LITMIR.BIZ

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      “She touched you?” Paige asked, clearly taken aback. She and the fifth-grade teacher had gotten to know one another over the last year or so and while Marina was friendly enough and everyone liked the woman, she wasn’t the type to touch a student’s parent.

      “No,” he bit off, annoyed that his sister wasn’t following his train of thought. “But she wanted me to get all touchy-feely with Jake.” As he spoke, his mouth curved downward into a distasteful frown. “She seems to think that Jake’s too quiet.”

      “I should have that problem,” Paige commented with a laugh. “I only wish that at least some of my students would be quiet like Jake.” After a slight hesitation she asked, “So how did she suggest you do it?” When he didn’t say anything, she prodded him a little. “How did she suggest you get closer to Jake?”

      He frowned so hard he thought she could literally hear it in his voice as he said, “She asked me for permission to turn Jake into a mother’s helper. Isn’t that just crazy?” he wanted to know, assuming that his sister would have the same sort of reaction to the other woman’s idea that he did.

      Paige took him totally by surprise when she replied, “Actually, Anderson, I think that might not be such a bad idea.”

      It took him a second to collect himself and recover. “What? Is this some kind of a woman thing?” he asked, stunned.

      “Only in the sense that women are more intuitive than men,” Paige replied brightly, no doubt knowing that her remark would get to him. “But seriously,” she continued, the humor fading from her voice, “I think that maybe Jake might be a little too isolated. I’ve been keeping an eye on him at school and I don’t see him interacting with the other kids during recess.”

      Anderson wondered how long she’d been holding off saying anything to him. Apparently today was the day to tackle the subject.

      “He’s a sweet kid,” she continued, “but he needs to acquire some people skills, Anderson. To that end, I think it might do him some good to take care of another person instead of just being aware of his own small sphere.”

      “Well, it’s not like he’s going to go backpacking on some survivalist’s journey, fending for himself and that baby,” Anderson retorted. He felt disappointed. He’d expected Paige to be on his side, not playing for the opposition. “Jake would be taking care of that baby under this Ms. Laramie’s supervision the whole time—at the very least. You can’t tell me that she won’t be watching Jake like a hawk the entire time.”

      “Not necessarily. I think that the whole point would be to give Jake the assignment, exercise a little supervision and then step back to see how he does.”

      Anderson banked down the urge to laugh at his sister’s naivety. “Would you step back if this was you we were talking about and the baby you were leaving with someone was Carter?”

      Again Paige didn’t answer him the way he thought she would. “If I trusted them to look after my son and felt that I had made myself perfectly clear in my instructions, then sure.”

      He didn’t believe it for a minute. “Well, I’m not as naive as either you or your Ms. Laramie,” he informed his sister. “You don’t just hand over babies to other babies and expect everything to go off without a hitch.”

      Paige wanted to move on to the topic that really had her interest, but she knew that she needed to get her ordinarily calm brother back to that state before she could go on. Ever since Jake had moved out here, it was as if she didn’t even recognize her oldest brother. Anderson had become a different person. A completely uptight, unsettled, different person who seemed to be perpetually afraid of making the wrong move.

      “Jake isn’t a baby, Anderson. He’s halfway to becoming a man—”

      Anderson quickly cut her off. “Not for another ten years.”

      He didn’t believe that, did he? “A lot sooner than that,” Paige contradicted. “You might as well get used to the idea. Anyway, I didn’t call you to discuss Jake’s so-called fragile masculinity—or yours,” she added. “I called to find out something else.”

      “What?” he all but snarled. He didn’t feel that he could take on another problem right now.

      For the second time since she’d called, his sister caught him off guard when she asked, “What did you think of her?”

      “Her?” Confusion all but throbbed in his voice. What was Paige talking about?

      “Marina Laramie,” Paige said patiently.

      Why was his sister asking him something like that? “I guess that she’s an all right teacher,” Anderson finally conceded, thinking that was what he was being asked.

      “No.” Paige tried again. “What did you think of her?”

      “Think of her?” Anderson echoed, at this point thoroughly confused by Paige’s tone as well as her question.

      Paige sighed. Men could be so thick, she thought. “This isn’t brain surgery, Anderson. Or a trick question,” she added in case that was going to be his next guess. “It’s really a very simple question,” she stressed.

      “It’s not a simple question,” Anderson contradicted. “It’s a prying, complex question. What did I think of her?” he repeated, then before she could make any sort of a remark or reply, he continued by asking her a question of his own. “In terms of what? A first-time teacher? A woman who sounds like she has trouble understanding and relating to boys?”

      “As a person,” Paige interjected, finally getting a chance to get a word in edgewise. “What do you think of Marina Laramie as a person?”

      “Why?” Anderson asked suspiciously. It had taken a while before the red flags had gone up for him, but they were flapping madly in the wind now. “Just what is it that you’re trying to cook up in that scheming little head of yours?” he wanted to know.

      “I’m not ‘cooking up’ anything,” Paige protested. “I wasn’t the one who asked you down to the school for a conference, Marina was. I just thought that...well, now that you’ve seen her and since you were single and she was single...”

      Okay, this had gone far enough, Anderson thought. He needed to stop his sister before she really got carried away.

      “One and one don’t always make two, Paige,” he ground out.

      In her opinion, one and one always made two. “You never know until you try,” Paige stressed.

      “Oh, I know, all right. Trust me, I know,” he told her in no uncertain terms. “Besides, I’m not looking for anything—or anyone.”

      She already knew that and she thought it was a terrible waste for her oldest brother to be alone like this. “But if you stumble across it right out there in your path—” Paige began.

      “I don’t plan to do any stumbling, either,” Anderson informed her tersely.

      As far as he was concerned, one mistake was more than enough for him. Not that he’d actually had any ideas about a possible relationship blossoming between Lexie and him twelve years ago. It had been just one of those classic things, an enjoyable fling that lasted the span of one night, no longer. And, after dealing with the woman, he realized just how fortunate he was not to have wanted any sort of a relationship with Jake’s mother. They didn’t have very much in common.

      Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t the kind of guy who did well when it came to relationships. Hardworking and blessed with common sense, Anderson knew his shortcomings and he wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone.

      Even so, it was obvious to him that his sister had other ideas. He needed to set her straight once and for all.

      “Look, kid, I realize that you think that since you have this great thing going with Sutter everyone should be married, but it’s

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