“I’ll answer all your questions as soon as we’ve said our opening prayer,” she promised. “Who’d like to do the honor?”
At first, Dara thought she might have to do it herself, as she had last week. Then one tiny hand slid hesitantly into the air.
“Thank you for volunteering, Bobby,” she told him. “Now, let’s all close our eyes and bow our heads.”
The children immediately complied.
“Go ahead, Bobby.”
“Dear Lord,” he began in a sweet, angelic voice, “we thank You for getting us here safely. God bless Miss Mackenzie for being our teacher…” He hesitated for a moment before concluding. “And for bringing all the ingredients to make peanut butter balls. Amen.”
“Peanut butter balls. What’re peanut butter balls?”
The question echoed around the room a dozen times before Angie said, “They’re a no-bake dessert that’s very high in fat and—”
“But they’re fun to make and dee-licious!” Bobby tacked on.
“How do you know ‘bout peanut butter balls?” Pete asked.
“Our mother taught us to make them,” was Angie’s straightforward reply.
Dara clapped her hands. “All right, class, let’s get our hands washed so we can dig in.”
In a matter of minutes, they were back in their seats, draped in their fathers’ baggy, cast-off shirts. “We’re going to learn something about creation today,” she said, going from desk to desk, rolling up sleeves. And handing each student a sheet of waxed paper, she added, “God took special ingredients, mixed them and made the world.”
As Dara gave the children their own disposable bowls, she began quoting Genesis in words these first graders would understand. To emphasize the lesson, she doled out peanut butter and sugar, a drop of vanilla, and invited the kids to mix them thoroughly…with their bare hands. When they’d made dough of the mixture, she instructed them to form gumdrop-size balls from it, then instructed them to roll their peanut butter balls in the crushed nuts.
Lisa licked the mixture off her fingers. “Mmm,” she said. “That was good work.”
“And messy work,” Tina agreed.
“But now we can enjoy—and share—what we’ve made,” Dara told them.
“Oh, I get it!” Pete shouted. “Like God enjoyed the world, and shared it with Adam and Eve once he got done makin’ it!”
“Once he had finished it,” Angie corrected, sighing deeply.
“Is God gonna eat the world?” Donny teased, popping a peanut butter ball into his mouth.
“‘Course not, stupid. It’s too big to fit in His mouth,” Pete said around a mouthful of his own sticky treat.
“It isn’t polite to call people ‘stupid,’” Angie scolded.
Dara had spent only two weeks with the class, but her students had spent three months with Angie. They rolled their eyes at her admonition.
Angie could pretend to be older and wiser than the rest of the kids in class, but Dara had seen her eyes light up at the prospect of digging her fingers into the gooey mess that would become the peanut butter balls. And despite her best attempts to appear above it all, her “cookies” were just as lopsided as everyone else’s.
The children left class, chattering happily—around mouthfuls of the treat they’d made with their own two hands—about what they’d do once the snow started. Dara went about the business of cleaning up what Donny had referred to as “Our Genesis Mess.”
Humming, she dropped sticky bowls and wrinkled sheets of waxed paper into the wastebasket, then began packing up the leftover ingredients and paper products. Dara had but one regret about teaching this class: not one of the students was her son or daughter. She loved everything about children—from cradle to cap and gown—their effervescent exuberance to their brighteyed view of the world was contagious. Someday, she hoped, the Lord would see fit to answer her prayer and send a good Christian man into her life.
One like Dad, she thought, gritting her teeth with grim determination. She would prove he hadn’t committed that awful crime if it was the last thing she ever did!
He’d earned her faith in him, her loyalty, because he’d been a wonderful father, a wonderful husband! Dara recalled how well he’d always taken care of her mother, how much more devoted and compassionate he became when she got sick. Dara wanted a love like that, a man like that, with whom she could build a home, a family, a future—
“May I have a word with you, Miss Mackenzie?”
The suddenness of the deep baritone startled her, and Dara dropped the paper bag she’d been holding.
“Sorry,” he said, a crooked smile slanting his tawny mustache, “didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She stooped to retrieve the paper towels and foam bowls that had rolled under her desk. “No problem. I just didn’t see you there, that’s all.” Dara jammed the articles back into the bag, stood it near the door. “Now then,” she said, dusting her hands in front of her, “what can I do for you, Mr. Lucas?”
He didn’t answer right away, a fact that gave Dara an overall uneasy feeling. She was about to ask what he was looking at when he said, “I’d like to thank you.”
“Thank me?” His intense scrutiny had unnerved her, and a jittery giggle popped from her lips. “Whatever for?”
“For attempting to comfort my daughter last week. Bobby told me what you said…and did.”
Dara frowned, trying to remember specifically what he might be referring to. The hug? That little peck on the temple? She shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t—”
“I’m the one who’s afraid, Miss Mackenzie,” he interrupted. “Since my wife passed away, the children haven’t had much in the way of female nurturing. I try,” he added, shoulders up and palms extended, “but I make a better dad than a mom.”
Dara took note of his broad shoulders, his muscular legs, the big fingers that repeatedly combed through his shining blond hair. I’ll say, she thought, grinning inwardly. “Well, no one expects you to be a superhero,” she said, “least of all, Bobby and Angie.”
“Maybe not,” he said in a quiet voice, “but they deserve the best, and I’m a far cry from it.”
This was a side of Noah Lucas that Dara never would have guessed existed.
“I just wanted to thank you is all, for your kindness.”
Coming from anyone else, the words would have been taken at face value, and she would have said, “Just doin’ my job.” But from a man like Noah Lucas—reserved, private, stoic—they took on a whole new meaning, because Dara had a feeling he didn’t make a practice of saying such things.
“You can be very proud of Bobby and Angie,” she admitted. “They are two of the best-behaved children I’ve ever met” Grinning, she held a finger in the air to add, “And I’ll have you know this isn’t my first encounter with children.”
“So I’ve heard.”
So he