“He made a fist and I knew he was gonna hit me,” she explained. “I was scared, but I slugged him first. And ya know something?” Unadulterated wonder made her eyes go round. “He cried like a big, fat baby.”
Nathan knew it was wrong, but he’d be lying if he didn’t plainly identify the emotion flashing though him as nothing less than pride. Even though he was brand-new at this dad business, he guessed that no parent wanted their child to be a pushover. He was happy to discover that Charity could stand up for herself. But it was certain that they’d have to work on the means she used to do so.
“It’s not nice to hit people,” he told her.
“But Billy said—”
“I heard you the first time. But you need to know, Charity, you can’t go around hitting everyone who says something you don’t like.”
“But—”
“Honey—” his tone was firm “—there are no buts. Hitting is wrong.”
The look on her face told him she was crushed. All Nathan wanted to do was give her a big hug and assure her that everything was going to be okay. But he forced himself to remain silent. She needed to contemplate her behavior. To realize the magnitude of her actions.
Our job is to shove them right back. Gwen’s advice regarding setting firm boundaries floated through his mind.
Nathan’s fingers were trembling as he placed the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. He sighed. Being the disciplinarian was a necessary part of parenting, Charity’s teacher had just informed him, but it wasn’t a part of his new job as dad that he was going to enjoy very much.
The morning sun glowed through the windowpanes, rays of light glinting directly on the large jar of pennies that sat on the battered credenza. The jar was significant to Nathan. While working with the NYPD, he’d placed a penny in the jar every single day that he’d finished a shift and returned to the station house alive.
Lucky pennies. His jar of luck. It reminded him to be grateful for every day he was here on earth.
Several of his colleagues who had worked as cops in the city hadn’t been so lucky. All Nathan had to do was close his eyes to visualize the grief-stricken, tearstained faces of the wives and children of his fallen comrades. Those funerals he’d attended had been the reason he’d remained single all these years. Those sad occasions had also been the reason he’d brought Charity here to Smoke Valley Reservation. To a slower, safer way of life.
Now, however, one particularly new penny in the jar caught the sunlight, gleaming like coppery fire. Immediately Gwen Fleming’s glorious head of red hair came rushing into his mind with the force of a flash of lightning.
Wispy heat curled down low in his belly as a thundering bolt of pure desire rumbled through him. Nathan’s jaw tightened. It had been three days since he’d met his daughter’s teacher, and since then the woman had invaded his thoughts more times than he cared to admit. She was a looker, she was, with her head of wild ginger curls and a smile that could make a man give up his life’s fortune if she asked for it.
The woman was a tactile person, someone who was comfortable touching those within range. She’d reached out to him several times during their meeting, and each and every time Nathan had felt the air heat up, felt his heart thud like the hooves of a racehorse, his blood rushing through his veins.
He’d been surprised when she’d said she and her brother were alone. He’d wanted to ask her more about her situation. But Charity’s arrival had interrupted them.
Raising a teen was an awesome task. Nathan was impressed by Gwen’s dedication and her willingness to take responsibility for her brother. He couldn’t help but wonder how she’d come to find herself in such a situation. He’d have loved the chance to talk to Gwen about it further.
“Why don’t you just admit it?” he whispered to himself.
You’d have done just about anything to make that meeting last just a little longer. You lusted after that fiery-haired woman right there in that first-grade classroom, amid all the bright primary-colored shapes and alphabet letters hanging on the walls, and you’ve been lusting after her ever since.
He sighed, resting his elbow on his desk and his jaw in the V between his thumb and fingers, blind to the forms on his desk needing completion.
It really hadn’t mattered that he and Gwen had been in the most inopportune place, he realized. A classroom where children learned and played sure wasn’t the perfect location for him to experience such gut-wrenching desire. Nonetheless, that was exactly where he had experienced it.
Getting involved in his daughter’s teacher’s private life should have been the last thing on his mind. He had papers to file, forms to complete, a police station to run. A little girl to raise.
Still, the sunlight continued to gleam through the window, making that jar of copper pennies wink and smile…reminding him of one beautiful and extraordinary woman.
Gwen paced the close confines of her small living room, anxiety nibbling at her nerves like ravenous mice after a slice of fresh Swiss. Where was Brian?
She’d arrived home from school to an empty house. No note. No phone message. Nothing.
He was often absent when she got in from work. But he always left her a note. Well, almost always. And he never failed to return before dinner.
But tonight the meat loaf she’d cooked sat on the counter, stone cold. The mashed potatoes had congealed into a hard lump. And there was simply no hope for the limp green beans stuck to the bottom of the pan.
The sky had darkened long ago, and Gwen didn’t have any idea where her brother might be, or what trouble he might be getting himself into. Ever since that shoplifting incident, she’d been worried sick. She didn’t know the names of any of the boys he’d met since their move to Smoke Valley. Brian had been steadily uncommunicative about his friends. She didn’t have a clue whom to call or what to do. For all she knew, he could have been struck by a car while he was riding his bike and was lying unconscious in the emergency ward of the local hospital, in the neighboring town of Mountview. During that moment of panic, Gwen had called the dispatcher at the Smoke Valley police station. The woman had been so nice in her efforts to calm Gwen and had assured her that no accidents had been reported.
Still, the lesson plans Gwen had intended to organize for her students sat on the table, untouched. Worry had her too upset to think straight, too distressed to eat.
So she paced. Wrung her hands. And waited.
The knock on the front door nearly made her jump right out of her skin. She rushed to the door, sure that her brother must have lost his key.
The sight of Nathan Thunder standing on her doorstep stole every thought from her head.
“Evening, Gwen,” he greeted her. “My dispatcher got word to me that you called. I thought I’d stop by and check on you. Is everything okay?”
The concern on his handsome face nearly made her knees buckle. All Gwen wanted to do was lean on him, unload all her troubles onto his shoulders. He was barely in the door when she let her concerns roll off her tongue.
“I don’t know where Brian is. He’s never been this late before. He could be out there getting into trouble. He could be hurt. He could be—”
“Okay, now—”
His voice was soft, gentle, and so were his hands as he slid his fingers over her upper arms. He pulled her against his chest.
“—don’t let your imagination get the best of you, Gwen.”
Something happened when he embraced her. The molecules in the air heated and swirled, danced and constricted. Gwen felt as if she’d suddenly been enveloped by a warm, downy blanket.
The