The Dating Resolution

It was easier to give in and get it over with. “His name is Jordan Halifax. He’s a vet. Probably around thirty-five or something. He has a kid in my class. That enough info for you?”

“A kid? But he’s single?”

“Yes.”

“Most excellent. What does he look like?”

“Gray eyes, thick, wavy brown hair, sort of scruffy look but he makes it work. Tall, wears jeans and sweaters in that way that could make women in their weaker moments want to rip them off. Happy?”

“Wow! You’ve really looked at him, haven’t you? You only met him a couple of hours ago!”

“I know,” Hailey confessed, feeling miserable. “He’s just that kind of a guy. You should come visit and check him out for yourself. He’s not for me. I already told him I’m married, okay? I made it perfectly clear I’m off limits.”

Ellen sighed so loudly that Hailey almost expected a gust of wind to blow through the phone. “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you so? A potential Mr. Right shows up your first day in Alaska, and you kick him out.”

“Goodbye, Ellen!”

That evening, Hailey discovered she was indeed a sucker for cats. She opened a can of tuna for the little creature, then allowed her to crawl into her lap and spend the evening there, purring. She could hardly bear to disturb the kitten when it was time to go to bed, but Helena curled up on a sofa cushion and seemed to be happy. Just in case, Hailey made a nest out of a fleece blanket and deposited her there.

She walked upstairs to the bedroom and crawled into bed, but it was hard to get to sleep when dusk never showed up. Close to midnight Hailey found herself wide awake, staring out the window at the eerie light. Not night, not day.

It was almost magic.

Combined with the day’s events, it was also a surefire recipe for insomnia.

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER six weeks, Hailey had gotten used to the climate growing slowly colder, and she’d fallen in love with her class of eight-year-olds.

But she had to admit she was getting a bit lonely.

She missed her friends—and because of her fictional husband she was nervous about making new friends. Her lie was so flimsy that anyone who got close to her would see through it immediately. She’d already frowned in confusion several times on being referred to as “Mrs.”—and had to explain it away as being relatively newly married.

Yeah, right. And her brand new husband on the other side of the world. As if she’d ever let a hypothetical husband get away with that. Ha!

Some things were easier up here, despite temptation living next door. She’d given it a lot of thought, and had to confess to herself that annoyance with her friends’ interference wasn’t the only thing that had caused her to flee. She’d been too close to giving up—too close to finding it pointless to keep to her resolution. Maybe it was pointless—but even so, it was worth a try.

She was happy with her decision. This was good for her. There was freedom in being unavailable, freedom in spending Saturday evening curled up with a book and a purring cat. Not that she’d said her final goodbye to parties and clubs for ever and ever—but this was also life. Singledom wasn’t going anywhere. It would be waiting for her in January. She’d probably be a bit rusty, but she was sure she’d have a new outlook on life and love, a healthy outlook.

The small school turned out to be a fun workplace. Most of her colleagues were quite a bit older than she was, but there was good morale. Her class was small and the kids were great—once they were over the disappointment of Jane being away for the semester. Even Simon came around, the suspicious look slowly vanishing off his face, and she suspected she had little Helena to thank for that. The two of them spent a lot of time playing in her backyard during Simon’s weekends with his dad and some of Helena’s charm seemed to rub off on Hailey, especially when she started offering Simon milk and cookies to go along with Helena’s milk and tuna.

“Sure you don’t mind him coming over?” Jordan asked, leaning on the fence between their yards. His boy was halfway up a tree—the cat was even higher.

“No,” she told him for the umpteenth time. She enjoyed their neighborly chats over the fence. Somehow, it felt safe with the fence between them and his child playing close by. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Helena has an endless source of energy and I don’t. If she runs around with Simon a bit, maybe she’ll let me sleep tonight.” Hailey grimaced. “She likes to hunt my toes at four in the morning.”

Helena had taken up double residence of her house and Jordan’s. She seemed to like the freedom of two homes to go to, which sometimes resulted in a double dinner. She always spent the nights at Hailey’s house—Hailey suspected Jordan didn’t let her sleep in his bed.

Simon came running, once again complaining Helena had climbed a tree too far for him to reach her.

“She’ll come down,” Hailey told him. “Doesn’t she always? She’s just teasing you. She’ll be down as soon as you turn your back and pretend you’re not even looking for her.”

Simon’s dark hair and silver eyes were a lot like his father’s—but he got his delicate facial features from his mother. Hailey had met her on Open Night and immediately noticed the resemblance.

“Mrs. Rutherford, why don’t you wear a wedding ring?” Simon asked, squinting up at her against the sun. “Aren’t you supposed to, you know, so everybody knows you can’t be their girlfriend?”

That probably was one purpose of wedding rings. And a good idea it was. Hailey stared at her ringless hand, searching for an answer. “Well…”

“Mick says his Mom says maybe you don’t like your husband anymore.”

“Simon! You know better than that. Apologize to your teacher.”

“No, it’s okay—it’s a natural question, I suppose.” Dammit. She’d never gotten around to getting a ring—and then she’d forgotten. She hadn’t imagined the eight-year-olds would gossip about it. She flexed her fingers and smiled at Simon. “My hands have swelled since I’ve been up here,” she lied. “My ring doesn’t fit anymore. It’s probably the climate changes.”

“So you still like your husband?”

“Uh, yes. I still like him. It’s just my fingers are so swollen…”

“No need to explain.” Jordan’s grin was enigmatic, but the frown aimed at his son was clear-cut. “That’s enough, Simon. Don’t be rude.”

She looked at him sideways, trying to decipher the look on his face. Did he suspect she was lying? It was impossible to tell from the bland look in his eyes.

“When does it start to snow?” Simon whined, staring up at the sky. His father rolled his eyes.

“Simon, do you honestly think we don’t get enough snow around here? Remember last year? We thought spring would never arrive.”

“I can’t wait for the snow! I want to go sledding, and skiing and ice skating…”

Jordan grinned at Hailey, a wry grin from one suffering snow-shoveling, ice-scraping adult to another, she supposed, but of course she’d never shoveled snow in her life. She was sort of looking forward to the experience, but if she said anything about that, it would probably have two identical jaws drop. One smooth—the other a bit bristly. How come she was now finding that sort of thing attractive? Must be something in the air.

“There will be time enough to play in the snow, Simon,” Jordan told his son. “I promise.”

“Maybe I’ve forgotten how to ski,” Simon complained, and his father ruffled his hair.

“Then you’ll have fun learning it again.”

Simon tore off again.

“Is he behaving in school?” Jordan asked. “He’s got so much energy…”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Right, she reminded herself and stood up straight, folding her arms on her chest. This was her student’s father. It wasn’t professional to stare at his lips and wonder if he was a good kisser. “He’s not the quietest one in my class, I’ll admit, but he’s a good kid. Very bright and inquisitive, too.”

“Yes.” Jordan stared after his son, wistfulness in his face. “I wish I had more time with him. There’s so much of his life that I miss. Sometimes I don’t see him for as long as two weeks and it actually seems he’s grown since I last saw him.”

She made a sound of sympathy. “I know. That’s what happens with so many kids after a divorce. It’s inevitable, I suppose.”

“We’re not divorced,” Jordan said. “I was never married to his mother.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “Sorry. He bears your name and everything—I just assumed.”

“Of course. Glad to hear you didn’t know. That must mean Simon isn’t teased about it in school.”

“Not at all—well, not that I’m aware of. Of course, teachers don’t see everything, but I don’t think anybody’s teased about being illegit…ah…well, nobody’s teased about things like that anymore. And his mother and stepfather came to Open Night, so he had two parents there…” She trailed off at the look on Jordan’s face. “Oops.”

Jordan swore under his breath. “Don’t get me wrong—I think it’s wonderful he has a good stepfather…. And I want them to be a complete family…. I try not to complain about it but sometimes it really feels like they’re trying to exclude me. It’s ‘better’ that I don’t attend this and that, it would just be confusing to Simon…”

“Nobody can replace you in Simon’s life.”

“His stepfather has been raising him since he was four years old.”

“You’re his father. Anyone can see he adores you! You should come to school functions too. A lot of kids have three or four parents there. If there’s anything today’s kids know all about, it’s the complexities of the post-nuclear family.”

“Post-nuclear family?”

“It’s a genuine scientific term,” she said defensively.

“If it’s anything like post-modernism, I don’t like it.”

She peered at him. He was joking. Right? Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. She wasn’t used to interpreting these kinds of dry ironic remarks. “Well—post-nuclear is as good a description as any, I guess,” she said. “And you’re doing fine as a post-nuclear father. Don’t worry about Simon. He’ll be fine.”

Jordan chuckled. “Thanks for defending me, Hailey. His mother seems to think my dogs and the other animals are more an attraction for Simon than I am.”

Hailey pictured the petite dark-haired lady she’d met at school. She’d seemed nice. This was not nice. “She said that to you?”

“It sort of slipped out, she didn’t mean to be cruel.” He shrugged. “We have an okay relationship, no fights—but it’s obvious she wishes her husband was Simon’s father instead of me.”

“Has it been long since you two broke up?”

“Yeah. Cynthia didn’t realize she was pregnant until she was four months along. We’d split up a couple of months before.” He shrugged again. “She didn’t think there was any point in trying to work things out just for the sake of the child, and in retrospect she was probably right.”

“Don’t let her push you away from your son. Don’t let anybody do that.”

“No. I won’t.”

They were silent for a while, watching the child and the cat play. Both of them came running, as they did every few minutes, and this time Simon climbed up on the fence and boasted, “Daddy is coming to school next week!”

“Right, I heard something about that. You talk to the kids about animals. That’s already next week?”

“Yeah. It’s been going on for several years. The kids also visit my clinic once a year, in small groups.”

Next week! She’d thought she had more time. She wasn’t at all sure how she felt about Jordan invading her safe, neutral school environment. While she kept him on the other side of the fence—literally—things had been going fine. She really didn’t need him to invade her thoughts at work. “I see. Sounds like…” She had been about to say fun, but as Simon had wandered off again she changed it to reflect her true feelings. “Sounds like utter chaos! How do the animals react? They’re sick to begin with, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t do this if it traumatized or hurt the animals.” He seemed almost offended. “Only two or three kids go in at a time, and they receive a stern lecture beforehand on the dos and don’ts. We never have any problems. The kids know the consequence—no visit next year if they misbehave.”

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