Free What the Heart Wants by Jeanell Bolton

pantry. Lolly deserved something special. But what sort of breakfast did she have the ingredients for—and know how to make?
    How about French toast? On Sunday mornings, Mama would take over the kitchen and prepare it as a special treat for the family. Laurel was pretty sure she remembered the process. All it took was bread, eggs, milk, and—and cinnamon. Did she have cinnamon? She checked the far reaches of the pantry. Yes, back in the corner.
    Channeling Rachael Ray, she gathered the ingredients together on the counter next to the stove and greased a pan. Then, to complete the scene, she tied on Mama’s old apron, a frilly affair designed more for looks than utility. The second Lolly appeared, she’d turn on the burner.
    This is what it would be like if Dave had stuck around and she were making breakfast for her own family. She turned on her coffee machine.
    Easygoing, good-natured Dave. He’d been popular with Bosque Bend’s social set and she’d thought he was the perfect fit. She’d have adored any children they would have had. Of course, parenthood would have complicated matters when he left her, because she had a good idea he would have abandoned the children too. Dave always was one to minimize his losses.
    Shrugging off what might have been, she poured herself a cup of coffee and opened up the Retriever to catch up on what was happening in Bosque Bend, then paused. Why was she so excited about Lolly being here? Did she miss her parents so much? It had been two years since Daddy died and not quite a year since Mama found her own escape, but she felt like she’d been alone forever.
    Today’s issue was mostly ads, and, for once, Arthur Sawyer didn’t have anything controversial to editorialize about. Rats. Just when she needed something to help pass the time.
    She glanced up at the kitchen clock. When would Lolly wake up?
    Laying her apron across the back of a chair, she wandered into the den and paused in front of the big teak bookcase to pull out her favorite high school annual, the one from her sophomore year. She cradled it against herself and traipsed upstairs to her room. Curling up on her bed, she went through it page by page.
    First came the photos of the school administrators, each one with a separate page. Principal Nyquist’s picture, which led the pack, was the same one he’d used for years. He couldn’t help the way the camera angle emphasized his broken nose, a souvenir of his coaching days, but there was something about his squinchy eyes and the grim set of his mouth that had always put her off.
    She turned to the pictures of the faculty members. Marguerite Chalmers Shelton, MA, English, smiled seductively out of a cunningly lit headshot from a three-quarters angle.
    Laurel tilted the book to get it in a better light. Ms. Shelton wasn’t really that pretty, once you looked at her feature by feature. Her eyes were sort of an odd color, a light hazel, although that could just be the fading photo, while her nose was short and snubby and her mouth a bit overwide. She had gorgeous hair, though: reddish blonde, curly, and thick.
    Laurel remembered that hair. Sometimes Ms. Shelton wore it up, but more often she let it flow to midway down her back. Saundra Schlossnagel had said she looked like a fashion model, but Laurel knew Saundra was way off base, because she and Sarah had made an in-depth study of models when Sarah was considering becoming the next Heidi Klum—in addition to playing softball in the Olympics, getting a law degree, and running for governor.
    Anyway, Laurel knew Ms. Shelton was just too short to walk the fashion runway. Not that she didn’t try to make up for it by teetering along on stilettos while every other female teacher in the school wore Keds. Sarah said she did it to make her boobs and butt stick out. Whatever, the guys liked it, and apparently Mr. Nyquist did too, judging by the expression Laurel had seen on his face