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“Oh, yes.” I feel like such an idiot. “No, I’m a lot better today, thank you.”
I wish he’d just move on and take his son with him, but he doesn’t. In fact, he steps even closer. “This is Nash,” he says and I glance down, nodding my head and giving the little boy a smile. He’s cute, just like his dad, but I need to stop thinking like that. Even if I can still remember every sordid thought that went through my brain last night, he doesn’t think of me like that. Why would he? He’s got a wife at home. To him, I’m just the woman who he barged into in the street. Nothing more. “Do you work here?” he asks, and I realize he was probably waiting for me to reply to his introduction.
“Yes. It’s my first day.”
He glances over my shoulder. “You’re teaching Kindergarten?”
“Yes.”
“Be grateful you don’t have this one in your class,” he says, roughing up his son’s blond hair.
“I’m sure he’s very well behaved.”
Tanner smiles. “To be fair, he is… most of the time.”
Nash tugs at his dad’s hand. “Come on. We’re gonna be late, and there’s someone I wanna see before class.”
Tanner frowns down at his son and opens his mouth to say something just as a couple appear beside us. We both turn to face them at the same time, and I notice they’re accompanied by a beautiful little girl. She’s clearly the right age to be in my class, and has light blonde hair, tied up in pigtails, and sparkling blue eyes. She’s standing between her mother and father, who look both adoring and petrified. The mom has similar coloring to her daughter, although her hair isn’t perhaps as blonde, while the father has dark brown hair, and is so tall I have to crane my neck to look up at him. He’s wearing the uniform of a sheriff, although I notice his holster is missing, which makes me smile. Did he remove it to bring his daughter to school, or… oh, wait. This isn’t his daughter. This is the little girl Miss Montgomery was telling me about, whose father died at the beginning of the year, and whose mother is engaged to be married… to the sheriff.
“Hey, Brady… Laurel,” Tanner says, and then crouches down in front of the little girl. “Are you looking forward to your first day at school, Addy?”
She nods her head, although she looks worried. “She’s kinda nervous,” the sheriff says, and Tanner stands again.
“And you’re not?” He’s smiling, and the sheriff smiles too.
“Dad. We need to go,” Nash says, sounding desperate, and Tanner rolls his eyes.
“Duty calls.”
He takes a step back, and although his son is dragging him down the hall, he continues to walk backwards, his eyes fixed on me. I can’t look away, although it seems odd that he’s staring like that when he’s married, and when I mean nothing to him.
A deep male cough snaps me out of my trance and I turn to face the couple before me.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” the sheriff says. “It’s been one of those mornings.”
“You’re not late yet,” I reply, holding out my hand to the little girl, who seems reluctant to let go of him. “Do you wanna come with me?” I ask, trying to sound encouraging.
“You’ll be fine, Addy,” her mom says, although I can hear a tremor in her voice. The little girl still doesn’t seem convinced, and the sheriff crouches down before her.
“You’re gonna have such a good time, sweetheart,” he says. “And I promise I’ll be here with Mommy to collect you this afternoon.”
“You promise? No matter what?”
“No matter what. Even if the bad guys do something really wrong, I’ll be here.”
She throws her arms around his neck, and while I expect that to cause a problem and to have to peel her off of him, she lets him go just as quickly and turns to me, giving me her hand, her confidence restored, it seems.
Chapter Six
Tanner
How could I have been such a fool?
Okay, so to be fair to myself, I wasn’t expecting to run into that beautiful woman a second time… and certainly not at Nash’s school.
But, honestly. How could I have forgotten to ask her name? Again.
It would have been on her classroom door, too. They always put the teachers’ names on the doors and I should have realized that and looked for it. Except she was blocking my view and I couldn’t see… not without asking her to move, or picking her up and shifting her to one side.
