The Unsung Hero Read Free

give voice to the
questions tumbling around in her head, but somehow the words
couldn't find their way out past the knot in her throat. Instead
she murmured, "I see."
    "How about you? Are you vacationing,
too?"
    Samantha smiled, pleased at his interest.
"No, I live here." She gestured over her shoulder toward a small
whitewashed house surrounded by a cluster of gnarled windblown
trees just beyond the beach. "That's my house back there."
    He looked over her shoulder, his eyebrows
lifting in surprise. "You live here year-round? I thought most of
the homes here were summer places."
    "Mine is one of the few that isn't. It's
very quiet and peaceful--" she smiled, her gaze resting on her book
for a fleeting second "--and although the town isn't booming with
nightlife, I like it here."
    "What's your name?"
    "Samantha," she told him. "Samantha Monroe."
She leaned forward and rested her arms on her knees. The sun beat
down on her back—she really she apply some more sun block--but the
shimmering warmth felt good on her bare skin. She was just about to
ask a few questions of her own when his eyes caught hers and she
found herself admiring him again.
    "So tell me, Samantha," he said easily, his
eyes never leaving hers, "what do you do in this life besides
sunbathe on the beach on lazy June afternoons? Are you a--" he
smiled as if he already knew the answer "--a member of the idle
rich?"
    Samantha laughed, a low tinkling sound that
floated away on the brisk sea breeze. "Not exactly. I teach second
grade at the elementary school here, and since school is out for
the summer," she stated the obvious, "that explains why I'm idle,
at least at the moment. And as for being rich, my savings account
is practically down to zilch since I've been putting every spare
nickel and dime I earn into fixing up my house. It wasn't exactly
in mint condition when I bought it, but it's beginning to shape up
pretty well."
    "Mmm," he agreed, though from the direction
his eyes were looking, it wasn't the shape of her house he was
assessing, but rather the shape of her long slender legs. She felt
a momentary discomfort and resisted the impulse to tug at the hem
of her bikini bottom to hide the back of her thighs. But when his
eyes rested once again on her face, she knew an undeniable but all
too brief thrill of satisfaction at the flare of undisguised
appreciation in his eyes.
    He tipped his head to the side and studied
her for a moment. "So you're a schoolteacher," he murmured. "It
fits... to a degree."
    She stretched out her legs in a smooth supple
motion and leaned back again. "To a degree?" she repeated, a
little surprised at how much at ease she was with this stranger,
despite the rather delirious way she felt when she looked at
him.
    He nodded and gave her a lopsided grin. "On
one hand, you hardly seem like the typical schoolmarm of old—-prim
and proper, stern and straitlaced--the type who won't stand any
nonsense and who reigns over her classroom with a ruler in one hand
and a paddle in the other."
    "Sounds like my eighth-grade teacher, Mrs.
Webster," Samantha recalled. "She was about six feet tall with
iron-gray hair that she wore in a tightly coiled bun, and I never
saw her smile once that entire year." She laughed. "I can't say
I've ever had much of a discipline problem with my second-graders,
though I'll admit you're right. I certainly wouldn't look to a
paddle as the solution."
    "I think I know why you've never had any
problem. All the little boys in your class probably had a crush on
you, and all the little girls undoubtedly wanted to grow up to be
just like you."
    "I'm not so sure about that," Samantha said
with a grin, "but I do know that if I ever see another shiny red
apple again in my lifetime, it'll be too soon. And to think I
believed that was a thing of the past!"
    His laughter joined hers for a moment before
he spoke again. "You do give the impression of being rather quiet
and studious, though, so I can't say I'm surprised to find your
head