Chapter Two

Ten Years Later

Elise Blake blew on her too-hot latte as she sat down at the corner table in “her” coffee shop, the table nearest the windows and furthest from the busy sugar-and-milk-and-sprinkles station at the other end of the small locally owned establishment.

She had printed off several job advertisements in her allotted – and always too short – time on the university computers before retreating here for a coffee and a fingers-crossed look at jobs available in the Midwest.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, exactly, but something… unconventional.

She leafed through the pages, even as her mind wandered to the semester before, when she had conducted her student teaching, the final hurdle to receiving her degree in elementary education from the University of Northern Iowa.

She had loved teaching the young children – she had always loved and wanted to nurture children, to protect them – but she hated to see how little attention each student received from the harried teacher in an overcrowded classroom without enough supplies, support or parental involvement.

If she was honest, it had jaded her a bit.

Which made her sad.

So maybe a traditional classroom setting wasn’t for her, she thought – she needed a bit more latitude, more of a chance to influence the lives of young people – god knows if she’d had a teacher or adult step up and take charge of her childhood or at least take an interest, maybe things would have been different.

As it was, though, she mused, turning the page, she hadn’t turned out so badly.

Okay, repeatedly raped and beaten in various foster families, after being kicked out of the orphanage, after her cokehead mother had died penniless and alone with no father in sight…

Sure, but aside from that…

She snorted to herself at the irony and then bent to read another job advertisement even as her mind recalled a few years before…

She’d finally turned eighteen, of age to make her own decisions. She had lived on the streets and by her wits for a while, but at least she had a high school education and enough smarts to fake a work background until she could land a job in fast food… then waitressing… then as a line cook… then landing a scholarship to The University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls on a wing and a prayer (and, though she said it herself, a kick ass essay filled with all the gory details about her horrid childhood), and had tutored nonstop for four years to pay for books and incidentals, even though her room, board and tuition were covered.

College was never free, but it was freedom to Elise.

Now, she was fully armed with a degree in elementary education, a wary sense of men, her own independence, a great knack for rattling off food orders without having to write them down and a lot of patience from tutoring jocks with no interest in geological studies or why you had to solve for x in algebra – or in some cases, how to even sign their names.

Surely there was something out there that needed a skilled set like that, wasn’t there?

And she really wanted a job that wasn’t so… conventional.

That would challenge her.

But right now, she thought, thinking of the last nineteen dollars she had in her wallet, she just needed a job.

She sighed and turned over yet another paper printout, feeling deflated, when her eyes fell onto an advertisement she’d barely read before copying and pasting it into the document she’d printed, along with the hundreds of others she’d found on job hunting sites for educators.

Wanted: Independent, capable woman to homeschool eight year old girl. All room, board, education supplies provided. Salary negotiable. Accommodations spacious. Must be able to also provide cooking, cleaning and other household tasks as assigned. Located in the beautiful Keweenaw Peninsula. Serious inquiries only.

And a phone number.

Elise sat back in her chair, considering.

She had said she wanted something unconventional. Homeschooling is definitely different, and she could have such an affect on a single child – and to think of all the freedom in teaching she would have! Plus, room and board was a definite plus… and hell, Elise was a great cook from her past experience and knew her way around a toilet plunger and vacuum cleaner as a single girl who lived alone.

But where the hell was the Keweenaw?

She resolved to find it on Google Maps – right before she called with her “serious inquiry”.

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