by Donna Fasano
Derrick grinned down at him. "You're welcome, pal," he said. And then he took off his hat and placed it on Timmy's head.
"I can wear it?" Timmy asked. "Even outside?"
"Sure," Derrick told him. "Just be careful."
"Great! See ya after recess!" And Timmy disappeared down the hallway with the others.
"You know," Anna said when the room was silent, "thanks to you and that hat, Timmy will be king of the playground today."
"I hope so," he said. "That's why I came." Then his dark gaze intensified and his voice lowered as he added, "Well, one of the reasons, anyway."
His smile turned her knees to warm rubber again, and reaching out as nonchalantly as possible, she pressed her palm against the desktop for support.
"You... ah," she stammered, suddenly nervous as a schoolgirl, "you were great with the kids."
He chuckled, a rich sound that vibrated from deep in his chest. "And how would you know?" he asked.
Anna did her best to look affronted. "What do you mean?"
Again he laughed. "Every time I looked at you, you were gazing off into space—" he hesitated only long enough for exactly the right shock effect "—or studying my tush."
She nearly choked. "I was not!"
"My steely biceps then."
"You wish," she blatantly lied.
They stared at each other for several long seconds, his eyes glittering with a teasing light, hers mortified that he'd seen right through her all along.
Finally she decided it was futile to fib, and she pursed her lips, letting her eyes travel down the long, muscular length of him. Bringing her gaze back up to his face, she said, "Although, if I was going to be entirely truthful, I'd have to tell you that your tush is worth studying."
"And my biceps?"
She raked her gaze admiringly up one arm, across his chest, and down the other arm. "Very… steely."
Unable to keep a straight face, she chuckled, but her humor quickly faded as his mahogany eyes darkened with something mysterious. No, she realized. Mysterious described the baffling, the unknown. However, she knew without a shadow of a doubt what was radiating from him like heat from the sun.
Desire. Desire for her.
"I'm glad you think so."
His tone was thick and husky, and it raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.
He stepped toward her, sliding his palms up along her arms and over her shoulders. Gently, caressingly, he framed her face in his hands.
Anna could smell him, the scent of heated soap and spices. His lips pressed against hers in a kiss that was agonizingly sweet and soft.
She moaned, low and muted, for his ears alone.
"It's so good to see you," she whispered. "But..." She let the word trail and allowed her eyes to convey her message by darting to the open doorway and then back to his face.
"I know," he said, inching away from her. "This isn't the place. But I need you to know how much I want—"
Almost in a panic, Anna pressed her fingers to his lips. "I know," she told him in a rush.
Swallowing stiffly, she fought the overwhelming alarm that flared up inside her. She knew exactly what he was feeling, exactly what he wanted, because she wanted it too. But for some reason she couldn't bring herself to allow the words to be uttered aloud.
She pulled her top lip between her teeth as she searched frantically for some way to conquer the wave of anxiety that had blindsided her.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly.
"Mmm-hmm," she said. "I'm fine." But her voice was squeaky with nerves.
Her gaze lowered and she found herself staring at the perfectly straight creases that ran down the length of his trousers.
"You're not planning on helping to make pizza dough in your uniform, are you?" she asked, desperate to turn the topic to some safer, more neutral ground. "We're talking flour here. And tomato sauce."
"Oh, no," he assured her. "I brought some civvies... ah, civilian clothes." He chuckled and clarified further by saying, "Casual clothes. They're in that bag." He indicated a zippered gym bag he'd left by the door.
"Good," she said, knowing that focusing on the mundane, the normalcy of her job, was helping her to overcome whatever it had been that had just flashed through her a moment ago. "Because I suspect we'll have flour flying every which way when the kids get back from recess."
"In fact," he said, backing away from her even further, "why don't I find the little boys' room and change my clothes."
It was so obvious to Anna that her sudden change in behavior had him confused. She thought it was best that they separate, if only for a few moments, so they could both cool off and she could get herself together.
"I'll be happy to show you—" She stopped, a better idea coming to her. "Why don't you use the adult rest room that's right off the teachers' lounge? You'll be more comfortable there." She forced a smile. "The facilities are normal-size, and you won't have to worry about being interrupted by a dozen different students. Come on, I'll show you."
The heels of her shoes clicked hollowly on the tile floor of the hallway. She paused at the door of the teachers' lounge.
"Here you go," she said. "I have to make a quick trip to the cafeteria for some supplies. I'll meet you back at the room."
"Sounds like a plan."
As she walked away, she couldn't get the image of his frowning face from her mind. She enjoyed being with him so very much. He made her feel so... wonderful. Inside and out. He wanted her. It was so obvious. He'd have said the words had she not stopped him. But—
The manager of the school cafeteria met Anna at the door, keeping her from contemplating her thoughts further. Hetta was a woman who loved to cook and loved to eat. She enjoyed planning nutritious meals for the children just as much as she enjoyed making the huge amounts of food necessary to feed all the students who bought a hot lunch every day.
Hetta helped Anna load a large, wheeled cart with big, stainless steel mixing bowls, glass measuring cups and spoons for mixing. Then they loaded another cart with flour, a jug of water, yeast, pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni and various julienne vegetables that Anna had prepped the previous evening.
"I'll have the ovens heated and ready for you when you need them," Hetta told her.
"Thanks," she said.
Anna pushed one cart in front of her and pulled the other behind, as she slowly and carefully made her way back to her classroom.
"Hey, hold up there," Derrick called, jogging down the hall to catch up with her. "Let me help you."
She smiled her thanks, and was relieved to find that the air was free of the thick angst that had been there a few minutes ago. Putting a little space between them had been a good idea.
She allowed him to take one of the carts, and they maneuvered them one at a time through the doorway and into her classroom.
"I really can't thank you enough for coming in to help me," she told him as she unloaded the mixing bowls and other cooking utensils and placed them on the worktable at the back of the room. "It's getting harder and harder to find a room mother. Room parent," she quickly amended along with a smile of apology.
Derrick grinned. "A couple of my friends gave me a hard time about the title." He, too, began to unload his cart onto the worktable.
"With the way the economy is these days," Anna went on with her small talk, "it's almost necessary for both mothers and fathers to work in order to make ends meet. But that makes it tough for teachers who need volunteer help in the classroom."
"I can understand the problem," he said. "But do you really believe the economy is to blame?"
Anna was quiet a moment as she contemplated his question. "Well, I do know that kids today have more 'things' than in the past. And everything seems to have a name brand on it, which makes shoes, clothes, sneakers—whatever—more expensive." She paused. "I don't know if all that is necessary, but it seems to be what the children want. And it's only natural that their parents want to give it to them."
S
he bent down to retrieve the large mixing spoons on the second shelf of her cart. "In a perfect world," she said softly, "I'm sure there would be fewer things to buy and more time to spend with loved ones."
The spoons rattled as she placed them on the table. "On the other hand—" she glanced over at him "—I wouldn't want someone to tell me I had to stop working toward a career simply because I'm a woman and I choose to have children."
"I'm not touching that can of worms with a ten-foot pole," he said.
They chatted on, and Anna realized sometime during their conversation that they had once again found a comfortable and easy rapport.
The children clamored back into the room with cacophonous confusion.
"Guard the worktable with your life," she murmured to Derrick. "Don't let anyone touch anything. I need to make sure everyone washes up."
"Aye, aye, Captain."
Anna couldn't stop the smile that curled her lips at the sight of his small, sharp salute. She would have liked to let her gaze linger on him a moment longer, but duty called.
"Okay, everyone," she called. "Let's line up and wash our hands at the sink. Use soap. Scrub those hands really well, and then please put on your art smocks. We don't want to go home with pizza sauce stains on our clothes."
Standing sentinel over the children as they cleaned their hands, Anna glanced toward the back of the room where Derrick stood. A few of the kids had washed up, were into their smocks and were drawn to the worktable like slivers of iron to a horseshoe-shaped magnet.
She grinned, admiring the job he was doing keeping her students back from the table. Derrick patiently answered the kazillion-and-one questions she knew her students could easily come up with. He was definitely holding his own.
When the last child had tossed his paper towel into the wastepaper basket, Anna joined Derrick and the rest of the boys and girls at the back of the room.
"Okay," she said, "let's make pizza dough!" She reached for the bag of flour. "We need people for measuring, people for dumping, people for mixing." She glanced at Derrick. "When you have so many children and so few jobs, you learn to break everything down so everyone gets to have a job." She smiled at the sea of faces. "And everyone does want to help, right?"
"Yes!" came the resounding reply.
"Mr. Richmond, if you could make one large batch of dough at your end of the table," she said, "and I make one here, we should have enough to go around."
She handed him a recipe she'd found called Pizza for a Crowd.
"I'll dissolve the yeast in water," she told them. "The temperature of the liquid is very important. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. If the water is too cold, it will stunt its growth."
April looked up at her teacher. "What is yeast?"
"If you can kill it, does that mean it's alive?" another student asked.
"It looks like sand," Timmy said. Then he laughed. "Miss Maxwell's puttin' sand in our pizza!"
Some of the children hooted, others expressed a strong distaste for the idea.
"All right, settle down," Anna said. "Actually, April, yeast is—"
"May I, Miss Maxwell?"
Anna's brows rose as she caught Derrick's eye. He seemed terribly eager to join in on the conversation, and she couldn't have been more pleased.
"By all means, Mr. Richmond," she said. "Go ahead and explain."
"Yeast is a living organism," he told the children. "When it's fed with some warm water and a little sweetener, such as sugar or honey, then it gives off a gas and makes bubbles that cause the dough to rise."
"It gives off gas?" Timmy asked, obviously intrigued by the idea.
"Yeah," Andrew piped up, laughing, "just like my grandfather does when he comes to visit." Then as an aside he added, "My mom hates it when he farts."
"Andrew," Anna warned with enough sternness to stop the snickers of the other boys and girls, "another rude comment like that, and you'll be in time-out."
Derrick went on to tell the kids about the gluten in the flour, and Anna was simply amazed at how easily he related cooking to actual science. It was exactly what she wanted her students to learn from this project.
When the dough was mixed, they set it aside to rise while they discussed the other ingredients, the sauce, the vegetables, the pepperoni, the cheese. The adults fielded dozens of questions, everything from how the cheese was made, to the nutritional value of mushrooms and green peppers. Finally the children were given small pieces of the dough which they kneaded and flattened into rounds that they topped with sauce, cheese and vegetables or meat.
"Make certain that you use veggie strips or meat strips to form your initials in your pizza," Anna instructed her students. "Otherwise, we won't be able to tell which pizza belongs to you."
While the kids busied themselves perfecting their pizzas, Anna and Derrick took the opportunity to wash their hands at the sink.
"I have to tell you," she whispered, "I'm very impressed by how much you know about cooking."
"Well, I have to admit that I didn't know much about it until recently," he confessed. "When I had to start cooking meals for Timmy, I went about learning how, thoroughly and very... systematically."
Anna grinned. "You're an analytical type," she said. "Just like Timmy. Did you notice how interested he was in how yeast works? He likes to systematically discover how things work, too. Just like you. You and Timmy have a lot in common."
Derrick glanced over at his godson. "You know, I think you're right."
The tone in his voice told Anna that he hadn't realized it before.
"Now me?" she quipped. "I'd have gone straight to YouTube."
She dried her hands, tossed the paper towel and then offered one to Derrick. He accepted it, but she didn't release it immediately.
His dark gaze met hers, and she felt an odd cessation of time. A raw hunger curled deep in her belly, and she fought the urge to reach out and caress his cheek.
This man, from their very first meeting, had caused her emotions to run riot. From sheer and terrifying panic, to bold and desperate desire and a thousand emotions in between, Derrick made her feel with a depth of emotion she'd never before experienced.
"Thanks," she said, knowing that the one tiny word she'd meant to use to show her gratitude for his help with the pizza project was evincing so much more.
"Believe me—" his voice was rusty "—I've enjoyed myself today with you and the kids."
Mesmerized by his gorgeous eyes, Anna didn't release her hold on the paper towel until her concentration was intruded upon by one of her students.
"I'm all done," April said.
"Me, too," Billy shouted. "Can we draw on the blackboard?"
"Sure," Anna told them, striving to recover from this heavy, trancelike fog that had enveloped her. "Just until the others are finished."
Billy scrambled to the board and grabbed the largest piece of chalk. April quickly followed.
Anna focused her attention on Derrick. She felt somehow deprived as he walked away from her, taking a moment with each child to admire his or her pizza creation.
She liked the experience of being swallowed up by the thick blanket of wanting and desire he created when he was near her. She liked the way he made her feel... attractive.
Derrick laughed with Madelyn, and Anna heard him assure her that her lunch would be delicious. Then he bent over where Timmy was concentrating on spelling his initials with slivers of green pepper. Derrick was so good with the child, so good with all of the children. Fate had done a wonderful thing in making him Timmy's guardian. Derrick was an excellent father figure for Timmy—for any child. In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if Timmy didn't eventually think of Derrick as his real father. Because he certainly would make a wonderful daddy.
Anna blinked, and then her eyes opened wide as the thought jelled and solidified in her mind. Derrick would make a wonderful daddy. Hadn't she thought that from the very beginning? Hadn't she come to that conclusion after finding out about all the
changes in his life he had been willing to make—just for Timmy?
She turned to face the wall, confusion churning in her mind at a frantic pace. Her gaze scanned the brightly colored bulletin board without actually seeing a single thing in front of her face.
Derrick would make a wonderful daddy. The idea reverberated in her mind. Hadn't that been the very reason she'd meant to keep their relationship strictly professional?
The question struck her like a physical blow.
What was she doing? How could she have thought for a single second that it was okay to flirt so openly, so outrageously with Derrick?
"I'm tellin' on you."
Anna turned at the sound of April's voice.
"Miss Maxwell!" the little girl called. "Billy's drawin' pictures of you and Mr. Richmond."
Her gaze swinging to the blackboard, Anna saw the two stick figures that Billy had outlined. The scribbled ball connecting the two figures was the child's obvious attempt to show a clasping of hands. Around the entire image, Billy had drawn a huge, lopsided heart.
"Billy," Anna called sharply, "erase that picture this instant."
She heard the near hysteria in her voice. The urge to deliver swift and stern punishment welled up in her. A horrible mixture of anger and embarrassment flooded through her, and she heard her students laughing and jeering at Billy's picture.
But she knew if she were to overreact, her behavior would be more telling to her class than if she were to keep her cool. The boys and girls she taught were very young, but they were far from stupid.
She took a deep and calming breath. Not daring to look at Derrick, she kept a tight rein on her tone as she said to Billy, "Why don't you help Mr. Richmond load the pizzas onto the cart. Then you, Timmy and Mr. Richmond can take them to the cafeteria."
It didn't take the children long to place their pizzas onto the two carts. Timmy and Billy pushed one cart, while Derrick pushed the other out of the classroom and down the hall.
Anna got the other children to help her clean up while they waited for their lunch to cook. Her hands were literally shaking as she lifted a spoon that was dusted with flour.
Dear Lord, she thought miserably. She had let her feelings for Derrick get out of hand. It hadn't been something she'd meant to do. She remembered hearing—even heeding—warning signals when she'd first met him. But she'd liked him so much, had wanted him so badly that, somewhere down the line, she'd chosen to let down her guard.