A Man Worth Marrying. Phyllis Halldorson

he was spoiled, that’s why. As a minor celebrity in this small city, he was used to getting his own way. And he wasn’t prepared to have a slip of a girl tell him he couldn’t beg, borrow or buy her expert services—

      The car in front of him stopped suddenly, and he slammed on his brake and almost rear-ended it. He’d been so lost in his musing that he hadn’t seen the red light ahead.

      Enough of this old nonsense! He wasn’t going to take a chance on getting involved with any woman, and certainly not one who was his daughter’s teacher. He didn’t have Eve’s home phone number, but he could call her at school in the morning and tell her that he was regretfully willing to accept her initial refusal, after all. He knew she’d be relieved.

      Now that that was settled, maybe he could concentrate on his driving, on picking up Tinker from Judy, the baby-sitter who was a stay-at-home mom and who was on call when his work hours collided with his custody responsibility—without wrecking his sports car.

      

      Gray rolled out of bed at three o’clock the next morning when the alarm went off. He had to get up early every morning in order to be ready to do the weather at five, on the first newscast of the day. It wasn’t much of a hardship. He usually retired at nine on weeknights, and got by nicely on six hours of sleep.

      His first thought was of Eve and his need to call her, but obviously it was much too early. She wouldn’t be at school for at least four more hours.

      Unfortunately things hadn’t gone last night as he’d planned. In fact, everything that could go wrong had. The outcome was that he hadn’t even seen his daughter, let alone been able to talk to her about being tutored.

      He sighed. Not that it really mattered, since he wasn’t going to hire Eve anyway.

      But by then it was too late to phone her. After all the fuss he’d made yesterday about wanting her, and only her, to tutor his child, it would be impolite to wait until the last minute to contact her and tell her he’d changed his mind. No, now he’d just wait until she arrived and then graciously accept her initial refusal to take the job.

      A suspicion niggled at him, but he shook it off. He wasn’t having second thoughts about not hiring her. Certainly not! He hadn’t deliberately frittered away the time—it had just gotten away from him, was all.

      He had no intention of pursuing any kind of relationship with her. Not even a business one.

      

      Eve drove through the neighborhood of well-kept upscale homes. The houses were large, but not ostentatious. Although the lawns were still brown and the big old trees just beginning to leaf, she could see that they received good care during the warmer seasons.

      She spotted the address she was looking for, and pulled over to the curb in front of the house. It was one of the smaller homes on the block: a one-story Tudor-style built of red brick with a red tile roof. Handsome as well as sturdy.

      Getting out of her silver-gray compact, she approached the house and climbed the steps to the covered porch. She rang the bell, but as she waited she was sorely tempted to turn and run. Although she’d promised to consider tutoring Gray’s daughter, she didn’t like being outwitted, especially by a man who attracted her so strongly. She neither needed nor wanted a man in her life at this time. Certainly not one who had already been married and had an eight-year-old child!

      Before she could act on her urge to flee, the inside door opened. Gray stood on the other side of the storm door; he must have been watching for her, to have gotten there so quickly.

      “Hi,” he said, and unlocked the outside door to open it. “I...I hope you haven’t been too badly inconvenienced by my insistence that you come here instead of meeting at school.”

      Eve was struck by the fact that he seemed ill at ease today. He hadn’t been at all unsure of himself yesterday.

      “It’s out of my way, but not much,” she said as she walked into the foyer and looked around. The living room was on the right, the dining room on the left and separated from the kitchen behind it by a chest-high breakfast bar. Straight ahead was a long hall with rooms on either side and at the end. The floors were covered in thick brown-and-beige carpeting, and the furniture was heavy and masculine. Expensive but serviceable.

      “You have a very attractive home,” she said. “Did you decorate it yourself?”

      He smiled. “Not exactly. When I moved in, I hired a decorator to work with me. And then Bambi got into the act—”

      “Is Bambi your ex-wife’s name?” she interrupted. “Or am I misunderstanding again?”

      He sighed. “No, you’re not misunderstanding. I told you she was flighty, but you really have to know her to know what I mean. She was christened Bernice after her grandmother, but she didn’t like that name, so she started calling herself Bambi after she saw the Disney movie when she was a child. Now she even uses it as her legal name.”

      “My word.” Eve murmured. “She certainly is creative.” It was the only way she could think of to describe the muddled impression she was getting of his ex-wife.

      “Oh yes, she is that,” he agreed as he helped her off with her coat. His strong hand touched her shoulder, totally by accident she was sure, but it sent a tingle down her spine.

      “I have fresh coffee made,” he said as he hung the coat in the closet of the small entryway. “If you’d like to go sit down in the living room, I’ll bring the cups and things out.”

      She’d smelled the coffee perking the minute she stepped inside the house, and she wasn’t going to be coy about accepting a cup. She needed something to keep her wide awake and shrewd enough to deal with this man.

      “Let me help,” she said, and followed him into the kitchen. There she saw a carafe, china cups, saucers, sugar, creamer and silver spoons arranged on a tray. She was sure this wasn’t the way he had his coffee when he was alone. He’d gone to some trouble to make things nice for her.

      He accepted her offer without hesitation. “If you really want to, you can bring the can of soda and the glass of ice over there on the counter. That’s for Tinker.”

      She picked up the items and walked into the living room, where Gray set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the sofa that faced the brick fireplace.

      “I’d intended to light a fire,” he said, motioning for her to sit down, “but I had some errands to run after I picked Tinker up at school, and by the time we got home, it was too late.”

      She had the distinct impression that he was grasping for small talk rather than coming to grips with the issue that had brought her here—but why?

      “Everything is just right,” she assured him as she settled herself on the couch. “But you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. Where is Tinker, by the way?”

      Gray sat down beside Eve. “She’s watching television in my office down the hall. She doesn’t have many friends. Once in a while she’ll bring a classmate home with her, or she’ll be invited to go to someone else’s house, but mostly she keeps to herself. I think it’s her poor grades. She doesn’t want to talk about them with the other students, so she remains aloof.”

      Eve felt a stab of compassion. “Oh, the poor child,” she murmured. “She really does need help. That type of thing can damage her self-image for a lifetime.”

      “I’m well aware of that,” Gray said. “But there’s something I have to tell you before we go any further with this.”

      He shifted nervously on the cushion. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tinker last evening about having her tutored.”

      Eve’s eyes widened with dismay. “But you promised—”

      “I know,” he said mournfully, “and I had every intention of doing it, but when I left the school after talking with you I got a call on my cell phone from