The Longing Read Free Page B

schoolroom in Laona as she
read a page in her teaching handbook—for the fourth time. To her
increasing irritation, the words remained a jumble of nothingness.
Between the noise of the storm and her wandering thoughts, she
couldn’t concentrate on her work for a minute.
    The desk was distracting her again. Amelia
slapped the book closed and shoved away from the massive pile of
oak huddled in front of her like a mountain of secrets. She
squeezed her eyes closed, but her imagination soared and fanned her
private fantasies until her insides melted with longing. God
forgive her, but Amelia craved the wild, reckless passion that had
caused Miss Denby, the former schoolteacher, to toss away her
teaching career and make love to a poor furniture maker on her own
desk.
    There would never be a Gordon Prues coming to
rescue Amelia from the life of sameness and solitude she’d been
living since replacing Miss Denby. Amelia would continue to spend
her hours with her students, and when they went home to their
families each evening, she would stay behind in a cold, empty
schoolhouse feeling her youth ebbing away. To know she would never
experience anything so grand or exciting as Miss Denby’s passionate
affair tore a vicious wound in Amelia’s soul.
    The bitter truth was that when she was
seventeen Amelia’s own reckless actions had condemned her to this
life of spinsterhood.
    She should have said no when Richard Cameron
had pushed her to make love with him.
    A violent crack of thunder shook the building
and lightning illuminated the damp, musty-smelling room. Amelia
crossed to the window and rested her arms on the sill, gazing up at
the angry evening sky, wishing she dared to step outside and feel
the rain sting her skin, to feel free and alive for a few stolen
minutes. But Philmore Bentley, president of the school board, and
his nosy wife, Eva, lived next door. If they saw Amelia outside
after dark, she would be severely reprimanded.
    Life as a teacher was painfully restrictive,
but it was a virtuous, respectful position that she had needed
after her disastrous affair with Richard. For four years Amelia had
been trying to live within the board’s strict dictates, but her
true nature bubbled and spit behind her facade like a volcano on
the brink of erupting.
    She felt imprisoned in her small apartment
behind the schoolhouse, but her teaching contract stipulated that
she must live there. It was a suitable home for a single woman
whose only visitors were her parents and her two dearest friends,
Lucinda Clark and Evelyn Grayson, but it was stark and tiny and
dreadfully depressing. Unlike Lucinda, who had three older sisters
and whose house resonated with life and excitement, the silence in
Amelia’s single room was deafening. It was devoid of the laughter
and love Amelia felt in Evelyn’s home. No matter how many years
Amelia spent here, the little box would never feel comfortable or
warm.
    Thunder rolled overhead and the front door
creaked open. Amelia shook her head and turned away from the
window. Closing the door was a lesson she’d failed to teach any of
her students. No matter who left last, the door always remained
ajar. With a resigned sigh, she headed toward the front of the
building to close it.
    The shadowy outline of a man suddenly filled
the doorway and Amelia stopped in midstep. Runnels of rain slid off
the wide shoulders of the man’s coat. He pushed the door closed
against the wind, trapping her inside with him. She stumbled
backward, wondering if she could make it to the door of her
apartment and lock it before he could grab her.
    As if the man sensed her panic, he lifted the
dripping hat off his head to reveal a handsome, familiar face.
Stunned by Kyle Grayson’s formidable presence in her humble
schoolroom, Amelia couldn’t fathom what would bring him here, in
the pouring rain no less.
    Although they knew each other, and had even
shared a stolen kiss when Amelia was sixteen, they had rarely
crossed paths in the