Karen Sandler - Her Baby's Hero

She glared at him. “I’m not helpless.”

“Where to?”

With a huff of impatience, she started off across a thick green lawn that fronted the school, past the brick-fronted school office to the asphalt playground beyond. Rows of classrooms bordered three sides of the playground, and bright-white chalk delineated a baseball diamond in a green field beyond. The September-morning coolness still lingered, although low eighties had been forecast.

For a woman six months pregnant with twins, she walked remarkably fast. She held her shoulders stiffly, the small purse she had tucked under her arm squeezed tight against her side.

They reached the farthest row of classrooms, and he followed her up the ramp that led to the door. Diving in her purse for a set of keys, she fumbled with the lock.

He set the box down and reached for the keys. “Give them to me.”

She yanked them away. “I can do it.” She fished through the ring, then jabbed a key in the lock. It wouldn’t turn.

“Ashley—” He put his hand out again for the keys.

“No!” Her fingers wrapped tight around the jangling ring. “I’ll do it!”

But she just stood there, her soft mouth in a tight line, her fingers woven in the metal keys. He’d caused this; he’d made her angry without even knowing why or how. A typical blunder for him. He could suss out the deepest buried intentions of a business opponent, but when it came to women, he was a stumbling bull.

She fished through the keys again. The one she selected fit in the lock and turned. Her hand on the knob, she pushed open the door, but blocked his way into the room. “I don’t want you here, Jason. I know you’re the babies’ father, that you deserve to be involved. But I wish you’d stayed in San José.”

“I’m not leaving,” he told her flatly. “Not without you.”

“I have a life here. A good one. For me and the babies.”

He struggled to hold on to his patience. “Let me inside. I’ll help you with your classroom.”

The sheen of tears in her eyes shocked him. “I can’t have you here.”

“We have to come to some kind of agreement.”

She rubbed her eyes before a tear could fall. “I know. We have to talk.”

She had to know he couldn’t just walk away. “Let me inside.”

She stood frozen a moment more, then she relented, stepping inside the classroom and leaving the door open. Hefting the box again, he entered, shutting the door behind him.

An eclectic selection of posters were already tacked to the wall, of dolphins and tall redwoods and celebrities encouraging the children to read. Tables arranged in a U, two chairs at each, surrounded a carpet filled with cartoon characters.

There was a tear in the carpet, and the tables were stained with ink and paint. The bookcases that lined the walls were riddled with nicks and gouges. Nothing like the private schools where he’d been educated, where everything was bright and new, always in perfect condition.

One phone call and he could get Ashley a job at any of the most exclusive private schools in the Bay Area. How could she pass up such tantalizing bait? He considered making the proposition, but as upset as she was, she might not be as receptive as she could be. He tucked that idea away as he set the box on the table nearest her desk.

“What grade are you teaching?” he asked.

“Second. I have nineteen students.”

“What can I do?” he asked.

He thought she might ask him again to get out of her life. But instead, her gaze narrowed on him. “Leaves.” Her mouth curved in a faint smile. “I need 150 of them.”

Uncomprehending, he shook his head. “Leaves.”

Behind her, construction paper lay in stacks on top of a low bookshelf. She gathered up a sheaf of red, orange and brown paper and dumped it on the table near her desk. Setting a leaf-shaped pattern, a pencil and a pair of scissors beside the construction paper, she pulled out one of the minuscule chairs.

“Leaves. Fifty in each color. There’s plenty more paper if you need it.”

He hadn’t played with paper and scissors since…maybe he never had. All those exclusive private schools stuck to the academic basics, training the next generation of tycoons. There was little room in the curriculum for arts and crafts.

As he wedged himself into the tiny chair and slid a sheet of orange construction paper over, he glanced at Ashley, now unloading the canvas bag and box. Her gaze locked with his, and the faint curve of her mouth widened to a genuine smile. “If you do well with the leaves, I’ll promote you to tree trunks.”

Her smile set off an ache inside him he didn’t understand. Something about her soft brown eyes, the way the sunshine spilling in from the wall of windows turned her silky hair to gold made him feel…lonely.

He pushed aside the useless emotion. “A hundred and fifty leaves,” he said, picking up the scissors, “coming up.”

As she flipped through the workbook she’d brought and wrote out lesson plans at her desk, Ashley indulged in another surreptitious glance over at Jason as he worked. A twinge of guilt started up inside her again that she’d given him such endless, mindless duty to keep him busy.

It hadn’t been revenge so much as self-defense. He’d unsettled her from the moment he’d arrived at her door this morning in his snug red polo and crisp navy slacks. There wasn’t anything suggestive about what he wore; he was the picture of the hard-driving CEO, a bit intimidating, a lot exasperating. It was his dark-blond hair— so impeccably neat it begged to be mussed. Her fingers itched to rearrange it.

Lack of sleep and crazed hormones sent her mind wandering in such dangerous directions. She truly didn’t want to know how that red knit would feel under her hand, what she’d see in his eyes if she touched him. So she used his trick—aloof coolness, putting as high a wall around herself as he did around his emotions.

But watching him with the scissors and construction paper, that blond hair still in desperate need of mussing, she knew she couldn’t hold up barriers against him for very long. She just didn’t have his knack of keeping people at arm’s length.

His angular body might not fit well in the mini-size chair, knees nearly to his chin, broad shoulders towering over the chair back, but he seemed surprisingly at home tracing and cutting out leaves Ashley’s students would be using their first week of class. He focused on the activity as he did everything else—single-mindedly and with precision, as if his company’s bottom line depended on the completion of the task.

Some men might have considered such a trivial chore beneath them. He hadn’t complained, hadn’t argued, had just sat down to do it.

Her stomach rumbled, and she realized she never had gotten around to eating that banana. When she’d refused Jason’s offer of breakfast, she hadn’t been completely honest. While her body didn’t always respond well to rich food, even in her sixth month, she wouldn’t have said no to a pastry from Archer’s Bakery if her sister had bought it for her. It was harder to accept Jason’s generosity.

But her stomach’s call for sustenance trumped her misgivings over the significance of Jason’s gesture. Something buttery and sweet from that pink bakery box would be absolute heaven.

“Jason.”

He looked up at her, setting aside the scissors and flexing his hands. “Ten more to do in brown and orange.”

“I’d be glad to finish them if you’ll go get the pastries.”

The tiny chair tipped over as he rose, and he righted it before straightening. He winced as he stretched his shoulders back.

Ashley pushed to her feet. “I’m sorry. I never should have had you sit in that chair.”