar.
    “Well, hi there, Gemma.” Maggie forgot about the most recent dilemma concerning the field trip long enough to plaster on a welcoming smile. Worry was not an option with Gemma’s larger-than-life personality in the room. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
    “I remembered.” Gemma rushed over, her curls bouncing as she placed the signed form in Maggie’s upturned palm. “Just like you said I should. It’s not too late to give you the paper, is it? Can I still go?”
    “May I still go,” Maggie corrected. “And yes, you may still go with the class to the zoo today.”
    If the trip remains viable…if some miracle occurs.
    “I’m sorry…” Grant Anderson rushed through the doorway on Gemma’s heels. His navy suit jacket was impeccably buttoned, his power-red tie a perfect complement to the crisp, white cotton shirt beneath. “Please forgive the intrusion. I told Gemma not to interrupt your conversation, but she’s so excited about going to the zoo today…the elephants, tigers, and giraffes you know. She was afraid she’d miss out because Oscar made an afternoon snack out of the permission slip.”
    Maggie laughed. “No. It’s fine.” She found it suddenly difficult to speak while Grant’s commanding gaze linked with hers. He filled the doorway, so much taller than she remembered from their days together at Valley High School. Back then he’d been lanky and dark…almost brooding. They’d barely shared two words though they sat through many classes together. His family came from the proverbial right side of the tracks with their sprawling three-story brick house and polished BMW’s; her family, residing in a house wrapped in faded clapboard siding and cracked concrete stairs…not so much.
    “Oscar has been punished, by the way.” Grant’s chocolate hair fell across his forehead, framing eyes that held no sign of the brooding angst Maggie recalled from days gone by. He propped one hip against the corner of the wall that flanked a neat row of cubed student storage cubbies. “No bones for a week is the rendered sentence. He’s heartbroken, but I have to stand firm, nonetheless. He shouldn’t have used Gemma’s permission slip as