Free Fixer-Upper (Spinning Hills Romance 3) by Inés Saint Page A

were a shoo-in. Between Don Stands’s enthusiasm and interest, and the Foundation’s own words . . . Marissa had a hard time holding back the great wave of enthusiasm that was making her dance in her seat.
     
    Johnny took a moment at the end of the day to separate the Marissa he’d met in the elevator from the Marissa he’d met in the classroom, and the Marissa he’d known for years. If he kept thinking about her as a woman whom he’d become infatuated with (but who wanted nothing to do with him), or as his angry best friend’s sister, he’d second-guess his professional actions and decisions for the next six months. He couldn’t do that. He had to keep their work relationship and their personal relationship separate. But they had so much to discuss, on both fronts . . .
    He tried to catch up to Marissa just as she was leaving her classroom, but she quickened her pace down the hall toward the double doors that led to the staff parking lot, pretending not to see him. She had seemed so approachable in the classroom. Accessible to everyone. Except the school psychologist when there was no one else to act as a buffer, apparently.
    It strengthened his conviction. They needed to talk things through.
    He matched her pace and got down to business straightaway, to set the tone now that they were alone. “Amy told me a bit about the Mosaic Marathon and I learned a lot by participating in both classrooms today, but I still have a few questions.”
    “Did you get Amy’s e-mail?”
    “Yes, and a meeting Thursday before school works for me, too, but it would be helpful if you told me more about it before then. Amy already left.”
    Marissa cleared her throat but didn’t look at him. “Our classrooms will be putting together a thirty-minute musical. As you saw today, we’ll be using and adapting music from the public domain, choreographing short dance sequences, and writing a script, while Amy’s class will help by building sets and props. The theme of this year’s fair is diversity and inclusion. We have to videotape and timestamp our progress and upload the videos and our first act by this Friday, when voting begins. If we make it to the next round, we upload more videos documenting our process for our second act and the voting process starts again, fresh. If we pass that round, we post the entire script and upload videos of our rehearsals.”
    She took a breath. “Ten winners will be chosen from around the country. If we’re one of them, we present our musical at the Mosaic Country Fair in Denver in six weeks. Basically, we’ll find out if we make it in three weeks. But I plan on keeping the pace, even if we don’t make it, and presenting the musical to the community by the end of summer. My hope is that the kids will become so engrossed and immersed in the process, they’ll learn English along the way. Amy’s class will also be working on acquiring solid math concepts by planning and drafting set design. We’ll be competing against honors and gifted classes, too. I don’t know if other ELL classes are planning on competing. It’s ambitious.” Her voice wavered.
    He stopped. “It’s ambitious, but it’s also the most brilliant idea I’ve heard in a long while.”
    Marissa stopped, too, and for the first time since they’d started walking together, she looked at him. She was blushing prettily. “Thank you. It’s Amy’s idea, too. She’d also love to hear that.”
    But Johnny knew that wasn’t true. Amy herself had said Marissa had come up with it. It reminded him that Marissa had never been one to crave attention or compliments.
    She began walking again. “How did you come up with it?” he asked, falling into pace beside her.
    “Abuela Rosa always used to tell me how she mostly learned English by reading, watching soap operas, listening to music, and practicing with people who understood how difficult it was to put yourself out there and speak a new language. I told Amy about it, and we thought