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“But she’s also a very troubled girl,” she added.
“Can you blame her?” He shrugged and lowered his gaze to the floor. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that her dad’s a Marine rooting out insurgents in Iraq, now her mom’s in a Philadelphia cancer-treatment center undergoing intense chemotherapy.”
“She’s had an awful lot to deal with,” she agreed.
Dinah was studying him when he looked up at her again, suggesting that she was including him in her compassionate comment. Alex stiffened. He didn’t want her pity. Opening his guest bedrooms, juggling a few schedules and learning to make something edible out of frozen chicken breasts couldn’t come close to comparing to what Brandon and Chelsea had been facing.
“Everything’s going to be okay, though. Karla’s husband, Mike, is trying to get leave soon, and Karla will be just fine.” Even as he said it, Alex wondered which of them he was trying to convince.
“You just keep reassuring Chelsea of that at home, and I’ll do the same here at school.”
“How is she doing in school?” The question sounded strange in his ears. He’d always figured that one day he would attend parent-teacher conferences, but this wasn’t at all how he would have imagined it.
“That’s just the thing. Her grades are as high as they were last year.”
“Last year?”
“Our principal likes to loop second-and third-grade classes, so the children benefit from the stability of spending two years with the same teacher and the same classmates. Next year, Chelsea will go on to a new teacher, and I’ll start with a new group of second-graders.”
Stability. For the second time that day, Alex was thankful Chelsea had it at school if she couldn’t have it anywhere else. But it was also strange to realize that this Dinah Fraser, a stranger to him, probably knew the child he adored better than he did.
“So it’s not her grades?”
She shook her head. “She’s just so withdrawn and depressed. It’s as if all the sunshine has been lifted out of her eyes.”
That was it. As much as he’d known there was something different about Chelsea, he hadn’t been able to describe it. Dinah’s description had put his thoughts into words.
“In class, she’s so distracted that I had to move her desk away from the window to get her to pay attention,” she continued. “Still, I can barely get her to participate in classroom activities.”
Dinah planted her elbows on her desk and rested her chin in the V formed by her hands. “She used to make all this beautiful artwork, and now she doesn’t even want to color. She let herself be eliminated from the class Spelling Bee in the first round when I know full well she remembered that the e comes before the i in receive. You know, that i before e except after c…”
She stopped herself when she glanced up and caught him grinning at her. Shrugging, she smiled back at him. It was obvious that Miss Fraser loved teaching, and she was proving by this meeting that she loved her students, as well. If he’d ever had a teacher like her, maybe his own academic records would have leaned closer to the beginning of the alphabet instead of a few letters in.
He must have looked at her a little too long because Dinah blushed prettily and glanced away. Dinah Fraser might be used to getting more than her share of male attention, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable with it. She would have laughed if she’d realized that at least this time his thoughts weren’t on her appearance at all.
Still, he wondered how he could have lived in the area a whole year without ever meeting her.
“Fraser. I’ve heard that name before around here. Do you have relatives in Chestnut Grove?”
“Yes, there are a lot of us around.”
When she didn’t elaborate, Alex figured it was time to quit procrastinating. No matter how out of character it was for him, he needed to ask this woman for help.
“So…ah…what suggestions do you have for helping Chelsea outside of school?”
“Does Chelsea talk about her mom at home?”
He shrugged, frustration replacing his earlier discomfort at asking for help. “Not much. In fact not at all unless Karla’s just called, and even then it’s just to say that her mom says hi and she’s doing fine.”
“It might help her to talk more about her mother’s illness or the danger her dad’s facing, or both. She could even keep a journal, writing down feelings.”
Alex frowned. He’d known she shouldn’t keep her feelings bottled up, but he felt powerless trying to help her. “She doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“You know there’s a difference between want and need. She needs to talk about her feelings, and if she won’t initiate the conversations, you might have to. Either that or I can have her talk to the school counselor.”
“No, that’s okay.” Counselor. He didn’t even like the sound of that word. It was bad enough asking the teacher for help, but asking some professional counselor would be like admitting failure. Like admitting he couldn’t handle the situation when he’d promised Karla he would.
Instead of arguing for counseling as he expected—he’d always thought that women single-handedly financed the counseling industry—she nodded. “Be prepared, though. There might be a lot of tears when she finally opens up.”
Alex shivered at the notion. “You sure know how to kill a guy.”
“Where is Chelsea now?”
Alex glanced at his watch. “She’d be off the bus now. My next-door neighbor stays with Brandon and Chelsea until I get home from work. I know it isn’t a perfect situation.”
“You’re doing the best you can. It has to be good enough.”
He doubted that whatever he did would be good enough. But she was right. He was doing the best he could. He’d had to call in favors from all of his fellow firefighters to even be able to temporarily pull weekday eight-to-five shifts when usual shifts were twenty-four hours on and forty-eight off. He didn’t know how long he could expect his coworkers to make concessions for him so he could care for his cousin’s children.
“How’s Brandon doing with having a babysitter?”
“He doesn’t fight me too much on it anymore, not since I told him the sitter was really for Chelsea. It’s about the only thing he doesn’t fight me on lately.”
“Sounds like a normal teenager.”
Alex frowned. He didn’t have a clue what normal teenagers did, and he barely remembered his own teen years.
“You’ve had an introduction to parenting by fire.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, cocking his head.
“Oh.” She straightened, drawing her hands into her lap. “I guess I just assumed this was your first parenting experience. Since you weren’t…uh…wearing a wedding ring or anything. But I guess I shouldn’t assume…anything nowadays….”
Dinah let her words fall away, her blush deepening with each of her awkward comments. The familiar need to protect and preserve filled Alex, and he didn’t even have on his gear. He hated making her feel this uncomfortable even if he was secretly pleased that she’d admitted to checking his hand for a wedding band.
“Assume away. I don’t have any little Alexes running around anywhere. I’m a bit traditional when it comes to the marriage-before-kids order of things. And I’ve never done the first, so…”
She nodded as he let his words fall away, but her cheeks were still stained pink.
His gaze lowered to her hand again, where she wore nothing more significant than a thin gold pinkie ring. Her title had given him the heads-up that she was unmarried, but he still was surprised that she didn’t even wear an engagement ring. She probably had to dodge proposals left and right.
“Then we’re even,” she said finally.
“Even?”
“No kids.”
“At least you have some training with them.”
She smiled. “Nothing like the on-the-job variety you’re getting.”
“Training,” he said, scoffing at her comment. “I guess you could call it that. But usually in on-the-job training you have a supervisor to tell you if you’re doing things wrong. I hope I’m not messing these kids up forever.”
“They’ll be fine.” She paused long enough to give him a smile that could warm the North Pole by a few degrees. “Kids are resilient and forgiving, just like hostas. Ever planted a hosta?”
She must have seen his incredulous look because she explained. “Hostas are really hardy perennials. Pretty much no matter what you do to them, they’ll still come back in the spring.”
“So if your analogy holds true, Chelsea and Brandon will survive no matter what I do to—”
She was shaking her head before he’d presented the whole premise. “The theory need not be tested.” But she smiled as she said it.
“Good. Do I look like the kind of man who might grow hostas?” He raised his hand as a sign to stop her. “Wait. Don’t answer that. My masculinity might be bruised.”
“Probably not. You didn’t strike me as the green-thumbed type.”
“What type did I strike you as?” He took an unhurried look at her, waiting for her to glance away. For the longest time she didn’t, and it surprised him how dry his mouth was by the time she did.
“Don’t answer that, either,” he said to diffuse the electrical charge filling the air. Even a fire hose couldn’t douse that spark.
“You struck me as Chelsea’s very important guardian.”
So much for the charge. He couldn’t decide whether she’d said it for his sake or hers, but either way, she was right. His plate was already overfilled with his temporary family. The last thing he needed was to let a beautiful woman distract him from the all-important job of caring for Chelsea and Brandon.
Besides, he’d avoided female complications for the last year and the plan was working for him, so he didn’t want to mess that up by letting a pretty redhead turn his head.
From now on he would see Miss Fraser—yes, it was better to think of her that way—only as a partner in helping Chelsea get through this tough time. He wouldn’t allow himself to be attracted to the lovely teacher with the sweet disposition.
That was final. Finito. So why did he feel as if it was a little late for him to be making that decision—like running into a blaze when there was nothing left but smoldering embers?
Chapter Two
Dinah watched as Alex strode out of her classroom, all muscle and sinew—proof of a man who regularly put his back into his work. A sigh escaped her before she knew it was coming. Even as she pulled her gaze away from his retreating form—from the pale yellow polo shirt that stretched across his back as he moved—her cheeks burned.
Since when did she notice broad shoulders, toned biceps or even deep brown eyes and neatly trimmed dark hair when the only thing that truly mattered about a person lay deep inside him where no one but God could see? What mattered was his heart.
A small smile settled on her lips. That argument wouldn’t work when Alex Donovan appeared to be just as appealing on the inside as he was outside where the rest of the world could see. And the world had to see unless all the people in it had simultaneously closed their eyes. Still, what other bachelor could she name who would drop everything in his life and step in to care for a cousin’s children when he had none of his own?
Her brother, Jonah? She shook her head as she flipped open her grade book and glanced down at the list of names and corresponding scores for spelling and geography tests and daily math homework. Jonah was a great guy. He’d even served his country and fought for freedom in Iraq, but he would probably draw the line when it came to becoming guardian to someone else’s kids. She wouldn’t have put it past him to recommend her for the job, though.
Okay, there was one other man she knew of who might have done something that extreme in his bachelor days, but then her father had always stood head and shoulders above other men in her opinion.
What did that say about Alex Donovan? That he was brave? He did fight fires for a living, and most cowards probably avoided that high-risk career like a case of leprosy. Did it say he was a loving person then? She had only to see the way that Chelsea talked about her “Uncle Alex” to know that one was true.
Dinah stopped herself before she applied every desirable personality trait her amazing father possessed to Alex, the majority of which she couldn’t possibly confirm or discount.
You struck me as Chelsea’s very important guardian. She reminded herself of her own words that she’d used to cut off his flirting. He had been flirting, too. She might not have been a true veteran of the dating wars, but she’d been in enough minor skirmishes to know that one for sure.
If she were honest with herself, she would have to admit she hadn’t discouraged him initially, but she decided to attribute that to the shock of seeing a massive, gorgeous man in her classroom when the males who surrounded her most days stood about waist high. Sure, she’d scheduled the three o’clock appointment with a grown-up, but this was her excuse, and she was sticking to it.
“What kind of daydreams are you having?”
Dinah jerked her head toward the sound, finding kindergarten teacher Shelley Foust standing in the doorway to her classroom, her arms crossed and a knowing expression on her face.
“What do you mean?” Dinah did her best to act nonchalant as she closed the grade book she hadn’t been looking at anyway.
“You know what I mean. Tall, dark and hunky who just walked out of this room, his shoulders barely fitting through the doorway.”
For a brand-new teacher, straight from Penn State, Shelley didn’t miss much, especially the interesting stories at Grove Elementary. “Just try to tell me you didn’t notice.”
Dinah opened her mouth to try and then closed it again, remembering how her mother and father taught her that lying was sinful. She cleared her throat. “Oh, him? That was just Alex Donovan, Chelsea White’s guardian while her mom is undergoing cancer treatment.”
Shelley stepped farther into the room and brushed away the wrinkles on her darling prairie skirt and fitted blouse. Everything looked effortlessly cute on the petite kindergarten teacher, and sometimes Dinah had to try not to envy that when she always struggled to find clothes modest enough for her too-curvy figure.
“I doubt that man could be called just anything, but whatever you say,” Shelley said. “Now I need details. Age. Occupation. Marital status.”
Dinah frowned at her but still relented. “Thirty-something if I were to guess.” Those crinkles around his eyes had given her a clue. “Firefighter.”
Shelley rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, I just knew he would be something manly like that. I was leaning toward construction worker or forester from the National Park Service or something, but I can picture him now rushing into burning buildings or rescuing kittens from trees.”
Because she could see it, too, Dinah turned her attention to the dry-erase board at the other side of her classroom. She would need to clean that and jot down tomorrow’s assignments before she left for the night.
“What about that last, all-important detail?”
“Oh, that. He’s single.”
Why was it that she wanted to be able to tell Shelley that Alex was married with a half-dozen children and a set of twins on the way? If a little forward, Shelley wasn’t a danger to local single men. She’d dated only a few since the beginning of the school year and was always kind when she ended a relationship. For some reason, though, Dinah hoped her friend didn’t set her sights on Chelsea’s kind guardian.
“But taken?” Shelley lifted a delicate brow when she glanced back at her.
Dinah shook her head. “I only met him today, but he did seem awfully busy working and caring for his cousin’s two children right now. Probably too busy for a lot of socializing.” He’d found time for a few minutes of it with her, but Dinah didn’t mention that.
Though Shelley nodded, she didn’t appear convinced.
Dinah’s cheeks burned as realization dawned. “You mean me? I told you I just met him during a conference about Chelsea.”
“You certainly know a lot of his details.”
“Because we were discussing the difficult situation that Chelsea’s in.” Maybe it wasn’t necessary for her to know his personal value regarding marriage and children, but that was beside the point.
“Whatever you say.” Shelley still didn’t sound convinced, but then she sighed. “You’re probably right. The fabulous firefighter would be too busy right now to spoil me properly, so I guess I won’t be asking you to introduce us.”
It was Dinah’s turn to lift an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
“You know how I expect to be spoiled when I date someone.”
Though she knew nothing of the sort, Dinah nodded. She sensed that her friend might be stepping aside for her sake, and she should let Shelley know the gesture was unnecessary, but she couldn’t speak up.
It was probably for the best. Alex’s life was complicated enough without Dinah introducing him to the spunky kindergarten teacher. She was probably doing him a favor by not giving him another distraction.
