Diamonds in the Snow

By Diana Hunter

When a sudden snowstorm unexpectedly gives her the afternoon off from school, all Carolyn Brooks intends is a night at home grading papers. But when her car slides off the road and Paul Anderson, the disliked head of the English department takes her to his home, Carolyn finds herself drawn to the rescuing knight.

But Paul Anderson has a secret...and determines the petite elementary teacher is too delicate a flower for his dark tastes. He knows what she does not. That he is not the White Knight, but the Black.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diana Hunter
• Release date: Sep 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311702487

Diana Hunter

Diana Hunter became interested in writing stories with bondage and D/s themes when she found a dearth of them on the web. Nothing she read seemed to have the romantic element she knew was possible in such relationships. Challenged by a friend to write a better one, she wrote her first full-length novel, Secret Submission. Each book Diana writes contains a kernel of truth or deeply held conviction from her own life, but don’t ask her where truth ends and fantasy begins...she’ll never tell! When not writing, Diana is usually at her loom, weaving thread lines of a different sort. Married for over thirty years to the same man, she is grateful for all the wonderful encouragement he gives her.

Book preview

Diamonds in the Snow

By

Diana Hunter

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2005, 2015 Diana Hunter

All Rights Reserved

Discover other titles by Diana Hunter at

http://www.dianahunter.net

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Chapter One

"All right, everyone. Last bus just called in. All the kids are safely home. You’re dismissed…and drive carefully! See you tomorrow. Maybe."

Carolyn Brooks had her coat on at the first sound of the monitor’s crackle. By the time the principal finished speaking, her hat and scarf were in place and her gloves in hand. Snuggling her laptop into its black cloth case and slinging it over her shoulder, she scooped up the pile of uncorrected papers and dropped them into the outside sleeve of the case before heading out of her classroom.

All down the hall, teachers emerged. Some grinned, some threw worried glances at the snow falling fast and furious outside the school’s windows.

Couldn’t have cancelled school when we’re all still home, could he? Carolyn turned, the voice belonged to one of the school’s known grouches. Another voice assented and Carolyn felt obliged to speak up. You know how it is around here. With lake effect, one town could be buried, and another five miles away not get even so much as a flake.

He knew, just as we all did, that there was a very good chance of it hitting us today.

Carolyn shrugged and kept walking. Having been through administrator training, she knew the weight of the decision the superintendent faced when snow was forecast. Cancel, and parents scrambled to find daycare for their kids. If it snowed heavily, you were a hero. Cancel and have the storm miss you? Grumbling parents were much worse than a few grouchy teachers.

Well, none of us have crystal balls, she thought to herself as she brushed six inches of new snow off her car. And it was falling faster now. Latest weather report had warned of at least an inch an hour. They’d been in school almost four before the busses collected the kids, and another two waiting for the all clear. Looked like the weather guys got it right.

By the time she finished brushing off the back window, the front one was covered again. At least the rear defogger was doing its work. Getting in, she set the wipers to clearing a spot for her to see by and put the gear in first. The tires spun as she tried to climb out of her parking space over the pile of snow. The six inches of snow on the ground plus the six she’d brushed off made quite a mound around her little island of a car.

But then someone pushed her from behind and she was clear. Glancing in her rear mirror, she saw two of the male teachers grinning and waving as she slowly drove through the narrow strip the school’s plow had been able to clear. Honking once as a thank you, she drove into the storm.

* * * * *

Damn it!

Carolyn slammed on both the brakes and clutch, desperately trying to downshift and steer at the same time as a huge buck bounded across the snowy road. She got as far as third before the front corner of her bumper tagged the hind leg of the magnificent deer, sending her into a spin across the slippery surface. Without thinking, she changed tactics, steering into the spin. But keeping two hands on the wheel and one on the stick was a feat worthy of a prestidigitator. Her sleight of hand wasn’t up to par; the engine stalled.

Damn power assist! she shouted as the wheel locked up on her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a snowbank approaching. Although she ducked more out of a sense of self-preservation than anything else, her body still flew left and then right as the driver’s side of her car buried itself in the soft snow.

Quiet descended and Carolyn blinked several times as her brain tried to register what had just happened. Automatically, she turned off the already stalled engine, dropping the keys into her coat pocket even as she mentally checked all her parts. No injuries.

Her father’s warnings of old sounded in her head. In any accident, get out of the car immediately. You never know what damage has occurred to the gas line. Had she done any damage to the line? Almost in a panic, she clawed at her seatbelt with one hand while fumbling for the door handle on the other. Why wouldn’t the damn door open? The seatbelt went flinging past her face, but the door remained shut.

Carolyn held a long-standing pride in her ability to handle any situation. A ten-year veteran of the elementary grades, she dealt with bloody noses, missing backpacks, wet pants and even arguing divorced parents with a calm aplomb that won her the respect of fellow teachers and parents alike.

Unflappable and capable her principal had written on her end-of-the-year report last June. So why was she now pounding on the door like a deranged lunatic?

Because enclosed spaces always made her nervous. Ever since she was a child and had locked herself in a trunk, she had suffered from the phobia.

Just as it had when she was little, time stopped again. The snowbank rose against the door, preventing her from opening it. In her welling panic, she frantically rolled down the window. A scream formed, and she fought it down. She was an adult now, no child to scream at phantoms. Scrambling to kneel on the seat, she stuck her head out the open window, her eyes closed as she fought to breathe.

* * * * *

Paul Anderson followed the car ahead of him as it pulled out of the parking lot. The woman in the car was one of the elementary teachers, but even while one corner of his mind searched for her name, the majority of his thoughts centered on the sight of her brushing off her car wearing that short little winter jacket that was more for show than warmth.

He supposed a gentleman would have offered to help, but in truth, he was no gentleman. Women wanted equal rights, then they could brush the snow off their own cars. Besides, he was having too much fun watching the way her ass filled out those slacks. Every time she reached forward, she came up on her toes and her pants stretched across an ass he would definitely not mind getting to know. Driving down the road, he imagined that ass naked on his bed, raised to receive the flogging he so longed to give. Ashamed of the thought, he squashed it down as he tried to figure out just whose beautiful ass he admired.

With her hat pulled down around her ears and a scarf covering the rest of her face, he had to fill in the blanks with his memory. Problem was, he didn’t see her often enough for the details to stick in his head. Each year the entire district faculty met on the first day of school. Since he taught in the high school building, this was often the only chance he had to meet the rest of his teaching partners. Several years earlier the district had gone to a unified campus, which simply meant all the separate buildings were now located in one central court. Territorial wars, however, still reigned. The elementary teachers resented the middle school teachers telling them what to teach, the middle school teachers, in turn, resented the high school teachers. As head of the high school English department, he was often on the receiving end of many dirty looks from those who perceived his comments as directives.

Red brake lights suddenly lit up in front of him; lights that first swung right and then left as the car crossed the road to bury itself in a high snowdrift. This was a little-used back road, and Paul suddenly realized that perhaps today the two of them should have remained on the better-plowed main roads.

Letting the antilock brakes do their work, he slowed his own car and put on his hazards. The wind had kicked up and snow swirled around him as he got out of his car, listening for oncoming traffic, since visibility