Christmas On His Ranch: Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice

“Maggie.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t even bring yourself to say her name, can you?” He perched himself on the edge of her desk. “I thought teachers were supposed to be impartial, to teach regardless of personal feelings toward their students.”

“We are.”

“You aren’t doing it,” he continued. He smiled, but it wasn’t the sort of smile that comforted. “Let me tell you something, Antonia. You came home. But this is my town. I own half of it, and I know everybody on the school board. If you want to stay here, and teach here, you’d better be damn sure that you maintain an impartial attitude toward all the students.”

“Especially toward your daughter?” she asked.

He nodded. “I see you understand.”

“I won’t treat her unfairly, but I won’t play favorites, either,” she said icily. “She’s going to receive no grades that she doesn’t earn in my classroom. If you want to get me fired, go ahead.”

“Oh, hell, I don’t want your job,” he said abruptly. “It doesn’t matter to me if you stay here with your father. I don’t even care why you suddenly came back. But I won’t have my daughter persecuted for something that she didn’t do! She has nothing to do with the past.”

“Nothing?” Her eyes glittered up into his. “Sally was pregnant with that child when you married her, and she was born seven months later,” she said huskily, and the pain was a living, breathing thing. Even the threat of leukemia wasn’t that bad. “You were sleeping with Sally while you were swearing eternal devotion to me!”

Antonia didn’t have to be a math major to arrive at the difference. He’d married Sally less than a month after he broke up with Antonia, and Maggie was born seven months later. Which meant that Sally was pregnant when they married.

He took a slow, steady breath, but his eyes, his face, were terrible to see. He stared down at her as if he’d like to throw something.

Antonia averted her gaze to the desk, where her hands were so tightly clasped now that the knuckles were white. She relaxed them, so that he wouldn’t notice how tense she was.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said after a minute. “I had no right. Your marriage was your own business, and so is your daughter. I won’t be unkind to her. But I will expect her to do the same work I assign to the other students, and if she doesn’t, she’ll be graded accordingly.”

He stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. The eyes that met hers were unreadable. “Maggie’s paid a higher price than you know already,” he said enigmatically. “I won’t let you hurt her.”

“I’m not in the habit of taking out my personal feelings on children, whatever you think of me.”

“You’re twenty-seven now,” he said, surprising her. “Yet you’re still unmarried. You have no children of your own.”

She smiled evenly. “Yes. I had a lucky escape.”

“And no inclination to find someone else? Make a life for yourself?”

“I have a life,” she said, and the fear came up into her mouth as she realized that she might not have it for much longer.

“Do you?” he asked. “Your father will die one day. Then you’ll be alone.”

Her eyes, full of fear, fell to the desk again. “I’ve been alone for a long time,” she said quietly. “It’s something…one learns to live with.”

He didn’t speak. After a minute, she heard his voice, as if from a distance. “Why did you come back?”

“For my father.”

“He’s getting better day by day. He didn’t need you.”

She looked up, searching his face, seeing the young man she’d loved in his dark eyes, his sensuous mouth. “Maybe I needed someone,” she said. She winced and dropped her eyes.

He laughed. It had an odd sound. “Just don’t turn your attention toward me, Antonia. You may need someone. I don’t. Least of all you.”

Before she could say a word, he’d gone out the door, as quietly as he’d come in.

Maggie was waiting at the door when he walked in. He’d taken her home before he had his talk with Antonia.

“Did you see her? Did you tell her off?” she asked excitedly. “I knew you’d show her who’s boss!”

His eyes narrowed. She hadn’t shown that much enthusiasm for anything in years. “What about that homework?”

She shrugged. “It was stupid stuff. She wanted us to write an essay about ourselves and do math problems and make up sentences to go with spelling words.”

He scowled. “You mean, you didn’t do it—any of it?”

“You told her I didn’t have to, didn’t you?” she countered.

He tossed his hat onto the side table in the hall and his eyes flashed at her. “Did you do any of the homework?”

“Well…no,” she muttered. “It was stupid, I told you.”

“Damn it! You lied!”

She backed up. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. He frightened her when he looked that way. He made her feel guilty. She didn’t lie as a rule, but this was different. Miss Hayes was hurting her, so didn’t she have the right to hurt back?

“You’ll do that homework, do you hear me?” he demanded. “And the next time you have a test, you won’t sit through it with your arms folded. Is that clear?”

She compressed her lips. “Yes, Daddy.”

“My God.” He bit off the words, staring at her furiously. “You’re just like your mother, aren’t you? Well, this is going to stop right now. No more lies—ever!”

“But, Daddy, I don’t lie…!”

He didn’t listen. He just turned and walked away. Maggie stared after him with tears burning her eyes, her small fists clenched at her sides. Just like her mother. That’s what Mrs. Bates said when she misbehaved. She knew that her father hadn’t cared about her mother. Her mother had cried because of it, when she drank so much. She’d said that she told a lie and Powell had hated her for it. Did this mean that he hated Maggie, too?

She followed him out into the hall. “Daddy!” she cried.

“What?”

He turned, glaring at her.

“She doesn’t like me!”

“Have you tried cooperating with her?” he replied coldly.

She shrugged, averting her eyes so that he wouldn’t see the tears and the pain in them. She was used to hiding her hurts in this cold house. She went up the staircase to her room without saying anything else.

He watched her walk away with a sense of hopelessness. His daughter had used him to get back at her teacher, and he’d let her. He’d gone flaming over to the school and made all sorts of accusations and charges, and Antonia had been the innocent party. His daughter had used him to get back at her teacher, and he’d let her. He was furious at having been so gullible. It was because he didn’t really know the child, he imagined. He spent as little time with her as possible, because she was a walking, talking reminder of his failed marriage.