Teaching The Rancher His L-O-V-E’s!

Rust Creek Ramblings

Readers, it’s back-to-school time in Rust Creek Falls, and new single mama Marina Laramie has returned to her classroom for the first time since baby Sydney was born. Did you hear about her parent-teacher conference with handsome ranching dad Anderson Dalton? Seems they bonded over his young son, Jake, and now we here at the Gazette are hearing there is a marriage in the works!

A rancher, a schoolteacher, a grade-schooler and a baby: it does paint a lovely picture. But is it too good to be true? Those in the know whisper this is a marriage of convenience to help Anderson gain custody of his son. We, however, are rooting for something more. Raise your hands, hopeful romantics, if you think Marina and Anderson’s “arrangement” has the makings of a grade-A love match!

“Why was he kissing you?” Jake wanted to know, regarding them suspiciously, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not his father was telling him the truth.

“People kiss without getting married, Jake,” Marina told him, her voice deliberately breezy. “It happens all the time.” She spared Anderson a look. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”

Anderson couldn’t tell if she was letting him off the hook because of Jake, or if she was really being serious and putting him on notice that the kiss had meant less than nothing to her.

Either way, he knew he should be relieved—except that he wasn’t. He felt guilty because he was fairly certain that there were still hurt feelings involved. He was really sorry if there were, but there was nothing he could do about that—at least not without compromising himself in front of his son.

This was getting way too complicated. He had more than he could handle just trying to navigate these new turbulent fatherhood waters. He had no room for the kind of baggage having a girlfriend created. Never mind that she could be something more than that, that somewhere in his misbegotten soul he might even want her to be more than that.

Get a grip, man. If you’re not careful, you’ll be going down for the third time.

* * *

Montana Mavericks: The Baby Bonanza Meet Rust Creek Falls’ newest bundles of joy!

Dear Reader,

When I was a kid, one late-November afternoon, the entire east coast lost power. The blackout went on for hours. Nine months later, a whole slew of babies joined the population (with no TV and no power to light anything, what else was there to do?).

Rust Creek Falls experienced its own baby boom after the spiked punch at last year’s July Fourth wedding caused a lot of people’s inhibitions to take a backseat to their desires. This is the story of one such little dividend, a baby born to a fifth-grade teacher, one Marina Laramie, whose beloved bailed on her the moment he discovered she was pregnant. Marina’s experience has soured her on men, but definitely not on children. When rancher Anderson Dalton’s newly discovered son, eleven-year-old Jake, winds up in Marina’s class, she can see that the introverted video-game player is really very lost and lonely. She goes out of her way to reach him and bond with the boy. By doing so, she forms a bridge for both herself and his father, bringing them both back to the land of the living, where love makes everything worthwhile.

I hope you find your visit back to Montana Maverick country as enjoyable as I found writing this story of two lost souls finding each other. As always, I thank you for taking the time to read one of my stories, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

With love,

A Maverick and a Half

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Megan Broderick,

Welcome to the Fun House!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

All he had come in for was a glass of water.

Ranching was hard, sweaty work, even in September. Granted, if he was so inclined, he could have easily spent his days just sitting on the porch, delegating work to a myriad of ranch hands and no one would have said anything, but that just wasn’t his way.

As far back as he could remember, Anderson Dalton had loved working on the family ranch, loved being one with the land as well as the animals that were kept here. Ranch work wasn’t a hardship for him, but he had to admit that there were times, when he got too caught up in what he was doing, that he did wind up working up a powerful thirst.

Walking into the kitchen and wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his wrist, Anderson made his way to the sink.

But he’d made the mistake of absently glancing toward the wall. Specifically, the wall where the old, faded off-white landline was mounted.

That was when he saw it.

The red light blinking at him like the bloodshot eye of an aging dragon way past its prime but still a force to be reckoned with in its own right.

Anderson kept the landline with its answering machine in service because out on the range cell phone signals had a habit of playing hide-and-seek with him. Not to mention he had a tendency to lose his cell phone while riding and doing the thousand and one chores that a large ranch required. Because he was now a father, he had taken to keeping one close by despite all this.

When he saw the pulsing red light, Anderson’s first reaction was just to ignore it and walk out again. But a nagging voice in his head urged him to listen to the message.

You never know. It might be important.

Now that he had an eleven-year-old son to take care of—albeit temporarily—everything was different. He had to be more responsible, more cautious, more aware of things than he’d ever been before.

Fatherhood at best was a hard thing to get used to. Instant fatherhood to an eleven-year-old was a whole different ball game altogether. He’d been discovering that firsthand since this July when Lexie James, the woman he’d had a casual one-night stand with twelve years ago, showed up on his doorstep asking him to take temporary custody of their son while she “worked some things out.”

Eager to finally get to know his son, Anderson had agreed without a second’s hesitation. He hadn’t realized that being a father demanded years of on-the-job training. It wasn’t something that happened overnight. But he was trying his best.

Downing the glass of water he’d come in for in three quick gulps, Anderson crossed to the wall phone in a few long strides and hit the Play button.

“You have one new message. First new message,” the machine metallically announced. The next moment, the machine’s robotic-sounding voice was replaced with a very melodic one.

“Mr. Dalton, this is Ms. Laramie, Jake’s teacher. We need to talk. Please call me back so we can make an appointment.” She proceeded to leave Rust Creek Falls Elementary’s phone number before terminating her call.

Anderson stood there, staring at the answering machine.

“We need to talk.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Anderson closed his eyes. Glimmers of déjà vu flashed through his mind, propelling him back to his own school days all over again. He’d certainly been a bright enough kid, but his mind was always wandering, going in all different directions at once, most of which were not scholastic in nature. That didn’t make him the best student in the classic sense of the word.

His mouth curved a little. Obviously the son whose existence he’d only discovered a year ago was a chip off the old block.

He’d only gotten temporary custody of Jake this July and school had just been in session for a couple of weeks now. How much trouble could the boy be in? Anderson couldn’t help wondering.

If it was something major—like accidentally blowing up the boys’ bathroom, he thought, remembering an incident out of his own past—wouldn’t Paige have alerted him? The fourth-grade class that his younger sister taught was located right across the hall from his son’s fifth-grade classroom and he was fairly certain that if anything actually bad had happened, he would have known it by now. Paige would have called to tell him.

Fairly certain, but not completely certain.

Muttering a few very choice sentiments about thin-skinned teachers under his breath, Anderson tapped out the numbers that connected him to his sister’s cell phone.

On the third ring he heard what he assumed was his sister taking his call. But before he could say a word, he heard, “Hello, you’ve reached Paige Traub. Between teaching a class of energized fourth graders and chasing after my two-year-old fireball, I’m too busy to answer my phone. Please leave a message. If I’m still breathing, I’ll call you back.”

Anderson frowned. He hated talking to an inanimate recording—so he didn’t.

Terminating the call, he could feel himself getting worked up. What right did this Ms. Laramie have to judge his son? She’d only been his teacher for two weeks. How could she find fault in the kid so fast? Besides, Jake was a good kid. He didn’t mouth off, didn’t act out. Hell, he hardly made any sound at all. Just his thumbs, hitting the keys on the controller of those damn video games he was so hooked on.

Considering that two and a half months ago, Jake was living in Chicago and now he was here, in Rust Creek Falls, Montana, the middle of nowhere by comparison, the kid had made a great adjustment. Just what did that woman want from his son?

Lily!

His brother Caleb’s daughter Lily was in Jake’s class, he remembered. The thought hit Anderson like a thunderbolt. Maybe she knew what was going on.

It took Anderson a minute to remember Caleb’s number—but he might as well have spared himself the trouble. He had the same results when he called Caleb as he’d had with Paige’s phone, except that this time, he didn’t wait for the recorded message to go through its paces. He terminated the call before his brother’s message was over.

Two strikes. Now what?

This Ms. Laramie had said to call to set up an appointment but if he found himself on the receiving end of yet another answering machine recording, he knew he’d probably yank his phone right off the wall. He didn’t want to risk blowing up or losing his temper.

But he couldn’t very well ignore the woman, either. After all, she’d said she wanted to talk to him about Jake. She’d probably get bent out of joint if he didn’t get in contact with her.

Besides, he knew he wasn’t going to have any peace of mind until this thing with the thin-skinned lady teacher was resolved.

That left him only one option. School was almost over for the day, but the last class was still in session. He’d signed Jake up for after school basketball, so that gave him a little extra time. He was going to go down to that school and have it out with that woman before this thing blew any more out of proportion.

With that, Anderson stormed out of the house, the memory of every teacher who’d ever found fault with him all those years ago spurring him on.

* * *

If someone had told Marina Laramie five years ago that she would simultaneously be juggling a teaching career and single motherhood—which entailed taking care of an infant in creative ways she’d never dreamed possible—she would have said that it just couldn’t happen. The very idea of doing both wasn’t feasible.

Yet here she was, fifteen minutes after her fifth graders had filed rowdily out, homeward bound, and instead of contemplating a fun evening out the way she would have only a couple of short years ago, she was hovering over her desk, trying to change Sydney’s rather pungent diaper as quickly as possible.

Marina sighed, shaking her head. This was not quite the carefree life she’d once pictured for herself—but even so, she wouldn’t have traded this life for anything in the world.

“Lucky for you I like kids, muffin-face,” Marina said, addressing her very animated daughter, who apparently hadn’t yet grasped the concept of lying still. The embodiment of perpetual motion, Sydney was all arms and legs and Marina had to be vigilant to keep the five-month-old from literally propelling herself right off the desk that had been temporarily transformed into a changing station. “Even stinky ones,” Marina teased as she succeeded in separating her daughter’s bottom from what was now a considerably used diaper.

Moving swiftly, she cleaned Sydney off and then slipped a fresh diaper under her. The old diaper had been tightly packed into itself like an unusual origami creation.

“Are you timing me?” she asked the baby. Reacting to the sound of her voice, her daughter seemed to cock her head and stare at her with her bright blue eyes. “I’m getting better at this. Yes, I am,” Marina informed her daughter with conviction. “And I’d be better still if you could find it in that heart of yours not to wiggle all over the place quite so much.”

Finished, Marina quickly disposed of the old diaper and deposited it, plus several wipes she’d used, into a plastic bag that she then knotted at the top, sealing away the last of the less than fragrant odor. The janitor hadn’t been by yet and she definitely didn’t want to gross the man out.

“Now then, let’s get you presentable again. A lady doesn’t hang around in just her undies—not unless she wants to get in a whole lot of trouble. Remember that, Sydney,” Marina emphasized. “Otherwise, someday you just might find yourself changing diapers in strange places, too.”

Having finished redressing her daughter, Marina popped Sydney into the car seat she had set up on her desk and tightened every available strap around her daughter—just in case. She knew she was probably being overly cautious, but she didn’t want to take a chance.

“When did I turn into this super cautious, neurotic woman?” Marina murmured under her breath. “I used to be so carefree.”

A lifetime ago, it seemed.

* * *

When he’d turned down the hallway, Anderson had found the door to his son’s classroom open. Hearing the same voice he’d heard earlier on his answering machine, he walked in, loaded for bear. He assumed that this Ms. Laramie was talking to someone, but he didn’t care. He wanted her to know that he was here and that he was ready to have it out with her about whatever it was that she found so lacking in his son—and he wasn’t about to go away until it was resolved.

He hadn’t expected to find his son’s teacher talking to a baby—or changing its diaper, either. Just how young were the kids in this school? he wondered.

The next beat, Anderson realized that the baby she was talking to had to be her baby. That in turn had him wondering just how lax things had gotten in school these days. Why would the principal allow a teacher to bring her baby in to school like it was some kind of a class project?

Didn’t the woman have any money for a babysitter? Or was she checking her fifth graders out for babysitting possibilities?

In any case, all of this seemed like very unorthodox behavior to him. And this Ms. Laramie had the nerve to tell him that they had to talk about his son?

Anderson couldn’t wait to give her a piece of his mind.

“There,” Marina declared after testing the strength of the car seat straps. “That’ll hold you in place, Your Majesty.”

That was when she heard someone behind her clearing their throat. Startled, Marina jumped as her heart launched into double time.

She could have sworn that she and Sydney were alone. Apparently she was wrong, Marina thought as she swung around.

The next second, she blinked, not quite sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

There was a six-foot-one dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger in her classroom. A stranger who looked far from happy.

Neither was she, caught like this, Marina thought, flustered as she quickly tossed the bagged diaper into the wastepaper basket. She didn’t like being caught unprepared like this. She was still trying to get her bearings as a working mother and absolutely hated looking as if she was at loose ends.

“Just give me a moment,” she requested, struggling to measure out her words.

She was trying to sound as if she was in control of the situation even though she was very aware of the fact that she wasn’t.

Not waiting for the stranger to respond, Marina quickly hurried over to the sink where her fifth graders washed their hands whenever they got too into recess and enjoying the great outdoors.

Still flustered, Marina turned the faucet handle too quickly. The next second, she found herself on the receiving end of a water spray that promptly soaked her, if not to the skin, enough to look as if she’d been caught in an unexpected fall shower.

Even the floor beneath her feet was wet.

With a dismayed cry that sounded suspiciously like a yelp, Marina managed to turn off the water, but not before she was completely embarrassed.

She was fairly certain that the tall, dark and handsome cowboy who had just walked in, wrapped in scowling mystery, undoubtedly felt she was the veritable Queen of Klutzes.

“Sorry,” she apologized, grabbing two paper towels and drying herself off as best she could. She found she needed two more just to do a passable job. Wadding up the paper towels, she tossed them into the same wastebasket that contained Sydney’s diaper. “You caught me off guard.”

“Apparently.”

Had the word sounded any drier, it would have crackled and broken apart as it left the stranger’s rather full lips.

Marina walked back to her daughter, moving the car seat closer to her on the desk before she turned fully and addressed the stranger.

In her best “teacher voice” she said to the man in her classroom, “Now then, you didn’t mention your name.” She spoke as pleasantly as she could, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

Anderson drew himself up to his full height, aware of just how intimidating that appeared to the casual observer.

“I’m Anderson Dalton,” he informed her in a no-nonsense voice. “You left a message on my phone, saying you wanted to see me about Jake.”

The name instantly rang a bell. It wasn’t that big a classroom, nor that big a town, so Marina didn’t have to struggle to pair up the name to a student. But she was a little mystified as to why he felt the need to come in so quickly.

“Well, I didn’t mean immediately,” she told him, sounding half apologetic if she’d conveyed the wrong impression. “I wanted you to call me back so that we could set up an appointment for a time that was convenient to both of us.”

His wide shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. Okay, maybe he’d gone off half-cocked and misunderstood. But all that was water under the bridge in Anderson’s opinion.

“Well, I’m here now,” he pointed out needlessly. “We might as well get to it—unless you want to take some time to dry off some more or maybe change your clothes,” he suggested.

She didn’t have a change of clothes here. It never occurred to her that she might wind up taking an unexpected bath.

“No, I’m fine.”

That was Anderson’s cue. He immediately launched into a defense on his son’s behalf.

Taking a step closer to the teacher, he all but loomed over her as he began his rapid-fire monologue. “Look, Jake’s a good kid, but you’ve got to remember, he’s dealing with a lot right now. It’s not easy for a kid his age to go from a big inner city to the sticks. Even so, I think he’s doing a pretty bang-up job of it, all things considered. A lot of other kids in his place might have acted out. You just have to cut him some slack, that’s all,” he told her with feeling.

Marina opened her mouth but again, she didn’t get a chance to utter a single word. Jake’s father just kept on talking.

“If anything’s wrong, then it’s my fault. Jake and I hardly had time to exchange two words since I found out about him and bang, suddenly I’m the one in charge of him, making all these big decisions. And hell—heck,” he censored himself, casting a side glance toward her infant daughter, “I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. This parenting thing is really tough.”

Well, that’s putting it mildly, Marina couldn’t help thinking. But being a private person, she kept that sentiment to herself. While she was generally friendly and outgoing, there were parts of her life that she considered to be private. Her unexpected entry into motherhood was one of them.

Anderson didn’t notice the silence. He kept his monologue going.

“Don’t punish the kid because of my mistakes,” he implored, growing more emotional. “Whatever Jake did that got you angry, he didn’t know any better. Let me talk to him—”

This could go on for hours, Marina realized, dismayed.

“Mr. Dalton, stop!” she cried, raising her voice so that he would finally cease talking and take a breath. “I don’t know what gave you the impression that Jake’s done something wrong, but he hasn’t. You’ve really got a great kid there, Mr. Dalton.”

Anderson stopped dead and stared at her, clearly bewildered. “I don’t understand,” he finally said. “You said we had to talk.”

“And we do,” Marina agreed. One hand on the car seat, she glanced at her daughter. Despite the man’s verbose monologue, Sydney appeared to be dozing. Thank heavens for small favors, Marina thought. “But not because he’s done something bad.”

The temporary relief Anderson felt quickly gave way to annoyance. “If he hasn’t done anything wrong, then why am I here?” he wanted to know. “I’ve got a ranch to run.”

She saw that if she wanted to make any headway with Anderson Dalton, she was going to have to speak up and speak with conviction. Otherwise, the man gave every impression that he would steamroll right over her and keep on going.

“I asked to see you because I am a little concerned about Jake,” she told him.

In the corner of her eye, she saw Sydney beginning to stir.

Please go on sleeping, pumpkin.

“Concerned?” Anderson echoed. Was she doing a one-eighty on what she’d said a minute ago? Just what was this Ms. Laramie’s game? Didn’t the woman know how to speak plainly? “What’s there to be concerned about?”

The man was beginning to irritate her. Marina started to wonder if this so-called meeting was ultimately an exercise in futility. But as he’d already said, he was here and since he was, she might as well press on and hope she could get through what appeared to be that thick head of his.

Sounding as friendly as possible, Marina asked, “Have you noticed how quiet Jake is?”

Anderson’s eyebrows drew together in what amounted to a perplexed scowl. “Well, yeah, sure. I noticed. Why?”

Obviously the man needed to have a picture drawn for him. She did what she could to make that happen. “I’m worried that your son might be holding back something that’s really bothering him.”

Anderson shrugged again. Just like a woman, he thought. Seeing problems where there weren’t any. Couldn’t she just appreciate the fact that Jake wasn’t some loudmouth class comedian?

“Jake’s been quiet for as long as I’ve known him.” Which was technically the truth. It was also a roundabout way of avoiding stating outright that the length of time he’d been acquainted with his son could only be deemed long in the eyes of a fruit fly. “Like I said, it’s been a major adjustment for him—for any kid,” he stressed, “to move from the city to the country. Did you ever think that maybe Jake’s so quiet because he hasn’t had any time to get to know all that many people here yet?”

Sydney began to fuss in earnest and Marina automatically rocked the car seat to and fro, mentally crossing her fingers as she tried to lull her daughter back to sleep. She would much rather have turned her full attention to Sydney instead of talking to a thickheaded rancher who didn’t seem to know the first thing about the son living under his roof, but that wasn’t her call. She was Jake’s teacher and she owed it to the boy to help him if he did indeed need any help.

She tried again, tiptoeing diplomatically into the heart of the subject. “Mr. Dalton, I apologize if I sound as if I’m getting too personal here.” She saw him raise an eyebrow as if he was bracing himself. “But do you and Jake ever really...talk?” she asked, emphasizing the last word.

“Sure we talk,” Anderson retorted quickly, even as he thought that this wasn’t any of this teacher’s business. “We talk all the time.”

Marina was highly skeptical about his reply, even though she had a feeling that as far as this man was concerned, he and his son actually did communicate.

She paused for a moment, taking a breath. She knew that she needed to tread lightly here. She didn’t really know the man, not like she knew the parents of a great many of her other students, and she got the feeling that he wasn’t happy about the question she was putting to him. Even so, this needed to be asked and she wasn’t one who backed away, not when there was a child’s well-being at stake.

“No, Mr. Dalton, I mean talk about things that really matter,” she stressed.

Judging by the expression on his face, Marina felt she had her answer before the man opened his mouth to say a single word. But she waited for him to say something in his own defense anyway.

“Maybe not so much,” Anderson finally conceded rather grudgingly. He didn’t like having his shortcomings placed on display like this. “But I don’t want Jake to feel as if I’m pressuring him about anything,” he added quickly—and truthfully. He remembered what it was like, being hauled out on the proverbial carpet by one or both of his parents and taken to task for something he’d done—or hadn’t done when he should have. He didn’t want to make that sort of a mistake with Jake. He wanted Jake to feel like his own person.

He watched as Jake’s teacher pressed her lips together and murmured, “I see.”

With his back up, he felt his shoulders stiffen. What a condescending woman, he thought. How the hell could she possibly “see” when she knew nothing about him, about Jake or about the dynamics of their still freshly minted relationship?

“No,” Anderson informed her angrily, struggling to hold on to his temper, “you don’t.”

The man clearly had a chip on his shoulder now, Marina thought. He hadn’t behaved as if he had one when he’d first walked in. Was she somehow responsible for the change in attitude?

“All right,” she conceded, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “Then why don’t you tell me?”

That was not the response he’d expected. Caught off guard and unprepared, Anderson started talking before he had a chance to fully weigh his words.

“For the first ten years of Jake’s life, I didn’t even have a clue that the kid existed—so I wasn’t able to be part of that life,” he added, which was, to him, the whole point of his frustration. He should have been there for the boy. To guide him, to support him and to get to know him. “Now that I’ve gotten temporary custody, I think that Jake’s confused and conflicted—not that I blame him,” he added quickly. “His whole world has changed and he’s discovered that everything that he thought he knew, he really didn’t.”

He blew out a breath and for a moment, Marina had the impression that he wasn’t really talking to her anymore, but to himself—and perhaps to the boy who wasn’t there.

“I really regret all those years that I lost because a kid really needs his father.”

Marina felt as if she’d taken a direct blow to her abdomen. For just a second, she remembered the disinterested look on Gary’s face when he told her that if she wanted to have this baby, she was on her own—as if he’d had no part in it.

The sentiment that Mr. Dalton had just expressed hit far too close to home for her to simply ignore or silently accept.

She did her best not to sound too defensive as she responded to his assessment. “Sometimes, Mr. Dalton, that just isn’t possible.”

Chapter Two

The moment she said the words, Anderson realized his mistake. He really needed to monitor his thoughts before he allowed them to escape his lips, Anderson upbraided himself. He could see that he’d inadvertently hurt the woman. He glanced down at the baby in the car seat. The baby’s father wasn’t in the picture for some reason and Ms. Laramie had obviously taken his words to heart as some sort of a rebuke when nothing could have been further from the truth.

Anderson felt a shaft of guilt pierce his ordinarily tough hide. He didn’t want Jake’s teacher to think that he was criticizing her. That hadn’t been his intent when he’d stormed into her classroom. He’d only been trying to defend his son.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Laramie,” Anderson said contritely. “I meant no disrespect.”

Marina flushed. Of course he hadn’t. Why was she being so sensitive and overreacting this way? It was her job to think like a professional, not to turn everything around and focus exclusively on herself. Hormonal teenager girls did that, not state-licensed teachers.

She had to remember that, Marina silently lectured herself.

“None taken, Mr. Dalton,” she replied stoically.

* * *

“Anderson,” he prompted, correcting the petite redhead.

Since they’d just been talking about the ideal parenting situation, the unexpected insertion of his given name threw her. Marina looked at him, puzzled. “Excuse me?”

“Not Mr. Dalton,” Anderson told her. Mr. Dalton was his father, Ben Dalton, a respected lawyer. He was just plain Anderson, a rancher. “Call me Anderson.”

She’d just met him today and she wasn’t accustomed to being so friendly with her students’ parents if she didn’t really know them outside the classroom.

“I don’t think that’s appro—”

“If we’re going to help Jake,” Anderson said, interrupting her, “I think we should be a team, not two polite strangers who sound as if they can’t wait to get away from one another.”

Marina frowned slightly. Was that the message she was getting across to Jake’s father by addressing him formally? she wondered. That had definitely not been her intention.

“All right,” she allowed, willing to do it his way. She resumed the point she’d been trying to make earlier. “Regarding what you said previously, Anderson, in a perfect world, every child would be raised by two loving parents.”

Without meaning to, she glanced down at her daughter and felt a pang. Sydney was the perfect infant and she deserved to be loved by a mother and a father.

I’m so sorry it didn’t work out, little one. But it’s not all bad. I grew up without a dad, too—mostly—and things worked out for me.

“But the world, as we both know,” Marina continued telling Jake’s father, “is far from perfect. Very far.”

He certainly couldn’t argue with that, Anderson thought.

“True,” he agreed. “I’m very aware that not every relationship can work out.” Painfully aware, he thought. “But that isn’t an excuse not to be there for your kid. They weren’t asked to be born, but they were. The way I see it, the people who caused that birth to happen owe that kid something.” He was referring to himself, although he didn’t say it out loud.

Marina found herself in complete agreement with Jake’s father. She also found herself wondering what had happened in Anderson Dalton’s relationship that was so traumatic that his girlfriend wouldn’t even notify him for ten whole years that they had had a child together.

It was on the tip of Marina’s tongue to ask, but she knew that it wasn’t any of her business and it had no bearing on her teacher/student relationship with Jake.

Besides, even if she was brash enough to ask Anderson about it, it might just put the man’s back up. She had to remember that the point of talking to Jake’s father in the first place was to get him to build a stronger relationship with his son, not satisfy her innate curiosity.

Her whole supposition about the relationship—or lack thereof—between Anderson and Jake’s mother was truthfully based on her thinking that the former was a nice guy. At least, he seemed that way to her, but then she wasn’t exactly the reigning authority when it came to reading men. When she came right down to it, Marina silently admitted, she didn’t just have a poor track record with men, she had an absolutely horrible one.

Gary Milton was a case in point.

She’d been utterly, completely and madly in love with the man who was Sydney’s father, convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was The One despite the fact that they hadn’t been dating all that long. At twenty-seven, with all of her friends getting married and starting families, she was more than ready to take the plunge to happily-ever-after and she was certain that Gary was, too.

Her own parents had long since been divorced, with her father hardly ever turning up in her life, but she was convinced it would be different for her and Gary.

Vulnerable, eager, she’d felt that all the stars were perfectly aligned for something wonderful to happen that July Fourth night when she and Gary had attended Braden and Jennifer’s big bash of a wedding. Indeed, romance was in the air and, unbeknownst to her and most of the guests, a spiked glass of punch—thanks to party prankster Homer Gilmore—was in her hand.

What came afterward seemed completely natural at the time—almost like destiny. She and Gary came together in every sense of the word that night.

She’d expected, thanks to the night they’d spent together, to hear a proposal from Gary. But she didn’t. Holding her breath, she watched the weeks go by, but Gary was no closer to popping the question than he had been before their friends’ wedding celebration. And then she’d discovered that she was pregnant, and a small part of her had thought that now, finally, Gary would step up. But she was sadly mistaken.

Gary not only didn’t step up, he stumbled backward and completely freaked out.

Stunned by his initial reaction, Marina had been struck utterly speechless when Gary had actually accused her of engineering her pregnancy so that she could trap him into marrying her.

Angry, Gary had loudly proclaimed that he was way too young to be “saddled” with a wife and kid. He’d broken off their relationship then and there.

An entire spectrum of feelings had gone careening through her at Gary’s declaration of independence, but she’d gone positively numb when he had gone on to tactlessly suggest that she “take care of the problem.”

The problem.

As if the tiny being growing inside her was anything other than a miracle, she’d thought.

That was when it had hit her with the force of a two-ton truck. She’d been wasting her time and her heart on a self-centered lowlife, foolishly thinking that this poor excuse for a human being was her Prince Charming. He didn’t even qualify to be a frog prince. She’d countered his suggestion by telling him in no uncertain terms to get lost.

And he did.

So completely lost that after Sydney had been born, he’d never come by to see his daughter even a single time.

His loss, Marina had silently declared, and from that point forward, she’d eliminated all thoughts of Gary, all memories of their time together, from her mind. She had better things to do than to spend even a single moment reliving the past, or pining for a future that wasn’t in the cards.

And while she was actually eternally grateful that their paths had crossed long enough to gift her with the greatest present of her life—her daughter, Sydney—at the same time, the whole traumatic interlude with Gary had definitely scarred her. In a nutshell, it had shaken her faith in her own ability to know whether or not a person was actually a decent human being or just a deceptively charming rat on two legs.

In his own way, Gary had taught her one hell of a lesson.

“Ms. Laramie, is something wrong?”

At the sound of Anderson’s deep voice, Marina roused herself. She realized that she’d allowed her thoughts to take her attention hostage, which was, as far as she was concerned, completely inexcusable behavior.

Clearing her throat, she flushed. “What? No, nothing’s wrong. Sorry, something you just said started me thinking.” Which was true, but undoubtedly not in the way that Anderson might have thought. So before he could ask her any further questions, she quickly redirected the conversation. “I agree with what you said.”

“Great.” The enthusiasm went down a notch as he asked, “What part?”

“The part about you not wanting Jake to feel as if you were pressuring him,” she told him, glad that Anderson was at least partially intuitive. “Being pressured definitely wouldn’t help bring your son out of his shell.”

“What would?” he asked, curious to hear her take on the matter.

The blanket covering Sydney’s legs slipped and she moved it back into place. Her daughter, mercifully, went on dozing but she knew that wasn’t going to last for long. She needed to wrap up this conversation. “I was thinking along the lines of some TLC.”

“TLC?” Anderson repeated quizzically.

Marina nodded. “That stands for tender loving care,” she explained.

“I know what it stands for,” he retorted, insulted. Did she think he was entirely backward and clueless? “What I’m trying to figure out is how would I go about expressing that? Are you telling me you think I should hug him and stuff?”

She hadn’t been thinking along those lines, but she gave it some thought now. “An occasional hug wouldn’t hurt,” she acknowledged, then qualified her answer. “But in general, eleven-year-old boys aren’t really into that. They’re not big on that sort of parental display of affection. At least not on a regular basis.”

“Then what?” Anderson asked impatiently. “I’ve already got him signed up for some after school sports activities,” he said, “so that Jake can be around other kids participating in some bonding sports.”

“All that’s good,” Marina agreed tentatively, not wanting to shoot down the man’s fledgling enthusiasm so early in the game. “But I was thinking of something along the lines of a more personal, fulfilling activity.”

He looked at her uncertainly. He wasn’t sure just what she was suggesting. So far, they just seemed to be going around in circles. “Just what is it you have in mind?”

Since she wasn’t sure how open he would be to her suggestion, Marina proceeded with caution. “How would you feel about Jake helping me after school a few days a week?”

Anderson had a feeling that her question wasn’t as straightforward as it sounded, so he tried to get her to clarify it. “You mean like cleaning paintbrushes in the art room and stuff like that?” he asked.

Marina shook her head. “No. Jake’s a sensitive, caring boy. Those sort of traits should be nurtured,” she told Anderson. “I was thinking that Jake might make a perfect mother’s helper.”

“A mother’s helper?” he repeated uncertainly, somewhat stunned and taken aback. “Isn’t that something that, you know, girls usually do?” he asked, wondering if he should be insulted on Jake’s behalf. Just what was she saying about his son?

Marina was quick to set Anderson straight. The man was stereotyping and she couldn’t allow that to get in the way of Jake’s development as both a student and a boy-in-progress.

“Not necessarily. All that’s required to be a mother’s helper is patience—and of course the desire to help. From what I’ve seen, Jake’s equipped with both.” She became more impassioned as she spoke. “There’s no reason why a boy can’t help out as well as a girl and I could really use a hand at home—and even here at school,” she added for good measure, thinking that might help tip the scales. She was paying someone to watch Sydney while she was teaching, but she could barely afford that.

“I don’t know,” Anderson said after giving the whole matter less than thirty seconds of thought. “I really don’t think it’s a very good idea,” he confessed with conviction. “Jake and I are doing okay just the way things are.”

Marina banked down her growing impatience. She knew she couldn’t push this. Anderson—if he was going to come around—was going to have to come around on his own. If she pushed in any manner, she had the distinct impression that he was the type to dig in his heels and resist until his dying breath left his body. The bottom line there was that she’d never get anywhere with him.

This way, by maintaining an open mind and an equally open door, there still might be a small chance that things would go her way. With Jake’s well-being in mind, she had to take it.

She wanted to argue about it—to discuss it, actually—but the idea of arguing with the man seemed counterproductive in its own right. So for now, and the sake of peace, she went along with what Dalton suggested.

“All right,” she told Anderson gamely. “But if you do happen to change your mind about this, please let me know,” she requested with a large smile. “You know where to find me.”

He nodded, ready to terminate the conversation. He knew the value of quitting while he was ahead.

“Just like I found you this time,” he replied, already edging his way out.

Marina spoke up just as he was about to reach the door. “I just suggested Jake being a mother’s helper because I think it might help him if he puts himself out in order to help someone else.”

“Someone else,” Anderson repeated, then knowingly added, “like you.”

She saw no reason to pretend that Jake’s father had guessed wrong. Marina certainly wasn’t embarrassed by either the fact that she needed help nor that she would have accepted it from one of her students.

“Like me,” she replied, then hurriedly tacked on, “And Sydney.”

“Sidney?” Anderson questioned, suddenly lost. “Who’s Sidney?”

“This lovely young lady here,” Marina told him, her voice teeming with affection and pride, albeit quietly, as she indicated the car seat.

“Oh.” Chagrined over his misunderstanding—and concerned about the odd sort of attraction he was experiencing—attraction to his son’s teacher for heaven’s sake—Anderson was practically inaudible as he mumbled, “I thought you were talking about some guy.”

“An understandable mistake,” she said, the corners of her mouth curving in what Anderson could only describe as an appealing smile that seemed to communicate with some inner core of his. He did what he could to block it, or at the very least, just ignore it.

“Well, it’s usually a guy’s name,” Anderson protested in his own defense, trying to backtrack from his error.

While Marina didn’t exactly contradict him, she expanded on his answer. “It’s both.”

She had a feeling that Jake’s father was in somewhat of a combative mood and saying anything to outright oppose him would not be the smart thing to do at the moment. It fell under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.

“Yeah, I know that,” he informed her with a dismissive shrug. All he wanted to do was get out of the classroom, away from Marina Laramie and her sleeping infant. “So, if there’s nothing else you want to discuss about Jake, I’ve got to be getting back to the ranch,” he informed her, as he turned to leave. Then just before he exited, Anderson felt a need to add, “Those posts don’t nail themselves up.”

“I’m sure that they don’t,” she responded with what he had to admit seemed to him to be a very infectious grin.

He hadn’t come here to make trite observations about Jake’s teacher’s smile, Anderson reminded himself. He’d come because he had Jake’s best interests at heart and he was really trying, in his own less than stellar way, to make up for all the time that had been lost to him. Precious time he wasn’t going to ever get back.

“Okay, then, so it’s settled,” Anderson announced as if they had arrived at a mutual agreement rather than something he was just stubbornly reiterating. “Jake’s going to be playing some after school activities.” Eyeing Marina Laramie, he waited for the redhead to contradict him.

But she didn’t, which surprised him—as well as relieved him.

“You know what’s best for your boy,” she said.

“That’s right,” Anderson said as he strode out of the classroom, “I do.”

Except that he didn’t, and he knew it.

He was feeling his way around and fighting the feeling that he was doing a far from spectacular job at every turn.

Indecision nibbled away at him like a stubborn, persistent mouse. Maybe that Laramie woman had the right idea. Maybe Jake would do better helping her out after school. At least it would get him out of his room and away from those video games of his.

Heaven knew the idea of helping the woman out was not without its appeal or merits, he mused. He wouldn’t mind having that job himself.

Whoa, there, Andy. Get a grip, he counseled himself. We’re talking about Jake here, not you. He’s the one who could benefit from spending some extra one-on-one time with the lady.

When he came right down to it, he didn’t know why he’d turned Jake’s teacher down, or why, as he left the building now, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being a chastised grade-schooler. After all, the woman hadn’t actually said anything to make him feel like he’d done anything wrong. If questioned, he couldn’t even put his finger on one reason why he felt that way. He figured it was probably rooted deep into his past, back to the days when he actually was a grade-schooler and everyone was always telling him what to do.

He hadn’t taken their advice then, Anderson reminded himself, and he wasn’t about to start now by being led around by the nose by that slip of a redhead.

He needed to do more than that, Anderson thought as he climbed back up into his truck. He needed to keep his distance from Jake’s bubbly, interfering teacher. Everything in his gut—the center of his very best survival instincts—told him that he needed to steer clear of her if he knew what was good for him and if he intended to get through this time of parental custody intact.

Not just intact, he reminded himself. He needed to do more than to remain intact. He needed to come out a winner when it came to all the matters that concerned Jake.

From the second he had found out about his son’s existence, Jake was his number one priority.

As for this Ms. Laramie, the woman might be a real stunner, but she was way off base. Jake, a mother’s helper? Anderson silently questioned as he now frowned at the idea. Not his boy, he thought. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Chapter Three

In order to terminate the awkward meeting with the fifth-grade teacher, Anderson had told her that he had to be getting back to his ranch. But instead of doing that, he decided to stick around until Jake finished playing basketball. When he thought about it, staying in the vicinity of the school made a lot more sense than driving to the ranch and then back again.

Leaving the building, Anderson got into the cab of his truck and drove around to the back entrance of the school. He told himself it was closer to where Jake would get out once basketball practice was over but to be quite honest, he wanted to be sure that Marina Laramie didn’t accidentally look out the window and see him parked out in front. It would just complicate everything.

He had no idea why he put so much thought into this, but he did. For some reason, the woman made him uneasy. Avoiding her seemed the best way to go.

The moment he pulled up the brake and turned off the engine, he began to get fidgety. Accustomed to working hard from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning until he fell into bed at night, just sitting in the truck waiting had him growing progressively more restless with every passing moment.

Anderson was not a man who did “nothing” well.

He was contemplating getting out of his truck and walking around the school grounds until practice was over when the cell phone he’d thrown in the glove compartment of his vehicle—an old flip phone model—rang.

At first, Anderson didn’t even hear it.

His cell phone hardly ever rang, so it caught him off guard. It took him a moment to connect the faint sound to its source of origin.

He flipped the phone open and fairly barked, “Hello?”

The annoyed greeting would have been enough to scare a great many people away. Paige Dalton Traub was not one of those people. Younger than Anderson by five years, she was every bit as feisty as her brothers. She had to be. Having grown up with three bossy brothers and two equally bossy sisters, it took a great deal for her feathers to get even slightly ruffled. It took even more for her to become even mildly intimidated, and certainly never by a sibling.

Paige recognized her brother’s less than dulcet tones immediately.

Rather than return his less than warm greeting, Paige went straight to the heart of the matter. “So, how did it go, big brother?”

Anderson had no idea what his younger sister was talking about. She might as well have been talking gibberish. Most women, in his limited experience, did.

“How did what go?” he countered, irritated.

Paige laughed shortly. “Ah, there’s that disposition of a wet hornet that I know and love,” she noted sarcastically. “You might recall that initially, you called me, and I assumed that the reason you called had something to do with Marina and your son. Am I right?” she wanted to know.

“Yes,” he conceded grudgingly through clenched teeth.

“Well, I’m here now so spill it. Do you know why Marina wanted to see you, and is everything okay?”

Instead of answering her directly, Anderson approached her question from a different angle. “You told me about his teacher having a kid of her own, but you never mentioned that the woman was touchy-feely.”

“She touched you?” Paige asked, clearly taken aback. She and the fifth-grade teacher had gotten to know one another over the last year or so and while Marina was friendly enough and everyone liked the woman, she wasn’t the type to touch a student’s parent.

“No,” he bit off, annoyed that his sister wasn’t following his train of thought. “But she wanted me to get all touchy-feely with Jake.” As he spoke, his mouth curved downward into a distasteful frown. “She seems to think that Jake’s too quiet.”

“I should have that problem,” Paige commented with a laugh. “I only wish that at least some of my students would be quiet like Jake.” After a slight hesitation she asked, “So how did she suggest you do it?” When he didn’t say anything, she prodded him a little. “How did she suggest you get closer to Jake?”

He frowned so hard he thought she could literally hear it in his voice as he said, “She asked me for permission to turn Jake into a mother’s helper. Isn’t that just crazy?” he wanted to know, assuming that his sister would have the same sort of reaction to the other woman’s idea that he did.

Paige took him totally by surprise when she replied, “Actually, Anderson, I think that might not be such a bad idea.”

It took him a second to collect himself and recover. “What? Is this some kind of a woman thing?” he asked, stunned.

“Only in the sense that women are more intuitive than men,” Paige replied brightly, no doubt knowing that her remark would get to him. “But seriously,” she continued, the humor fading from her voice, “I think that maybe Jake might be a little too isolated. I’ve been keeping an eye on him at school and I don’t see him interacting with the other kids during recess.”

Anderson wondered how long she’d been holding off saying anything to him. Apparently today was the day to tackle the subject.

“He’s a sweet kid,” she continued, “but he needs to acquire some people skills, Anderson. To that end, I think it might do him some good to take care of another person instead of just being aware of his own small sphere.”

“Well, it’s not like he’s going to go backpacking on some survivalist’s journey, fending for himself and that baby,” Anderson retorted. He felt disappointed. He’d expected Paige to be on his side, not playing for the opposition. “Jake would be taking care of that baby under this Ms. Laramie’s supervision the whole time—at the very least. You can’t tell me that she won’t be watching Jake like a hawk the entire time.”

“Not necessarily. I think that the whole point would be to give Jake the assignment, exercise a little supervision and then step back to see how he does.”

Anderson banked down the urge to laugh at his sister’s naivety. “Would you step back if this was you we were talking about and the baby you were leaving with someone was Carter?”

Again Paige didn’t answer him the way he thought she would. “If I trusted them to look after my son and felt that I had made myself perfectly clear in my instructions, then sure.”

He didn’t believe it for a minute. “Well, I’m not as naive as either you or your Ms. Laramie,” he informed his sister. “You don’t just hand over babies to other babies and expect everything to go off without a hitch.”

Paige wanted to move on to the topic that really had her interest, but she knew that she needed to get her ordinarily calm brother back to that state before she could go on. Ever since Jake had moved out here, it was as if she didn’t even recognize her oldest brother. Anderson had become a different person. A completely uptight, unsettled, different person who seemed to be perpetually afraid of making the wrong move.

“Jake isn’t a baby, Anderson. He’s halfway to becoming a man—”

Anderson quickly cut her off. “Not for another ten years.”

He didn’t believe that, did he? “A lot sooner than that,” Paige contradicted. “You might as well get used to the idea. Anyway, I didn’t call you to discuss Jake’s so-called fragile masculinity—or yours,” she added. “I called to find out something else.”

“What?” he all but snarled. He didn’t feel that he could take on another problem right now.

For the second time since she’d called, his sister caught him off guard when she asked, “What did you think of her?”

“Her?” Confusion all but throbbed in his voice. What was Paige talking about?

“Marina Laramie,” Paige said patiently.

Why was his sister asking him something like that? “I guess that she’s an all right teacher,” Anderson finally conceded, thinking that was what he was being asked.

“No.” Paige tried again. “What did you think of her?”

“Think of her?” Anderson echoed, at this point thoroughly confused by Paige’s tone as well as her question.

Paige sighed. Men could be so thick, she thought. “This isn’t brain surgery, Anderson. Or a trick question,” she added in case that was going to be his next guess. “It’s really a very simple question,” she stressed.

“It’s not a simple question,” Anderson contradicted. “It’s a prying, complex question. What did I think of her?” he repeated, then before she could make any sort of a remark or reply, he continued by asking her a question of his own. “In terms of what? A first-time teacher? A woman who sounds like she has trouble understanding and relating to boys?”

“As a person,” Paige interjected, finally getting a chance to get a word in edgewise. “What do you think of Marina Laramie as a person?”

“Why?” Anderson asked suspiciously. It had taken a while before the red flags had gone up for him, but they were flapping madly in the wind now. “Just what is it that you’re trying to cook up in that scheming little head of yours?” he wanted to know.

“I’m not ‘cooking up’ anything,” Paige protested. “I wasn’t the one who asked you down to the school for a conference, Marina was. I just thought that...well, now that you’ve seen her and since you were single and she was single...”

Okay, this had gone far enough, Anderson thought. He needed to stop his sister before she really got carried away.

“One and one don’t always make two, Paige,” he ground out.

In her opinion, one and one always made two. “You never know until you try,” Paige stressed.

“Oh, I know, all right. Trust me, I know,” he told her in no uncertain terms. “Besides, I’m not looking for anything—or anyone.”

She already knew that and she thought it was a terrible waste for her oldest brother to be alone like this. “But if you stumble across it right out there in your path—” Paige began.

“I don’t plan to do any stumbling, either,” Anderson informed her tersely.

As far as he was concerned, one mistake was more than enough for him. Not that he’d actually had any ideas about a possible relationship blossoming between Lexie and him twelve years ago. It had been just one of those classic things, an enjoyable fling that lasted the span of one night, no longer. And, after dealing with the woman, he realized just how fortunate he was not to have wanted any sort of a relationship with Jake’s mother. They didn’t have very much in common.

Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t the kind of guy who did well when it came to relationships. Hardworking and blessed with common sense, Anderson knew his shortcomings and he wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone.

Even so, it was obvious to him that his sister had other ideas. He needed to set her straight once and for all.

“Look, kid, I realize that you think that since you have this great thing going with Sutter everyone should be married, but it’s just not like that for some of us. I’m glad you found somebody to love you, someone who lights up your world, but that isn’t my destiny and I’m okay with that.”

But apparently Paige was not about to accept defeat for her brother so easily.

“Just because it didn’t work out for you and Lexie—her loss, by the way—” she interjected.

Anderson laughed softly. This was the Paige he was more familiar with. The sister who was fiercely loyal to the members of her family and immediately took offense on their behalf.

“Thank you. You’re my sister and you have to say that.”

“No, I don’t,” Paige contradicted. “And stop interrupting. What I’m trying to say is that just because it didn’t work out for Lexie and you doesn’t mean that it won’t work out for you with someone else.”

She just wouldn’t let this go, would she? Ordinarily, he might just let this go for now, but it was far too important to let her think she’d won, even by default.

“It won’t because I’m not looking for it to work out—with anybody,” he underscored. “Look, Paige, I know you mean well, but really, let it go. I’m happy just the way I am.”

Paige dug in. “A year ago, you thought you were happy just the way you were, then you found out about Jake and suddenly you wanted him to be a permanent part of your life. You still do,” she pointed out, remembering how dejected Anderson had been when Lexie had denied him custody or even visitation rights.

“Don’t try to confuse me with your logic, Paige.” He was only half kidding.

“It’s not ‘my’ logic,” his sister pointed out. “It’s just logic.”

Anderson blew out an impatient breath. There was just no arguing with his sister once she got going like this. He didn’t want to say something to her that he would wind up regretting, but he didn’t want her thinking that she was going to emerge the victor in this argument, either.

And then the cavalry arrived in the form of a lanky eleven-year-old boy. Spotting him, Jake was striding toward his truck.

“Sorry, Paige, I’d love to talk some more, but Jake just turned up. Basketball practice must be over. Time to take him home and put him to work,” Anderson announced cheerfully. “We’ll talk later,” he promised, terminating the call before she could say another word.

Or you’ll talk later and I’ll have to listen, he silently added, tossing the cell phone back into the glove compartment.

Leaning over, Anderson opened the passenger door for his son.

“Hi, how was it?” he asked Jake cheerfully. Then, just in case that sounded a little too vague to his son, Anderson clarified the focus of his question. “How was basketball practice?”

Jake slid into the passenger seat and dutifully buckled up his seat belt.

“It was okay.” The reply was completely devoid of any enthusiasm.

Starting up the truck, Anderson pulled out of his parking spot, his eyes trained on the rearview mirror until he put the transmission into Drive.

“Did you play a game?” he asked in the same cheerful voice.

Settling into his seat, Jake kept his eyes forward. “Yes.”

He was not exactly a conversationalist himself, but for the sake of trying to draw his son out, he gave it his best shot.

“And then what?”

“We stopped,” Jake said matter-of-factly. Then, as the word just hung alone in the air, he explained, “It was time to go home.”

This was not going well. “Do you like playing basketball?” Anderson prodded.

His thin shoulders carelessly rose and fell in response as he continued looking out of the front windshield. “It’s okay.”

That was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the sport. Maybe he’d pressured the boy into playing something he had no desire to participate in.

“Would you rather have me sign you up for something else? Baseball maybe, or football?” Anderson suggested, glancing at Jake’s face for a response.

That was the extent of the after school sports activities that were available and he wasn’t really sure about the baseball part. The actual baseball season, he was only vaguely aware, was over and he wasn’t sure if anyone was available to coach boys in the off-season. He’d never been one to enroll in any of those sports himself when he was a kid. All he’d ever been interested in were things that had to do with ranching.

“You know, it’s not a bad idea to try to broaden yourself a little bit,” Anderson told his son. He hadn’t been critical yet, but maybe a small bit of pressure wasn’t a bad idea. “Sitting in your room all day playing video games isn’t healthy.”

“I don’t play all day,” Jake answered, finally turning toward him. “I go to school.”

It wasn’t a smart-aleck answer, but it didn’t exactly leave room for a warm exchange. Determined to get through to Jake, he tried another approach.

“You need to socialize, Jake. To get to know people. You need to make some friends.”

“Why?” Jake wanted to know. He wasn’t being belligerent; he was just asking a question.

It was a question Anderson wasn’t prepared for and he had no answer ready, so he fell back to an old tried-and-true response parents had used since time began. “You just do.”

“Oh.” Jake went back to looking out the windshield, watching the desolate scenery go by.

Maybe, Anderson thought as silence descended within the vehicle’s cab, that teacher he’d seen today did have a point.

And then again, he thought rebelliously in the next breath, maybe not.

Chapter Four

“Something bothering you, Jake?”

Ever since his meeting last week with the redheaded teacher, Anderson had been more attuned to Jake’s silence. All during dinner tonight his son had been even quieter than usual, but for the duration of their trip into town the boy hadn’t said a single word. Anderson was taking Jake with him to the town meeting that was being held tonight and they were almost there.

Granted, his son had looked less than happy about having to make this trip when he’d initially suggested it, but he would have thought that the boy would have said something by now. Kids his age talked, if only to complain.

But Jake didn’t.

Jake was really a hard kid to figure out, Anderson thought wearily.

A heartfelt, mighty sigh preceded Jake’s reply when he finally spoke. “I was just about to get to the next level.”

“The next level of what?” Anderson asked, puzzled.

He had no idea what his son was talking about. He and Jake shared a house and they shared bloodlines, but at times it was as if they were from two entirely different worlds. Trips to and from school might hear a word or two exchanged and mealtimes were hardly a hotbed of verbal exchange, either, if it was just the two of them at the table instead of occasionally one of his siblings.

But even so, something was usually said, some nominal conversation that lasted a couple of minutes. But not this time. Jake hadn’t said a word from the time that he had stepped out of his room for the trip to town.

That was right after Jake had looked at him, clearly confused as to why he was going to this meeting and what he was going to do once he got there.

“I thought it might be a good idea for you to see how people in a small town get things done,” Anderson had told his son.

But that was only part of the reason he was taking Jake with him. He was also trying to get the boy to feel more involved in what was going on. He was hoping that if his son felt more a part of Rust Creek Falls, he’d open up a little more.

Jake hadn’t protested going to the meeting the way a lot of boys his age might have. For that matter, he hadn’t dragged his heels, or thrown a tantrum, or mouthed off. Instead, offering no resistance, Jake had just silently come along—but the boy definitely hadn’t looked happy about it.

But then, Jake wasn’t exactly the definition of a happy-go-lucky kid to begin with.

Still, the silence had really gotten under Anderson’s skin and when his son hadn’t uttered a single word the whole half hour trip to the town hall, he’d finally decided to initiate some sort of a conversation. The only trouble was, once Jake had answered him, he didn’t understand Jake’s response.

“The next level in ‘Mighty Warriors,’” Jake explained quietly.

“‘Mighty Warriors,’” Anderson repeated slowly, as if tasting the words as he uttered them.

What he was really doing was stalling until he could remember exactly what “Mighty Warriors” was. He really was trying to take an interest in his son’s life, but what Jake was into represented a whole new world to Anderson. A new world he was attempting to navigate without a road map or a guide.

“That’s the video game I was playing when you said we had to go to this meeting.”

Anderson was turning his truck into the first available space located in the large parking lot behind the town hall. Pulling up the hand brake, he turned off the engine and shifted in his seat to face his son.

“Oh. Well, you’re a bright guy. You can always pick up where you left off when you play again,” Anderson said with complete conviction.

Jake’s expression gave away nothing, but even so Anderson got the feeling that maybe it wasn’t all that easy to play this game his son was so obsessed with when Jake answered, “It’s okay, Dad.”

Thinking it safer to change the subject than wade through one that he knew absolutely nothing about, Anderson came around the hood of his truck and joined his son. In a gesture of camaraderie, he put his arm around Jake’s thin shoulders before he began to walk toward the building.

Jake looked around as they came around to the front of the building. Since it was evening in September, a bevy of streetlights were on, illuminating the front entrance.

“It looks like there’s going to be a lot of people here,” Jake observed.

Anderson couldn’t help wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing in Jake’s eyes. There was still so much he didn’t know about this introverted boy he had fathered.

“Everyone who’s interested,” Anderson agreed. Which, he silently admitted, probably wouldn’t have been him if this meeting had been held six months ago. He would have felt it was sufficient to have one of his siblings attend it and then report back on the highlights.

But now he was a family man—or at least he had a family to concern himself with—and that meant that he had to take an active interest in what was going on in town. Especially when it might affect Jake, just as the subject for this meeting promised to do.

He thought back to the wedding celebration that had been held last July Fourth with its unfortunate incidence of spiked punch. Apparently, possibly because of the wedding and definitely because of the punch, love had been in the air that night. Because of that, a large number of babies had consequently joined the population of Rust Creek Falls. Babies who would eventually grow up into children—children who needed to be educated.

Presently, Rust Creek Falls Elementary was too small a facility to adequately accommodate all these added children. The focus of the meeting tonight was to determine whether the town council should give the okay to just build onto the existing school—or if it was wiser to build a second school altogether.

Although Jake hadn’t been part of that baby boom, he was here now and, with any luck, would remain that way. The boy was definitely going to be affected by what would be decided at the meeting.

“Everyone?” Jake repeated, still looking around. His head was turning from side to side as if he was a searchlight that had come to life.

Anderson thought he detected a hopeful note in his son’s voice. What was that all about? Was Jake looking around, hoping to see one of his classmates? A girl, maybe? If so, it was a good sign.

“Pretty much,” Anderson answered.

Jake spared him a look that could only be interpreted as hopeful. “Like Ms. Laramie?”

The second his son asked whether or not the woman would be attending, Anderson suddenly spotted the teacher in question approximately fifteen feet away from him, standing near the front entrance of the building—and talking to Paige.

Paige, from what he could tell, seemed to be alone. That meant that his brother-in-law was home with Carter, their two-year-old. Anderson wanted to catch up to Paige to talk about a few things, but not if it meant having to talk to Jake’s teacher, too.

Since he and Marina Laramie had that less than productive meeting at the school the other week, he hadn’t seen the woman or exchanged any words with her, either. But that didn’t mean she’d been completely out of his mind.

As a matter of fact, the exact opposite seemed to be true. For some reason, Marina Laramie kept popping up in his head at completely unbidden times and Anderson didn’t even remotely like the fact that she did. It made him feel as if he had no control over his own thoughts.

How else could he view having that woman’s face suddenly appear in his head while he was in the middle of thinking of something entirely different from an interfering, feisty redhead who thought she knew how to raise his son better than he did?

Never mind that she probably did and that maybe she was even right in her estimation that Jake needed to get involved in something outside of himself. The bottom line was that Jake was his kid, not hers, and he would raise the boy any way that he saw fit.

Suddenly, he felt Jake eagerly tugging on his arm. “Hey, Dad, look. There’s Ms. Laramie. Let’s go over and talk to her.”

But as Jake began to make his way over to his teacher, Anderson caught his son’s arm, clearly surprising the boy, who looked at him quizzically.

“Ms. Laramie is already talking to someone else,” Anderson pointed out.

Jake took another look just to be sure he was right.

“Yeah, but it’s Aunt Paige. Aunt Paige won’t mind,” the boy insisted, shaking his arm free.

The next minute, Anderson saw his son striding over toward the two women. With his long, lanky legs, Jake had reached Marina and his aunt in a matter of a few quick strides. And, as he watched, just like that he saw his son transform from an abnormally quiet, serious eleven-year-old to an animated, bright, smiling boy who clearly had a lot to say.

“Ms. Laramie,” Jake had called out before he’d even reached his teacher. When she turned in his direction, he grinned broadly and asked, “Are you going to the town meeting?”

Marina was clearly surprised to see the boy, but she recovered with grace and offered him a warm smile by way of a greeting.

“Yes, I am,” she told him.

“Me, too,” Jake declared proudly. “I’m here with my dad. He thinks that it’s a good idea for me to come see how people in a small town like Rust Creek Falls get things done.”

Marina looked past the boy’s head and saw his father coming up behind him. She inclined her head politely in a silent greeting.

Her vibrant blue eyes met Anderson’s as she told Jake, “Your father’s right. It’s always a good idea for you to see how things work firsthand.”

No doubt pleased at her seal of approval, Jake beamed. The next moment, he seemed to come to and realized that his aunt was standing right next to his teacher. “Hi, Aunt Paige.”

It was obvious by Paige’s expression that she was surprised by the boy’s animated response to seeing her at what was, essentially, a school board meeting.

“Hi yourself, Jake. So your dad dragged you to this, huh?” she asked sympathetically, reading between the lines. She shook her head.

“He didn’t drag me,” Jake corrected politely, apparently not wanting to lose any of the points he’d just managed to score with his teacher. Turning to his father for backup, Jake asked, “Did you, Dad?”

Anderson found himself being drawn into this unexpected interaction against his will, but he couldn’t very well not be supportive of his son. For some reason, having his teacher think well of him obviously meant a great deal to Jake.

“No,” he told Marina, “Jake came right along without a single word of protest.”

Which was technically true. It was only the boy’s body language that indicated he didn’t want to go to the meeting. That and his comment about not being allowed to reach the next level of the video game he’d been playing perpetually.

“Can we sit with you, Ms. Laramie?” Jake asked without warning as he looked at the woman with hopeful, soulful eyes.

The same eyes, Marina caught herself thinking, that his father had.

“Jake,” Anderson admonished, surprised by his son’s extroverted behavior, “you can’t just put someone on the spot like that. I’m sure Ms. Laramie has made plans to sit with her friends.” And that, Anderson hoped, was the end of that.

Except that it wasn’t.

“Actually, I haven’t,” Marina contradicted, addressing her response to the boy. “Except for your aunt, of course. Otherwise, I didn’t have any plans to sit with anyone in particular.” She smiled warmly at the boy who had given her some concern. “You’re welcome to join us,” she told Jake.

Jake looked positively overjoyed.

Anderson couldn’t remember ever seeing his son look so enthusiastic and overjoyed before.

And then it hit him.

His son had a crush on his teacher. There wasn’t any other explanation for the way he was acting or why he looked as if he was on the verge of doing cartwheels. This was a completely different boy from the one he’d roused from his room earlier.

“Dad, too?” Jake asked eagerly.

Anderson was completely floored by his son’s inclusion. Ordinarily, eleven-year-olds, whether they were male or female, were not nearly this thoughtful when it came to their parents. Or really anyone over the age of fifteen.

He could remember himself at that age. In comparison to Jake, he’d been a thoughtless, self-centered little know-it-all. Granted, he’d outgrown that phase a long time ago, but he’d still gone through it. Jake, however, had somehow managed to bypass all that. It made Anderson realize just what a special, decent adolescent Jake really was.

Even so, if Marina Laramie represented Jake’s big crush, he still didn’t intend to be put on the spot because of it. He was about to politely turn down the whole invitation before it was even tendered to him, but then he saw a quirky kind of smile curve the woman’s lips and heard Marina say, “Sure, why not? Your dad’s included, too.”

Then the petite redhead turned her very bright blue eyes on him and said, “You’re welcome to join your sister and me—and your son—at the meeting if you like, Mr. Dalton.”

She’d very deftly—and formally—put him on the spot. If he turned her down, he’d be the villain in his son’s eyes. He’d been struggling too hard to be Jake’s white knight to risk sabotaging himself just because it would entail spending an uncomfortable hour in the woman’s company. Uncomfortable not because he had any real, concrete reason to dislike her—he’d actually begun to think of Jake being a babysitter as a good thing—but because there was something about this woman that made him feel...well, antsy was as good a word for it as any, he decided.

She made him strangely restless, like he couldn’t find a place for himself whenever she was around.

He knew it was an absurd reaction, but it was his reaction and as long as he was experiencing it, he wasn’t going to be able to relax, certainly not anywhere around her.

But he supposed that not being able to relax was in reality a small price to pay in exchange for seeing his son looking so happy.

Looking like, he realized, a typical kid his age should look.

“Can we, Dad?” Jake asked eagerly, turning his face up to his father’s.

Anderson slipped a hand on his son’s shoulder in a gesture that spoke of familiarity and hopeful bonding. He reminded himself that this was all about Jake and nothing else, certainly not about him.

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