Read Online Hope's Road by Margareta Osborn - Free Book Online Page A

of a burning stick.
    She sighed and knocked on the door. The sound of crashing crockery came from inside, followed by a high-pitched squeal. What on earth was going on in there? She knocked again and a head of red hair appeared at the door. Billy slid back the glass.
    â€˜Tammy? Gee, you look pretty!’
    â€˜Thanks, Billy, you little charmer. You forgot this stuff when you left.’ Tammy thrust out a handful of papers. ‘I thought you might need it for your speech on Monday.’
    The boy ducked his head in embarrassment as a voice came from behind him somewhere. ‘Who’s there, Billy?’
    In for a penny in for a pound, her grandmother used to say. So when Billy moved back reluctantly, she stepped through the doorway and past the curtain, to see a sight which would have been funny if it wasn’t so shocking. Jacinta Greenaway, the lower-grades schoolteacher, was on her knees in front of Travis Hunter. All Tammy could see were acres of blonde hair but she’d know that voice anywhere. Slightly breathless, almost childlike in its intonation. ‘Ohhh, Trav . . .’
    Hunter looked like he was in ecstasy, or was it agony? Hard to tell from this angle. If she moved a step to the right maybe she could work it out.
    â€˜Dad, it’s Tam – Ms McCauley.’
    Travis started, stood up straight and now Tammy could see it was agony cloaked with embarrassment. ‘It’s not what it looks like, Ms McCauley.’
    Jacinta squealed again. ‘Trav, I can’t do it if you stand like that!’
    Hunter immediately bent back over and the blonde hair disappeared into his groin once more, a hand coming up to wave hello – or maybe it was goodbye? – to Tammy as she went.
    Tammy grinned and leaned against a post that extended above her head and supported what looked like an old wire gate on its side, holding a harvest of apples. ‘And just what do you think it looks like, Mr Hunter?’
    An agonised expression crossed Travis’s face once again.
    â€˜Oooh . . . I think I’ve got it!’ Jacinta put her head up for a breath before diving back into action.
    Travis glanced at Tammy. She quirked an eyebrow in question. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders as he held himself up over Jacinta. ‘She dropped the dish of lasagna and it shattered on the bench. I’ve got the stuff all over my front here, glass shards and all.’
    â€˜Well, why don’t you just take off your clothes?’ suggested Tammy, smirking. The next moment she wished she could snatch those words right back because Travis Hunter’s piercing blue eyes fixed on her from across the room. Her face blazed with embarrassment. Where the hell had that comment come from? She was a married woman; she had no right to flirt with someone who was possibly still married as well. And he had yet another woman on her knees in front of him. Shit.
    Tammy cleared her throat and stood up straight. ‘I should be going. I just wanted to drop off this information for Billy. He’s got a speech to do at school on Monday.’ Her chin lifted in challenge. There, did you know that, Mr Hunter?
    Jacinta’s head appeared again and she made to stand up, bringing with her a bag of clinking glass that dripped with tomato sauce and pasta. ‘We’ll have to make do with salad and garlic bread, boys! Yes, we’re doing public speaking – talking about where we live, our families, what we do in our spare time, all that kind of stuff. It’ll be such fun, won’t it, Billy?’ The woman’s voice lilted upwards with excitement.
    Billy’s head dropped and he muttered, ‘I don’t know about fun,’ before excusing himself. ‘Thanks, Tammy,’ he said as he hoisted himself up a ladder to a loft-like structure next to the apples. A mezzanine floor? His bedroom perhaps?
    Tammy glanced back at the couple in the kitchen. Seeing them