think about theirs.”
Her mouth firmed. “I am thinking of theirs. Dr. Lyman was ill, and someone needed to come down here with the class. I assure you, the students are at greater risk of drowning than I am of being kidnapped.”
They rounded a bend in the stream and saw one of her charges floundering knee-deep in icy water while his friends laughed on the bank.
“Eric Hunter!”
The laughter subsided into fits and sniggers.
Eric looked up warily, all freckles and false innocence. “Yes, ma’am?”
Christina swallowed a bubble of amusement. “Get out of that water this instant.”
“I can’t.” He sounded pained. “My sneaker slipped, and I’m stuck. My ankle.”
She frowned. She hoped it was only stuck. The boy could walk the half mile back to the bus in wet shoes, but not with a sprained ankle.
“All right,” she said, unzipping her nylon field jacket, preparing to wade in after him. “Stand as still as you—”
But before the words were out of her mouth, Jack Dalton was in the stream. Pushing his sleeves back to his elbows, he bent down.
“Put your hand on my shoulder,” he ordered.
The boy’s mouth dropped open. Christina suspected hers did, too.
“For balance,” Jack explained, plunging his arms into the water. “Your hand on my shoulder. Now.”
Tentatively, Eric obeyed.
“Okay, your sneaker’s wedged under this rock,” Jack said calmly. “I’m going to shift it, and I want you to pull your foot out. Got it? On three. One, two, three.”
Christina glimpsed Jack’s mask of concentration and the boy’s hand clutching the brown leather of his jacket. The clear, dark water surged and splashed. And then Eric, supported by Jack’s arm, staggered out of the stream and collapsed onto the bank.
“Let’s take a look,” Jack said.
But Christina was already kneeling, the gravel sharp and cold through her twill slacks. She was picking at the boy’s sodden laces when she noticed the water streaming from Jack’s boots. His jeans were soaked to the knee.
She looked up ruefully. “You got wet. I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t wet. You should have seen me in BUD/S.” Her face must have betrayed her lack of comprehension, because he grinned sharply. Her breath caught. He really was most attractive when he smiled.
“SEALs training. Basic Underwater Demolition,” he explained.
Christina nodded, still not really understanding. “Can you wiggle your foot?” she asked Eric.
“He won’t have a fracture,” Jack said as the boy moved his foot cautiously from side to side. “Ligament will give before bone.”
“Which means what?” Christina asked, pushing down the wet, sagging sock. She pressed her lips together. The ankle was already puffy.
“If the ligaments are stretched, it’s a strain. Partly torn, it’s a sprain. Either way, all you can do is elevate the ankle and ice it.”
“I don’t have ice.”
“Did the kids pack lunches?”
She frowned. “I—yes, I believe so.”
“We put our drinks in coolers,” Eric volunteered, leaning back on his hands. “Ow. There’s ice in the coolers.”
Jack shrugged. “There you go, then.”
“The coolers are on the bus.” She sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “I can’t leave the children unsupervised. Could you…?”
“Sorry. I can’t leave you unsupervised, either.”
Her pleasure at his quick, practical response vanished. “I am not thirteen, Mr. Dalton. I am well able to take care of myself.”
“That’s what you think. You two.” The boys still on the bank straightened abruptly. “Can you find your way back to the bus?”
They looked at him. At each other. Back at him. They were little boys, Christina thought. Not soldiers. But as instinctively as any palace flunky, they responded to his tone of command.
“I guess.”
“Sure.”
“Do it, then. Take one of those tray things and bring back ice.”
“It’s half a mile to the parking lot,” Christina objected. “Besides, they’re responsible for measuring—”
“They’re responsible for seeing that their buddy is all right after landing him on the rocks. Go on, now,” Jack ordered, and they went, crashing and sliding along the trail.
Christina drew a tight breath. She would not be dictated to like one of the children. “We should move Eric up the bank. And raise his foot.”
“Right,” Jack said, surprising her by his cooperation. “I’ll take care of it. You do the teacher stuff. Measuring, was it?”
“Temperature and current flow,” she confirmed. She studied Eric, his freckles stark in his pale face. Uncertainty fluttered in her stomach. He was her responsibility. Should she cancel the field trip now?
“We’ll be okay,” Jack said quietly. “I’ll keep cold water on the ankle till the kids get back with the ice. Is there something this guy can do in the meantime? You got another of those clipboards?”
Christina seized the idea thankfully. Activity would distract Eric from his discomfort and make the wait easier. “He can record times for the rest of the class when they measure currents. I’ll go wrap up the water life project, and bring the kids here.”
“Don’t be gone long,” Dalton warned.
Irritation pricked her. Outdoors in Montana, she didn’t need anyone to tell her what to do. This was her place, her area of expertise, and no fish-out-of-water seaman with blue eyes and big muscles was going to order her around.
Still, she was obliged to him. She stifled a sigh. Queen Gwendolyn had instilled in all her children a very strong sense of their obligations.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said, and made her escape.
She was as good as her word, Jack thought.
Christina strode back within five minutes, her charges strung out behind her like a bunch of baby ducks, wading and wobbling off course. And instead of doing her princess-in-a-tower routine, all distant and aloof, she laughed and listened and encouraged them, and splintered his perceptions. Again.
He’d been wrong about her. Once upon a time that kind of
