School of Fortune by Amanda Brown

Author:Amanda Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312366735
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Fourteen

Someone with wonderfully sweet breath was kissing her passionately. Trouble was he pinched her nose before each kiss. As her mind cleared, Pippa slowly realized that she was on the receiving end of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and she was lying on a couple of sharp rocks. She let another kiss go by, then coughed and opened her eyes.

“Look, Mr. Flores!” a Cub Scout squealed. “She’s alive!”

Pippa sat up. A dozen inner-city boys gazed at her in fear and fascination. The two adult leaders were also looking at her with mixed feelings: on one hand, she was gorgeous. On the other hand, anyone who jumped off a cliff into the Delaware River was probably on drugs. They had taken the Cub Scouts on a canoe trip precisely to get away from that sort of garbage.

“Are you a cavewoman?” one of the boys asked.

“No. This is just a costume.” Pippa’s eyes found her rescuer, a dashing Hispanic with great lips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on you like that.”

He was almost disappointed that she had awakened: kissing this unconscious woman back to life was way more exciting than kissing his wife half to death. Aware that he was supposed to be a role model, Mr. Flores suppressed his lust beneath a fit of indignation. “Sorry?

You took one heck of a flying leap right in front of our canoes. That’s not what I’d call showing a lot of concern for the safety of others. Not to mention yourself.” He frowned at her sodden faux fur. “And where’s your life vest?”

“I didn’t think I’d be swimming,” she replied feebly.

“A good Scout plans ahead,” Mr. Flores preached to one and all.

“An elephant threw me off the cliff,” Pippa snapped, relieving her boots of heavy water.

“Woooow! A real elephant? That is so cool!”

“That is anything but cool,” Mr. Flores disagreed. Scouts were supposed to be truthful at all times. “In the first place, Pennsylvania is not a natural habitat for elephants. In the second place, elephants don’t generally use their trunks as slingshots.” He tore his eyes from Pippa’s lovely throat. “What color was this animal, ma’am? Pink?”

“Gray. Her name is Mitzi.” What was his problem? “Let’s forget about her, okay? She’s wanted to kill me from the moment we met.” Pippa rubbed her aching scalp. She wouldn’t be surprised if half her hair was still in the trees. As she touched the lump on the back of her head, it began to throb. “Would there be any aspirin in that first-aid kit? Four or five would hit the spot.”

Mr. Flores made a show of reading the label. At last night’s campfire he had been lecturing the boys on substance abuse. “Two is the recommended dose. Just this once I think we can make an exception. It’s not every day you get thrown into a river by an elephant named Mitzi, is it?”

“Thanks.” Pippa chewed five and drank from a proffered canteen. “You saved my life.”

“Do a good turn daily. That’s our slogan. Right, Scouts?”

“Right, chief!”

“My name is Geraldo Flores,” he said, shaking her hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.