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He went straight to the office and booted up his laptop to check the tracker app. As soon as he activated it, he smiled. Bing was still in Jubilee. The app was working. He left it open to keep eyes on the predator, then went to change and wash up.
Dani was staring down at the chopping board, thinking she should have sliced the radishes for the salad a littlethinner, then frowned. What if he didn’t like radishes? Then she shrugged. He was a grown man. He could choose whatever he wanted.
He could even choose me. But do I want that to happen? Or am I just clutching at anyone safe to save me from the devil on my heels?Then she frowned at the thought.Stop making excuses for the fact that you’re attracted to a man you barely know. It’s not against the freaking law to appreciate what’s in front of you.
Then she did a little two-step along the kitchen island to get a salad bowl from the cabinet and said a prayer for them both. He was giving up his own free time and risking his life for her. The least she could do was appreciate it without rules and conditions.
When he came back a short while later, he was wearing old jeans and a T-shirt, and had changed from work boots to running shoes. He’d taken the bandage off his forehead, leaving the cut and the tiny butterfly strips visible.
“Does your head hurt?” Dani asked.
“A little, but I just took something for it. What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Everything is ready except what you would like to drink.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said.
Dani poured sweet tea into two glasses of ice and carried them to the table, but Aaron was still standing beside her chair.
“Thank you,” she said as he seated her, then himself. “You’re spoiling me.”
He glanced up. “Want me to stop?”
The look on his face said it all. There was more than the obvious in that question, and he’d just handed all of the control to her.
“No. I don’t want you to stop anything. I’m in free fall Aaron, and you’re all that’s keeping me tethered. I don’t want to be afraid. I don’t want to be cornered again. And I don’t want to die. I appreciate everything about you, including your presence in this house.”
He nodded. “Okay then. While I hesitate to quote my baby brother on anything, ‘Let’s eat.’”
She smiled. “Deal.”
As they began their meal, Aaron wisely shifted the conversation to her new job. By the time they’d finished eating, he’d seen a whole other side of her.
He now knew how much she hated mice.
How much she loved the art projects with her students.
How excited she was watching someone who’d been struggling suddenly “get it,” and that she considered teaching as being a key that unlocks children’s futures.
And that once she’d taught a child to read, she’d given them their own key to the rest of their life.
“I have so much respect for teachers,” Aaron said. “You don’t just have students to deal with, you have their families or lack thereof, you have your immediatesuperiors and the administration in your business all day, every day, and they all expect you to work miracles.”
“I know,” Dani said. “And, yes, the miracles are few and far between, but we live for the days when they happen. Like when the children who are struggling at the beginning of the year have learned to believe in themselves by the time it’s over.”
“Did you always want to teach?” Aaron asked.
Dani laughed. “I think so. I used to line up all my dolls and stuffed toys, then read to them.”
Aaron smiled. “What would you read?”
“Oh…all the books my mother read to me. I didn’t know how to read, but I knew the stories by heart and could tell what came next by the pictures on the page. I just told the same stories again…and again.…and again, which is helpful now, because some days I think I’m repeating myself the same way to the few kids who struggle. All you can do is keep repeating the words and the rules and the alphabet, and how letters make words, and words make sentences, and sentences tell stories, until they get it.”
Aaron was entranced. When she talked about her job, she lit up from within. But when light caught the side of her face just right, he could see tiny scars from the brutal beating she’d suffered, and knew what a warrior she was. What he didn’t know was if she’d ever trust a man again. And that mattered because he was falling in love.
Chapter 12
It was a good evening for Randy, Tina, and Mickey Cotton, as well.
