Night Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

shut off the light.
    Brad Jamison, assistant principal, hesitated at the door to Megan Roberts’s classroom. The late September heat moved through the quiet halls of the now empty school. The children were gone for the day, and so were most of the teachers. He held her request for a change of curriculum in his hand. Easing open the door, he spotted Megan at the board. She was drawing a huge hot-air balloon on the board in colored chalk.
    There was nothing not to like about her, Jamison had decided. He walked quietly into the room. She had been hired while he was away on vacation. Normally, he did the hiring. But, to his surprise, this red-haired vixen was here when he’d come back from summer vacation three weeks ago. The principal, Jake Hamilton, had hired her.
    Hamilton didn’t have bad taste, Jamison thought. Being divorced, Brad was always interested in pretty, young and single women. Even another teacher. Halting midway into the room, Brad watched her. The cascade of unruly red hair across her shoulders was like a crimson cape. Or was it a red flag? In the teachers’ conferences with the administration, she’d been absent, which was unusual. He really didn’t know this woman, but if her slender shape was any indication, it was going to be a real pleasure working with her. Besides, she was new and would be on probation for three years. Megan Roberts would be a pliable, willing creature and would realize that her job could be pulled from her at any time if she didn’t go along with what he wanted.
    “Megan?”
    Megan turned, startled by a male voice so close behind her. Eraser poised in hand, she saw a short, bulldog-shaped man in a gray suit standing in the center of her room. He had thick blond hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, his eyes were a dark brown color. Perhaps it was his short, squat appearance that made her go on internal guard; Megan wasn’t sure. His face was round, and he appeared to be in his early forties. It was the light in his small eyes that bothered her.
    “Yes?” Who was he? Her gaze fell to the folder in his grasp, and she recognized it as her outdoor education curriculum plan.
    Holding out his hand, he came forward. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Brad Jamison, assistant principal.”
    His fingers were strong, holding her hand far longer than necessary. Megan pulled her hand from his grasp and set the eraser down. “Mr. Jamison, it’s nice to meet you.”
    He grinned. “I hope you mean that, Megan. You’re certainly a bright spot here at school. Beautiful young teachers aren’t the norm, and if your credentials from Ohio State University are any indication, I’d say Mr. Hamilton has hired a very special lady.”
    Scowling, Megan went to her desk and kept some distance between them. She didn’t know what to expect from the administration because this was her first job at a school. Linda Yarnell, a motherly woman who had taught at bases for eighteen years, had warned her that the teachers’ union and this particular school administration weren’t on good footing with one another right now.
    “I would hope that Mr. Hamilton hired me because I was a good teacher, not necessarily a ‘special lady.’”
    Brad’s smile broadened. He liked her spirit and spunk, her chin raised at an imperious angle, her green eyes flashing with a hint of anger. “Do I hear feminism talking?” he teased, walking over to her desk.
    Megan sized him up. “I’m sure you do. But that shouldn’t come as any surprise. It’s 1990, and feminism started in 1970. Everyone’s had twenty years to adjust to the fact that a woman is an equal.” She smiled slightly. “I see you have my curriculum suggestion in hand. Is that what you’ve come to talk about?”
    “Ah, yes. Your suggestions.” Brad made himself comfortable on the corner of her desk, no more than a foot separating them. Megan was dressed in a bright kelly-green shirt-dress, the brass buttons and belt showing off her figure and