His For Christmas. Michelle Douglas

mother, whom Morgan had thought liked Karl, had actually breathed a sigh of relief at Morgan’s breakup news.

       Darling, I do wish you’d quit looking for a father figure. It makes me feel so guilty.

      Not guilty enough, however, to postpone her vacation to Thailand so they could spend Christmas together. In lieu of sympathy over her daughter’s failed engagement her mother had given her a book.

      It was called Bliss: The Extraordinary Joy of Being a Single Woman.

      Surprisingly, given that she had initially resented the book being given to her in the place of some parental direction about how to handle a breakup, Morgan found she was thoroughly enjoying Bliss.

      It confirmed for Morgan the absolute rightness of her making the break, learning to rely only on herself to feel good. Not her boyfriend. And not her mother, either.

      Two and a half months into her teaching career and her new location in Canterbury, Morgan loved making her own decisions, living in her own home, even buying the groceries she liked without living in the shadow of a nose wrinkling in disapproval—Do you know how many grams of sugar this has in it?

      Just as Bliss had promised, every day of being an independent woman who answered to no one but herself felt like a new adventure.

      But now, as the man at the forge turned to her, Morgan was stunned to find she had no idea at all what the word adventure meant.

      Though something in the buccaneer blackness of his eyes promised he knew all about adventures so dark and mysterious they could make a woman quiver.

       One who wasn’t newly dedicated to independent living.

      Morgan fervently reminded herself of her most recent joy—the absolute freedom of picking out the funky purple sofa that Karl, and possibly her mother, too, would have hated. Amelia Ainsworthy, author of Bliss, had dedicated a whole chapter of the book to furniture selection and Morgan felt she had done her proud.

      But now that moment seemed far less magical as this man, Nate Hathoway, stood regarding her, his eyes made blacker by the flicker of the firelight, his brows drawn down in a fierce lack of welcome that echoed the sign on the door, his stance the stance of a warrior. Hard. Cynical. Unwavering.

      One hand, sinewy with strength, held a pair of tongs, metal glowed orange-hot at the end of them.

      Morgan felt her breath catch in her throat.

      Cecilia’s father, Nate Hathoway, with his classic features, strong cheekbones, flawless nose, chiseled jaw, sensuously full lips, was easily the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on.

      “Can’t you read?” he growled at her. “I’m not open to the public.”

      His voice was rough, impatient and impossibly sexy. It shivered across the back of Morgan’s neck like a touch.

      Ignoring her, he placed the hot iron on an anvil, took a hammer and plied his strength to it. She watched, dazed, at the ripple of disciplined muscle as he forced the iron to his will. His will won, with ease.

      “Um, Mr. Hathoway, I can read, and I’m not the public. I’m Cecilia’s teacher.”

      The silence was long. Finally, his sigh audible, he said, “Ah. Mrs. McGuire.” He shot her a look that seemed uncomfortably hostile and returned his attention to the metal. He doused it in a bath. It sizzled and hissed as it hit, and he turned his eyes back to her, assessing.

      Maybe it was just because they were so dark that they seemed wicked, eyes that would belong to a highwayman, or a pirate, or an outlaw, not to the father of a fragile six-year-old girl.

      Morgan drew in a deep breath. It was imperative that she remember the errand that had brought her here. The permission slip for Cecilia to participate in The Christmas Angel was in her coat pocket.

      “It’s Miss, actually. The kids insist on Mrs. I corrected them for the first few days, but I’m afraid I’ve given up. Everybody over the age of twenty-one is Mrs. to a six-year-old. Particularly if she’s a teacher.”

      She felt as if she was babbling. She realized, embarrassed, that it sounded as if she needed him to know she was single. Which she didn’t, Amelia forgive her!

      “Miss McGuire, then,” he said, not a flicker in that stern face showing the slightest interest in her marital status.

      He folded those muscular, extremely enticing arms over the massiveness of his chest, rocked back on his heels, regarded her coolly, waiting, the impatience not even thinly veiled.

      “Morgan,” she said. Why was she inviting him to call her by her first name? She told herself it was to see if she could get the barrier down in his eyes. Her mission here was already doomed if she could not get past that.

      But part of her knew that wasn’t the total truth. The total truth was that she did not want to be seen only as the new first-grade teacher, and all that implied, such as boring and prim. Part of her, weak as that part was, was clamoring for this man to see her as a woman.

      There was an Amelia Ainsworthy in her head frowning at her with at least as much disapproval as Karl ever had!

      But that’s what the devil did. Tempted. And looking at his lips, stern, unyielding, but somehow as sensual as his voice, she felt the most horrible shiver of temptation.

      “It’s obvious to me Cecilia is a child who is loved,” Morgan said. It sounded rehearsed. It was rehearsed, and thank goodness she’d had the foresight to rehearse something, or despite her disciplined nightly reading of Bliss, Morgan would be standing here struck dumb by his gorgeousness and the fact he exuded male power.

      Now, she wished she had rehearsed something without the word love in it.

      Because isn’t that what fallen angels like the man in front of her did? Tempted naive women to believe maybe love could soften something in that hard face, that maybe love could heal something that had broken?

      He said nothing, but if she had hoped to soften him by telling him she knew he loved his daughter, it had not succeeded. The lines around his mouth deepened in an expression of impenetrable cynicism.

      “Cecilia has the confidence and quickness of a child sure of her place in the world.” Originally, Morgan had planned on saying something about that quickness being channeled somewhere other than Cecilia’s fists, but now she decided to save that for a later meeting.

      Which assumed there would be a later meeting, not that anything in his face encouraged such an assumption.

      She had also planned on saying something like in light of the fact her mother had died, Cecilia’s confidence and brightness spoke volumes of the parent left behind. But somehow, her instinct warned her not to speak of the death of his wife.

      Though nothing in his body language, in the shuttered eyes, invited her to continue, Morgan pressed on, shocked that what she said next had nothing to do with the permission slip for The Christmas Angel.

      “It’s the mechanics of raising a child, and probably particularly a girl child, that might be the problem for you, Mr. Hathoway.”

      It’s none of your business, Mary Beth had warned her dourly when Morgan had admitted she might broach the subject while she was there about the permission slip. You’re here to teach, not set up family counseling services.

      Morgan did not think sending the odd note home qualified as family counseling services. Though Nate Hathoway’s failure to respond to the notes should have acted as warning to back off, rather than invitation to step in.

      Obviously, he was a man who did not take kindly to having his failings pointed out to him, because his voice was colder than the Connecticut wind that picked that moment to shriek under the eaves of the barn.

      “Maybe you’d better be specific about the problem, Miss McGuire.”