The Runaway Princess. Patricia Forsythe

him as she pressed forward over his shoulder. “This says that I have specialized training in diagnosing and solving reading difficulties.”

      He gave her another one of those “back-off” looks and asked, “Do you have any training in washing dishes?”

      Alexis stared blankly into his deep brown eyes for a few seconds, then looked at the dirty plates and cups on the table. She straightened immediately. “Oh, of course. Um, you’d like to read these things without me chattering away at you, wouldn’t you?”

      “Yes.” He stood and gathered them up. “And I need to talk to the other members of the school board.”

      Hope flooded her face and joy sparkled in her eyes. “You mean there’s a chance you’ll change your mind and let me stay?”

      “I mean I’ll talk to the other members of the school board.”

      She would have to be satisfied with that, so she swallowed the little lump of disappointment and gave him a bright smile as she held up her hands, palms outward, “Fine. Fine. Go right ahead.”

      “I intend to.” He turned away. “I’ll be in my office.”

      Before he left the kitchen, Alexis took a quick look around. “Um, where’s the dishwasher?”

      For the first time, she saw a hint of amusement in his face. His craggy features rearranged themselves into what must pass for a smile. Taking a step back to her, he reached out and lifted her hand by the wrist. He held it in front of her face and said, “You’re looking at it, kid.”

      She started at the hard warmth of his touch and her gaze flew to meet his. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Why had he done that?

      The flash of humor she’d seen vanished. Jace looked into her eyes as if he was asking himself the same question. Hastily, he dropped her hand and turned to stride from the kitchen. “I have to make some phone calls.”

      When he was gone, Alexis stared blindly around the room, then moved to clear the table. Why had he touched her? She found it vaguely disturbing. It made her think of him as someone other than a boss, someone she had to convince to let her stay. His touch made her think of him as a man.

      Silly, she thought. She was overreacting, that was all. Just fearful that he wouldn’t let her stay. Pushing her disturbing thoughts away, she began clearing the table.

      “Jace, I think you’re overreacting,” Martha Singleton told him in a flat tone.

      “You do?” Jace sat with his elbows propped on the desk as he talked to the woman who was the regular teacher of Sleepy River Community School—on the years she wasn’t having a baby.

      “Yes. First of all, where are we going to find someone at this late date? If the one we hired didn’t show up and another, qualified teacher did, I don’t see that we have anything to worry about. Check her references. If they’re okay, she’s okay. Believe me when I say qualified teachers willing to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains for the amount of money we can pay aren’t exactly thick on the ground.”

      Jace scratched his chin. “I guess you’re right,” he said in a reluctant drawl. He paused and he could feel Martha waiting for him to go on. In the background, he could hear her three-week-old son fussing, wanting his mother’s attention.

      “So, what is the problem, then?” she asked.

      Jace knew she was too polite to say so, but he was wasting her time. “No problem,” he said, with more decisiveness than he felt. “I’ll check her references. Sounds like you need to get back to that baby of yours.”

      “Demanding little stinker,” she said fondly. “Tell you what, if her references check out okay, but you’re still worried, I can go watch her teach. If she’s totally incompetent, we don’t have to keep her.”

      It was a slim thread, but Jace grasped it gratefully. “Sure, Martha. That sounds good. We don’t want a teacher who’s incompetent.”

      Only he had a feeling Alexis wasn’t incompetent. Jace hung up the phone and gloomily stared out the window in the direction of the schoolhouse.

      In spite of her tendency to run into walls, back into mailbox posts and set fires, there was something about her that seemed capable of handling anything, even the challenges of their local school.

      Admit it, sucker, he thought. It wasn’t her capabilities that worried him. It was her presence, the way she had looked at him a little while ago as if she’d never seen anything like him. No doubt, she hadn’t. To him, she appeared to be accustomed to much more sophisticated surroundings than Sleepy River, Arizona.

      She disturbed him, had done so since the moment he’d looked into those eyes of hers. Touching her hand had rocked him back on his heels.

      He was reluctant to have her around, but as Martha had said, where were they going to find someone else at this late date? Grumbling, he reached for the phone to contact her references.

      Why did it have to be Alexis Chastain, though?

      Chapter Three

      “Okay, the job’s yours,” Jace said abruptly half an hour later.

      Alexis started and turned from the sink where she’d been rinsing the dishcloth after wiping down the counter for the sixth time. She’d had to fight the temptation to listen at the door of his office. In fact, she’d begun tiptoeing in that direction, but a squeaking floorboard in the dining room had announced itself loudly and sent her scurrying back to the kitchen.

      Resigned to wait, she had instead done the washing up, wiped the table and the counter and swept the floor. Her sisters, and most of the people employed at the palace, would have howled with laughter at the sight. Bevins, the palace manager, who’d been an English butler in another life, would have been appalled. Esther, her lady-in-waiting, would have called for smelling salts.

      “I do?” she asked with a delighted grin.

      “Looks like it,” he responded with a shrug.

      “Thank you. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.” Alexis stepped forward excitedly and reached out to shake his hand. She’d forgotten to put down the dishcloth, though, so he got a fistful of wet rag. He grimaced and her face flushed scarlet.

      “Oh! I’m sorry,” she cried, turning away to throw it into the sink. They both wiped damp hands on their jeans while she gave him an apologetic look.

      “As I was saying,” Jace nodded toward the papers he’d laid on the edge of the table. “Your references checked out, though a couple of them seemed to think it was pretty funny to hear you wanted a job here.”

      Nervousness fluttered in her stomach. Alexis folded her hands and gave him a cautious look. “They did?”

      “Especially one of your professors who said he thought you were in Europe.” He gave her a sharply inquisitive look as he raised a dark brow. Again he reminded her of that painting in the palace’s long gallery. It took her a second, but she finally recalled that ancestor’s name. Hedrick. They’d called him Hedrick the Henchman.

      Her gaze skittered away from Jace’s. If she remembered correctly, Hedrick had been fond of the technology of the time, most significantly, anything to do with the latest thing in torture devices.

      “Were you?”

      She blinked at him. “Was I what?”

      “In Europe.”

      “Oh, that. Yes. Yes, I was. Family business.”

      He gave her another measured look. “Exactly what kind of business is your family in?”

      Alexis’s smile froze. Her mind scrambled over scenes of the past months; her father working with the national council late into the night, her sisters making endless rounds of social gatherings to convince the people of their tiny country