Single Dad's Christmas Miracle. Susan Meier

he’ll go. But I think this is more about him getting soft than anything to do with his mom. Twelve is a normal rebellion stage.” He winced. “I know that because I went through one myself.”

      When she pictured rebellion, she didn’t picture silence. She envisioned anger. Pouting, sure. But not the control and quiet she’d seen in that kitchen.

      Still, he’d said if she believed his son needed to talk to someone he would get him help. She couldn’t argue that.

      “So, what makes you want a temporary job?”

      “As I said, I lost my job and I’m on my way to live with my sister in Maryland. I want the extra cash to give me more time to look for a teaching job.”

      He nodded as if remembering their conversation outside.

      “Plus, she has triplets and a new husband I haven’t yet met.”

      He frowned. “You haven’t met your sister’s family?”

      She shrugged that off easily. She could answer this without giving away any of her secrets. “California’s a long way from here. I didn’t have the money to just pop home and I also couldn’t take the time off work.”

      Accepting that, he shifted on his chair, getting more comfortable, a sign that the interview was going well from his perspective.

      “Since Jack’s original homeschooling program failed, I found three excellent replacement options you can use to catch him up on this semester, but there are also some incredible subject-specific websites you can use to reinforce the material.”

      “Sounds like you’ve done your homework.”

      “Being a single parent is something like a full-time job.”

      She inclined her head. She understood what was going on. He could easily handle the concrete and the obvious. Parental duties and tasks, things he could see. Insubstantial, delicate things like talking weren’t as easily handled as getting groceries, finding homeschool programs or making lunch. He might be ignoring warning signs because he didn’t know to look for them.

      He smiled. “Do you have any questions for me?”

      “Yes. I’d like to know about Teagan.”

      “Do you mean what will Teagan do while you teach Jack?” He tossed a pencil to his desk. “I was hoping she could color in the room you and Jack use for your class work.”

      “Actually, I’m more concerned about the way she only talks to you and then only in a whisper.”

      He laughed. “She’s three-and-a-half. She’s just shy.”

      Three-and-a-half? And her mom had died three years ago? The poor thing had been only six months old when her mom died. Technically, she didn’t know her own mother. And he thought she didn’t talk because she was shy?

      “Really? You think she’s just shy?”

      “Yes. She’s fine.”

      Althea took a bite of her sandwich to stop herself from saying something she might regret. Either this guy was in complete denial about his kids or he was right.

      If he was right, if Jack was in the throes of a normal twelve-year-old rebellion and Teagan was just shy, everything would work itself out. If he wasn’t—

      Well, if he wasn’t, these kids were suffering. They might not be huddled in a closet, desperately trying to block out the sounds of their dad beating their mom the way she and her older sister Missy had been, but they were suffering. And if their dad didn’t understand, there was no one to help them.

      She knew she might be reading too much into this situation, but after her own miserable childhood, when every teacher, every neighbor, and even her grandmother missed the signs that she, her sister and her mom were in trouble, she couldn’t just walk away.

      “I’ll take the job.”

      He sat up. “Really?”

      The disbelief in his voice made her laugh. “You were afraid that when I’d realized I may also have to become your temporary housekeeper/babysitter this week, I’d refuse.”

      “I wasn’t going to ask you to do the housekeeping, but if you could at least tidy up after meals it would be a big help.”

      Drat. Her and her big mouth.

      “I have some projects at work that I should be attending to. If you could start today, I could get an afternoon of research in. I’ll work from here, of course, so you and the kids will have today to get accustomed to each other. But I really do need to catch up. I missed all of last week.”

      His hopeful voice made her shake her head. What the heck? She wasn’t doing anything else. And the sooner she sat down with these kids and tried to figure everything out, the better.

      “As long as I don’t have to cook.”

      “You can’t cook?”

      “No reason to cook when I lived alone.”

      “I’ll get takeout.”

      She glanced across the desk at him with a smile to confirm their deal, but he rose and extended his hand to shake hers. She stood up. When she took his hand, a bolt of electricity crackled up her arm. Their eyes met and from the quick glimmer in his, she knew he’d felt it as clearly as she had.

      Her gaze fell from his handsome face to his sweater-covered chest to his snug blue jeans and the crackle of electricity sparked again.

      She stifled the urge to yank her hand away. It was one thing to take a job as a live-in employee, knowing she was attracted to her employer. She’d always been able to ignore her hormones.

      But knowing he was attracted to her, too—

      Weren’t they tempting fate?

      CHAPTER TWO

      CLARK WALKED AROUND the desk. “Let’s get your things from your car and I’ll give you the grand tour of the house.”

      He motioned for her to precede him out of the den. She headed for the door and he followed, his gaze automatically dipping to her butt.

      With a wince, he forced his eyes back up again. What was he doing? Yes, Althea was pretty with her sunny yellow hair and big blue eyes, and, yes, he’d felt that zap of electricity when they shook hands, but she was now his employee.

      Even if she wasn’t, he wasn’t interested. He could have cited the usual reasons. Losing his wife so suddenly had been a shock. But discovering she’d been having an affair and that her lover was someone he’d considered a friend—that had about killed him.

      The echo of the pain of the first few months after her accident still lingered. Memories of consoling Jack, the chaos of caring for a six-month-old baby alone, the cool, empty feeling of his bed, all rose up inside him every time he thought about moving on. But none of those were as bad as the ache. The solid ball of grief that weighed him down, sat in his belly like lead, even as it competed with the hurt and humiliation of discovering she’d been having an affair.

      The woman he’d believed would love him forever, the woman who’d borne his children, had betrayed him.

      That kind of humiliation left more than a mark. It changed a man’s perspective. Caused him to make vows—and keep them.

      He would never be vulnerable again.

      Never.

      That’s why he wasn’t worried about his attraction to Jack’s new teacher. He was too smart to be tempted to even consider trusting someone again.

      Plus, her résumé might say she was twenty-eight but she looked twenty-two. He’d already been made the town laughingstock. He didn’t need to add chasing after a woman who looked too young for him.

      When he and Althea reached the front