Chapter 1
“CAN I HAVE one?” Lizzie asked pointing to a giant chocolate bar as they weaved their cart through the grocery store.
Conrad Langdon was tired and just wanted to head home, but the refrigerator was largely empty, so he had to get the shopping finished.
He had a list and all he wanted was to get what he needed and get out of there.
Conrad had been on an exhausting but successful business trip for more than a week, and all he wanted was a chance to rest.
He hated feeling guilty, but he felt bad that he had missed the first week of school. His mom had taken Lizzie to school and kept her at the house Conrad had grown up in. There was no harm done, and his adopted daughter seemed to have come through none the worse for wear.
“Yes. You can pick out one candy,” he told her. “But only one, so make sure you get what you really want.”
“Okay.” She put back the Hershey bar and started looking more closely. He usually did his best to avoid this aisle, but he needed chocolate for some cupcakes and had made the turn without really thinking about the consequences. “You need to make your choice so we can finish shopping.”
“Gramma let me get two,” Lizzie said, looking up at him with huge blue eyes surrounded by a cascade of golden curls.
Conrad tickled her. “No she didn’t.” He knew his mother too well to fall for that. “And you don’t need that much sugar. I’m making you cupcakes for this weekend, and you can have one candy bar. That’s all.” He had to be firm, because if he wasn’t he’d collapse like a house of cards in a breeze.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said and proceeded to pick out a bag of M&Ms. He put them in the cart, and after getting what he needed, managed to steer them out of the aisle of sugary death and into the aisle of sweet impending doom…
cookies. He selected a box of crackers and got them away from there as fast as possible, and hoped he’d manage to get the rest of his shopping done without Lizzie asking for anything more.
Conrad hated the grocery store and usually liked to get in and get out as quickly as possible, so he rarely took Lizzie with him unless he had to. But after being gone all week, she insisted on coming with him, and at least they were spending time together.
“Are we almost done?” Lizzie asked after he had finished in the dairy section.
“Yes.” He set some juice and a half gallon of milk on the cart and turned back to Lizzie, only to find her running down the aisle. Conrad hurried after her. “Lizzie,” he called out, trying not to yell in the store.
A huge man stood at the far side, and Conrad picked up his pace as worry filled him.
He had no idea why Lizzie had taken off, or what this immense man was going to do once his daughter reached him.
Conrad’s abandoned cart stayed behind as he practically ran after his daughter.
His heart just about seized as flashbacks of his stepfather flashed through his mind.
Conrad had vowed as soon as Lizzie had been placed with him that she wasn’t going to go through any of the hell that he had.
“Lizzie, stop,” he snapped, panic rising as she threw herself at the huge man and hugged his legs. He looked down at her, smiling. “You can’t run off like that. I’m sorry,” Conrad said as he took Lizzie’s hand, pulling her away. “What are you doing?”
“Daddy…,” Lizzie said with that look she got from her mother—the one that said he was being dumb.
“It’s okay,” the huge man said. Conrad swore he took the entire width of the aisle, but that could have been his fear and overactive imagination at work.
Still, the guy was huge. “I’m Forrest Scoville, Lizzie’s teacher.
” His voice was deep but soft, and Lizzie kept smiling up at him like he hung the moon.
“You’re Mrs. Scoville?” Conrad said before he’d fully engaged his brain.
“Sorry, of course not. It’s just that….” His mother had taken care of all the meet-and-greet stuff at the school because he had been so busy at work with this project that never seemed to end.
How did he not know that Lizzie’s teacher was a man…
and one big enough to tower over him and all the kids?
This was surreal. Conrad wondered why Lizzie wasn’t scared, but she chatted on as though her teacher was the center of the world.
She told him that they were shopping and that they were going to bake cupcakes and that she would bring him one on Monday and that she was happy her daddy was home.
Conrad found himself at a loss for words, but his normally shy and quiet child, especially after losing her mother a year ago, just prattled on and on like there was no stopping her.
After losing her mother, Lizzie hadn’t spoken to anyone but him and his mother for two weeks.
If anyone else tried to engage with her, she hid behind him or just ran away.
Even months later she had been slow to get out of her shell.
Conrad had been concerned about her starting school because of how quiet she had still been. But it seemed he needn’t have worried.
“I’m Mr. Scoville, and I teach kindergarten at Lizzie’s school.” He smiled down at her, and she stepped back and took Conrad’s hand. “I guess you and I didn’t get a chance to meet before she started.”
“Yeah.” He took the extended hand, half expecting it to crush his.
Instead, he shook it and released it right away.
“I had to go away on business.” His cheeks heated, and all he wanted to do was get the hell away.
Regardless of Lizzie’s reaction, Conrad’s visceral reaction was to get as far away from this man as he possibly could.
Lizzie might like him, but that didn’t mean Conrad had to.
There were just too many instinctive reactions happening all at once for him to be able to stand here and make small talk.
“We should let Mr. Scoville get back to his shopping.” He forced a smile and turned away, guiding Lizzie back to the cart.
It took all his willpower not to turn around and check where the other man was.
Conrad reached the cart, his hands gripping it for all they were worth. He stood frozen across from the cheese cooler, wondering what the hell had happened to him. “Daddy,” Lizzie said, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to reality. “Are we going home now?”
“Sure. Let’s check out and we can go home.” He pushed the cart toward the checkout, hoping like hell Mr. Scoville wasn’t there as well, and thankfully they didn’t see him again.
“MOM, WHY didn’t you tell me that Lizzie’s teacher was a man?” he asked once he got the groceries put away. Lizzie was already playing in the small room off the main living room that he’d converted into a playroom for her. She was at her dollhouse making up stories.
Seeing his car, his mom had wandered over from her house next door, the way she did most afternoons.
“I had no idea.” He closed the pantry door and sat at the table.
She shrugged as she made tea at the stove.
“I met him a few weeks ago at the new parents’ night.
You had to work. He seemed nice enough, and he’s fully qualified.
Otherwise the school district wouldn’t have hired him.
” She poured hot water into the cups and then brought them over.
“What’s the big deal? So he’s a man. It’s hardly the end of the world.
” She rolled her eyes. “Is this some reverse discrimination or something? You know I raised you better than that.”
“No,” he snapped and leaned over the table.
“The guy is huge. Like Rodney huge, and….” He sighed deeply, trying not to shake as the sheer hell of those years washed over him again.
He should have been able to let all of that go after all these years, and in part, he was ashamed that he hadn’t been able to. “We met him at the grocery store.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“Yeah. Lizzie took off when she saw him and was chattering on like he was her best friend.” He turned toward where she was still playing, her voice reaching his ears occasionally. “I don’t get it.”
“Honey,” his mother said gently, patting his hand. “She doesn’t have the same issues that you do, and… children and dogs….”
“Excuse me? You want me to get her a dog?” Where in the hell had that come from?
Mom sighed one of those parental sighs that mothers seem to perfect.
“No. I’m saying that children and dogs know good people on instinct.
They just do, and if this teacher has gotten Lizzie to open up, then he’s a really good person.
In other words, he’s nothing like that asshole I married after your father died.
Rodney was a controlling jerk, and if I’d had any idea how he was treating you, I would have left him sooner.
Hell, I’d have cut his nuts off.” That was his mom.
“I know, Mom. It’s just that I took one look at the guy and freaked right there in the grocery store. And he’s Lizzie’s teacher.” He tried to make her understand.
“It’s not like you’re going to see him all the time.
Lizzie obviously likes him, and you’ll only see the guy at parent/teacher conferences and things like that.
It’s not like he’s going to be part of your daily life.
” She clearly didn’t see the issue. But then again, it was his issue and not hers…
or apparently Lizzie’s either. “Just relax and don’t worry about it. ”
“But the guy looks like Mr. Clean, and he’s huge.
” Rodney’d had the same look. He thought it made him look tough, and the guy had been that.
He was also a real asshole who used his looks to intimidate everyone so he could bully them.
Obviously Mr. Scoville wasn’t like that at all.
Conrad had hated Rodney on sight, whereas Lizzie seemed to love this teacher.