Page 8 of Sweet Surrender

“Wow, that was very kind of her,” Miss Hawthorne said with a warm smile. “And you’re in luck, because Idoaccept baked goods in exchange for grades.”

“Really?” Cal asked softly.

“No,” she laughed. “Not really. But I’m very grateful.”

They all watched as she lifted the basket to her face, closed her eyes so that her dark lashes kissed her freckled cheeks, and inhaled deeply.

“Oh, they smell so good,” she said, opening her eyes again. “Will you boys tell your grandma thank you so much?”

“Yes,” Nick said, nodding up and down.

She smiled at him fondly.

Now that Zane thought about it, Nick was being very polite.

He’s trying to make a good first impression on someone who doesn’t know who he is,Zane realized suddenly, his heart aching for his well-meaning, energetic son.

“Well, thank you so much for making me feel welcome today,” she told the boys. “Will you both be in my class?”

“I will,” Cal said, looking right up at her face, without a trace of shyness.

“Just him,” Nick said flatly at the same time.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll get to see you during lunch and activities, Nick,” she said.

Nick’s little chest puffed up with pride that she had remembered his name. Even Zane was impressed. She was surely meeting a whole bunch of people at once today.

“And I’m glad I already have one friendly face in my class, Cal,” she added with a smile for him. “But I guess you two probably want to get out there and play, don’t you?”

They didn’t actually look like they wanted to do anything but stand around looking up at her and hanging on her every word. Zane was feeling the same thing, and he couldn’t even think of a single thing she had said or done that was so unusual.

The boys just nodded and then headed off toward the monkey bars, Nick breaking into a happy shout when he spotted one of their friends.

“It was nice to meet you, Zane Lawrence,” Miss Hawthorne said, smiling up at him.

“You too,” he said, tearing his eyes from hers. “I’d better get back to the farm.”

He took off for his truck without waiting for her to say more, an uncomfortable feeling twisting his stomach.

She was just a nice young woman, who was being kind to his boys. There were plenty of young women in Sugarville Grove who smiled and fluttered their eyelashes at Zane. Tripp told him once that he was a sort oftragic figureto the women in town, and that being the girl to mend his heart was almost an unspoken challenge among them.

Although it was worth remembering that Tripp had been laughing his head off at Zane’s discomfort the whole time he told him about it, so who knew if it was even true? Or if it was maybe just alittletrue and a lot exaggerated?

At any rate, it didn’t matter. The boys were more than a handful. Taking care of them took up every ounce of Zane’senergy and creativity. At the end of the day, there wasn’t enough of him left for something as frivolous as dating.

Besides, you didn’t exactly make a great impression on her,his inner Tripp teased him.You just stood there stupefied with a basket of muffins with a bow on top that your mommy made.

Shaking his head at the fact that he was still thinking about her instead of the machines in the creamery like he usually was by this hour, Zane hopped back in the truck, still feeling a little strange.

He might be known as the quiet type in the world outside the farm. But as soon as he was back on the familiar hillside, among his family, the herd, and the creamery, he felt like an important part of something bigger. And like a cog in the old grandfather clock, he knew exactly what his role was in the constantly shifting system that was the dairy farm in all its seasons.

I’ll just head straight home,he told himself.I can run errands tomorrow.

But as he drove, the shadows on the snow reminded him of a dove-gray coat, and the brightening morning sky made him think of curious blue eyes. And he didn’t think anything of it when he started humming random Christmas carols.

3

BECCA

---