LITMIR.BIZ

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wasn’t popular on TV and movies these days, but which any man preferred over skinny orphan looks. He’d seen too many skinny orphans during his tours of duty overseas. Their grateful looks and shy smiles when he’d handed out candy bars that he’d always kept in his pocket still haunted his sleep some nights.

      Jessie the Brain wasn’t the type of woman who’d haunt a man’s dreams. There wasn’t anything about her that really stood out, aside from those catlike green eyes. But there was something about her just the same, an inner strength combined with a warm heart.

      Here was a woman who faced life head-on. Here was a woman not impressed by his uniform. Here was a woman staring at him with disapproval and dismay—the kind of look he’d gotten from a majority of the adults in his teenage life. Not a look he’d received lately.

      “It’s been a long time,” he murmured.

      She shrugged.

      “Jessie the Brain.” He shook his head, as if still unable to believe they’d run into each other again. “After all these years. Your hair is shorter now.”

      Her hand flew up to her hair as if guilty at being caught. “So’s yours,” she shot back.

      He nodded with a sense of satisfaction. Oh, yeah, she was definitely the kind of woman who could hold her own.

      “But getting back to your daughter.” Her voice held a no-nonsense tone that made him smile for some reason. “I really do think it would be best if you took one of the parenting classes at the community college—”

      He cut off her words with a sharp wave of his hand. “You already said you’d be willing to work with me. There’s no backing out now.”

      “I wasn’t trying to back out.”

      His look challenged her claim.

      “Okay, maybe I was,” she admitted. “Because I’m not at all sure of your commitment to learning and to working with me.”

      His narrowed gaze had made new recruits quiver in their boots. “You’re questioning my commitment?”

      She showed no signs of being intimidated. Instead she gave him a narrow-eyed gaze of her own. “Do you really think you can hack Daddy Boot Camp?”

      “Just try me,” he said.

      “If I think for one minute you’re slacking off—”

      “I’m a marine,” he interrupted her. “We don’t slack off.”

      “Fine.” She grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down a few things before handing it to him. “Read these books by the weekend. I’m busy on Saturday, but I have Sunday free. I’ll put you through some parenting exercises then.”

      “Outstanding. Your place or mine?”

      His place or hers? Which would be the lesser of two evils, Jessica wondered. Having him invade her domain, or venturing into enemy territory by going to his place? The practical side of her pointed out that if she went to his place, she’d have a chance to see for herself where Blue lived and under what conditions.

      “Your place,” she said crisply.

      “Excellent.” His voice was just as crisp. Frowning, he said, “Do you keep in touch with anyone from the old neighborhood?”

      She didn’t want to talk about the past, but his question was so innocuous that it would raise a red flag if she didn’t reply. “Only Amy Weissman. I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl in school.” She was pleased to hear that her voice sounded matter-of-fact and displayed no bitterness.

      Instead of commenting on her statement, Curt said, “So I guess you went on to college just like you planned? The University of Illinois was it?”

      She was surprised he’d remembered that much. “That’s right.” She didn’t want to talk about the past any longer. It was a part of her life she’d put into a sealed box and stored in a distant part of mind. That had worked until this man had walked back into her life. “But that was a very long time ago.”

      “Yeah,” he agreed. “It was.”

      He gave her no indication that he remembered what they’d shared, that night of passion in the back seat of his car. He’d probably had so many women since then that he couldn’t keep track of them all, she thought tartly. What had been a momentous occasion for her had clearly been nothing much to him.

      That all-too-familiar stab of pain pierced her heart, as it had when he’d first walked into her classroom.

      Get over it, she fiercely ordered herself. Keep your mind on the goal here, make things better for Blue. The pain lessened, and she gazed at him without revealing her inner turmoil.

      “I’ll see you on Sunday then,” she said in a dismissive voice.

      “You certainly will, ma’am,” he drawled, unfolding his lean body from the chair to give her a mocking salute before heading toward the door.

      She couldn’t help herself. She stuck her tongue out at him. It was juvenile and impolite, but it sure felt good.

      Until he said, “I saw that.” Not bothering to stop or turn around, he indicated the mirrorlike reflective surface of the window next to the door into her classroom. “Nice tongue,” he added before exiting.

      This time she waited until he left before throwing a crumpled ball of paper after him.

      Just when she thought it was safe, he popped his head around the door frame to say, “Nice toss. For a girl.”

      “Nice compliment. For a marine.”

      His smile indicated his appreciation for her quick comeback. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

      She’d thought so at one time. But not now, not again. Not in this lifetime.

      Curt frowned at the pile of books strewn across the living-room couch. Who knew there was so much to learn about a three-year-old?

      He shuddered with relief that he didn’t have to deal with the chapters marked Potty Training. He was sure that would have brought even a tough guy like him to his knees. He could have managed if Blue had been a boy. Heck, the suggestions for boys had sounded like target practice, only this time the targets had been floating Cheerios in a toilet bowl instead of enemy forces in a battlefield.

      But girls were different. Different in so many ways that it was all he could do not give in to the doubts prowling around the pit of his stomach, just waiting for him to screw up as he’d done so many times as a teenager. Being in the marines had rid him of those feelings, or so he’d thought until Blue had shown up on his doorstep.

      He refused to surrender to fear. Marines never surrendered. They survived. They overcame. They succeeded. Over all odds.

      Or they regrouped to fight another day.

      Jessie the Brain was coming here tomorrow. He tried to view the place through her eyes. It was clean. Scrupulously so. No easy feat with a kid who seemed determined to leave her toys all over the place, even stuffing things in his shoes and his briefcase.

      At first he’d been pleased that she’d liked the set of small trucks he’d bought her. It wasn’t as if trucks were a girly thing. Maybe he should have gotten her dolls or stuffed animals. But she’d liked the trucks and had played with them for hours. When she wasn’t hiding them in his shoes or briefcase.

      One thing was for sure, Jessie wouldn’t be able to give him any demerits on the safety front. He’d had the entire place childproofed—from the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers to the electrical outlets and the pull strings on the venetian blinds covering the windows.

      Of course he had yet to master the art of bypassing the kidproofing to open some of the cabinets or drawers himself, but he’d learn. Just as he’d learned how to open childproof bottles of aspirin without taking a hacksaw to them.

      Who

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