The Sheriff's 6-year-old Secret

He nodded. “Well, just so you know, my daughter’s going to get an earful from me on the subject of hitting her fellow students.”

“Oh, now,” she said softly, “I think Charity realizes that she made a mistake.”

Sunlight streamed through the window, glinting off his badge. She thought it ironic that just last week this man had had to reprimand her brother and today she’d corrected his daughter. The idea made her a little uncomfortable, as if she and this stranger had too much of a hand in each other’s personal lives.

But that’s silly, she thought. After all, they were only doing their jobs.

However, something akin to intuition—no, something more astute than mere intuition, something souldeep—told her this meeting, this man, would mean something significant to her.

Oh, come on now, girl, she silently chastised. You’ve been spending too much time reading about Kolheek mysticism.

After a couple of seconds that seemed positively charged with the uneasiness that pulsed through her, she motioned to him with a wave of her hand. “Come on in and have a seat. Let’s talk.”

The only chairs available, other than her own, were built especially for pint-size, six-year-old bodies. He straddled one of the small seats and attempted to lower himself into it. He was a big man, and the honed bulk of him made the chair seem even smaller than it already was.

“I’m sorry about the seating,” she said, automatically rising and coming around her desk. “But this is all I have to offer.”

“It’s fine.”

But it was obvious to her that, with his knees bent up around his shoulders, he was surely in a most uncomfortable position. The situation was not fine and he was too polite to say so.

“How about if we just sit on the desks?” she offered.

His handsome face took on a look of incredible gratitude at the suggestion. She slid onto the top of the wooden desk that was closest to her. The officer—she still couldn’t get over how unsettled she was by that uniform—straightened his contorted posture and sat down on a neighboring desktop.

“Better?” she asked.

“Much.”

She forced herself to smile. “Good. Now that I know who you are, let me introduce myself.” She reached her hand out to him, and when he took it, the heat of him shocked her, short-circuited her thoughts, and for a second she couldn’t remember her own name.

“Gwen.” The word finally burst from her tongue. “Gwen Fleming.” She pumped his hand, drawing in a huge gulp of air, hoping to calm the astonishing riot going on inside her. “I’m Charity’s teacher.”

“And I’m her father, Nathan Thunder,” he provided.

He pressed his free hand against the back of hers, enveloping her in a blanket of feverish warmth.

“It’s good to meet you.” His mouth widened with sincerity.

Gwen felt hot. Cold. Panicked. If she didn’t sever contact with him soon, perspiration would surely break out across her brow. What in heaven’s name had gotten into her?

He released her hand, leaned back a bit and hitched his left ankle over his right knee. His fingers curled nonchalantly around his shin and Gwen couldn’t help but notice the tapered length of them. She wondered how they’d feel caressing her cheek.

She stifled her gasping reaction to the totally shocking thought. Her eyes widened. Something was really wrong here. A notion as strange as that one shouldn’t be in her head. This man was the parent of one of her students.

“I know that Charity missed—”

Her gaze seemed to take on a life all its own as it settled on his lips. She became mesmerized by the way his sexy mouth formed words.

“—the first few days of school—”

The bow centering his top lip with its two perfect points was so…attractive. How would it feel to gently drag her tongue across its surface? What would his mouth taste like against her own?

“—what with the testing Principal Halley insisted on.”

Gwen blinked. Dragging her tongue across his lip? Tasting his mouth? Had she totally lost her mind? Then other questions rolled through her head. Missed days? Testing? Oh, Lord. What in the world had he been talking about?

“I do understand the need for the tests, though,” Nathan Thunder continued.

The man obviously hadn’t realized that Gwen’s sexual fantasies had made her temporarily check out of their conversation, and for that she was mightily grateful.

“As the principal explained,” he said, “since Charity didn’t attend kindergarten last year, it was necessary to see where she is, knowledge-wise, compared to the other students.”

He smiled again, and even though she knew perfectly well autumn had arrived, Gwen felt as if she’d been struck full in the face with the heat of the midsummer sun. She pressed her lips together and did her best to focus on the topic at hand.

Charity’s father continued, “I will admit that I’m happy she was placed with her peers, rather than put back with the five-year-olds.”

Gwen scrambled around in her thought processes until she was up to speed in this conversation. “W-well, Mr. Thunder, the tests showed your daughter met all the first-grade requirements,” she said.

“Nathan,” he said. “Please call me Nathan.”

Her smile was automatic. But her insides were nothing but chaos. “Only if you’ll call me Gwen.”

A look passed across his mahogany gaze, an unreadable expression that caused her spine to prickle with a needle-sharp sensation that had her feeling the need to arch her back like a cat. Her reaction to this man was terribly unprofessional. She’d better be careful.

“Even without the kindergarten experience—” she forced herself to ignore her physical reaction to him, to remain attentive to the discussion at hand “—Charity is on par with the average students in the class.”

His head bobbed slowly up and down. “I brought all this up because I’m wondering if the days she missed might have contributed to this, um…hitting incident. It seems to me that children form bonds very quickly. And with Charity not being here with the others for the first days of classes…”

“You’re right. Kids do connect almost instantly. They develop friendships, fashion allegiances, form hierarchies, no matter how hard we try to dissuade such behavior. However, they’re also very fickle creatures, switching alliances frequently.” Her mouth pulled wide with a grin. “I want you to know that—other than the recess incident—she did very well today at getting along with her classmates.”

“Well, is the little boy okay?” he asked. “The one she fought with?”

“He’s fine. I spoke with his mother when she picked him up from school just a bit ago. I explained everything.”

He looked so miserable that his daughter might have hurt a fellow student that Gwen’s heart went out to him. She felt it would help him immensely if she let him in on a big secret. “Truly, Mr. Thunder—”

“Nathan,” he reminded her.

“Nathan,” she repeated, “I have a sneaking suspicion that something good just might come out of all this.”

Apparent bewilderment made him frown. She glanced toward the door to make sure no one could overhear what she was about to reveal.

“You see, even after only a few days of school, Billy Whitefeather has shown a…well, a propensity toward bullying the other children. By defending herself, Charity has shown the rest of the class that they don’t have to be fearful of him.”

This information seemed to help smooth his brow a bit, and again, Gwen was acutely aware of how handsome the man was.

“But I did have to stress with Charity that hitting won’t be tolerated,” she went on, forcing herself to ignore the pleasant warmth the man caused to radiate throughout her entire body. “With what’s happening all over this country…there’s so much violence in our schools these days…and kids aren’t feeling safe…well, we’ve adopted a no-tolerance policy. And even though ninety-nine point nine percent of aggression won’t lead to anything more than name-calling and an occasional shove, we still have to take action. We still have to let the children know that violent behavior—in any form—is wrong. Charity seems to understand that.”