MAKE ME YOURS (Heron's Landing #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

On the first day of classes, Kat Williamson cursed the humidity rampant in August and hoped her hair hadn’t turned into a ball of frizz before nine AM. Although the school where she taught computer classes to elementary students had AC, it struggled to keep up when the temperatures reached above one hundred, which was pretty common this time of year in Missouri.

Kat hustled to the staff room. The copy machine always had a line this close to the bell. Normally Kat arrived earlier, but she’d woken up late and had had to hustle it to get to school on time. Two other teachers were ahead of Kat, and of course one of them ended up getting the copier jammed.

Kat sighed inwardly. Today’s going to be a mess, isn’t it? Luckily, she didn’t have to teach until later that morning, but she still needed to finish her lesson plans. Normally she was way more organized, but she’d been distracted last night with messing with closing her grandmother’s cell phone account. Apparently telling someone the account holder was deceased wasn’t enough of a reason to close said account, Kat had found out to her immense frustration.

“Coffee?”

Kat turned to see her fellow teacher and friend, Silas Fraser, standing at her elbow. He was about her height, with light brown hair and a gap-toothed grin, and one of the few teachers around her age. They’d bonded over their Millennial status and griped about how no one in this school knew how to use a computer. Most of the teachers here were almost twice Kat’s age—not a bad thing, necessarily, but sometimes there was a bit of a culture gap.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied, taking the steaming mug. Normally she brought her own coffee, but apparently today was not going to go how it normally did. She sipped it and made a face. “God, that’s awful.”

Silas laughed. “It’s Folgers from 1994. I think.” He gazed at his own mug. “I think they stopped buying fresh coffee then. You know the school won’t even buy us creamer because it’s a ‘luxury.’”

Kat rolled her eyes. Right then, the teacher who’d jammed the copier managed to pull the offending paper and get the copier going again. The second the teacher finished, Kat practically wrapped herself around the copier: mine, don’t touch!

Silas laughed at her. “I thought you knew better than to make copies right now.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s my own fault.” Kat tapped her foot. “Why is this thing so slow?”

“It’s older than me, that’s why,” said Silas.

“That seems to be a theme in this school.” After Kat’s copies printed, she grabbed the papers and her cooling cup of coffee.

“Wait, before you go,” said Silas shyly. He looked around, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. If so, he’d picked the worst spot imaginable, as everyone was currently running around in circles in the break room, wondering where their things were, why the coffee tasted terrible, and complaining that it was so hot in here no matter how much they complained about the crappy air conditioners

Kat barely suppressed her impatience, but Silas was a friend. “Shoot.”

“Do you want to get a drink sometime?” A blush crawled up Silas’s face as he said the words, and he cleared his throat before adding, “You know, like a date.”

She blinked. She’d been expecting him to ask her to cover bus duty this week or something. Silas had been most decidedly in the friend category in her mind—not because he wasn’t dateable, but because he hadn’t shown the least interest in her up until now. She sipped her coffee again, mostly because she was figuring out what to say.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finally said. She saw him blushing harder and instantly felt guilty. “I mean, I would, but with my grandmother and everything…” She trailed off, hoping he’d get the hint.

Luckily, he did. “No, I get it. But think about it, okay? You don’t have to say yes or no right now.” He handed her the last of her copies. “See you later, Kat.”

Despite her best efforts, Kat couldn’t help but think about another man as she walked to her class. A man she wished would ask her out.. Gavin Danvers, who’d avoided her since he’d been so awkward at the farm-to-table festival earlier in the spring.

Not only had Gavin fallen on top of her to keep a ball from hitting her, but he’d looked at her lips for an intensely long moment—like he’d wanted to kiss her. Until he’d sprung up like he’d been scalded and had subsequently avoided her. Considering Heron’s Landing was ridiculously tiny, avoiding a particular person took a lot of effort. And Kat had definitely noticed Gavin’s effort in this regard.

Gavin was the black sheep of the Danvers’ family. While his brother Adam Danvers ran the family vineyard, Gavin had moved away with his wife and daughter years ago. But now Gavin was back, newly divorced, his young daughter with him.

Kat wondered if Gavin had ever asked a woman out for drinks, or if he just smoldered in their general direction and they came running. Then again, he’d been married at a young age. He might not have a lot of dating experience.

By the time it was time for Kat to teach an hour later, she’d gotten her brain in order, as well as her lesson plans. Kat had been able to stop thinking about Gavin Danvers—until Kat saw his young daughter Emma was one of the kids in her class. Of course she is, Kat thought to herself.

Considering that the elementary school in Heron’s Landing had all of one class per grade, it was pretty much guaranteed that Kat would be teaching Emma Danvers at some point today or tomorrow.

Today, Emma had her hair in lopsided braids, wearing purple leggings under an orange dress. At eight, the girl picked out her own clothes, but their lack of coordination, as well as the hair that was messy and probably completely tangled, bespoke a father who was distracted, to say the least. Kat rather wished she could come to their place and braid the girl’s hair herself.

Emma didn’t look much like her father, but sometimes her mannerisms would mirror his. She tended to narrow her eyes like Gavin would when annoyed. Both father and daughter also preferred to observe first and speak later. Kat had a feeling that Emma’s was more due to shyness, whereas her father’s was more because he found small talk annoying.

Emma said no more than five words the entire class, never raising her hand when Kat asked a question. Kat never cold-called on students—humiliation never worked as a learning tool—but she tried to get as many of her students involved as possible. It was too easy for some to disappear in the crowd, though. Kat knew she needed to find a way to get the shyer students to interact along with the more extroverted ones.

While the kids did work on their own, Kat stopped by each student to encourage them or correct their finger placement on the keyboard. When Kat got to Emma, she watched as the girl typed the sentence on the screen perfectly and as quickly as any adult.

“Where did you learn to type like that?” said Kat, impressed.

Emma jumped, her fingers smashing into the keyboard. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at Kat.

Kat touched Emma’s shoulder. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that.”

Where most kids would shrug or laugh, Emma just shook her head and seemed to turn further into herself. She tipped her chin down and said in a low voice, “My mom.”

Kat squatted down next to Emma. “Your mom?”

“She showed me how to type.”

“Oh, well, she did a great job. I couldn’t type that fast when I was your age.”

“She used to be a secretary.”

Kat was tempted to keep asking questions about Gavin’s ex-wife and Emma’s mother, but she bit her tongue. It was none of her business, even though she was dying to know why they’d divorced and why Gavin had gotten custody of Emma. Didn’t mothers usually get custody?

Curiosity killed the cat, Kat reminded herself.

Kat watched Emma for the rest of the class. She seemed especially jumpy even toward the end of class. When one of her classmates accidentally kicked over a thankfully empty metal trashcan, the sound resounding through the room, Emma practically ran out of the room.

Did Gavin know about this behavior? Kat wondered as the day progressed onward, unsure if it was her place to say anything when it wasn’t as if Emma had done anything wrong.

By the time Kat arrived home close to five o’clock, she was exhausted. She was tempted to take a nap, but she knew if she gave in to the indulgence, she’d never sleep later that night.

The house still seemed eerily empty without her grandmother, Lillian Jacobs, and as Kat made dinner, she had to stop herself from making enough food for two. But it was just her now, wasn’t it? Suddenly too tired to finish making the soup she’d started, she pulled out a frozen dinner and popped it into the microwave. Staring at the meal as it circled around, she wondered if this was a metaphor for her life: circling and circling but never getting anywhere.

Lillian had passed only a month ago at the age of eighty-five. She’d been as spirited upon her deathbed as she had been in life, telling Kat that she didn’t want her to cry after her death because she was going to a better place, and besides, she was old. Old people died. She’d patted Kat’s hand, and after that, she’d returned to that strange place in her mind that had been overtaken by dementia, not recognizing her granddaughter at the very end.

Kat had inherited her grandmother’s house and some money from her life insurance policy, and now that it was almost fall, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to sell the house or not. She’d considered it. She had no use for a house older than she was, filled with cat figurines and unfinished knitting projects and a pantry brimming with canned goods that were as old as the house. But every time she returned to the house—no, her house, Kat supposed—she didn’t have the heart to go through with a sale.

A few days ago, she’d stood in Lillian’s pink kitchen with its retro appliances, flipping through old cookbooks. The pages had been sticky with use, and Kat had found one of the cookie recipes that Lillian had made for her as a child: potato chip cookies. She’d gotten the ingredients to make them herself but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

Kat missed Lillian fiercely, but she was also glad that she hadn’t suffered for years. Her dementia had been clouding her mind for many years, and more and more, she’d had difficulty recognizing loved ones. Having her grandmother gaze at her like she was some stranger had broken Kat’s heart.

A computer programmer by trade, Kat had attended UCLA before working at a tech start-up in the Valley. But when she’d gotten a call from a concerned friend who’d told her that Lillian could no longer live on her own and would have to be put in a home, Kat had packed up her things and moved to Missouri. She’d lived in Heron’s Landing briefly as a child, before her mom had passed away from breast cancer when Kat had been fifteen. But it was a distant memory; she was a California girl at heart and missed Los Angeles rather desperately.

But right now, Kat was just getting melancholy over a TV dinner. Would everything make her cry? She suddenly couldn’t eat in the living room: it hurt too much.

Instead, Kat went to her bedroom to eat and to work on her most recent video game she’d been creating. She had started making video games earlier that year, mostly to distract herself from her grandmother’s declining health. Sitting down at her computer, she ate her TV dinner of pasta and broccoli, fiddling with code and making the finishing touches on the game she’d been working on ever since Lillian had passed away.

She pushed her glasses up her nose as she peered at the screen. It wasn’t a complicated game by any means: the entire point was to keep a flying squirrel from hitting any obstacles and falling from the sky. It was a 2D game, reminiscent of the original Mario games. Kat had been working on more levels, enjoying the creative aspect of the game. She’d created levels where it looked like a jungle, another level where it looked like outer space. At the moment, she was testing the game for bugs and would hopefully post the game as a beta version on different forums for people to play around with later tonight.

If she were honest, Kat didn’t expect anyone really to play her game. At most, she thought she might get a few hits here and there, a few comments on possible bugs. She went to bed feeling happy with her finished game while trying to keep her mind from thinking about Gavin Danvers and his daughter being in her class.

When Kat checked her phone the following morning to see if anyone had tried out her game, she was delighted to see tons of comments on one of her forum posts. The delight soon turned to dismay as she began to read them, though.

You copied this game this isn’t even original

y would u think this is a good idea this is the stupidest f*****g thing

this is why women should stay in the kitchen lol stop making s**t games and go make me a sandwich

PLAGARIST!!!

The comments, often full of misspellings, continued, each just as and derogatory as the last. Kat’s stomach sank to her toes. She’d expected some trolls—it was the Internet, after all—but this bombardment? Over a silly game? She suddenly felt extremely naïve and stupid for posting the game in the first place.

Plus, it was a game about a flying squirrel! How would that be controversial? Her mind boggled. And she most certainly hadn’t copied anyone, although she acknowledged that the idea surrounding it was hardly innovative.

Kat was about to delete the game entirely, but something stopped her. Was she really going to let some online bullies discourage her? She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t plagiarized anyone, that was for certain. Besides, as far as she knew, you couldn’t literally plagiarize a video game—could you?

She snorted, reported all of the comments as abuse, and got ready for work.