Kristin

 

Rose Dwyer had been the school secretary for as long as I’d been teaching here. She was an attractive woman in her thirties who was single and perpetually looking for a man.

I’d always liked her, and she was invariably my source if I needed news on anything going on at the school.

A week later, when I’d stopped by the office to check my box, I paused by her desk to chat and find out a little more about Declan Curtis, whose teaching I was getting increasingly worried about.

“So what’s the word on the guy who’s subbing in first grade?” I asked after I’d inquired about her weekend and heard about her date from hell.

She gave an exaggerated sigh and raised her hand to her chest. “Isn’t he dreamy? Every unmarried woman in the school is asking me about him, so you’re going to have some competition. I just love a sexy guy in glasses.”

I was so surprised by the comment that I gaped for a few seconds. “What? I’m not interested in him.”

“Well, why not? He’s gorgeous and charming and obviously likes kids. What more could you want?”

I shouldn’t have been shocked at the swooning look in Rose’s eyes since the man was obviously daydream material—if you only cared about superficial qualities. But I definitely didn’t want anyone thinking I was interested in him. I could just imagine how the gossip around the school would spin out of control if that idea got started. “I’m sure he’s great, but he’s not my type.”

I thought about my reactions to our brief encounters and had to remind myself very strongly that he was absolutely not my type.

“I guess not.” Rose’s smile shifted slightly. “I guess your type is tall, dark, and serious. Like Nick.”

“Yeah. Nick was my type.” I felt a familiar pang at the thought of my dead husband, but the grief no longer crippled me the way it had during the first year after he’d died. “Anyway, I wanted to know what the word is on this guy in terms of his teaching. Where did he teach before? Why is he just subbing instead of getting a regular teaching job?”

“I’m not sure,” Rose admitted. “I figured maybe he’s got some sort of personal issue going on. Or maybe he’s new to the area and a temp position is the only thing he could find right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hoping this will turn into a full-time job though.”

“How much experience did he have before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you look at his application?”

“No. Chuck took care of all that himself.”

Chuck was the principal of the school, and he usually let Rose handle the application process for new teachers—so this surprised me. Why didn’t anyone know about this guy’s background? “So you don’t know where he taught before?”

“I don’t. But he must have a good background, or Chuck wouldn’t have given him the job over our regular subs. There haven’t been any complaints or anything from students or parents, and Chuck goes to stop by the class to observe a few times a day.”

“He looks in on the class that often? If he doesn’t think the guy knows what he’s doing, then why give him the position at all?”

Rose gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. But I’m not complaining. Nothing like a little eye candy to make the day a little brighter.”

I managed not to sneer since I really did like Rose most of the time, and I didn’t want her to see how annoyed I was that she was swooning over Declan Curtis.

After all, it wasn’t like he was so drop-dead gorgeous that a sensible woman would turn into an idiot. He was attractive enough, with those golden looks of his, but I hadn’t seen anything else to impress me.

“Do you not like him for some reason?” Rose asked, evidently catching something in my expression.

“I don’t know him. I’ve only seen him around. But Lily says that he’s not really teaching them anything.” I paused. “Let’s just say that so far I’m not overly impressed.”

“It’s first grade.”

“I know it’s first grade, but that doesn’t mean the day needs to be wasted on frivolous activities. There’s a lot kids need to learn during that year, and it’s not right if this guy isn’t taking it seriously.”

“I’m sure he is. He’s just probably one of those teachers who can turn learning into such fun that kids hardly notice they’re learning.”

“Lily knows if she’s learning or not.” I let out a breath, telling myself to be patient and not jump to unfair conclusions. Maybe he was easing into things and he’d start buckling down soon.

He’d had more than a week now though, and nothing had changed in the classroom, according to Lily.

“Maybe she’s learning things and doesn’t realize it.”

“Or maybe he’s just treating teaching like a game. Like it’s not really important work. Teaching isn’t easy. Not just anyone can do it.”

“I know that.” Rose smiled in a particular way. “You’re really riled up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this riled up before.”

“Yes, I’m riled up. Teaching is important. First grade is important. And it shouldn’t be thrown away on an overgrown kid, no matter how sexy he is.”

The momentum of my words had caused me to step back and raise my voice slightly. Then I noticed Rose’s expression change, and her eyes shifted to something over my shoulder.

I froze, realizing immediately what her distraction meant. Someone else was in the office.

When I turned to look, I saw Declan leaning against the doorframe with his typical leisurely confidence. He had a half smile on his face.

I was momentarily overwhelmed with mortification, wondering how much he’d heard and if it was obvious I was talking about him.

I didn’t like the man, but I never would have laid him out right to his face.

Then he gave me a little wink, evidently not caring at all about what he’d just overheard.

I sucked in an indignant breath and turned away. The man was absolutely infuriating. Didn’t he take anything seriously at all?

To keep myself from saying something unforgivably rude, I turned away and walked over to the shelf of staff mailboxes. The handouts for today’s classes I’d needed copied were in there, so I grabbed them, taking a minute to pull myself together again.

“You’re looking particularly ravishing today, Rose,” I heard Declan saying behind me in a tone that was light, almost playful.

I tried not to roll my eyes. It was probably habitual with him. He was the type to flirt with anyone of the female variety.

Rose giggled in response.

I smoothed down my skirt with one hand as I turned around. Today I was wearing one of what Lily called my “teacher dresses”—a belted blue shirtdress that was comfortable and looked slightly old-fashioned. It was flattering enough but definitely didn’t look “ravishing.”

And for some reason, that bothered me.

“Have a good day, Rose,” I said with a smile. Then I nodded to Declan out of general civility.

He grinned at me as he walked over to check his mailbox too.

I was glad to be rid of him as I left the office, so I was surprised and not at all pleased when I realized he’d followed me and had fallen in step with me as I walked down the hall toward my classroom.

He was probably going to his classroom too.

I wished—I really, really wished—I didn’t feel a rush of attraction as I looked up at his handsome face and warm grin.

“So how is your class going?” I asked, trying to sound natural and not like he’d flustered me.

He had, but he didn’t need to know it.

“You tell me.” His expression was slightly smug, as if he knew I had doubts about him.

“Lily says you give the students a lot of free time.”

“It’s good for them. They enjoy it.”

“Yes, but they’re just in first grade, and they need structure to learn.”

He paused in front of his classroom and looked down at me like he could see a lot deeper into my head than he should. “I bet you need structure too.”

“What does that mean?”

He gave an amused shrug. “You look like the kind of woman who likes structure. Everything neat and orderly and according to plan. When was the last time you did something spontaneous?”

“I don’t have time or energy for much spontaneity. I have a class full of fourth graders and Lily to raise.”

“I’m sure her dad must help a little.”

I felt my spine stiffen. Declan obviously didn’t know about my marital situation. He still had that almost lazy, flirtatious look about him—as if he were used to charming the pants off women without even trying. He wasn’t coming on to me or anything. It was likely just his habitual manner. “Lily’s dad is dead,” I said, making sure my voice was mild so I didn’t sound upset or angry with him for bringing it up.

His expression instantly changed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t know. But he liked structure too, as a matter of a fact. He was a SEAL.”

He glanced away from my face briefly before he looked back. “I was a Marine. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

He wasn’t looking particularly intense or deep or serious, but I could tell he meant it. He had lost someone he cared about. He did know how it felt. He understood.

And the attraction I’d been feeling for him heightened so quickly it left me breathless. For the first time, I felt like he was more than a good-looking waste of space.

Suddenly there was a connection, a bond, and I had no idea how I felt about it.

I cleared my throat, telling myself I needed to get it together quick. It was fine if I was starting to think about men again—I wasn’t going to feel guilty about that—but I was all screwed up if I was thinking in the direction of Declan.

He just wasn’t the kind of man it was smart to take seriously.

“How long were you in the Marines?” I asked, genuinely curious since I still wanted to put his background together.

He opened his mouth to respond automatically but then closed it again. Then said, “A few years.”

“Where did you go to college?”

“Why do you want to know?” He stepped closer to me, so much so that he was definitely in my personal space.

I lost my breath again, since his body was so close, so big, so masculine. I suddenly wanted to touch it. “Just curious. It’s a normal question, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you said you were a Marine, so I just wondered how college and teaching fit into that. Did you go to college first and then join the Marines? Or did you go back to school after you got out?”

“Why don’t we have coffee some time, and you can ask me all about my background.” There was a particular drawl to his tone that was impossible not to recognize.

Was he actually asking me out? He wouldn’t even answer the most simple of questions about his background, and yet he thought I was so easy that I’d still fall under his spell. “I don’t think so,” I said, making sure my voice was almost gentle, rather than biting off his head the way I really wanted. “You’re my daughter’s teacher. And on top of that, I don’t have a lot of free time for things like going out for coffee.” I paused and let that sink in before adding, “I need to get to my class.”

I walked down the hall toward my classroom, soon feeling calm again and more myself.

It wasn’t like he was the first guy to ever ask me out, even after Nick had died. I’d lived a very quiet life for the past two years, but I shouldn’t let something as little as this fluster me so much.

As I opened the door to my classroom, I realized that Declan hadn’t answered a single one of my questions. And I suddenly wondered if he’d asked me out just to get me to leave him alone.

***

“I did good on my story, Mommy,” Lily said that afternoon as she was emptying her backpack as she always did after we got home from school.

“You did well,” I corrected automatically.

“I did well,” she repeated, not troubled at all by the correction. She always liked to learn.

“Did you?” I was slicing up an apple for her, but I glanced over my shoulder to see the piece of paper she was holding. “I’d like to read it.”

“Okay. Do you want me to read it to you?”

“That would be great.”

As I finished getting her afternoon snack together, she read out in a slow, precise voice. “I like trees. I like to climb trees. I have a tree in my yard that I climb. I sit on a branch and have fun. I never fall.”

“That’s really good, Lily.” I brought the sliced apple and cheese over to the kitchen counter, where she was sitting on her stool. “You used some hard words in that.”

“I know. Mr. Curtis said it was perfect and gave me a star.”

“That was great.” I was feeling better—and slightly guilty—since obviously they’d been practicing some real writing in class. I scanned the piece of paper on which she’d written her sentences and drawn a brown-haired girl in a tree. “Oops, you spelled ‘climb’ wrong. There’s a b at the end of it.”

Lily frowned soberly down at her paper. “There is?” She reached over and grabbed a pen from the cup we kept them in and carefully wrote a b at the end of the word. “Like this?”

“Right. Perfect.”

“Why is there a b at the end? We don’t say clim-b.”

“No, but it’s a silent b. Sometimes it’s there and you can’t hear it.”

“Why didn’t Mr. Curtis tell me I got it wrong?” She was breathing heavily, obviously upset about her mistake. She’d always been a little perfectionist.

“You did really well with it. He was probably glad you did so well.”

“But he said I did perfect.”

I was kind of upset too—not that Lily had misspelled a word but that he hadn’t corrected her. How was she supposed to learn unless he told her? I had to wonder again if it was just a kind of smug laziness—thinking first grade was easy, that it didn’t matter. Or that no one would notice.

Maybe he didn’t even notice.

“He probably meant you did really well. And you drew a beautiful tree. I really like how you did the bark.”

“I tried to make it look scratchy like bark is, so I did the triangles.”

I stroked her dark hair as she studied her picture, looking pleased again. “You did an amazing job. I never would have thought to draw bark that way.”

***

That evening, I was still thinking about Declan Curtis and his unwillingness to answer any questions about his background.

Something strange was going on here.

I knew if Chuck was looking in on him regularly, that the kids weren’t likely to be in any danger from him, but I didn’t want Lily to go three months without a teacher who actually wanted her to learn.

So after she went to bed for the night, I did a web search on his name.

There were quite a few hits about his time in the Marines, including a number of articles about an accident that had killed another soldier when he’d been present. At least he’d been honest about knowing what it was like to lose someone, if it had been a friend of his who’d died. He must have just gotten out a year or so ago, which meant he must have gone to college before he’d joined up.

I searched through the results but couldn’t find anything referencing a college. I saw a couple of brief references to a security firm, but that must be a different Declan Curtis.

He’d evidently been born in Fairfax, Virginia. And I found one of those look-up-your-old-classmates sites that listed him as having gone to high school there. But no college was listed.

I supposed not everyone’s college could be found through an online search, but something was strange here. I had the dates of his high school years, which put him at around thirty-two years old. I had references to his being in the Marines going back for several years. Assuming he was in college for four years, that didn’t leave any time to get teaching experience.

What the hell was he doing subbing in our little private school?

My first thought was to go to Chuck with my concerns, but that felt rather underhanded.

I preferred to be honest and straightforward whenever I could, so I’d go talk to Declan tomorrow morning and see if I could get answers to my questions.

If he blew me off again, then I’d go to Chuck.

He sure as hell better not try to distract me by asking me out again. What kind of a pushover did he think I was, to be diverted from genuine questions by a pair of broad shoulders and a sexy grin?

A very sexy grin.

I really wished I hadn’t started thinking about that, just as I was getting ready for bed.

***

The next morning, I stopped by his classroom first thing before the kids arrived.

He was crouching down in front of the little bookcase, shelving books quickly and rather haphazardly.

I swallowed at the site of his fine, tight butt in his khakis but made myself push the thought from my mind. I cleared my throat.

It evidently startled him because he jumped to his feet in an automatic posture of defense.

Nick used to do the same thing when he was startled. Too many years of being in harm’s way.

“Sorry to surprise you,” I said mildly.

“It’s fine.” His posture and face relaxed until it had that flirtatious half smile again. “And how are you this morning?”

I suddenly hated that look. It was like he hid behind it or something. “I’m fine. I was thinking about our conversation yesterday…”

“Yeah?” he prompted, sounding a bit hopeful. He was probably thinking that I had reconsidered his offer to go for coffee.

“I wanted to ask you again about where you went to college.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Where did you go to college? And when? And what is your previous experience teaching? I did a little research, and the dates I found don’t seem to add up, so I wanted to ask you about it.”

He came over to where I stood, his presence shifting until it felt almost intimidating. “Why does it concern you?”

My mouth fell open briefly. “Because I’m a teacher at this school, and my daughter is a student in your class. I think I’m entitled to know your background so I can be confident that these kids are in good hands.”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

“Well, please excuse me if I don’t feel comfortable taking you at your word. I don’t know you. And my daughter is in your class. If you’ll tell me about your education and previous experience, then I won’t have to keep pestering you about it.”

His eyes narrowed, and I realized he was bristling—like I was the one being inappropriate or unreasonable here. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll have to talk to Chuck. I’m sorry. I promise I’m not in the habit of causing people trouble just because, but this is too important for me to ignore. I can’t think of any reason you won’t tell me the answers to simple questions, unless you have something to hide.”

“It’s not really your business what I’m hiding.” His voice had grown gruffer, and there was something really sexy about his looming intensity—much more attractive than his characteristic manner.

My body was definitely interested in this man. No doubt about that.

But I didn’t have to let my body decide my behavior. This was too important.

“Of course it’s my business. Should I not care about my daughter’s welfare?”

“Your daughter is perfectly safe with me.”

“I also want her to learn, you know.”

“She already knows twice as much as the rest of the class. And I’ll tell you this.” For just a moment he looked almost fierce. “I don’t respond well to threats.”

I raised myself up to my full height, which just wasn’t very high. “And I don’t respond well to people trying to hide things that I have a right to know.”

I could tell by his expression that nothing constructive was going to come out of this conversation. He wasn’t going to tell me anything I wanted to know.

I hated the thought of tattling to the principal, but what else could I do?

I’d seen too often the serious, negative consequences of letting suspicious things go when it came to kids.

I wasn’t going to let this go.