Rescued by his Christmas Angel (2 page)

Which assumed there would be a later meeting, not that anything in his face encouraged such an assumption.

She had also planned on saying something like in light of the fact her mother had died, Cecilia's confidence and brightness spoke volumes of the parent left behind. But somehow, her instinct warned her not to speak of the death of his wife.

Though nothing in his body language, in the shuttered eyes, invited her to continue, Morgan pressed on, shocked that what she said next had nothing to do with the permission slip for
The Christmas Angel
. “It's the
mechanics
of raising a child, and probably particularly a girl child, that might be the problem for you, Mr. Hathoway.”

It's none of your business,
Mary Beth had warned her dourly when Morgan had admitted she might broach the subject while she was there about the permission slip.
You're here to teach, not set up family counseling services
.

Morgan did not think sending the odd note home qualified as family counseling services. Though Nate Hathoway's failure to respond to the notes should have acted as warning to back off, rather than invitation to step in.

Obviously, he was a man who did not take kindly to having his failings pointed out to him, because his voice
was colder than the Connecticut wind that picked that moment to shriek under the eaves of the barn.

“Maybe you'd better be specific about the
problem,
Miss McGuire.”

Cecilia needed her, and that made Morgan brave when it felt as if courage would fail her. “There have been some incidents of the other children making fun of Cecilia.”

In half a dozen long strides he was across the floor of his workshop, and staring down at her with those mesmerizing, devil-dark eyes.

She could smell him, and the smell was as potent as a potion: the tangy smell of heat and hard work, molten iron, soft leather.
Man.

“What kids?” he asked dangerously.

Morgan had to tilt her chin to look at him. She did not like it that his eyes had narrowed to menacing slits, that the muscle was jerking in the line of his jaw, or that his fist was unconsciously clenching and unclenching at his side.

This close to Nate Hathoway, she could see the beginning of dark whiskers shadowing the hollows of impossibly high cheekbones, hugging the cleft of his chin. It made him look even more roguish and untamable than he had looked from across the room.

His lips were so full and finely shaped that just looking at them could steal a woman's voice, her tongue could freeze to the roof of her mouth.

“It's not about the kids,” she managed to stammer, ordering her eyes to move away from the pure sensual art of his mouth.

“The hell it isn't.”

“You can't seriously expect me to name names.”

“You tell me who is making fun of Ace, and I'll look after it. Since you haven't.”

Morgan shivered at his accusing tone, but felt her own strength shimmer back to life, her backbone straightening. She was as protective as a mother bear with cubs. All of those children were her cubs. Sometimes, looking out at the tiny sea of eager faces in the morning, it still stunned her how tiny and vulnerable six-year-olds could be.

And, after a day like today, it stunned her how quickly all that innocence could turn to terror on wheels. Still, she was not going to sic him on
her
kids!

She took a deep breath, tried not to let her inner quiver at the expression on his face show. “We are talking about six-year-olds. How would you propose to look after that, Mr. Hathoway?”

“I wasn't going to hunt them down,” he said, reading her trepidation, disdain that she would conclude such a thing in the husky, controlled tone of his voice. Still, he flexed one of the naked muscles of his biceps with leashed anger.

Morgan's eyes caught there. A bead of sweat was slipping down the ridge of a perfectly cut muscle. She had that tongue-frozen-against-the-roof-of-her-mouth feeling again. Thank goodness. Otherwise she might have involuntarily licked her lips at how damnably
tantalizing
every single thing about him was.

“I wouldn't deal with the children,” he continued softly, “but I grew up with their parents. I could go have a little talking-to with certain people.”

The threat was unmistakable. But so was the love and pure need to protect his daughter. It felt as if that love Nate Hathoway had for his daughter could melt
Morgan as surely as that fire blazing in the background melted iron.

“Mr. Hathoway, you just need to take a few small steps at home to help her.”

“Since you are unable to help her at school?”

The sensation of melting disappeared! So did the tongue-stuck-to-the-roof-of-her-mouth feeling. She was not going to be attacked!

“That's unfair!” She was pleased with how calm she sounded, so she continued. “I have twenty-two children in my class. I can't be with every single one of them every single second, monitoring what they are saying among themselves, or to Cecilia.”

“What are they saying?”

There were old incidents she could bring up: the fun they had made of Cecilia's hair before he had cut it, how someone had cruelly noticed how attached she was to a certain dress. Though it was always clean it was faded from her wearing it again and again. With boys' hiking boots, instead of shoes. They were situations that had caused teasing. Cecilia was no doormat. She came out fighting, and looking at the man before her, Morgan was pretty sure where she'd learned that!

Still, Morgan had prided herself on creatively finding a remedy for each situation. Only it was becoming disheartening how quickly it was replaced with a new situation.

Morgan had to get to the heart of the problem.

“Just for an example, this morning Cecilia arrived with a very, er, odd, hairstyle. I'm afraid it left her open to some teasing even before she revealed her secret holding ingredient.”

“She told me it was hair gel.”

“It was gel, but not hair gel.”

He looked askance at her.

“She didn't know gel wasn't gel. She used gel toothpaste.”

He said a word people generally avoided using in front of the first-grade teacher. And then he ran a hand through the thick darkness of his own hair. Her eyes followed that motion helplessly.

“Didn't you say anything to her about her hair before she left for school?” she managed to choke out.

“Yeah,” he said ruefully, the faintest chink appearing in that armor. “I told her it looked sharp.”

It had looked
sharp
. Literally. But if she planned to be taken seriously, Morgan knew now was not the time to smile.

“Mr. Hathoway, you cannot send your daughter to school with a shark fin on top of her head and expect she will not be teased!”

“How do I know what's fashionable in the six-year-old set?” he asked, and a second chink appeared in the armor. A truly bewildered look slipped by the remoteness in his dark eyes. “To be honest, her hair this morning seemed like an improvement on the raised-by-wolves look she was sporting before she finally let me talk her into cutting her hair.”

Remembered hair battles flashed through his eyes, and Morgan found her gaze on those hands. It was too easy to imagine him trying to gentle his strength to deal with his daughter's unruly hair.

But the last thing Morgan needed to do was couple a feeling of tenderness with the animal pull of his male magnetism!

“It was not an improvement,” she said firmly, snippily,
trying desperately to stay on track. “The children were merciless, even after I made it clear I wanted no comments made. The recess monitor told me Cecilia got called Captain Colgate, Toothpaste Princess and Miss Froggy Fluoride.”

“I'll bet the froggy one was Bradley Campbell's boy,” he said darkly. “Ace told me he's called her Miss Froggy before, because of her voice.”

“Her voice is adorable. She'll outgrow that little croakiness,” Morgan said firmly. “I've already spoken to Freddy about teasing her about it.”

Nate glowered, unconvinced.

Morgan pressed on. “To make matters worse, today at lunch break someone noticed her overalls. They said she had stolen them, that they belonged to an older sister and they were missing.”

“Somebody accused Ace of
stealing?
”

Morgan thought he was going to have problems with the joint in his jaw if he didn't find a different way to deal with tension.

“Cecilia said she had taken the overalls from the lost-and-found box.”

“But why?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

“When's the last time you bought her clothes?” Morgan was aware of something gentling in her voice. “Mr. Hathoway, I sent you a note suggesting a shopping trip might be in order.”

“I don't read your notes.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't need a little fresh-out-of-college snip like you telling me how to raise my daughter. Oh, and I also don't do shopping.”

“Obviously! And your daughter has suffered as a consequence!”

He glared at her. A lesser woman might have just touched her forelock and bowed out the door.

But blessed—or cursed—with the newfound strength of a woman who was working her way through
Bliss
and making careful notations in the margins, and who had purchased a sofa in a rather adventurous shade of purple, she plunged on.

“Cecilia told me that's why she took the overalls from the lost-and-found box…to spare you a shopping trip. She doesn't have anything that fits properly. She wears the same favorites over and over. She wears hiking boots with skirts, Mr. Hathoway! Haven't you noticed that?”

He said that word again, and something besides hardness flickered in those eyes again. It was worse than the hardness. Pain so deep it was like a bottomless pool.

“I guess I didn't notice,” he said, the warrior stance shifting ever so slightly, something defeated in his voice.

“Ace could have said something.”

“She seems to think if she asks nothing of you, she's protecting you in some way.”

The smallest hint of a smile tickled across lips that had the potential to be so sexy they could make a woman's heart stop. “She
is
protecting me in some way. Grocery shopping is tough enough. I have to go out of town for groceries to avoid recipe exchanges with well-meaning neighbors.”

Whom, Morgan was willing to guess, were mostly female. And available. She could easily imagine him being swarmed at a market in a small town where everyone would know his history. Wife killed, nearly
two years ago, Christmas Eve car accident.
Widower. Single dad
.

“The girl's department is impossible,” he went on grimly. “A sea of pink. Women everywhere. Frills.” He said that word again, softly, with pained remembrance shadowing his eyes. He shook his head. “I don't do shopping,” he said again, firmly, resolutely.

“I'd be happy to take her shopping.”

It was the type of offer that would have Mary Beth rolling her eyes. It was the type of offer that probably made Morgan's insanity certifiable. Could she tangle her life with those of the Hathoways without dancing with something very powerful and possibly not tamable?

But whatever brief humanity had touched Nate's features it was doused as carelessly as he had plunged that red-hot metal into water.

“I don't do pity, either.”

Good, Morgan congratulated herself. She had done her best. She should leave now, while her dignity was somewhat in tact. Mary Beth would approve if she left without saying another single word.

Naturally, she didn't.

“It's not pity. I happen to love shopping. I can't think of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.”

I
CAN'T THINK
of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.

Mary Beth is going to think I'm crazy, Morgan thought.

Plus, standing here in such close proximity to his lips, she could think of
one
thing that would be quite a bit more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion. Or maybe
two
.

“I'll look after it,” Nate Hathoway said, coolly adding with formal politeness, “thanks for dropping in, Miss McGuire.”

And then he dismissed her, strode back across his workshop and turned his back to her, faced the fire. He was instantly engrossed in whatever he was doing.

Morgan stared at him, but instead of leaving, she marched over to one of the bins just inside the front door. It contained coat hooks, in black wrought iron.

She picked up a pair, loved the substance of them in her hands. In a world where everything was transient, everything was meant to be enjoyed for a short while and then replaced—like her purple sofa—the coat hooks felt as if they were made to last forever.

Not a word a newly independent woman wanted
to be thinking of anywhere in the vicinity of Nate Hathoway.

Still, his work with the black iron was incredible, flawless. The metal was so smooth it might have been silk. The curve of the hanger seemed impossibly delicate. How had he wrought this from something as inflexible as iron?

“I'll trade you,” Morgan said on an impulse.

He turned and looked at her.

“My time with your daughter for some of your workmanship.” She held up the pair of coat hooks.

She could already picture them hanging inside her front door, she already felt as if she
had
to have them. Even if he didn't agree to the trade, she would have to try and buy them from him.

But she saw she had found precisely the right way to get to him: a trade in no way injured his pride, which looked substantial. Plus, it got him out of the dreaded shopping trip to the girls' department.

He nodded, once, curtly. “Okay. Done.”

She went to put the coat hooks back, until they worked out the details of their arrangement, but he growled at her.

“Take them.”

“Saturday morning? I can pick Cecilia up around ten.”

“Fine.” He turned away from her again. She saw he was heating a rod of iron, and she wished she had the nerve to go watch how he worked his magic on it. But she didn't.

She turned and let herself quietly out the door. Only as she walked away did she consider that by taking the coat hangers, she had taken a piece of him with her.

Morgan was aware she would never be able to look at her new acquisition without picturing him, hammer in hand, and feeling the potent pull of the incredible energy he had poured, molten, into manufacturing the coat hangers.

“I wonder what I've gotten myself into?” she asked out loud, walking away from the old barn, the last of the leaves floated from the trees around her. And then she realized just how much Nate Hathoway had managed to rattle her when she touched a piece of paper in her coat pocket.

And realized it was the permission slip for
The Christmas Angel
, still unsigned.

 

“Ah, Ace,” Nate said uneasily, “you know how I promised I'd take you to the antique-car show this morning?”

His daughter was busy coloring at the kitchen table, enjoying a Saturday morning in her jammies. They were faded cotton-candy pink. They had feet in them, which made her seem like a baby. His baby.

He felt a fresh wave of anger at the kids teasing her. And fresh frustration at the snippy young teacher for thinking she knew everything.

He had tried to think about that visit from the teacher as little as possible, and not just because it made him acutely aware of his failings as a single parent.

No, the teacher had been pretty. Annoying, but pretty.

And when he thought of her, it seemed to be the
pretty
part he thought of—the lush auburn hair, the sparkling green eyes, the wholesome features, the delicate curves—rather than the annoying part.

Ace glanced up at him. Her shortened red hair was sticking up every which way this morning, still an improvement over the toothpaste fin of last week, and the long tangled mop he had tried to tame—unsuccessfully—before that.

“We're not going to the car show?” she asked.

Nate hated disappointing her. He had been mulling over how to break this to her. Which is probably why he hadn't told her earlier that her plans for Saturday were changed. Sometimes with Ace, it was better not to let her think things over for too long.

“We're not going to the car show?” she asked again, something faintly strident in her voice.

Just as he had thought. She was clearly devastated.

“Uh, no. Your teacher is coming over.” He had an envelope full of cash ready to hand Morgan McGuire for any purchases she made for Ace. His guilt over changing the car-show plans was being balanced, somewhat, by the incredibly wonderful fact he didn't have to go shopping.

The devastation dissolved from her face. “Mrs. McGuire?” Ace whispered with reverence. “She's coming here?”

“It's not like it's a visit from the pope,” he said, vaguely irritated, realizing he may have overestimated the attractions of the car show by just a little.

“What's a pope?”

“Okay, the queen, then.”

“The queen's coming here?” Ace said, clearly baffled.

“No. Miss McGuire's coming here. She's going to take you shopping. Instead of me taking you to the car show.”

The crayon fell out of Ace's fingers. “I'm going shopping with Mrs. McGuire?
Me?
” Her brown eyes got huge. She gave a little squeal of delight, got up and did a little dance around the kitchen, hugging herself. He doubted a million-dollar lottery winner could have outdone her show of exuberance.

Okay, he admitted wryly, so he had overestimated the appeal of the car show by quite a bit.

Nate felt a little smile tickle his own lips at his daughter's delight, and then chastised himself for the fact there had not been nearly enough moments like this since his wife had died. Slippery roads. A single vehicle accident on Christmas Eve, Cindy had succumbed to her horrific injuries on Christmas day. There was no one to blame.

No one to direct the helpless rage at.

Ace stopped dancing abruptly. Her face clouded and her shoulders caved in. It was like watching the air go out of a balloon, buoyancy dissolving into soggy, limp latex.

“No,” Ace said, her voice brave, her chin quivering. “I'm not going to go shopping with Mrs. McGuire. I can't.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because Saturday is
our
day. Yours and mine, Daddy. Always. And forever.”

“Well, just this once it would be okay—”

“No,” she said firmly. “I'm not leaving you alone.”

“I'll be okay, Ace. I can go to the car show by myself.”

“Nope,” she said, and then furiously insisted, “it's
our
day.” She tried to smile, but wavered, and after struggling valiantly for a few seconds to hide the true cost
of her sacrifice, she burst into tears and ran and locked herself in the bathroom.

“Come on, Ace,” he said, knocking softly on the bathroom door. “We can have
our
day tomorrow. I'll take you over to Aunt Molly's and you can ride Happy.”

Happy was a chunky Shetland pony, born and bred in hell. Her Aunt Molly had given the pony to Ace for Christmas last year, a stroke of genius that had provided some distraction from the bitter memories of the day. Ace loved the evil dwarf equine completely.

But Happy was not providing the necessary distraction today. There was no answer from the other side of the bathroom door. Except sobbing. Nate realized it was truly serious when even the pony promise didn't work.

Nate knew what he had to do, though it probably spoke volumes to his character just how reluctant he was to do it.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, hoping some miracle—furnace exploding, earthquake—could save him from finishing this sentence, “since it's our day, I could tag along on your shopping trip with Miss McGuire.”

No explosion. No earthquake. The desperate suggestion of a cornered man was uttered without intervention from a universe he already suspected was not exactly on his side.

Silence. And then the door opened a crack. Ace regarded him with those big moist brown eyes. Tears were beaded on her lashes, and her cheeks were wet.

“Would you, Daddy?” she whispered.

The truth was he would rather be staked out on an anthill covered in maple syrup than go shopping with Ace and her startlingly delectable teacher.

But he sucked it up and did what had to be done, wishing the little snip who was so quick to send the notes criticizing his parenting could see him manning up now.

“Sure,” he said, his voice deliberately casual. “I'll go, too.” Feeling like a man who had escaped certain torture, only to be recaptured, Nate slipped the envelope of shopping cash he had prepared for the teacher into his own pocket.

“Are you sure, Daddy?” Ace looked faintly skeptical. She knew how he hated shopping.

Enough to steal overalls to try and save him, he reminded himself. “I don't want to miss
our
day, either,” he assured her.

Inwardly, he was plotting. This could be quick. A trip down to Canterbury's one-and-only department store, Finnegan's Mercantile, a beeline to girls' wear, a few sweat suits—Miss McGuire approved, probably in various shades of pink—stuffed into a carry basket and back out the door.

He hoped the store would be relatively empty. He didn't want rumors starting about him and the teacher.

It occurred to Nate, with any luck, they were still going to make the car show. His happiness must have shown on his face, because Ace shot out of the bathroom and wrapped sturdy arms around his waist.

“Daddy,” she said, in that little frog croak of hers, staring up at him with adoration he was so aware of not deserving, “I love you.”

Ace saved him from the awkwardness of his having to break it to Miss Morgan McGuire that he was accom
panying them on their trip, by answering the doorbell on its first ring.

Freshly dressed in what she had announced was her
best
outfit—worn pink denims and a shirt that Hannah Montana had long since faded off—Ace threw open the front door.

“Mrs. McGuire,” she crowed, “my daddy's coming, too! He's coming shopping with me and you.”

And then Ace hugged herself and hopped around on one foot, while Morgan McGuire slipped in the door.

Nate was suddenly aware his housekeeping was not that good, and
annoyed
by his awareness of it. He resisted the temptation to shove a pair of his work socks, abandoned on the floor, under the couch with his foot.

It must be the fact she was a teacher that made him feel as if everything was being graded: newspapers out on the coffee table; a thin layer of dust on everything, unfolded laundry leaning out of a hamper balanced perilously on the arm of the couch.

At Ace's favorite play station, the raised fireplace hearth, there was an entire orphanage of naked dolls, Play-Doh formations long since cracked and hardened, a forlorn-looking green plush dog that had once had stuffing.

So instead of looking like he cared how Morgan McGuire felt about his house and his housekeeping—or lack thereof—Nate did his best to look casual, braced his shoulder against the door frame of the living room, and shoved his hands into the front of his jeans pockets.

Morgan actually seemed stunned enough by Ace's announcement that he would be joining them that she didn't appear to notice one thing about the controlled chaos of his housekeeping methods.

She was blushing.

He found himself surprised and reluctantly charmed that anyone blushed anymore, at least over something as benign as a shopping trip with a six-year-old and her fashion handicapped father.

The first-grade teacher was as pretty as he remembered her, maybe prettier, especially with that high color in her cheeks.

“I'm surprised you'll be joining us,” Morgan said to him, tilting her chin in defiance of the blush, “I thought you made your feelings about shopping eminently clear.”

He shrugged, enjoying her discomfort over his addition to the party enough that it almost made up for his aversion to shopping.

Almost.

“I thought we'd go to the mall in Greenville,” Morgan said, jingling her car keys in her hand and glancing away from him.

Why did it please him that he made her nervous? And how could he be pleased and annoyed at the same time? A trip to Greenville was a full-day excursion!

“I thought we were going to Finnegan's,” he said. Why couldn't Ace have just been bribed with Happy time, same as always?

Why did he have an ugly feeling Morgan McGuire was the type of woman who changed
same as always?

“Finnegan's?” Morgan said. “Oh.” In the same tone one might use if a fishmonger was trying to talk them into buying a particularly smelly piece of fish. “There's not much in the way of selection there.”

“But Greenville is over an hour and a half away!” he protested. By the time they got there, they'd have to
have lunch. Even before they started shopping. He could see the car show slip a little further from his grasp.

And lunch with the first-grade teacher? His life, deliberately
same as always
since Cindy's death, was being hijacked, and getting more complicated by the minute.

“It's the closest mall,” Morgan said, and he could see she had a stubborn bent to her that might match his own, if tested.

As if the careful script on the handwritten notes sent home hadn't been fair enough warning of that.