But blessed—or cursed—with the newfound strength of a woman who was working her way through Bliss and making careful notations in the margins, and who had purchased a sofa in a rather adventurous shade of purple, she plunged on.
“Cecilia told me that’s why she took the overalls from the lost-and-found box…to spare you a shopping trip. She doesn’t have anything that fits properly. She wears the same favorites over and over. She wears hiking boots with skirts, Mr. Hathoway! Haven’t you noticed that?”
He said that word again, and something besides hardness flickered in those eyes again. It was worse than the hardness. Pain so deep it was like a bottomless pool.
“I guess I didn’t notice,” he said, the warrior stance shifting ever so slightly, something defeated in his voice. “Ace could have said something.”
“She seems to think if she asks nothing of you, she’s protecting you in some way.”
The smallest hint of a smile tickled across lips that had the potential to be so sexy they could make a woman’s heart stop.
“She is protecting me in some way. Grocery shopping is tough enough. I have to go out of town for groceries to avoid recipe exchanges with well-meaning neighbors.”
Whom, Morgan was willing to guess, were mostly female. And available. She could easily imagine him being swarmed at a market in a small town where everyone would know his history. Wife killed, nearly two years ago, Christmas Eve car accident. Widower. Single dad.
“The girl’s department is impossible,” he went on grimly. “A sea of pink. Women everywhere. Frills.” He said that word again, softly, with pained remembrance shadowing his eyes. He shook his head. “I don’t do shopping,” he said again, firmly, resolutely.
“I’d be happy to take her shopping.”
It was the type of offer that would have Mary Beth rolling her eyes. It was the type of offer that probably made Morgan’s insanity certifiable. Could she tangle her life with those of the Hathoways without dancing with something very powerful and possibly not tamable?
But whatever brief humanity had touched Nate’s features it was doused as carelessly as he had plunged that red-hot metal into water.
“I don’t do pity, either.”
Good, Morgan congratulated herself. She had done her best. She should leave now, while her dignity was somewhat in tact. Mary Beth would approve if she left without saying another single word.
Naturally, she didn’t.
“It’s not pity. I happen to love shopping. I can’t think of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.”
I CAN’T THINK of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.
Mary Beth is going to think I’m crazy, Morgan thought.
Plus, standing here in such close proximity to his lips, she could think of one thing that would be quite a bit more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion. Or maybe two.
“I’ll look after it,” Nate Hathoway said, coolly adding with formal politeness, “thanks for dropping in, Miss McGuire.”
And then he dismissed her, strode back across his workshop and turned his back to her, faced the fire. He was instantly engrossed in whatever he was doing.
Morgan stared at him, but instead of leaving, she marched over to one of the bins just inside the front door. It contained coat hooks, in black wrought iron.
She picked up a pair, loved the substance of them in her hands. In a world where everything was transient, everything was meant to be enjoyed for a short while and then replaced—like her purple sofa—the coat hooks felt as if they were made to last forever.
Not a word a newly independent woman wanted to be thinking of anywhere in the vicinity of Nate Hathoway.
Still, his work with the black iron was incredible, flawless. The metal was so smooth it might have been silk. The curve of the hanger seemed impossibly delicate. How had he wrought this from something as inflexible as iron?
“I’ll trade you,” Morgan said on an impulse.
He turned and looked at her.
“My time with your daughter for some of your workmanship.” She held up the pair of coat hooks.
She could already picture them hanging inside her front door, she already felt as if she had to have them. Even if he didn’t agree to the trade, she would have to try and buy them from him.
But she saw she had found precisely the right way to get to him: a trade in no way injured his pride, which looked substantial. Plus, it got him out of the dreaded shopping trip to the girls’ department.
He nodded, once, curtly. “Okay. Done.”
She went to put the coat hooks back, until they worked out the details of their arrangement, but he growled at her.
“Take them.”
“Saturday morning? I can pick Cecilia up around ten.”
“Fine.” He turned away from her again. She saw he was heating a rod of iron, and she wished she had the nerve to go watch how he worked his magic on it. But she didn’t.
She turned and let herself quietly out the door. Only as she walked away did she consider that by taking the coat hangers, she had taken a piece of him with her.
Morgan was aware she would never be able to look at her new acquisition without picturing him, hammer in hand, and feeling the potent pull of the incredible energy he had poured, molten, into manufacturing the coat hangers.
“I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into?” she asked out loud, walking away from the old barn, the last of the leaves floated from the trees around her. And then she realized just how much Nate Hathoway had managed to rattle her when she touched a piece of paper in her coat pocket.
And realized it was the permission slip for The Christmas Angel, still unsigned.
“Ah, Ace,” Nate said uneasily, “you know how I promised I’d take you to the antique-car show this morning?”
His daughter was busy coloring at the kitchen table, enjoying a Saturday morning in her jammies. They were faded cotton-candy pink. They had feet in them, which made her seem like a baby. His baby.
He felt a fresh wave of anger at the kids teasing her. And fresh frustration at the snippy young teacher for thinking she knew everything.
He had tried to think about that visit from the teacher as little as possible, and not just because it made him acutely aware of his failings as a single parent.
No, the teacher had been pretty. Annoying, but pretty.
And when he thought of her, it seemed to be the pretty part he thought of—the lush auburn hair, the sparkling green eyes, the wholesome features, the delicate curves—rather than the annoying part.
Ace glanced up at him. Her shortened red hair was sticking up every which way this morning, still an improvement over the toothpaste fin of last week, and the long tangled mop he had tried to tame—unsuccessfully—before that.
“We’re not going to the car show?” she asked.
Nate hated disappointing her. He had been mulling over how to break this to her. Which is probably why he hadn’t told her earlier that her plans for Saturday were changed. Sometimes with Ace, it was better not to let her think things over for too long.
“We’re not going to the car show?” she asked again, something faintly