by Natalie Ann
“My first year I taught sixth graders. That was hard, probably my toughest year.”
“Really? I would have thought they would be the easiest.”
“Actually, no. Preteen is the worst age group, at least for school. Getting them ready for junior high, all those hormones, and they all think they are little adults and know everything. It’s hard to find the balance between showing them something and teaching it to them.”
“What’s the difference?” he asked, frowning.
“I could show them how to do a math problem, but that doesn’t mean they would learn how to do it on their own. Except no one wants to ask for help at that age. So it was finding the best way to teach them, or teach them how to figure it out on their own. I’m wasting my time and theirs if I show them something they don’t understand.”
He’d never thought of it that way before. Not in school, and not even now as an adult. It showed a lot about her character as a person, not to mention a teacher, bringing back thoughts of how she was with people. Not caring for them, but teaching them to care for themselves, he reminded himself again.
“So what about first grade, then? You said you were there for years. How was that age group?”
She smiled tenderly, and he understood the comment Brynn made about Carly wearing her heart on her sleeve. “That was a blast. First graders are just so excited to be in school. Their attention span isn’t the greatest though. They want to play and spend more time at recess than learning. Which is hard since first grade is when most kids learn to read, and you really need to reach them then before they get behind.”
“So how did you reach them?”
“How do you know I did?”
He knew. He had no doubt she’d found a way. “I just do.”
She shrugged. “Different ways. Each child was different, but the key was making it fun. As long as the kids were having fun, they didn’t even realize they were learning half the time. Then when they realized they were learning, they were so excited they wanted to continue.”
“I wish I’d had a teacher like you growing up. All I’ve got are memories of stern yelling for everyone to be quiet and do their work.”
“Plenty of teachers are like that. I just learned that yelling doesn’t make the kids learn any better than showing them how to do something without teaching. Always a fine line.”
“Okay, so what do you like so much about fourth grade?” For the life of him he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with her, or enjoying it so much. Carly was just so much fun to be around, like that first ray of sunshine after a long winter of clouds and snow.
“This grade is the right mix. The kids want to be in school to learn and to have fun. They know the importance of school and are figuring out how to balance it all. They’re eager, I guess you could say.”
Eager, that was a good word. One he was feeling right now, especially as she pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store. She got out of her door and walked around the back of the car toward him, and he couldn’t help himself. He had her up against the car, his body against hers, his hands around her waist, smiling wide at her stunned expression. “I guess I can relate to the fourth graders then.”
“How’s that?” she gasped out, her eyes roaming over his face, to his eyes, then stopping at his lips. He read the desire in her expression now.
“I’m pretty eager to kiss you.” Lowering his lips to hers, he nibbled on the corner of her mouth, brought his tongue out to trace her lips, then slid in when she opened for him. There was nothing slow and steady right now, no matter how much he tried to remind himself he needed to take it down a level. Pace himself.
She lifted her hands and wound them around his waist, then held on as he continued to kiss her, not stopping until they heard someone clear their throat in the parking lot. He’d completely forgotten where they were.
Raising his head, he grinned down at her heavy-lidded eyes, the parting of her mouth, and the panting of her breath. Oh yeah, he was feeling the same way. “Guess we need that ice to cool down ourselves.”
She turned scarlet red in that instant and he burst out laughing. She really was just that cute.
***
“What took you so long?”
“What did you say?” Carly asked Brynn. They returned back to her house with several bags of ice to find that all the furniture in the family room seemed to finally be the way Brynn wanted.
“I asked what took so long. I finished putting all of my clothes away ten minutes ago. It shouldn’t have taken you more than fifteen minutes to get ice and you two have been gone for over thirty. You didn’t stop for a quickie, did you?”
“Brynn,” Carly scolded, then felt the heat creep up her neck. Of course she didn’t stop for a quickie. She’d never done that a day in her life. Blow off her responsibilities for sex. Her? Never.
“What?” Brynn asked innocently. “I wouldn’t have cared. Hell, I might have done it myself. I still might steal Alec away to the bathroom for a few minutes if I get the opportunity.”
“A few minutes, huh? I always knew he was fast,” Ben Harper said from behind Carly. She had no idea where he came from. She’d never even heard him approach, which was odd since he was big and wearing boots. She had to force her body to relax though. He was harmless, and she knew that, regardless of how nervous he always made her.
Brynn laughed at her brother-in-law. “Great. You are the last person that should have heard that statement.”
Ben walked over and tugged a lock of Brynn’s hair. “All’s fair in the Harper family.” He turned his head and winked at Carly, and she tried not to blush. “You should have realized that when you married Alec,” he said, returning his attention to Brynn.
“You have to watch out for Ben, Carly. He likes to sneak up on people and find out all their secrets. Then he holds them over their heads.”
Ben winked again, then turned his smile back to Carly. “Brynn doesn’t have any secrets, does she?”
Carly smiled back, relaxing even more. As intimidating as Ben looked, she could tell he was going out of his way to be really nice to her. Almost as if he knew she was leery of him, and she appreciated that. “You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”
“Nope,” he replied back. “But you didn’t deny she had them, so now I just need to figure them out.”
He opened the cooler next to Brynn on the deck where the two girls had been talking, pulled out a couple of beers and saluted them on the way back into the house.
“Great. Now I need to watch everything I say for a while,” Brynn complained.
“Why?”
“Because Ben has a way of finding out everything about everyone and no one ever knows how.”
“You’ve got nothing to hide. What do you care?”
“True, but still.” Brynn shrugged, reached her hand forward and quickly tugged on Carly’s. “I know you’re a little timid around Ben, but there is no reason to be. He’s really a sweetheart.”
“I know. I see that now. And I saw that last week when I went to volunteer at Albany Med.” Carly remembered Ben showing up in the Pediatric Unit and how he walked around talking to all the kids. How all the kids—the girls especially, but the boys too—looked up to Ben and looked forward to his visits. She had to stop letting people’s appearance dictate how she formed opinions of them. What made her afraid of him was in the past, and she had to keep it there.
“Enough about my brother-in-law and back to my original question. What took you so long to get ice?”
Carly blushed again. Darn Brynn for being so single-minded at times. “Nothing, it was busy there. That’s all.” No way was she telling Brynn that she was making out with Sean in the parking lot. Or again in the driveway when they got back. They were lucky half the ice wasn’t melted by time they carried it back to the deck.
“I don’t believe you, but I’ll let it go. Maybe I should figure out Ben’s secret on how he finds out so much about people. I’m sur
e he knows what took you so long,” Brynn said.
Unfortunately Carly was afraid that might be the case, because when they finally started to grab the ice from the trunk, Ben had appeared out of nowhere to help and asked if there was a problem with her car. When Sean laughed in response and didn’t answer, Carly was confused and asked why.
Ben replied with, “I thought there might have been a problem with your trunk, it took you long enough to get it open.”
Sensitive
“Okay, you win. Hands down, this is the best homemade bread I’ve ever eaten.” Carly took another bite, savoring the warm bread with the butter melting on top. “How did you get it so crispy on the outside and so light and airy on the inside?”
“Callahan secret,” Sean replied, smirking at her and looking way too sexy for a man who’d just baked a loaf of fresh bread for her.
His mother’s care package had arrived on Tuesday morning. Sean said that since he knew he was going to have so much, he really wanted to share it with her…if she wanted to. Of course she did. But she wasn’t ready to go to his house yet, so he brought it all to hers.
Last Saturday, after everything was moved exactly as Brynn wanted it and Isabel cooked a feast of food, the entire group of Alec’s family and friends, along with their spouses, showed up to relax and hang out for a little while.
Carly had never been one for big crowds before. Even though she was a teacher and around people a lot, they were little people in her mind. Children that looked up to her, that needed her and her guidance. She had no problem communicating with children—that came naturally to her.
Adults, not so much. Brynn was easy. They’d known each other for years and could talk about anything. But the rest of the group intimidated her. Not just their social standing, but also their sheer size, both as a group and individually.
Thankfully, Sean stayed by her side all night. Almost like they were a couple, just like the rest of the group. Of course, they had only been on two dates, but still, they felt like a couple to her, and everyone treated them as such, too.
Not to mention, she’d never thought she’d feel comfortable in a group of large and intimating men, but having Sean next to her made it easier somehow.
The Harper men were all a few inches over six feet. Brynn’s brother-in-law, Ryan Mathews, and his brother, Lucas, were taller than the Harper brothers. And Lucas’s brother-in-law, Mac Malone, was the same height as Lucas. But the biggest of them all was Jack Reynolds, friend to everyone there. He had to be over six foot five easily and was just huge. Carly kept her distance from him. He was way too quiet and unnerved her too much, even though his wife, Cori, was tiny. And it did seem like Cori had Jack wrapped around her finger. Either way, Carly, still stayed away.
By the end of the night though, Carly had relaxed enough to not jump whenever Jack talked. That was a big step in her mind. Again, she kept fighting the urge to leave with all those big men around her. Yet she stayed. She hated to say they all seemed harmless to her, but they did.
A voice inside her wouldn’t relent. The bigger a man was, the meaner he could get, and the faster he could snap. She’d seen it enough, so she made sure she was aware at all times what was going on around her.
She’d wished the kids were there. She would have enjoyed them again, like she did at Brynn’s wedding. But she understood that everyone wanted a night without their children for a short period of time. Working around kids all the time, she knew adults needed their time alone too.
When some of the couples with families decided to leave, she got up too. Sean had stood up with her and walked her out. Next to her car again, he kissed her with as much heat as he had earlier. This time she looked around to make sure there were no witnesses.
Then she went on her merry way. That night in bed, she’d found herself thinking more and more about Sean. How he felt in her arms. How he made her feel.
Safe. She’d used that word before with Brynn. But after he stayed by her side all day, she’d felt it even more. She felt positive he had no idea why she was skittish around the men. But he stayed by her side, and somehow his presence relaxed her and let her enjoy her time with everyone.
On Sunday morning he’d called her. “How’d you like to go for a ride across the state border to Vermont and look at the fall foliage?” She’d thought it was an odd suggestion coming from a man. Not that she didn’t love the changing of the seasons, but she’d never known a man to make that suggestion for a date.
“I’d love to.” Anything to spend time with him. So he picked her up, they went for a ride, had a nice late lunch, talked the entire time about things in their lives and then he brought her home.
Of course he didn’t leave before he kissed her again. He traced his finger along her jaw. “You have the most delicious looking mouth,” he said before lowering his head. She was getting addicted to his kisses. His lips so soft and tender, his grasp of her so firm. Such a contradiction, and yet she found herself craving more of it.
She’d never liked being held so tight before. Or caged in. But he’d done it a few times against her car the day before, and against the wall right then. Surprisingly she found it more arousing than fearful.
Yesterday morning he’d sent her a text after his mother called him regarding her care package. She’d been teaching when the text came in, so she didn’t see it until her lunch break, but she didn’t hesitate to accept.
So here she sat, eating delicious home-baked bread with a nice salad. Not just some lettuce thrown in a bowl with tomatoes and cucumbers, but tons of vegetables mixed in.
Reaching for the salad dressing, she asked, “Do you really like a salad this much? Or was this to impress me?”
He laughed. Such a soft little chuckle. She was learning it was his way of saying “caught.” “I’m not sure I would say I like salad a lot, but I eat it. Remember, working in a pub I’ve seen my fair share of dishes. Women like salads loaded with stuff. At least that is what I learned, or my sisters have said enough times.”
This time she laughed. He was a good sport about it all with his sisters. As much as he joked about them calling and bugging him, it was always said with love. She could see that. “Well, I appreciate it. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but I guess the same could be said for a woman.”
He looked startled for a moment, and suddenly she realized what she said and quickly amended, “That came out wrong. I’m not saying you’re trying to get to my heart. I mean, no, I’m not saying you are trying to woo me.” She covered her face with her hands. “Forget it. It always comes out of my mouth differently than what’s in my head.”
“Don’t worry. I knew what you meant. Why do you always get so paranoid when you think you say something I might not like?”
Getting worse and worse. Now she really needed to change the subject, and fast. Shrugging as nonchalantly as she could, she said, “Sorry. I just stumble around adults, I think. Comes from spending too much time around kids. That’s what Brynn always picks on me about.”
His smile led her to believe he was buying what she was saying, which was good.
Halfway through their soup, which she had to admit was the best potato and ham soup she’d ever had too, Sean’s phone rang. He looked at the caller and winced, then pressed the silence button. “Everything okay?”
“Sure. It would be rude to answer the phone on a date. Don’t you know that?” he asked, joking with her.
“Not if it’s important.”
“It’s not, trust me. It’s my mother.”
“Oh. Maybe you should get it.”
“Nope. I’ll call her later. Besides, watching me talk to my mother is a surefire way to diminish my manhood in your eyes.”
There was no way he could do that, not to her, but she wanted to know. “Why’s that?”
“Trust me. My mother will find a way to get me to say something foolish or ‘sensitive.’ Again, being around women for so long.”
“There’s nothing
wrong with a sensitive man.”
“Really? Do you like that quality?”
She’d never really seen that quality in the men she dated, but she’d always thought she’d like it. Part of the reason she dated men more her size was she hoped they might be a bit more sensitive and less manly. But all she learned was that they often felt the need to make up for their size by being more controlling. “I might like it.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m waiting to see it. Why don’t you try it out on me and let me decide?” She had no idea where that statement came from, but the way he threw his head back and laughed had her cringing. Again, she put her foot in her mouth.
“No, don’t start to apologize for saying that. I can see the look on your face. I laughed because it was cute. And you know what—maybe next time I’ll show you how sensitive I can be. I can do that without you having to witness me on the phone with my mother.”
That he knew she was going to apologize was a little unsettling. He’d obviously figured her out pretty fast and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He didn’t give her a chance to comment on it though, because he asked her something she didn’t feel comfortable talking about, at least not fully. “So, are you close with your mom?”
She hedged. She was close with Trisha Springfield, just not in the same way Sean was with his mom. “Yes, we’re close. We’ve had only each other for a long time now.”
“You mentioned she lives with your grandmother, and that you did too when you were in school. Do you mind me asking about your father? You’ve never said anything. I wasn’t sure if maybe he passed away?”
Nope, her father was still alive. Unfortunately. And yep, she minded if he asked, but she wasn’t going to say that. Sean didn’t need to know specifics, at least not this early in a relationship. If they even had one. Nor did he need to know anything in depth about her mother. She tried to smile through the memories. “Let’s just say that I didn’t grow up with the same family dynamics that you did.”