Chapter 1

While driving home from school, Bret Frazier knew that spring fever was in the air. He thought he could say that because of the way his students were acting. The warmer weather coupled with just a few days left in the school year had his students thinking about other things instead of American History, the course that Bret taught at school.

Bret had been teaching this high school course for the sixteen years he had been a teacher. Teaching the class was not much of a challenge because nothing changed, it was history. Bret was forty years old and was hoping there could be a break in this routine which could fire him up about his teaching duties. The only change he experienced in teaching this subject was the fresh new faces he would see at the start of the school year.

Normally, the classes were pretty evenly split between boys and girls. Bret had to admit that in his classes there were some attractive young ladies who would one day blossom into fine examples of womanhood. Some already had as evidenced by their physical attributes or their antics. The short skirts that they sometimes wore had them flashing him their white panties when they sat. Some of the female students took it a step farther when they teased him by deliberately spreading their legs so that Bret could see that they weren't wearing panties or if they were they were flesh colored. They were sadly mistaken if they thought this antic would give them a higher grade. Some of these students who flashed him were very attractive, but they were also jailbait and not worth the ramifications of Bret taking them up on what they were apparently offering.

As he was driving his car on his way home some of these flashing incidents were running through his mind. Bret glanced at his gas gauge and thought he should fill his tank up. He pulled into his regular gas station that was on his right and went about filling his gas tank.

While he was waiting in line to pay for his gas purchase, the man in front of him asked the clerk for some lotto tickets. He told the clerk that because of the large multi-million dollar payout, he wanted to have a chance to win some of it.

After this man left, Bret paid for his purchase and on a whim asked for five quick pick tickets on this lotto. He knew this was probably just a donation to the State, but he thought that someone had to win, why not him.

Pulling in and parking his six year old Camry in his driveway, Bret thought about what he needed to do this weekend. He knew that the usual food shopping was on his list, but he also needed some new shirts and a haircut. He remembered the townhome association newsletter he received inviting all the residents to a block party in Bob Mason's backyard this Saturday.

Bret lived in one of the newer townhome developments that were popping up. It wasn't a gated community, but the way it was situated with one road in and the same road out, the automobile traffic was reduced to just the residents and their guests. The residents of this 78 unit complex ran the gamut from young families to empty nesters. It was through Bob that Bret had met some of the neighbors and they generally appeared to be nice people. Bob, in introducing Bret to the neighbors had mentioned that Bret was quite handy around the house. He mentioned the wood flooring he had put in his townhome and the excellent finishing of his walkout basement that he had done. Those projects just kept Bret busy during the summer vacation months and he didn't think they were that difficult. His uncle had taught him quite a bit about carpentry and electricity.

Bret completed what he needed to do Saturday and after a shower and shave, he walked over to Bob's townhome. There he saw about 30 to 35 people had already gathered. This was a good turnout, since a number of the neighbors avoided these types of functions because they feared they would be asked to become involved in the townhome association's activities.

Bret saw Bob was talking to a fairly attractive lady and he waved him over. The lady appeared to be in the neighborhood of forty which was in the same ballpark as Bret's age.

"Bret, let me introduce you to Sally Dawson. Sally just moved into the Crimmon's townhome, you do remember that they moved to Arizona."

Bret shook her extended hand and said, "Nice to meet you, Sally, things seem to be improving in the neighborhood."

She laughed at his remark and said, "Flatterer, tell me a little about yourself and what you do?"

"I teach at the local high school and have been doing that for a while. There is good and bad in doing that, but having the summers off is one of the goods, how about you?"

"I have a little travel agency. It does okay and there are some nice travel perks that come with doing that kind of work. If you and your wife have some travel plans, please stop by my office and I will do what I can to make your plans a reality."

"Thanks, but if I stop by it will only be me as I am single."

"Oh... , I just assumed, please forgive me."

"Nothing to forgive and if I may ask, what is your martial status?"

"Divorced for about seven years now, no children."

Bob brought another neighbor over to introduce him to Sally, which enabled Bret to visit with some of the other neighbors. He made some small talk with the neighbors and then he quietly slipped away going back to his townhome.

On Sunday, Bret graded some papers while he watched a baseball game on the television. In surfing the channels, Bret heard that there were two winners of the lotto that totaled $348 million dollars. Bret thought they were two lucky people and nothing more of it in hearing this news.

Later that evening, Bret was watching the evening news and he heard that one of the winning lotto tickets was sold in Florida, and the other was sold in his home state. He still didn't have the urge to compare the numbers on his lotto tickets to the winning numbers.

The next day at school, he heard that the winning ticket sold in his state was sold at the gas station where Bret had purchased his lotto tickets.

At lunch time, Bret went out to his car and took out the lotto tickets he had purchased that he had put above the sun visor in his car. He walked into the lunch room and found a newspaper on top of a table. He found the winning numbers listed on the second page of the paper and he hesitantly compared those numbers to the numbers on his tickets. At first glance it seemed like the numbers matched, but his vision went a little blurry and he broke into a cold sweat. His heartbeat increased and his mouth went dry. He tried to calm down and compared the numbers again. The numbers were a match and he was one of the two winners of the $348 million dollars.

Bret went back and taught his last two classes, but he didn't remember doing it. His thoughts were on what this money meant, what he would do with it, and on how it would affect his life. When he was done for the day, he stayed in the classroom and thought more about what he would do. He knew from what he remembered that prior winners had said that winning wouldn't affect their lives. To him that was an unrealistic statement to make. This amount of money would affect his life and he hoped for the better.

One thing he knew for sure and that was that he didn't plan on teaching anymore. He wrote a short letter to the principal indicating that he would not be returning to teaching in the fall. There was a bounce in his step and a smile on his face, as he walked to place the letter on the principal's desk.

Back at his townhome, his thoughts were all on these funds and what he would do. How would he handle this large amount of money was another question he pondered. Turning to the internet he surfed it for information and answers to the numerous questions that were popping up in his mind.

Bret came to a few conclusions as to how he would proceed. Indications were that he could request that he remain anonymous as the winner. That was a no-brainer as far as he was concern and something that he would request. Hopefully, he would avoid people and organizations pestering him for some of these funds. He also thought he would wait a few months before he made the claim for these funds, thereby avoiding much of the publicity that there would be in claiming these funds.

Taking a lump payment or a periodic payments was another decision which needed to be made and he leaned toward the periodic payments. These were all tough decisions to make but Bret was very happy that he was fortunate to be making them.