Free Trouble Me: A Rosewood Novel by Laura Moore Page A

one that excited the imagination was a huge plus. If none of the kids had allergies, perhaps she’d buy some gerbils too and devote a whole corner of the classroom to nature. But no birds. She couldn’t bear the sight of a caged bird.
    When a phone call for Ted momentarily interrupted their meeting, Jade took the opportunity to compile a mental list of the things she’d be buying in the coming weeks. As shopping lists went, it was a great one. Topping it were the four new ponies she needed to buy for her riding classes. Just below the search for suitableschool ponies was a trip to buy a colorful school of fish. She was pretty sure that tetras and cyprinids could live in a tank together. She’d check and then drive to the pet store located on Route 50 and see what fish they stocked. The pet store was next to Screamin’ Susie’s—a punk hair salon and an old haunt. God, she’d have to pop in to Susie’s and say hi to the gang. The trick would be walking out of the shop without having her hair dyed lime green and chopped à la Sid Vicious. It was going to break Susie and co.’s hearts to hear that those rocker days were long gone.
    Also on her list was a pilgrimage to Steadman’s Saddle Shop to pick up pony tack. Then somewhere, sometime, before the first day of school, she had to squeeze in an outing to buy clothes that weren’t jeans, breeches, or didn’t come off a fashion designer’s rack. She’d ask Margot and Jordan to accompany her as wardrobe advisers; they’d get a major bang out of dressing her like a schoolmarm.
    Ted Guerra hung up the phone. “Sorry about that, Jade. I’m trying to get a company to donate microscopes to the school. So, let me give you your class list and then we’ll head down to the classroom and take a quick tour of the school so you get a sense of the layout.” He picked up a folder that was sitting on top of a pile of papers. “Here,” he said, passing it to her. “This has your class roster and your students’ evaluations for kindergarten and first grade. Being a local, you might already know some of your kids.”
    Curious, Jade flipped open the manila folder to see whether she indeed recognized any names. Warburg was a small town, and the children were close in age to Max and Olivia. The list was in alphabetical order. She scanned it, past Chris Alden, Rosie Baxter, Jay Blount, Deirdre Cerra, Hayley Cooper, Patrick Faherty … Her gaze stalled, then jumped back to Hayley Cooper.
    A choking panic seized her. She coughed to clear her throat. “Um, Ted, this Hayley Cooper …” She swallowed. And coughed again. Violently. “Which Cooper is she related to?”
    “Do you want some water for that?”
    She waved a hand and shook her head, so Ted continued. “Her dad’s Rob. He’s on the police force here. Do you know the Coopers?”
    She must be cursed. Really. Wasn’t it only the day before that she’d been crowing to herself about how great her life was, how smoothly things were falling into place, and now this had to happen. She had RoboCop’s kid in her class.
    Why, oh, why, was her luck so lousy? And she’d just signed the contract; she couldn’t bail now. Wouldn’t either. She wasn’t some wimp to be intimidated by the fact that she’d be teaching the child of the guy who had busted her ass not only once but
twice
. She wasn’t a juvie anymore. But still,
damn it all to hell
, she thought. This promised to be a truly awkward situation.
    Jade swallowed the thick lump of dismay that was threatening to choke her and tried for a fairly normal, nonhysterical voice.
    “Yeah, I kind of know Rob Cooper.” The Coopers were a bit like the Radcliffes in that both families had their specialty. The Radcliffes bred and trained horses; the Coopers raised cops. Practically every male in that family had served or was serving on Warburg’s police force. But she’d dealt only with Rob—aka RoboCop—and she would have been happy if she never had to lay eyes on him