Yuletide Proposal. Lois Richer

      “What did you mean when you said I’d betrayed you?” Zac looked straight at her and waited for an answer. A frown line marred the perfection of his smooth forehead.

      “It doesn’t matter. Let’s forget the past and deal with now.” Brianna took control of the conversation, desperate to avoid delving into the past again. “You want to find out who is giving out drugs and stop the spread of them in the school. I get that.”

      “Oh, I want a lot more than that, Brianna.” Zac’s voice oozed determination. “I want the students in Hope’s schools to shake off their apathy and start using the brains God gave them. I want them to begin looking at the future with anticipation and eagerness.”

      “But—” Brianna closed her lips and concentrated on listening. When Zac became this serious it was better to let him just say it.

      “Do you know that less than one percent of the students graduating from Hope High School go on to college?” Zac huffed his disgust. “And no wonder. They have no interests. There’s no choir, no debate club, no science club, no language club. Everything’s been discontinued. And regular class attendance is a joke. That’s what I want to change.”

      Brianna blinked at Zac’s fierce tone. “Okay, then.”

      “And I want you to help me do it.”

      “Me?” She could say no more because he interrupted again.

      “I am not a motivator, Brianna.” Determination glittered in his eyes.

      “That’s not true,” she said firmly. Zac had motivated her time after time when he’d tutored her to win a college scholarship and all through the courses that followed. You can do anything you want, he’d repeatedly insisted.

      “If there were even a spark of interest, I could work with that.” He frowned at her. “But throw drugs into the mix and the challenge expands exponentially. I need a big change, something that will grab the students’ attention.”

      Brianna didn’t know what to say. Zac sounded so forceful, so determined. Intrigued by this unexpected side of him, she decided to hear him out.

      “I know you haven’t been here long, but think about the kids you’ve seen at the clinic.” Zac’s brown eyes narrowed. “Have you spoken with any who are excited about their future?”

      “Uh, no.”

      “No.” Zac’s cheeks flushed with the intensity of his words. “The world is theirs for the taking but they don’t care. They’re completly unengaged. Truthfully, so are most of their teachers. They don’t want to be, but you can only live with apathy for so long before it seeps into your attitude.” He exhaled and stared straight at her. “What we need is something to ignite interest so kids, including Cory, can get excited. That’s the only alternative I know to the pervasiveness of drugs.”

      Brianna blinked. Wow. The old Zac had not been a man of words. This was the longest speech she’d ever heard him give and his passion was evident.

      Of course she knew all about Zac’s teaching ability, not just from firsthand experience when he’d patiently tutored her, but she’d seen it while they’d studied for their undergrad degrees. Over and over she’d witnessed the way he’d throw himself into explaining a subject. In those days he’d never accepted her praise or seen his ability to instill interest as unique, but it was his skill as a teacher that had taught her to focus on what she wanted and channel her energy into getting it. He called her a motivator back then, too, but he’d been an encourager for her.

      If only Cory could find someone like—

      Zac.

      In a flash of understanding Brianna realized that Zac was exactly who Cory needed to help him find his way. She’d worked hard to be both mother and father to her son, but she’d failed him somehow. Still, this wasn’t the time to stand by and let drugs or anything else ruin his chance to begin again. Brianna needed help.

      But Zac?

      Brianna had thought she knew what it took to raise a child properly—exactly what she’d always yearned for. Love, and lots of it. But the older her son became, the more Brianna’s doubts about her parenting ability grew. Love wasn’t breaching the growing distance between them. She was failing her own son.

      Still—Zac as Cory’s mentor? He wasn’t even in the classroom anymore. Brianna spared a moment to wonder why Zac, who had teaching running through his blood, had chosen to move to administration.

      “Will you help me, Brianna?” Zac’s face loomed inches from hers.

      The earnest tone of his voice made her blink out of her memories.

      “Uh, help you—do what exactly?” Every sensitive nerve in Brianna’s body hummed when he leaned close. In ten years she hadn’t given as much thought to their past as she had since seeing Zac the first day in his office. And she didn’t like the feelings it brought. “Look, Zac, I don’t think—”

      Brianna stopped. How did you tell your ex-fiancé you didn’t think it was a good idea for you to work with him because he still made you feel things?

      Her heart raced, pitter-pattering like any high-school junior’s did whenever she saw the local heartthrob. She was nervous, that’s all. After all, this man was asking a lot of her, and he’d betrayed her once.

      “Listen, Brianna. Last night I learned that Eve Larsen had overdosed on drugs.” Zac tented his fingers.

      “Jaclyn called me in for a consult.” She frowned. “What has that to do with Cory?”

      Zac sat back, shifted, and then finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.

      “Until Cory’s incident I had no idea that Hope—that the school—that we had a drug problem.”

      “Maybe you don’t.”

      “It’s the start of one. Hear me out, Brianna.” Zac stared at her as if she had something smeared over her face. “I’ve worked where the schools become infested with drugs. They creep in and then take over if nobody stops it. Once they’re in place, it’s desperately hard to get rid of a drug problem and loosen their grip on the student population. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

      “So?”

      “So when Cory’s case was thrown at me, I knew I couldn’t ignore it, not when I’m responsible for the rest of the students. He’s a very smart kid, Brianna, but he needs a challenge, something that tests his current beliefs about the world. He needs to be forced to use that brain.” Zac paused, his glance holding hers. “As I understand it, so far Cory’s been involved in misdemeanors, petty stuff—minor theft, nasty pranks, breaking his curfew—the kind of things that have repeatedly sent him to juvenile court.”

      “Yes.” She was ashamed to hear Zac say it.

      “And before you moved here, his last act was to join a gang. Not exactly the remorse a judge is looking for, which is probably why he gave Cory until Christmas to clean up his act and threatened him with juvenile detention if he doesn’t.”

      “That’s what the judge said to me,” Brianna admitted.

      “So you thought you’d move here, and Cory would turn around.” Zac leaned forward, holding her gaze with his intense one. “I’m very afraid that Cory’s not going to find the challenge he needs in Hope, Brianna. Not the way the school is now.”

      Brianna sat back, concern mounting as she absorbed the impact of Zac’s words. She understood what he wasn’t saying. She’d arrived at Whispering Hope Clinic believing her work here would be much easier than her old job. But in the past few weeks she’d begun to question her ability, to wonder if she’d ever get the response she needed in order to help these kids.

      “I know a little about drugs,” she murmured. “I did some practicum work with kids who were using. For most of the clients I saw then, the best I could offer was a listening