The Rancher's Twin Troubles. Laura Altom Marie

He had the gall to combine his grin with a wink.

      How, she didn’t know, but Josie managed to survive the morning and lunch hour and even afternoon recess without suffering a meltdown. Everywhere she went there was Dallas, being generally helpful and offering to pass out papers. Which only put her that much more on edge.

      Friday afternoons, she always introduced an art project that was fun, but also worked on building a sense of community. For this week’s lesson, she’d had the children draw names of a friend. Once paired up, they would then create each other’s portraits with finger paint.

      After letting each student pick a cover-up from the pile of men’s and women’s oxford shirts she’d collected at yard sales, she passed out the oversize paper and spent a few minutes going over ground rules.

      “Now,” she asked once she’d finished, “raise your hand if you can tell me where the paint goes.”

      Megan Brown was first. “On the paper!”

      “Right. Excellent.” Over the years, Josie had learned to never underestimate the importance of explaining this point. “Does anyone have questions?”

      Thomas raised his hand. “I forgot how to get the lids off the jar thingees.”

      “Like this,” Josie said, holding up a plastic container from the nearest table. “Just twist, and then carefully set your lid on the table. Stick your hand in one finger at a time to get your paint. Kind of like your finger is the brush. Make sense?”

      He pushed up his glasses and nodded.

      “Any other questions? Okay, let’s take the lids off our containers and begin.”

      Since the twins were on opposite sides of the room, Dallas spent a few minutes with one before moving on to the other. When he was with Betsy, Josie happened to be alongside him. “My girl’s pretty talented, huh?”

      “A future Picasso,” Josie said in all seriousness. Betsy had indeed captured her friend Julia’s essence in a primary colored abstract extravaganza.

      “Their mom was pretty talented.”

      Looking up at her dad, Betsy asked, “What’d Mommy make?”

      A wistful look settled on his usually stoic features. It softened him. Gave him a vulnerability Josie hadn’t before noticed. “She used to set up her easel and watercolors by the duck pond and paint for hours. I teased her that her long hair rode the breeze like weeping willow branches.”

      The warmth in his eyes for a woman long gone knotted Josie’s throat.

      “Sometimes she’d paint what she saw.” He tweaked his daughter’s nose. “Other times, especially when she was pregnant with you, she’d paint what she imagined. Like one day sharing a picnic with you and your sister.”

      “Sounds amazing,” Josie said. “I’ve always wanted to be more artistic.”

      Upon hearing her voice, Dallas suffered a barely perceivable lurch—as if until she’d spoken, he’d forgotten anyone but he and Betsy were even in the room.

      “Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat. Did he even know what she’d said?

      “Stop, Bonnie!” Megan began crying. “I don’t wanna get in trouble for you!”

      Josie’s stomach sank. So much for her peaceful afternoon.

      “What happened?” she asked upon facing a horrible mess of what she presumed was Bonnie’s making. Her entire paper was coated with paint, as well as the table and carpeting underneath.

      “Well…” Bonnie planted her paint-covered fists on her shirt. “Since Megan is tall, I ran out of paper. I tried getting you, but you were talking to Daddy. I didn’t have anywhere else to paint, so I painted the floor.”

      The girl stated her actions in such a matter-of-fact way that they nearly sounded plausible. Nearly.

      Don’t yell. Keep your composure.

      “Bonnie,” Josie said after forcing a few nice deep breaths, “just because you ran out of paper, that doesn’t give you the right to complete your project wherever you’d like.”

      “You’re not the boss of me,” the girl sassed. “My daddy is, and he—”

      Dallas stepped up behind her. “—would like you to follow him to the cleanup closet where you’ll get a bucket and sponge to clean your mess.”

      Looking at her father as if he’d spouted bull horns, Bonnie’s mouth gaped. “But—”

      “Move it,” Dallas said, not even trying to hide his angry tone.

      An hour later, Josie had gotten everyone tidied and on their way home for the weekend. Back in the classroom, Betsy sat cross-legged on a dry patch of carpet. Dallas had found a roll of brown paper towels and sopped the areas where Bonnie had scrubbed.

      On her way inside from putting her students on buses, Josie had stopped by the janitor’s office and he’d assured her that his steam cleaner would tackle the job. By Monday morning, no one would ever guess the vandalism had taken place. Josie hated thinking of a small child’s actions in such harsh terms, but Bonnie had known exactly what she’d been doing.

      “Almost done?” Josie asked.

      “Uh-huh.” Bonnie looked exhausted, but that hardly excused her from the consequences of her actions. According to the classroom discipline chart, this was a major offense. Punishable by missing the next week’s recesses.

      “Miss Griffin?” Betsy asked. “If we buy you a present, can you stop hating us?”

      “Why would you think I hate you?” Josie asked, hurt by the very notion.

      “Because you always look at us with a frowning face.”

      The knot returned to Josie’s throat, only this time for a different reason. The Buckhorn family packed quite the emotional punch. “I’m not making a mad expression, sweetie, but sad. When my students break rules on purpose, it makes me feel like I’m not a very good teacher or you would’ve known better.”

      “I guess.” Tracing the carpet’s blue checkered pattern, the girl didn’t sound convinced.

      Dallas took his wallet from his back pocket. “Clearly, Bonnie and I are not going to be able to make this right without a shop vacuum. If I give you a couple hundred, think that’ll cover the cost of getting someone out here to clean?”

      “This isn’t about money,” Josie said, saddened that he’d even asked. “The custodian will handle whatever you can’t get up. But, Bonnie, what lesson have you learned?”

      The little girl released a big sigh. “I learned if I paint the floor, I don’t wanna get caught.”

      Chapter Four

      “Wrong,” Dallas snapped. Bonnie’s bratty answer made him sick to his stomach. It reminded him of the epic battles his parents and younger sister, Daisy, had had when she was a kid. When she’d taken off right after her high school graduation, Georgina and Duke blamed themselves for not having used a stronger hand in dealing with her many antics. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he understood his parents’ pain over their own failings. Damn, he hated being wrong, and when it came to his daughters’ poor behavior, not only had his mother been right, but their teacher had been, too. As a parent, he looked like a fool and had no one to blame but himself. “The lesson you were supposed to have learned was that if you’d followed Miss Griffin’s directions, you wouldn’t now be in trouble.”

      Bonnie put her hands over her ears and stomped her feet. “You said I’m a princess and that means I only do what I want!”

      “Clearly,” he said to Josie, too embarrassed to meet her gaze, “Bonnie and I are failing to communicate.”

      “That’s