Caleb had immediately volunteered to go pick her up. It was the perfect opportunity. Miss Mckinney was Libby’s teacher, so he’d stroll into class, tip his hat at her, announce he was there to pick up Libby, and strike up a conversation.

His mind went blank. A conversation about . . . what? What did one talk about with a schoolteacher? The weather? Everyone was going to talk about the weather with her. He needed to say something different. Maybe something about school? But he didn’t have children that went to the school . . . Maybe Christmas?

Surely he’d think of something. He wiped his brow, sucked in a deep breath, and then got out of the truck.

*   *   *

Most of the parents at Painted Barrel Elementary knew the drill for picking up their children. Amy took the ones that rode the bus out to the bus driver’s line in front of the principal’s office. She quickly counted heads and then went back to her classroom, where the other children waited with their backpacks for their parents to pick them up. Picking up their children in the classroom instead of outside was better all around, Amy figured, since it was cold and snowy in Wyoming in December, and little hands needed gloves and those were the first thing that her students tended to lose.

Plus, it gave Amy a good chance to talk to the parents, to pass along notes about behavior, and to make sure everything was going well. With a small class of twelve students, she could do such a thing. It was one of the main reasons she’d moved out to Painted Barrel and accepted the teaching job that had the lowest salary instead of taking a far more lucrative one in a big city. She really wanted to connect with her students. She really wanted the opportunity to influence her kids and watch them grow. She wanted to be a teacher that they remembered.

Plus, she was starting over—her life, her career, everything. What was better than starting over in all ways? She’d lived in bigger cities all her life. Now Amy just wanted to blend into a tight-knit community and be part of things. Maybe being part of a community would help choke down that black hole of loneliness inside her that had just gotten bigger and bigger since her divorce.

Maybe.