The Runaway Princess. Patricia Forsythe

Rachel’s letter of resignation. His angular face was lined in a mighty frown. In the long, third floor gallery of her family’s palace there was a painting of an ancestor who’d been rumored to put to death those who disappointed him. Right now, Jace’s face looked a great deal like that painting.

      He put down the letter and picked up the folder with Alexis’s certificate and letters of reference. She bounced up and hurried around the table to hover at his shoulder once again.

      In a hearty voice, she said, “See? I’m fully qualified.” She pointed to the date on her certificate. “For at least the next seven years.”

      Jace answered with a grunting sound and picked up one of the letters.

      “And see?” She crowded him as she pressed forward over his shoulder. “This says that I have specialized training in diagnosing and solving reading difficulties.”

      He gave her another one of those “back-off” looks and asked, “Do you have any training in washing dishes?”

      Alexis stared blankly into his deep brown eyes for a few seconds, then looked at the dirty plates and cups on the table. She straightened immediately. “Oh, of course. Um, you’d like to read these things without me chattering away at you, wouldn’t you?”

      “Yes.” He stood and gathered them up. “And I need to talk to the other members of the school board.”

      Hope flooded her face and joy sparkled in her eyes. “You mean there’s a chance you’ll change your mind and let me stay?”

      “I mean I’ll talk to the other members of the school board.”

      She would have to be satisfied with that, so she swallowed the little lump of disappointment and gave him a bright smile as she held up her hands, palms outward, “Fine. Fine. Go right ahead.”

      “I intend to.” He turned away. “I’ll be in my office.”

      Before he left the kitchen, Alexis took a quick look around. “Um, where’s the dishwasher?”

      For the first time, she saw a hint of amusement in his face. His craggy features rearranged themselves into what must pass for a smile. Taking a step back to her, he reached out and lifted her hand by the wrist. He held it in front of her face and said, “You’re looking at it, kid.”

      She started at the hard warmth of his touch and her gaze flew to meet his. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Why had he done that?

      The flash of humor she’d seen vanished. Jace looked into her eyes as if he was asking himself the same question. Hastily, he dropped her hand and turned to stride from the kitchen. “I have to make some phone calls.”

      When he was gone, Alexis stared blindly around the room, then moved to clear the table. Why had he touched her? She found it vaguely disturbing. It made her think of him as someone other than a boss, someone she had to convince to let her stay. His touch made her think of him as a man.

      Silly, she thought. She was overreacting, that was all. Just fearful that he wouldn’t let her stay. Pushing her disturbing thoughts away, she began clearing the table.

      “Jace, I think you’re overreacting,” Martha Singleton told him in a flat tone.

      “You do?” Jace sat with his elbows propped on the desk as he talked to the woman who was the regular teacher of Sleepy River Community School—on the years she wasn’t having a baby.

      “Yes. First of all, where are we going to find someone at this late date? If the one we hired didn’t show up and another, qualified teacher did, I don’t see that we have anything to worry about. Check her references. If they’re okay, she’s okay. Believe me when I say qualified teachers willing to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains for the amount of money we can pay aren’t exactly thick on the ground.”

      Jace scratched his chin. “I guess you’re right,” he said in a reluctant drawl. He paused and he could feel Martha waiting for him to go on. In the background, he could hear her three-week-old son fussing, wanting his mother’s attention.

      “So, what is the problem, then?” she asked.

      Jace knew she was too polite to say so, but he was wasting her time. “No problem,” he said, with more decisiveness than he felt. “I’ll check her references. Sounds like you need to get back to that baby of yours.”

      “Demanding little stinker,” she said fondly. “Tell you what, if her references check out okay, but you’re still worried, I can go watch her teach. If she’s totally incompetent, we don’t have to keep her.”

      It was a slim thread, but Jace grasped it gratefully. “Sure, Martha. That sounds good. We don’t want a teacher who’s incompetent.”

      Only he had a feeling Alexis wasn’t incompetent. Jace hung up the phone and gloomily stared out the window in the direction of the schoolhouse.

      In spite of her tendency to run into walls, back into mailbox posts and set fires, there was something about her that seemed capable of handling anything, even the challenges of their local school.

      Admit it, sucker, he thought. It wasn’t her capabilities that worried him. It was her presence, the way she had looked at him a little while ago as if she’d never seen anything like him. No doubt, she hadn’t. To him, she appeared to be accustomed to much more sophisticated surroundings than Sleepy River, Arizona.

      She disturbed him, had done so since the moment he’d looked into those eyes of hers. Touching her hand had rocked him back on his heels.

      He was reluctant to have her around, but as Martha had said, where were they going to find someone else at this late date? Grumbling, he reached for the phone to contact her references.

      Why did it have to be Alexis Chastain, though?