obvious to me Cecilia is a child who is loved,” Morgan said. It sounded rehearsed. It was rehearsed, and thank goodness she’d had the foresight to rehearse something, or despite her disciplined nightly reading of Bliss, Morgan would be standing here struck dumb by his gorgeousness and the fact he exuded male power.
Now, she wished she had rehearsed something without the word love in it.
Because isn’t that what fallen angels like the man in front of her did? Tempted naive women to believe maybe love could soften something in that hard face, that maybe love could heal something that had broken?
He said nothing, but if she had hoped to soften him by telling him she knew he loved his daughter, it had not succeeded. The lines around his mouth deepened in an expression of impenetrable cynicism.
“Cecilia has the confidence and quickness of a child sure of her place in the world.” Originally, Morgan had planned on saying something about that quickness being channeled somewhere other than Cecilia’s fists, but now she decided to save that for a later meeting.
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.”
