Rescued by his Christmas Angel

“How do I know what’s fashionable in the six-year-old set?” he asked, and a second chink appeared in the armor. A truly bewildered look slipped by the remoteness in his dark eyes. “To be honest, her hair this morning seemed like an improvement on the raised-by-wolves look she was sporting before she finally let me talk her into cutting her hair.”

Remembered hair battles flashed through his eyes, and Morgan found her gaze on those hands. It was too easy to imagine him trying to gentle his strength to deal with his daughter’s unruly hair.

But the last thing Morgan needed to do was couple a feeling of tenderness with the animal pull of his male magnetism!

“It was not an improvement,” she said firmly, snippily, trying desperately to stay on track. “The children were merciless, even after I made it clear I wanted no comments made. The recess monitor told me Cecilia got called Captain Colgate, Toothpaste Princess and Miss Froggy Fluoride.”

“I’ll bet the froggy one was Bradley Campbell’s boy,” he said darkly. “Ace told me he’s called her Miss Froggy before, because of her voice.”

“Her voice is adorable. She’ll outgrow that little croakiness,” Morgan said firmly. “I’ve already spoken to Freddy about teasing her about it.”

Nate glowered, unconvinced.

Morgan pressed on. “To make matters worse, today at lunch break someone noticed her overalls. They said she had stolen them, that they belonged to an older sister and they were missing.”

“Somebody accused Ace of stealing?”

Morgan thought he was going to have problems with the joint in his jaw if he didn’t find a different way to deal with tension.

“Cecilia said she had taken the overalls from the lost-and-found box.”

“But why?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

“When’s the last time you bought her clothes?” Morgan was aware of something gentling in her voice. “Mr. Hathoway, I sent you a note suggesting a shopping trip might be in order.”

“I don’t read your notes.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t need a little fresh-out-of-college snip like you telling me how to raise my daughter. Oh, and I also don’t do shopping.”

“Obviously! And your daughter has suffered as a consequence!”

He glared at her. A lesser woman might have just touched her forelock and bowed out the door.

But blessed—or cursed—with the newfound strength of a woman who was working her way through Bliss and making careful notations in the margins, and who had purchased a sofa in a rather adventurous shade of purple, she plunged on.

“Cecilia told me that’s why she took the overalls from the lost-and-found box…to spare you a shopping trip. She doesn’t have anything that fits properly. She wears the same favorites over and over. She wears hiking boots with skirts, Mr. Hathoway! Haven’t you noticed that?”

He said that word again, and something besides hardness flickered in those eyes again. It was worse than the hardness. Pain so deep it was like a bottomless pool.

“I guess I didn’t notice,” he said, the warrior stance shifting ever so slightly, something defeated in his voice. “Ace could have said something.”

“She seems to think if she asks nothing of you, she’s protecting you in some way.”

The smallest hint of a smile tickled across lips that had the potential to be so sexy they could make a woman’s heart stop.

“She is protecting me in some way. Grocery shopping is tough enough. I have to go out of town for groceries to avoid recipe exchanges with well-meaning neighbors.”

Whom, Morgan was willing to guess, were mostly female. And available. She could easily imagine him being swarmed at a market in a small town where everyone would know his history. Wife killed, nearly two years ago, Christmas Eve car accident. Widower. Single dad.

“The girl’s department is impossible,” he went on grimly. “A sea of pink. Women everywhere. Frills.” He said that word again, softly, with pained remembrance shadowing his eyes. He shook his head. “I don’t do shopping,” he said again, firmly, resolutely.

“I’d be happy to take her shopping.”

It was the type of offer that would have Mary Beth rolling her eyes. It was the type of offer that probably made Morgan’s insanity certifiable. Could she tangle her life with those of the Hathoways without dancing with something very powerful and possibly not tamable?

But whatever brief humanity had touched Nate’s features it was doused as carelessly as he had plunged that red-hot metal into water.

“I don’t do pity, either.”

Good, Morgan congratulated herself. She had done her best. She should leave now, while her dignity was somewhat in tact. Mary Beth would approve if she left without saying another single word.

Naturally, she didn’t.

“It’s not pity. I happen to love shopping. I can’t think of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.”

Chapter Two

I CAN’T THINK of anything I would consider more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion.

Mary Beth is going to think I’m crazy, Morgan thought.

Plus, standing here in such close proximity to his lips, she could think of one thing that would be quite a bit more fun than taking Cecilia on a shopping excursion. Or maybe two.

“I’ll look after it,” Nate Hathoway said, coolly adding with formal politeness, “thanks for dropping in, Miss McGuire.”

And then he dismissed her, strode back across his workshop and turned his back to her, faced the fire. He was instantly engrossed in whatever he was doing.

Morgan stared at him, but instead of leaving, she marched over to one of the bins just inside the front door. It contained coat hooks, in black wrought iron.

She picked up a pair, loved the substance of them in her hands. In a world where everything was transient, everything was meant to be enjoyed for a short while and then replaced—like her purple sofa—the coat hooks felt as if they were made to last forever.

Not a word a newly independent woman wanted to be thinking of anywhere in the vicinity of Nate Hathoway.

Still, his work with the black iron was incredible, flawless. The metal was so smooth it might have been silk. The curve of the hanger seemed impossibly delicate. How had he wrought this from something as inflexible as iron?

“I’ll trade you,” Morgan said on an impulse.

He turned and looked at her.

“My time with your daughter for some of your workmanship.” She held up the pair of coat hooks.

She could already picture them hanging inside her front door, she already felt as if she had to have them. Even if he didn’t agree to the trade, she would have to try and buy them from him.

But she saw she had found precisely the right way to get to him: a trade in no way injured his pride, which looked substantial. Plus, it got him out of the dreaded shopping trip to the girls’ department.

He nodded, once, curtly. “Okay. Done.”

She went to put the coat hooks back, until they worked out the details of their arrangement, but he growled at her.

“Take them.”

“Saturday morning? I can pick Cecilia up around ten.”

“Fine.” He turned away from her again. She saw he was heating a rod of iron, and she wished she had the nerve to go watch how he worked his magic on it. But she didn’t.

She turned and let herself quietly out the door. Only as she walked away did she consider that by taking the coat hangers, she had taken a piece of him with her.

Morgan was aware she would never be able to look at her new acquisition without picturing him, hammer in hand, and feeling the potent pull of the incredible energy he had poured, molten, into manufacturing the coat hangers.

“I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into?” she asked out loud, walking away from the old barn, the last of the leaves floated from the trees around her. And then she realized just how much Nate Hathoway had managed to rattle her when she touched a piece of paper in her coat pocket.

And realized it was the permission slip for The Christmas Angel, still unsigned.

“Ah, Ace,” Nate said uneasily, “you know how I promised I’d take you to the antique-car show this morning?”

His daughter was busy coloring at the kitchen table, enjoying a Saturday morning in her jammies. They were faded cotton-candy pink. They had feet in them, which made her seem like a baby. His baby.

He felt a fresh wave of anger at the kids teasing her. And fresh frustration at the snippy young teacher for thinking she knew everything.

He had tried to think about that visit from the teacher as little as possible, and not just because it made him acutely aware of his failings as a single parent.

No, the teacher had been pretty. Annoying, but pretty.

And when he thought of her, it seemed to be the pretty part he thought of—the lush auburn hair, the sparkling green eyes, the wholesome features, the delicate curves—rather than the annoying part.

Ace glanced up at him. Her shortened red hair was sticking up every which way this morning, still an improvement over the toothpaste fin of last week, and the long tangled mop he had tried to tame—unsuccessfully—before that.

“We’re not going to the car show?” she asked.

Nate hated disappointing her. He had been mulling over how to break this to her. Which is probably why he hadn’t told her earlier that her plans for Saturday were changed. Sometimes with Ace, it was better not to let her think things over for too long.

“We’re not going to the car show?” she asked again, something faintly strident in her voice.

Just as he had thought. She was clearly devastated.

“Uh, no. Your teacher is coming over.” He had an envelope full of cash ready to hand Morgan McGuire for any purchases she made for Ace. His guilt over changing the car-show plans was being balanced, somewhat, by the incredibly wonderful fact he didn’t have to go shopping.

The devastation dissolved from her face. “Mrs. McGuire?” Ace whispered with reverence. “She’s coming here?”

“It’s not like it’s a visit from the pope,” he said, vaguely irritated, realizing he may have overestimated the attractions of the car show by just a little.

“What’s a pope?”

“Okay, the queen, then.”

“The queen’s coming here?” Ace said, clearly baffled.

“No. Miss McGuire’s coming here. She’s going to take you shopping. Instead of me taking you to the car show.”

The crayon fell out of Ace’s fingers. “I’m going shopping with Mrs. McGuire? Me?” Her brown eyes got huge. She gave a little squeal of delight, got up and did a little dance around the kitchen, hugging herself. He doubted a million-dollar lottery winner could have outdone her show of exuberance.

Okay, he admitted wryly, so he had overestimated the appeal of the car show by quite a bit.

Nate felt a little smile tickle his own lips at his daughter’s delight, and then chastised himself for the fact there had not been nearly enough moments like this since his wife had died. Slippery roads. A single vehicle accident on Christmas Eve, Cindy had succumbed to her horrific injuries on Christmas day. There was no one to blame.

No one to direct the helpless rage at.

Ace stopped dancing abruptly. Her face clouded and her shoulders caved in. It was like watching the air go out of a balloon, buoyancy dissolving into soggy, limp latex.

“No,” Ace said, her voice brave, her chin quivering. “I’m not going to go shopping with Mrs. McGuire. I can’t.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because Saturday is our day. Yours and mine, Daddy. Always. And forever.”

“Well, just this once it would be okay—”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I’ll be okay, Ace. I can go to the car show by myself.”

“Nope,” she said, and then furiously insisted, “it’s our day.” She tried to smile, but wavered, and after struggling valiantly for a few seconds to hide the true cost of her sacrifice, she burst into tears and ran and locked herself in the bathroom.

“Come on, Ace,” he said, knocking softly on the bathroom door. “We can have our day tomorrow. I’ll take you over to Aunt Molly’s and you can ride Happy.”

Happy was a chunky Shetland pony, born and bred in hell. Her Aunt Molly had given the pony to Ace for Christmas last year, a stroke of genius that had provided some distraction from the bitter memories of the day. Ace loved the evil dwarf equine completely.

But Happy was not providing the necessary distraction today. There was no answer from the other side of the bathroom door. Except sobbing. Nate realized it was truly serious when even the pony promise didn’t work.

Nate knew what he had to do, though it probably spoke volumes to his character just how reluctant he was to do it.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, hoping some miracle—furnace exploding, earthquake—could save him from finishing this sentence, “since it’s our day, I could tag along on your shopping trip with Miss McGuire.”

No explosion. No earthquake. The desperate suggestion of a cornered man was uttered without intervention from a universe he already suspected was not exactly on his side.

Silence. And then the door opened a crack. Ace regarded him with those big moist brown eyes. Tears were beaded on her lashes, and her cheeks were wet.

“Would you, Daddy?” she whispered.

The truth was he would rather be staked out on an anthill covered in maple syrup than go shopping with Ace and her startlingly delectable teacher.

But he sucked it up and did what had to be done, wishing the little snip who was so quick to send the notes criticizing his parenting could see him manning up now.

“Sure,” he said, his voice deliberately casual. “I’ll go, too.” Feeling like a man who had escaped certain torture, only to be recaptured, Nate slipped the envelope of shopping cash he had prepared for the teacher into his own pocket.

“Are you sure, Daddy?” Ace looked faintly skeptical. She knew how he hated shopping.

Enough to steal overalls to try and save him, he reminded himself. “I don’t want to miss our day, either,” he assured her.

Inwardly, he was plotting. This could be quick. A trip down to Canterbury’s one-and-only department store, Finnegan’s Mercantile, a beeline to girls’ wear, a few sweat suits—Miss McGuire approved, probably in various shades of pink—stuffed into a carry basket and back out the door.

He hoped the store would be relatively empty. He didn’t want rumors starting about him and the teacher.

It occurred to Nate, with any luck, they were still going to make the car show. His happiness must have shown on his face, because Ace shot out of the bathroom and wrapped sturdy arms around his waist.

“Daddy,” she said, in that little frog croak of hers, staring up at him with adoration he was so aware of not deserving, “I love you.”

Ace saved him from the awkwardness of his having to break it to Miss Morgan McGuire that he was accompanying them on their trip, by answering the doorbell on its first ring.

Freshly dressed in what she had announced was her best outfit—worn pink denims and a shirt that Hannah Montana had long since faded off—Ace threw open the front door.

“Mrs. McGuire,” she crowed, “my daddy’s coming, too! He’s coming shopping with me and you.”

And then Ace hugged herself and hopped around on one foot, while Morgan McGuire slipped in the door.

Nate was suddenly aware his housekeeping was not that good, and annoyed by his awareness of it. He resisted the temptation to shove a pair of his work socks, abandoned on the floor, under the couch with his foot.

It must be the fact she was a teacher that made him feel as if everything was being graded: newspapers out on the coffee table; a thin layer of dust on everything, unfolded laundry leaning out of a hamper balanced perilously on the arm of the couch.

At Ace’s favorite play station, the raised fireplace hearth, there was an entire orphanage of naked dolls, Play-Doh formations long since cracked and hardened, a forlorn-looking green plush dog that had once had stuffing.

So instead of looking like he cared how Morgan McGuire felt about his house and his housekeeping—or lack thereof—Nate did his best to look casual, braced his shoulder against the door frame of the living room, and shoved his hands into the front of his jeans pockets.

Morgan actually seemed stunned enough by Ace’s announcement that he would be joining them that she didn’t appear to notice one thing about the controlled chaos of his housekeeping methods.

She was blushing.

He found himself surprised and reluctantly charmed that anyone blushed anymore, at least over something as benign as a shopping trip with a six-year-old and her fashion handicapped father.

The first-grade teacher was as pretty as he remembered her, maybe prettier, especially with that high color in her cheeks.

“I’m surprised you’ll be joining us,” Morgan said to him, tilting her chin in defiance of the blush, “I thought you made your feelings about shopping eminently clear.”

He shrugged, enjoying her discomfort over his addition to the party enough that it almost made up for his aversion to shopping.

Almost.

“I thought we’d go to the mall in Greenville,” Morgan said, jingling her car keys in her hand and glancing away from him.

Why did it please him that he made her nervous? And how could he be pleased and annoyed at the same time? A trip to Greenville was a full-day excursion!

“I thought we were going to Finnegan’s,” he said. Why couldn’t Ace have just been bribed with Happy time, same as always?

Why did he have an ugly feeling Morgan McGuire was the type of woman who changed same as always?

“Finnegan’s?” Morgan said. “Oh.” In the same tone one might use if a fishmonger was trying to talk them into buying a particularly smelly piece of fish. “There’s not much in the way of selection there.”

“But Greenville is over an hour and a half away!” he protested. By the time they got there, they’d have to have lunch. Even before they started shopping. He could see the car show slip a little further from his grasp.

And lunch with the first-grade teacher? His life, deliberately same as always since Cindy’s death, was being hijacked, and getting more complicated by the minute.

“It’s the closest mall,” Morgan said, and he could see she had a stubborn bent to her that might match his own, if tested.

As if the careful script on the handwritten notes sent home hadn’t been fair enough warning of that.

“And the best shopping.”

“The best shopping,” Ace breathed. “Could we go to The Snow Cave? That’s where Brenda Weston got her winter coat. It has white fur.”

Nate shot his daughter an astonished look. This was the first time she’d ever indicated she knew the name of a store in Greenville, or that she coveted a coat that had white fur.

“Surrender to the day,” he muttered sternly to himself, not that the word surrender had appeared in a Hathoway’s vocabulary for at least two hundred years.

“Pardon?” Morgan asked.

“I said lead the way.”

But when she did, he wasn’t happy about that, either. She drove one of those teeny tiny cars that got three zillion miles per every gallon of gas.

There was no way he could sit in the sardine-can-size backseat, and if he got in the front seat, his shoulder was going to be touching hers.

All the way to Greenville.

And even if he was determined to surrender to the day, he was not about to invite additional assaults on his defenses.

“I’ve seen Tinkertoys bigger than this car,” he muttered. “We’d better take my vehicle.”

And there was something about Miss Morgan McGuire that already attacked his defenses. That made a part of him he thought was broken beyond repair wonder if there was even the slimmest chance it could be fixed.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to fix something that hurt so bad when it broke?

He realized he was thinking of his heart.

Stupid thoughts for a man about to spend an hour and a half in a vehicle—any vehicle—with someone as cute as Morgan McGuire. He was pretty sure it was going to be the longest hour and a half of his life.

Stupid thoughts for a man who had vowed when his wife died—and Hathoways took their vows seriously—that his heart was going to be made of the same iron he made his livelihood shaping.

Out of nowhere, a memory blasted him.

I wish you could know what it is to fall in love, Nate.

Stop it, Cin, I love you.

No. Head over heels, I can’t breathe, think, function. That kind of fall-in-love.

Cindy had been his best friend’s girl. David had joined the services and been killed overseas. For a while, it had looked like the grief would take her, too. But Nate had done what best friends do, what he had promised David. He had stepped in to look after her.

Can’t breathe? Think? Function? That doesn’t even sound fun to me.

She’d laughed. But sadly. Hath, you don’t know squat.

There was a problem with vowing your heart was going to be made of iron, and Nate was aware of it as he settled in the driver’s seat beside Morgan, and her delicate perfume surrounded him.

Iron had a secret. It was only strong until it was tested by fire. Heated hot enough it was as pliable as butter.

And someone like Morgan McGuire probably had a whole lot more fire than her prim exterior was letting on.

But as long as he didn’t have to touch her shoulder all the way to Greenville he didn’t have to find out. He could make himself immune to her, despite the delicacy of her scent.

It should be easy. After all, Nate had made himself immune to every other woman who had come calling, thinking he and Ace needed sympathy and help, loving and saving.

He didn’t need anything. From anyone. And in that, he took pride.

And some days it felt like pride—and Ace—were all he had left.

But even once they were all loaded into his spacious SUV, even though his shoulder was not touching Morgan’s, Nate was totally aware of her in the passenger seat, turning around to talk to Ace.

And he was aware the trip to Greenville had never gone by more quickly.

Because Morgan had switched cars, but not intent. And Nate saw she was intent on making the day fun for Ace, and her genuine caring for his daughter softened him toward her in a way he did not want to be softened.

For as much as he resisted her attempts to involve him, it made Nate mildly ashamed that on a long car trip with Ace he had a tendency to plug a movie into the portable DVD player.

Nate glanced over at Morgan. Her eyes had a shine to them, a clearness, a trueness.

He was aware that since the death of Cindy he had lived in the darkness of sorrow, in the grip of how helpless he had been to change anything at a moment when it had really counted.

Morgan’s light was not going to pierce that. He wasn’t going to allow it.

“With an oink, oink here, and an oink, oink there,” Morgan McGuire sang with enthusiasm that made up for a surprisingly horrible voice.

It was written all over her that she was young and innocent and completely naive. That she had never known hardship like his own hardscrabble upbringing at a forge that was going broke, that she had been untouched by true tragedy.

“Oink,” she invited him, and then teased, “you look like you would make a terrific pig.”

He hoped that wasn’t a dig at his housekeeping, but again he was taken by the transparency in her face. Morgan McGuire appeared to be the woman least likely to make digs.

“—here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink, oink—”