Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  “Cassidy,” Harper said sharply, “don’t be so bossy. It’s not nice to tell people what to do.”

  “Okay, Mommy.” She sidled up to Eddie. “I the boss,” she whispered. “Dress her.”

  Eddie’s lips twitched and Harper realized she’d never seen him smile, wondered, briefly, inappropriately, what it would be like if he did.

  Probably swoon-worthy, if she had to hazard a guess.

  “What do you say when you want something?” Eddie asked so kindly, Harper had her mouth open to answer him before realizing he didn’t mean her wanting to see him smile. He was talking to Cass.

  “I say please,” Cass told him, holding out a tiny bright blue dress.

  He took the clothes. “That’s a good girl.”

  “I Mommy’s best girl. I your best girl, too.”

  Well, it was easy to see that her daughter had become quickly infatuated with Eddie. And that wouldn’t do. Harper stepped forward, ready to shove Eddie out the door if necessary. Then possibly move to some secret location so secluded her cousin wouldn’t be able to find her and spill her whereabouts to any of her students’ parents.

  But Eddie looked at the doll in one hand, the dress in the other and did something so unexpected, so damned shocking, all Harper could do was stare in surprise, horror and, yes, maybe a little bit of appreciation.

  He sat cross-legged on her kitchen floor, held out his arms and settled her daughter onto his lap.

  Talk about swoon-worthy.

  “What’s your doll’s name?” he asked Cass as he lifted his cap, turned it around and settled it on his head.

  “Katrina.” Cass named pretty much every Barbie, doll and stuffed animal after her favorite teacher at day care.

  “Pretty,” Eddie said, earning him an adoring grin. After dressing Barbie, he fluffed the doll’s hair and handed her to Cass. “But not as pretty as you.”

  Cass nodded solemnly. “I know.”

  Harper covered her eyes with her hand. At least her child didn’t have any problems with self-esteem.

  “You’d be even prettier if you let your mommy wash some of that sauce off your face,” Eddie said, tapping Cass’s red cheek.

  “You do it.” Then Cass stuck her head forward like a turtle, her chin lifted.

  “That’s okay, Cass,” Harper said. “I can do it.”

  “No!” Cassidy threw her arms around Eddie’s neck. “You!”

  Patting her baby girl’s back with one hand, Eddie reached out the other. What choice did Harper have but to give him the cloth?

  He took it, gently disentangled himself from Cass’s arms, then washed her face.

  It was so sweet, so unexpected, that Harper couldn’t take her eyes off of him. His brow knit in a subtle, contemplative frown, his eyes a warm caramel color. Stubble covered his cheeks and jaw, making the angles of his face seem sharper, more pronounced.

  She slid her gaze to his scuffed work boots, over his faded jeans. The sweatshirt he wore—the same one he’d had on when they’d met in her class Tuesday—hugged his shoulders, the pushed-up sleeves revealing his muscular forearms.

  His hands, oh, his hands, were large and tan, his touch sure and tender as he wiped Cass’s face. Harper imagined what it would feel like to have those hands on her, to feel the rough pad of his thumb rubbing against the sensitive skin under her ear, his fingers splayed against the nape of her neck as he held her motionless for his kiss.

  The tips of her fingers tingled, her mouth went dry.

  Reality crashed in, brought with it shame. And guilt. Shaken by her thoughts, by the flush suffusing her body, the heat skimming along her skin, she averted her gaze. Tried to catch her breath. It was just hormones. Nothing more. She was a woman, made of flesh and blood and flaws. She’d had a healthy, normal sexual appetite with Beau, had enjoyed kissing, touching and being intimate with her husband.

  This was nature’s way of telling her she was healing. That she could, someday, enjoy those things again. Want them again. But the thought of wanting them with another man had always left her cold.

  Until now.

  But it was fine. Understandable, even. She was experiencing a physical reaction to a good-looking man, one being nice to her daughter. A reaction to almost a year’s worth of lonely nights. Of sleeping alone, waking alone. Of having no one to hold her.

  Eddie set the cloth on the table. “All done.”

  “I prettier now?” Cass asked, staring at him with the complete confidence that he’d say yes.

  He smiled, a sweet, shy and totally sexy grin that had Harper’s pulse pounding.

  Crap. It was even better than she’d imagined.

  “You’re beautiful,” he assured Cass in his solemn way. “Like a princess.”

  Princess.

  Harper’s head spun and she grabbed the counter for balance. To ground herself and her thoughts. That was what Beau had called Cassidy. Daddy’s little princess.

  Now, Cass was in another man’s arms, gazing at him with a reverence and trust that should have been reserved for Beau.

  It broke Harper’s heart, the realization that Cassidy would never know her father, would never remember how much he’d loved her. But Harper remembered. Her memories of him, of how he’d looked at Cass with utter devotion, an all-consuming love, of what it had been like to be his wife, to be loved by him, were crystal clear.

  She’d keep them that way, hold them close when the loneliness struck. When she felt weak or needy, as if she couldn’t go on by herself. As if she needed another man to take his place.

  Looking at Eddie and Cass, she made a promise to herself, and to Beau.

  She’d never forget him, what they shared. Never.

  CHAPTER SIX

  STILL UNSETTLED, HARPER cleared her throat, couldn’t do much about how thin her voice sounded when she spoke. “Cassidy, what do you say to Mr. Montesano for dressing your doll and washing your face?”

  Hugging the doll to her chest, Cass stood. “Thank you, Mr. Ontsabdo.”

  “Good first effort,” he told her. “But, if it’s all right with your mom, you can call me Eddie.”

  “It’s all right, Deddie,” Cass assured him breezily.

  Yes, it was just fine. Be on a first-name basis with him. What could possibly be wrong with that?

  “Why don’t you take your dolls into the living room?” Harper asked her. “It’s almost bath time.”

  “Katrina wants to take a bath, too.”

  Water and shampoo weren’t all that good for Barbie’s hair but unmanageable tresses were a small price to pay for a stress-free bath time.

  “The more the merrier, I always say. Bring her along.”

  Looked like Katrina wasn’t staying in that dress long. Some days Harper felt like she lived in the midst of a Barbie nudist colony.

  Cass tucked the doll under her arm then pushed the stroller into the doorjamb—twice—before clearing it and making her merry way into the living room.

  Eddie got to his feet, his movements surprisingly graceful for a man she’d seen get stuck in one school desk and bump into another. “I should go. Sorry I interrupted your evening.”

  Darn right he should go. She wanted him gone, out of her home, leaving her in peace.

  Watching his broad back as he walked out of the room, she tried not to feel bad. But he had come all the way across town to speak to her about Max. Okay, so all the way across town didn’t exactly mean he’d traveled a hundred miles across frozen tundra—or any tundra, really—but still...

  He needed her.

  “I’m not sure what you’re looking for here,” she admitted when she found him wrenching open the front door. “I want to help Max, of course, but I’ve already explained to you what I feel the best course of action is to take. Have you cha
nged your mind?”

  He shut the door. Opened it again. Shut it again then turned to her. “No.”

  She hadn’t thought so. He’d asked what he could do to help his son, hadn’t given any indication he’d realized Harper’s assessment was correct. “Then I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Today in class, when you were teaching that sentence stuff, why did you tell Max you were going to be calling on him next?”

  Of all the things she’d thought he would say, that one hadn’t made the top twenty. “I wanted him aware of what was going to happen and that I expected him to pay attention.”

  “You didn’t do that for the other kids.”

  “Actually, I did the exact same thing for Rory Chapman not two minutes before you arrived.”

  “She have problems focusing, too?”

  “He. And yes, he does.” Rory had been diagnosed with ADHD last year.

  “When you asked Max the question about subject and predicate, you practically spelled it out so he’d get it right.”

  “Not quite. More like I...led him in the right direction.”

  “You gave him special treatment.”

  She couldn’t tell if that upset him or not. “No, what I did was use different teaching techniques. Kids with ADHD sometimes do better if they can prepare in advance for when they’ll be called on, are given probing questions and plenty of time to think through their answers.”

  While she couldn’t individualize every lesson plan, assignment or test, she could and did tweak how she taught to help each and every one of her students achieve their highest potential.

  “Can you do that even if Max isn’t diagnosed as ADHD?” Eddie asked.

  Slippery ground here. “Since I already have, you know the answer to that. But I still think it’s in Max’s best interest to have a proper diagnosis.”

  Eddie’s jaw was tight, his shoulders rigid. “Maybe we could try this first. You using some of those different techniques in class and me working with Max at home.”

  She tossed her hands into the air, barely missing clipping him on the chin. Honestly, it was as if every word she said bounced right off his stubborn head. “I don’t get it. You obviously love your son and want what’s best for him. So why on earth are you so against him getting the help he needs?”

  He stared at a spot above her head, stayed so still, she didn’t think he’d ever breathe again, let alone answer. But then he exhaled heavily and met her eyes. “Because of my learning...problems, I was sent to special classes, kept separate from most of my peers. I always felt...different,” he said slowly, as if he’d never spoken these words before and was figuring out how best to get them out of his head. “Like there was something wrong with me.”

  “There was nothing wrong with you,” she said, her soft tone no less adamant, her heart aching for the boy he’d been. “And there’s nothing wrong with Max.”

  “I still felt like I was never good enough. Smart enough. Like I was lacking in some fundamental way. And I need to do everything I can to protect Max from ever feeling that way.”

  He was trying to save his son from what he’d gone through. She understood that, sympathized with it, but this wasn’t some TV cop show where the main characters could go rogue and be rewarded as heroes for it. This was real life. And her very real career and professional reputation could be on the line if she stepped too far out of bounds.

  What he was asking went against the school district’s guidelines for helping students who were struggling. There were rules to follow, put in place to protect both the children and the teachers. It also went against her own instincts. Max needed to go through the steps outlined by the district—she’d already taken the first one by meeting with Eddie and discussing her concerns. The second one was to have Max diagnosed by one of the district’s psychologists and, ideally, his pediatrician. Then they could develop the best strategy to help him succeed.

  So why hadn’t she told Eddie no already?

  “What if you do everything you can and Max is still struggling?” she asked. “At what point do you admit there might be a bigger problem, one that you or I aren’t able to solve on our own? Or even with our collective powers?”

  “You mean because kids with ADHD have trouble learning?”

  “There’s a chance that children diagnosed with ADHD have a learning disability, but it’s relatively small. A quart—”

  “A quarter to a third.”

  “Someone’s been doing internet research.” Maybe he’d listened to her after all.

  “I stumbled on a few sites about it.” He sounded guilty, as if he’d admitted to downloading porn.

  Cass shrieked in pure joy—never a good sign—and Harper peeked around the corner into the living room and found her using the sofa as a trampoline. “No jumping on the couch, Cassidy.”

  “Okay, Mommy!” Another shriek and the unmistakable sound of the couch springs groaning.

  Harper sighed. “I appreciate what you’re doing,” she told Eddie, “and I get your reasons behind it. I do. But I still feel the best thing for Max is to go through the steps already in place, to utilize the school district’s programs and support network.”

  “We could try it...you working with him...for a few months. If there’s no improvement, I’ll—” He pressed his lips together. Swallowed. “I’ll agree to go through with the district plan.”

  When she hesitated, he stepped toward her, leaving a few feet between them, but he was close enough she smelled the spicy scent of his soap, could see the faint lines fanning his eyes.

  “Please,” he said, his rough voice seeming to rub against her skin.

  God, who knew one word could be so...potent? So hard to refuse?

  “I’ll tutor Max,” she grumbled, not bothering to hide her reluctance. “For one hour a day, Monday through Thursday right after school. Friday you and I can meet to go over his progress and I’ll give you some tips about helping him at home.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  He should. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty. But she’d do it for Max.

  “I’ll tutor him,” she repeated, “but if he shows little or no improvement by the end of the second marking period, you agree to try things my way.”

  She could see his mind working, could imagine the inner debate he was having with himself. Hadn’t she had one of her own not two minutes ago? But this might be a good thing, this unexpected compromise they’d reached. She’d have a chance to work one-on-one with Max, giving her an opportunity to better assess his needs as well as his strengths and weaknesses. And if in the end she was able to help Max and know that she’d given Eddie peace of mind? Then it would be worth it.

  “Agreed,” he said and finally, thankfully, walked out her door.

  Leaving his scent and the image of him holding her daughter etched in Harper’s mind.

  * * *

  PASTOR ARROWSMITH WOULDN’T let go of her hands.

  Keeping her expression clear, her fingers relaxed, Joan smiled at the older gentleman. “Lovely sermon this morning, Pastor.”

  She had no idea if it’d been lovely. For all she knew he’d gone on a rampage about fire and brimstone and the evils of sin leading straight to hell. She didn’t listen to him anymore. Couldn’t believe in forgiveness and eternal salvation, had no desire to trust in a God who’d let her son be taken away from her.

  “Ah, thank you, Joan. Thank you.” The pastor, a rather rotund man in his early seventies with silver hair and a chin beard that made him look like a leprechaun, squeezed her hands. Held on tight as he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Mitzi and I have been thinking about you, what with the one-year anniversary approaching. And, of course, we keep you and your family in our prayers. How is everyone holding up?”

  Joan’s fingers went numb
. Her heart raced, her stomach churned with a toxic combination of pain and anger. How dare he bring it up? She didn’t need reminding of how long it’d been since Beau had died.

  Two hundred and ninety-three days.

  And she certainly didn’t need his concern or the sympathy softening his expression. Did he really think she’d tell him her innermost thoughts and feelings? That she couldn’t hold up under the stress and strain?

  She didn’t need a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear. Didn’t need to lean on anyone. She’d withstand her loss on her own two feet.

  “How is Mitzi?” Joan asked smoothly, the only telltale sign of her distress being the slight rasp of her usually clear voice. “I didn’t see her in church.”

  He hesitated, as if unsure about whether he should push. Joan met his gaze equably. No one watching would ever guess she was anything other than completely calm and in control.

  “Unfortunately, my better half is a bit under the weather. She’ll be sorry she missed you.”

  No longer caring how it looked, what he would think, she yanked her hands free, tucked them behind her back so he couldn’t reach for them again. He was just being kind, letting her change the subject. Trying to help her by being placating and sensitive to her feelings. She should be grateful.

  Instead, she hated him for it.

  “I was hoping to discuss setting up a meeting of the Women’s Club but I’ll catch up with her next week. Oh,” Joan continued, spying Steve near the corner, “there’s my husband. I’d better join him before he goes home without me. Please tell Mitzi I hope she feels better soon.”

  Without waiting for his reply, she walked off, the heels of her pumps sinking into the grass as she crossed the neatly trimmed yard in front of the church. Her fellow parishioners greeted her with a friendly word or wave. She responded to each and every one, stopping to chat for a moment, laughing at each inane comment about what a nice day it was, answering questions about Cassidy, pretending she cared about what was being said.