LITMIR.BIZ

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out with a finger to dust it off, but Audrey’s hands appeared on her daughter’s shoulders, inching the child protectively back against her legs. The gesture cut through Mark’s insides like a scythe, but he redirected his finger to point to the same place on his own cheek. Tess picked up the cue and flicked away the crumb with a sweep of her palm.

      Mark straightened back up, meeting the wrath in Audrey’s eyes and understanding the silent warning. “Tess,” he said, without breaking eye contact with the child’s mother, “we have about five more minutes of recess. Would you like to meet some of your classmates?”

      In his peripheral vision, he saw George hold out his hand to the little girl. “I think I see a couple of girls over there who are very excited to make your acquaintance,” the principal said.

      Tess leaned her head back to look at her mom, and Audrey was forced to break the staring contest. “Go meet your new friends, punkin. I’ll be here after school to pick you up.” She leaned down and gave Tess a hug before the child left them.

      Mark watched her skip happily away. “Great kid. Obviously well-adjusted.”

      “Let’s don’t try to sugarcoat any of this, Mark.” Audrey crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her face a hard mask. “Had I known you were the first-grade teacher, I might’ve made different arrangements for Mom. But I only found out fifteen minutes ago. I’m too far in to change my plans now. But let me make one thing clear—you are Tess’s teacher, not her buddy. You are never to touch my child, not even to brush a crumb from her cheek.”

      Hostility was something Mark had planned for, thank God. With practiced precision, he met it head-on with honesty and a smile. “Many of my students hug me every morning when they come in my room and every afternoon when they leave.” He shrugged. “If Tess wants to hug me, and I can’t hug her back, I worry how it might make her feel. But I understand your hesitation. I’ll leave it to you to explain that I don’t think she has cooties.”

      “I...” He watched the conflict working as Audrey chewed her bottom lip, knew the precise moment when she put her child’s best interest above her own need to punish him. “Well, I don’t want her to think something is wrong with her. This move has been difficult enough.” Her eyes glanced to where Tess was already holding hands with two new friends, and her chest rose and fell on a breath. “All right. If she chooses to hug you, hugging her back is permissible.”

      “I also pat backs and heads and brush tears from cheeks,” he went on. “If someone gets hurt, I might hold him or her on my lap.”

      “Oh, all right!” Audrey snapped. “Of course you should treat her the same as the rest of the children.” Her eyes flashed as she squinted. “Just don’t ever forget whose child she is.”

      He grinned. “She’s the spitting image of you with that curly red hair and those gray eyes. I doubt it’ll be possible for me to ever forget whose child she is.”

      The hatred didn’t go away completely, but for an instant the intensity lessened—the best he could expect at this first encounter, he supposed. It wasn’t much, but it reaffirmed his hope that the forgiveness he sought might be waiting somewhere out there in the future.

      After eleven years, he’d gotten good at the waiting part.

      “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He checked his watch to be sure time had actually passed, that the world hadn’t really stopped the way it seemed to when he’d turned to find Audrey standing almost within arm’s reach. “Recess is over.”

       Time for the real work to start.

      He walked away without saying goodbye...just like he did the last time.

       CHAPTER TWO

      AUDREY SLOWED THE car and peered closely at the Dublin home as she passed. For the last eleven years, she’d averted her eyes anytime she drove by, trying to pretend the family who lived there no longer existed. It was a silly mind game, but she did it as a kind of homage to Win, aka her sister, Calinda—Callie to everyone else. If Win was no longer allowed to exist in her world, it seemed only fair the boy who caused her death shouldn’t have a place in it, either.

      But he’d appeared back in her world today—in a prominent place in her daughter’s life—and the unfairness of it all made Audrey’s eyes blur with tears. Tess would never have the opportunity to share even a single memory with her Aunt Callie, yet memories of Mark Dublin would be permanent.

      He wasn’t the same Mark she remembered, though. Not physically. Oh, the deep-set green eyes with the long dark lashes women would kill for were the same. But the golden highlights in his light brown hair were more prevalent, and the tan he always sported was darker. Permanent. Had he actually grown a couple of inches? He seemed taller, and she’d noticed the corded muscles in his arms with not an ounce of fat. His legs had always been hard and sinewy; the rest of his body had caught up.

      Audrey chastised herself for lingering on those thoughts too long and forced her focus onto the house she was inching past.

      The white cottage, with its hunter green door and shutters, looked as neat and tidy as ever with the lawn mowed and the boxwood hedge trimmed to perfection. Deloris’s foundation plantings of Annabelle hydrangeas were in full-bloom, as were the climbing roses that covered the trellis outside what used to be Mark’s bedroom.

      Was he living there? Audrey’s chest tightened at the thought and then squeezed hard as the answer to the question came into view when she made the turn onto Beecher Road. A bicycle leaned against Pete’s oversized garage at the back of the property. Fully equipped with all the bells and whistles necessary for the serious enthusiast, it wasn’t something she could picture either Deloris or Pete riding and unfortunately brought a head full—and a heart full—of memories to the surface, along with the sickening realization that Mark was once again her nearest neighbor.

      She stepped on the gas and sped past the ancient weeping willow at the edge of the pond. No way was she going to let memories of that favorite childhood hideaway steal into her thoughts.

      Not today, and not ever if she could help it.

      Fifty yards down the road, she turned into the familiar driveway leading back to the green, two-story frame house she would always call home.

      As she came through the door, Faith met her with a smile, which immediately shifted into a look of concern. “That didn’t take long. You okay?”

      Audrey looked past her toward the kitchen. “Where’s Mom?”

      “Out back.” Faith’s thumb pointed over her shoulder. “We’ve been watching the robins in the birdbath. I just came in to fix her another tea.” She held up an empty cup. “Want some?”

      Audrey tossed her bag onto the recliner. “Not unless you’re lacing it with Wild Turkey.”

      “Sorry.” The preacher’s wife grinned and gave a shrug. “Earl Grey straight up, I’m afraid. But tell me what has you needing bourbon at nine thirty in the morning?”

      The scarf around her neck added an additional weight on her shoulders she didn’t need. Audrey jerked it off and threw it on top of her bag. “Mark Dublin is Tess’s teacher.”

      “Well...yeah.”

      Faith’s head tilted in question, as if what Audrey was implying wasn’t obvious, so she spelled it out. “Nobody bothered to tell me he was back.” Her hands flew up in a gesture of annoyance and landed on her hips.

      “We, ah, everybody figured the less said the better. If we didn’t make a big deal out of Mark’s being back, we hoped you could forgive and move on...” Faith’s voice trailed off.

      Audrey was incredulous. “Forgive and move on.”

      “Yeah. I mean, everybody remembers how the two of you were inseparable from the time you were...what? Five?” Faith held up a finger. “Hold on. I

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