Said she ran the place with Didi.”
“Yeah, that’s Taylor.” Hank took another swallow of coffee. “She teaches kindergarten up at the elementary school, went in with Didi when Bess Cassidy moved to Kansas to be with her kids two summers ago.” Nearly black eyes seemed to assess him. “From what I hear, Taylor’s got a magic touch with kids. They’re crazy about her, and she’s crazy about them. One of those women you figure would like nothing more than to have a batch of her own.”
Joe found himself staring hard at his coffee. “I suppose that’s an admirable trait in a teacher.”
“True. I don’t know her too well, myself, but Blair thinks the world of her.”
Now it was Joe’s turn for a second cup. “You have to wonder, though, how she ended up here.” At the silence following his comment, he turned to see Hank’s slightly puzzled expression. “Coming from someplace like Houston, I mean. Must be a big adjustment, living in a small town.”
“No argument there.” Hank knocked back the rest of his coffee, then twisted around to set the empty mug back beside the coffeemaker. “Guess it just depends on what you’re looking for at the time…. Well, hey, gorgeous.”
The last was directed, with a big smile, for a slender blonde dressed in shorts and a tucked-in sleeveless blouse who’d just come into the office. The woman was attractive in that way of women over forty who are unconscious of their beauty, her straight hair held back from her finely featured face with a couple of clips. Slipping a decidedly proprietary hand around her waist, Hank introduced her to Joe as his wife, Jenna, with a pride in his voice that Joe decided was due not to Jenna’s being his as much as that she’d chosen him.
He told himself the burning sensation in his gut was due to Hank’s coffee.
She welcomed him to Haven, a generous helping of crow’s feet splaying out from the corners of her eyes as a warm smile stretched across her face. While Joe was pondering her lack of Oklahoman twang, Hank asked Joe if he’d read any of his wife’s books—in her other life, she was the mystery writer Jennifer Phillips.
“For heaven’s sake, Hank,” Jenna said, swatting him lightly in the chest. “Quit putting people on the spot like that! You’re embarrassing both of us!”
Joe smiled. “I’ve heard the name, but I’m afraid I’m not much of a reader. Not anymore, at least. Not since…” He pushed aside the cloud of memory to think back. “Not really since high school.” The realization surprised him—had it really been that long since he’d indulged in the simple pleasure of reading a novel?
Fortunately, before these people managed to find out what size drawers he wore, the electrical contractor returned, giving Joe an excuse to sidestep any further discussion about his personal life and retreat once again into the safe, generally orderly world of bids, supplies and schedules, a world over which he had a fair amount of control.
As opposed to the world where he had virtually none.
On brutally hot days like this, by midafternoon not even the littlest ones were much interested in moving. So Taylor usually settled them in the grass under one of the big old cottonwoods out behind the church, reading aloud until their parents came to get them or they nodded off. She loved changing her voice to match each character, seriously getting off on the glow of delight when she’d glance up and see a batch of wide eyes and, sometimes, open mouths. And the giggles. She lived for the giggles.
And at the moment, she’d give her right arm to hear Seth Salazar giggle.
When he wasn’t checking the huge watch smothering his narrow wrist, the boy was attentive enough, sitting cross-legged a little apart from the rest of the children. Although his slender fingers absently plucked at the blades of grass in front of his ankles, his solemn gaze stayed on her the entire time she read. But when the other kids howled at Junie B. Jones’s antics, Seth would barely crack a smile. His body was there, but clearly his mind was elsewhere.
“Joe!” he cried, leaping to his feet.
Like wondering when his brother would come rescue him, Taylor guessed, as the boy tore across the yard.
While the younger counselors herded the remaining kids inside for the last snack of the day, Taylor got to her feet, her knees protesting at sitting on the hard ground for so long, her brain giving her what-for for putting off the inevitable. Which would be—she turned—seeing Joe Salazar scoop his little brother up into his arms.
Strong, solid arms.
Against a strong, solid chest.
All barely hidden underneath the soft folds of a dusty blue workshirt.
Yep, it was just as bad as she thought it would be.
Taylor plastered a smile to her face and trooped over to the pair, just in time to hear Seth give Joe grief about being late.
“It was only a couple minutes, buddy,” Joe said, lowering his brother to the ground. “Besides, I didn’t want to interrupt the reading.”
“You were listening?” Taylor said, thinking, hmm…when was the last time some guy had made her stomach flutter? No, wait, she remembered: Mason. Her ex.
The fluttering might have degenerated into a vague nausea had Joe not smiled for her. Not exactly a laid-back, no-holds-barred smile, but a smile nonetheless. A smile sparkling in a face darkened by a suggestion of late-day beard shadow.
As Blair and company would say, this was so not fair.
“I was listening,” Joe said, and something in his voice or eyes or somewhere in there made Taylor suspect she wasn’t the only one here dodging a few red flags. A revelation which, aggravatingly enough, managed to flatter and annoy her at the same time. “Although I’m not sure who was having more fun—you or the kids.”
He wasn’t flirting, she was sure of it. Well, as sure as someone who hadn’t been flirted with in about a million years—except for Hootch Atkins, and he definitely did not count—could be. Then she noticed Seth’s head bopping back and forth between them, and Didi’s cocked eyebrow when she came outside and saw them standing there, and then fourteen-year-old April Gundersen tripped over a tree root because she was gawking at them instead of watching where she was going. Taylor realized she wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except that she didn’t feel much older than April, which probably wasn’t a good thing.
Then, to her horror, she heard herself going on about how she’d always been a big ham ever since she was little, how she’d set up her stuffed animals in rows—and her little sister, if she could get her to sit still long enough—and perform, making up stories as she went along and how she’d even thought about becoming an actor at one point, but had given it up when she realized all she really wanted to do was…teach…kids.
Whoa. Hot flash sneak preview. Not fun.
“Well,” Joe said, not looking a whole lot more comfortable than Taylor felt. “You’re very good.” Then he turned to Seth. “So how was your first day?” When all he got was a noncommittal shrug in reply, he added, “That good, huh?”
Another shrug.
“Guess he forgot about the worms we had for lunch,” Taylor said, which earned her startled looks from both brothers.
One
