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“It’s the least I can do, if you’re putting a roof over our heads.” Temporarily. Only temporarily, until the job he was set to start on Monday earned him enough for the deposit on an apartment. Temporarily, while he built up his savings again and looked around for the right town, the right city to start his own restaurant. Again. “I’ll shop tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner. After I register the twins.”
“It’s not going to be highfalutin French stuff, is it? Or worse yet, Cajun. That spicy junk gives me heartburn. I like my Thanksgiving dinner traditional.”
“Turkey. Chestnut stuffing. Cranberry sauce. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Green beans. Pumpkin pie. Traditional enough for you?”
Walter looked suspicious. “If you make real whipped cream for the pumpkin pie, I guess. Daniel won’t be home, though.”
“You have any friends or neighbors you want to invite?” Now there was a rhetorical question. Walter, a retired union steward, had always been a curmudgeon, set in his ways and absolutely sure of his opinions. Marjorie had made and kept friends—never any she brought home—but Gabriel would be surprised if his father was still on speaking terms with his drinking buddies down at the VFW.
Walter didn’t answer as he got up and headed for the stove. “You boys want seconds?”
“I do,” said Justin. “You’re a good cook, Grampa.”
The look Walter shot Gabriel was one of pure triumph.
MINUTES AFTER THE LAST of her students had been dismissed, Olivia Marshall surveyed the disaster that was her kindergarten classroom. Hastily, she put away costumes that had spilled out of the dress-up box. Construction paper scraps littered the floor beneath the low tables. And the wastebasket beside the paint-smeared sink overflowed with used paper towels. She absolutely could not, would not leave this mess for the custodial staff.
“Ms. Marshall!” Five-year-old Eric Sedley, on the verge of tears, dashed back into the room. “I forgot my turkey! I can’t go home without my turkey!”
Stepping quickly to his desk, Olivia retrieved the pinecone-and-pipe-cleaner bird, covered with glitter, that had been the last project of the shortened day. “Now scoot, before you miss your bus!”
“The driver said she’d wait for me.” Eric clutched his handiwork to his chest. Tears averted, smile in place, he ran from the room. “Happy Thanksgiving, Ms. Marshall!” echoed in the corridor.
It would be pointless to remind him to walk.
Early dismissal before a major holiday guaranteed pandemonium. Because—unlike most of the faculty—Olivia didn’t have to rush home to get ready for tomorrow’s feast, she’d spend the afternoon tidying her classroom.
“Ms. Marshall.” The voice of Kelly Corona, the school clerk, crackled over the intercom. “I’m sending a Mr. Brant your way. I’ve just enrolled his twins, and they’d like to meet you and see their classroom before Monday.”
Great. She surveyed her image in the stainless-steel towel dispenser mounted over the sink. If the disorder in the classroom didn’t scare them off, her appearance might.
Pulling the elastic band from her hair, she quickly retamed her ponytail. Mr. Brant? The only Mr. Brant living in Hennings was Walter…Unless…With a quickening heartbeat, she shrugged out of the paste-covered smock she had on, shook glitter from her trousers and smoothed her top. Although there was nothing she could do about the smiley face “tattoo” Fiona Dunne had drawn with marker on the back of her wrist, she managed a quick hand wash and cursory cleaning of her fingernails, which always seemed to have crayon embedded under them. Before she could dry her hands, her three visitors were standing in the doorway.
Olivia couldn’t determine who looked more uncomfortable—the boys or the man who stood protectively beside them. She might have passed him on the street without recognizing him, but face-to-face, how could she ever fail to remember those piercing blue eyes? They could only belong to Gabriel. A good six inches taller than she was and solidly built, the adult version of her childhood friend would have struck her as more than handsome if his features hadn’t been shadowed by a scowl that seemed indelibly etched.
“Come in.” She hastily dried her hands. “Please, don’t be put off by the mess. I assure you it’s creative chaos. I’m Olivia Marshall.”
He held out his hand. “Gabriel Brant,” he said, as if she were a complete stranger. Her own moment of recognition was muddled by his faint Southern inflection. The Gabriel Brant she’d known years ago had been a scrappy blue-collar Hennings through and through. “These are my boys, Justin and Jared.”
Oh, my. Identical twins. Same ill-trimmed mops of tawny hair. Same intense blue eyes. Same wary stance. She’d have her work cut out for her, keeping them straight. At least they weren’t dressed the same. In fact, their outfits looked as if they’d been chosen haphazardly from some yard sale.
She knelt before the boys. “So who’s Justin and who’s Jared?”
One of the twins raised his hand. “I’m Justin. He’s Jared.”
“Well, I’m Ms. Marshall, and I’m going to be your teacher.”
The boys didn’t seem to know what to think.
“Would you like to play with our BRIO town, while I talk with your dad?”
“What’s a BRIO town?” Justin asked.
She led the boys to a carpeted corner where interlocking BRIO train tracks surrounded a town that changed every day, depending on her students’ imagination. Because of the Thanksgiving skit and the turkey craft project, the miniature village had been neglected today. It was probably the only spot in the classroom that didn’t look as if a tornado had struck it.
“There are DUPLOs, too,” she said, pointing to a crate filled with blocks in primary colors. “If you want to make your own buildings.”
Although their eyes sparked with longing, the twins turned to their father nervously.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Ms. Marshall said so.”
Justin and Jared settled down to play, but with a hesitation that puzzled her.
When she turned back to talk to Gabriel, he seemed hesitant, as well. As if judging how much he should disclose. “Where we’ve been living,” he said at last, “there weren’t many resources. And if someone managed to get a little extra, he guarded it fiercely. The boys have learned to make sure they’re reading the signs right. If it’s okay for them to touch something that doesn’t belong to them.”
She tried to take in his statement without making judgments. After ten years as a teacher, she knew not to pry. Besides, underlying family issues always came to light in their own time. But where had this family lived, that sharing was so difficult?
“You did say Gabriel Brant?” she asked instead, proceeding cautiously. “Daniel’s brother? Walter’s son?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Do you remember me? One summer when you were ten and I was eight, you actually let me tag along after you. I think all your other friends had gone off to various day camps that year.”
His chuckle wasn’t much more than a grunt. “I do remember. But what happened to the pigtails and glasses?”
“The pigtails have been known to appear now and then, usually on field days, but laser surgery finally did away with the need for glasses.”
He studied her carefully. “Your aunt’s a great lady,” he said. “How is she?”
“Aunt Lydia died six years ago.” Olivia waved her hand to ward off any sympathy. “She was seventy-eight. Right up until the end, she said she’d had a wonderful life.” The best part, she’d claimed, was having the opportunity to raise her grandniece.
“I still live in the house,” Olivia continued. “At the end of every year, I give a party for my students and their parents. On the veranda. I serve refreshments using Aunt Lydia’s recipes. Although I’m not the cook she was, I can follow directions.” She grinned. “Sort of.”
Gabriel glanced at his boys as they played in the corner, one providing quiet commentary and the other eerily silent. “Sounds like a good time,” he said without much conviction. “If we’re still here.”
“This isn’t a permanent move to Hennings?”
“That depends on whether I find a better job than the one I have lined up here.”
Olivia decided to let that explanation suffice. “Tell me a little about the boys. About the school and the program they’re transferring from.”
His expression darkened. “This is the first opportunity I’ve had to enroll them anywhere.”
“Did they go to preschool?”
“No. But I read to them. We count together. When I cook, they help me measure. They’re bright,” he said. His pride had an edge. “They’ll catch up.”
“Of course. Anyway, this is kindergarten,” she assured him, trying to ease his defensiveness. “We don’t start drilling for college entrance exams until first grade.”
When he didn’t respond, she prodded him. “That’s teacher humor.”
Preoccupied with watching his sons, he largely ignored what she was saying. He seemed to have fewer social skills now than he had as a ten-year-old.
“What’s this?” The boy Olivia thought might be Justin broke the uncomfortable silence. He stood at her desk, pointing to the pinecone turkey she’d made.
“Why, that’s a Thanksgiving turkey. Would you each like to make one to go on your dinner table tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We have to get going,” Gabriel said, his brusque manner reminding Olivia of his father.
“Please, stay a few minutes more,” she urged, bringing her thoughts back to her responsibility. Her new students. “This is such a simple project. And if the boys have fun today, they’ll look forward to returning on Monday.”
Instantly, she knew she’d hit upon Gabriel’s soft spot. What was best for his sons. Before he could change his mind about staying, she cleared room at the craft table, dusted glitter off four chairs, then laid out fresh materials.
“Sit, Daddy,” Justin urged, plopping down in a pint-size chair as Jared wordlessly claimed the seat next to him. “You can help.”
Next came a scene Olivia never tired of watching. When a new parent first sank onto a kindergarten chair. Would the adult handle it with nonchalance, with self-deprecating humor, or with a sense that this was a deliberate assault on his ego? Over the years, Olivia had come to view it as a remarkably accurate test of character.
Gabriel Brant sat warily. As he’d sat many years ago on her aunt’s antique wicker porch furniture. Aunt Lydia had served them homemade lemonade and gingersnaps. The memory tugged at Olivia now. She remembered how, at the end of the summer, Aunt Lydia had said, “He’s a fine boy with a good imagination. Let’s hope Walter Brant doesn’t drum the imaginative part clear out of him.”
As Olivia showed the twins how to twist brown pipe cleaners to form the turkey’s head, legs and feet, and then demonstrated how to secure them in the pinecone’s “tail feathers,” Gabriel helped. Remarkably, his large hands were adept at this, his patience—with the boys—infinite. He never seemed to become more comfortable, though, only more determined. To accomplish this small task for his sons. Only when they’d finished shaking glitter onto the cones, and both Justin and Jared, who’d looked so sober upon entering her classroom, were smiling shyly, did Gabriel appear to relax.
She handed him the second demonstration bird she’d made today. “Now you can each have a turkey at your place tomorrow.”
“What about Grampa?” Justin asked. “He’ll need one. We’re staying with him. Every day we’re gonna walk from his house to school.”
Interesting. When Gabriel had left town after high-school graduation, Olivia had heard rumors that it was because Walter and he were such polar opposites they couldn’t stand to be in the same room. What had happened to bring Gabriel back?
He offered no explanation.
“I’ll give you another one I made earlier with the class,” she said, rising. “That way no one gets left out.” Returning to the table, she handed a fourth turkey to Gabriel and then spoke to the boys. “So do you think you’re going to like coming to school?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Justin replied, but Jared only stared at his turkey.
“Jared,” Gabriel said gently. “Look at Ms. Marshall when she’s talking to you.”
Jared did. Self-consciously. There was intelligence in his eyes, but deep uncertainty, as well. Although he made the requisite eye contact, he didn’t speak.
“Well, I’m looking forward to having you both in my class. Let me get your dad a list of the supplies you’ll need.”
As if glad to be dismissed, Gabriel rose. When she handed him the list of pencils, crayons, glue sticks, tissues, change of clothes and more that was the standard request of kindergarten parents, he blanched. “They’ll each need all these?”
“Yes,” she replied. This was always the ticklish part. “But if, for any reason, you can’t provide the supplies, I do have a discretionary fund….”
“I’ll see they have what they need by Monday.” His expression hard, he looked her in the eye. “Don’t do me any favors. Don’t offer any charity.”
She was stung by the vehemence of his words.
As he turned to leave, it was as if he’d thrown a switch, shutting her out completely. In retreat, the set of his broad shoulders was stiff. The light touch of his hands on his sons’ heads was gentle, but nothing else about Gabriel Brant was soft or yielding. Nothing that indicated the return to Hennings was the least bit pleasant for him.
What had life dealt her childhood friend to harden him so?
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER GABRIEL LEFT with his boys, Olivia didn’t have time to puzzle over his prickly behavior before Kelly poked her head around the door frame.
“So did you like the early Christmas present I sent you?” the perpetually cheery clerk asked.
“I haven’t had a minute to eat it,” she replied, indicating the cupcake Kelly had sent to the classroom earlier. Olivia deliberately misunderstood the question.
“Not that, silly! Gabriel Brant.” The clerk entered the room with a mischievous grin. “He didn’t want the twins split up. I could have put them in Megan’s class. She has the same number of students as you. But she’s married.”
Matchmakers. Hennings was full of them. “Are you forgetting the odds are fairly high Mr. Brant is married, too?”
“Oh, no,” Kelly countered. “On the registration form he left the space for the twins’ mother blank. I’m assuming he’s unattached.”
“That’s a pretty dangerous assumption.”
It wasn’t that Olivia wasn’t looking for love. Her aunt Lydia, the town librarian for many years, had raised her on a diet of fairy tales and adventure stories. Princesses in towers and princes on stallions. And happily ever after. They were the same tales she shared with her kindergarteners. Only now she occasionally changed the endings to have the princess do the saving.
“And you seem to forget,” she added, “he’s the parent of my two newest students. There must be a clause in my contract prohibiting a teacher from entering into a relationship with a parent.”
“No. You can’t date an administrator. And you can’t engage in public lewdness. Otherwise, what you do in private is pretty much your own business.”
Olivia slipped her arm around Kelly’s shoulders. “I’ll cut you some slack because this is your first year in the system. But FYI, the written rules and the unwritten rules can be poles apart.” She didn’t want to sound like a prude, but ten years’ experience had taught her that teachers were still considered the most public of public servants. And single teachers? Their extracurricular activities were always scrutinized. “Besides, you’re kind of jumping the gun, aren’t you? Married or not, the guy just walked through the door.”
Kelly shrugged. “The early bird, and all that. Hey, maybe he’s separated. Maybe he needs a soft shoulder to lean on.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
None of Kelly’s musings answered the question of Gabriel Brant’s marital status. He did have two sons. At some point there must have been, or else there still was, a significant other in the picture. Quite frankly, Aunt Lydia’s lovely fairy-tale fantasies—and fantasies they were—made it hard to settle for anything less than magic. Olivia did know one thing with certainty, however. There was no fairy dust on affairs with married men.
“Well, what are you going to do?” Kelly pressed.
“What I’m going to do,” she replied, “is catch a late lunch, then come back and straighten up this classroom. Want to join me for a bowl of chili at the diner?”
“I’d love to, but Don’s parents are driving in tonight. If I don’t get home and run a vacuum cleaner and a dust cloth around the house before then, his mother will drop not-so-subtle hints all weekend about my housekeeping skills. As if her only child and heir apparent shouldn’t share the responsibility.”
“As if you had nothing better to do with your time. Just how many are you having for dinner tomorrow?”
“Eleven. So one more wouldn’t cause any more stress. You know you can change your mind and join us.”
“Thanks.” Olivia was tempted. “But the Meals on Wheels volunteers count on us holiday subs.” And the elderly they served counted on a smiling face and a little company on a day when they knew others would be inundated with friends and family. Olivia understood the feeling. “And the diner’s doing the turkey dinners this year. At the end of my shift, I get take-home. Marmaduke will see that I don’t go hungry.”
“If you say so. But you can always stop by for dessert.”
“I might do that. Just to run a white glove over your dusted surfaces.”
