Page 11 of Sweet Surrender

“Oh, he’s more than all right,” Emily said, shaking her head and grinning. “What a smoke show.”

Becca was surprised that the other teacher would say something so inappropriate about a parent. But she could feelher cheeks heating anyway, and she took a gulp of frozen air and tried not to think about how handsome the man was.

“You know that’s Allie’s big brother,” Linda said, elbowing Emily. “Have some respect.”

“She’s not even here,” Emily said, shrugging. “Besides, she knows half the women in town are in love with at least one of her brothers. You were joking about it yourself a minute ago. Those guys are all gorgeous.”

Linda laughed and rolled her eyes, then turned back to Becca.

“Allie Lawrence is our newest kindergarten teacher,” Linda explained. “You’ll love her. Everyone does.”

“Miss Hawthorne, Miss Hawthorne,”a little voice yelled out worriedly.“Someone kicked the kickball really hard, and it hit Cal right in the face, and his nose is bleeding and bleeding so much blood...”

“Goodness, Aubrey,” Becca said, darting forward to the little girl, who was panting and looked like she was about to cry. “Thank you so much for coming to get me.”

“I’ll watch the rest of your class while you take him to the nurse,” Linda called after her as Becca hurried off across the playground with the little girl.

4

BECCA

Becca jogged across the snowy playground, following little Aubrey Jensen, who was awfully quick on her feet for someone with such short legs.

Sure enough, a group of kids had gathered around behind the swing sets near the far end of the playground.

“Okay, guys,” Becca said in her clear, confident teacher voice. “Let’s have a look.”

The children stepped back, revealing a familiar pair of figures standing at the center of the group.

“You gotta tilt your head back,” Nick was saying to Cal. “Oh, hi, Miss Hawthorne.”

Cal looked up at her. It was hard to see his expression because what looked like a hand knitted mitten was pressed to his nose. Kids really were resourceful.

“Hi, boys,” she said. “Let’s get you to the nurse, Cal.”

“I’ll come too,” Nick said.

“No, you’d better not,” she told him, remembering how the nurse at her old school frowned at having friends or siblings in her office. Plus, Nick wasn’t technically her student, and she didn’t want to make any more waves with Mrs. Staley. “Enjoyyour recess. Your brother will be just fine. Mrs. Conard is going to stay with my class so I can go with him myself.”

Nick frowned, but he nodded, and she gave him an encouraging smile.

“Okay, Cal,” she said. “Let’s head in.”

She said a silent prayer of thanks that she had given herself a tour of the school last night, so she knew exactly where the nurse’s office was. There was an awful lot of blood on that mitten, so Cal must have been hit pretty hard.

She wanted nothing more than to ask him what happened, but she knew he might not like to say since he didn’t trust her yet. And he was busy trying to keep his head tilted up and the mitten against his nose. She knew from experience that it wasn’t really the right way to handle it, but she figured they would be at the nurse in no time, so it wasn’t worth trying to give a first aid lesson right now.

“Bloody noses are the worst,” she told him lightly, placing one hand on his shoulder and hoping that wouldn’t make him feel like a baby in front of his friends. “I used to get them all the time when I was a kid.”

Cal didn’t respond, but he didn’t shrug her hand off either, so she counted it a win and hurried him down the hall, again hoping not to cause a commotion in front of the principal. It was normal for kids to get hurt from time to time on the playground, but maybe if she had been down with the kids instead of chatting with the other teachers, this wouldn’t have happened. And she didn’t even really know what had gone down, so she wasn’t prepared for any questions.

Please don’t let anyone be bullying this sweet little boy,she prayed as they approached the doorway to the nurse’s office.

“Now what’s all this?” a pretty lady in cute scrubs with little reindeer on them exclaimed when she caught sight of them.

She was fuller figured, with the kindest smile, and Becca could actuallyfeelCal relax when she smiled at him, even though she had a big voice and a big presence.

“I got a bloody nose,” Cal told her. His voice was muffled from the mitten, but friendly.

---