A Christmas To Remember (Hero Hearts) Read online

  He pushed the thought from his mind. This was not the time nor the place.

  “Oh…” she said, deflating like a pricked balloon. “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Can I see your license and registration, please?” he asked. He deemed it was wisest to be polite. Getting pulled over was stressful enough, and he didn’t want to cause this woman any undue stress. He lived by the motto that he never knew the sorts of battles that people were facing on a daily basis, and so he always did his best to treat people respectfully and kindly. He found it often made life a lot better.

  “Of course,” she said. Her fingers fumbled with the glove box handle. She dug around through the papers and fast food napkins. “I know it’s in here, I just put the new card in here a few weeks ago when I got my Georgia registration. Ah, here it is,” she said, relief seeping into her tone. She handed them out the window to Clay. “And here’s my license,” she said, slipping the small card from her wallet.

  Clay gave them a look over. The insurance and registration appeared in order. As she said, the date was only a few weeks ago. Already she was steps ahead of the guy he’d pulled over not even an hour before.

  She passed the license out the window to him.

  This picture must have been a few years old. She seemed to have lost a little weight since it had been taken, and her hair was lighter now.

  Then his eyes fell upon her name.

  “April Summers,” he repeated. He glanced up at her. “You wouldn’t happen to be the Miss Summers that teaches at Oak Springs Elementary, would you?”

  Her eyes brightened. “Why yes, I am,” she said. “Do you have children that go to the school?”

  “I do, indeed,” he said, his eyes narrowing somewhat. “You just happen to by my kids’ teacher.”

  He could see that she couldn’t decide whether she should be flattered or even more nervous. “Oh, wow. What are the odds?” She smiled, clearly flustered over this latest bit of information. The color had returned full force to her cheeks. “And whose father might you be? Bill? Samantha?”

  “Eric and Ella Barber,” he said.

  “The twins,” she said, and he saw the hints of a genuine smile passing over her face. That was good to see; she liked his kids. “They are absolute joys to have in my class. Always so kind, and Ella is always the first to raise her hand when I need help.”

  Clay smiled, too, in spite of himself. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” she said, suddenly a great deal less stressed than she had been. “Did you by any chance get my email before Thanksgiving break?” she asked.

  “What email?” Clay asked. She was going to ask about that sort of stuff right then and there? “I get a lot of emails.”

  She pursed her lips a little, the image of a disgruntled teacher. “It’s about the upcoming parent-teacher conferences. I’m trying to squeeze in as many as I can before Christmas break, and you are the only one I haven’t heard back from.”

  Clay scratched the back of his neck, wondering just when the tables were turned on him like this. “I think I remember something about that, yeah.”

  “I’ve sent you three messages,” she said. “I would really appreciate you taking the time out of what must be a very busy schedule to talk about your children’s education.”

  He wasn’t quite sure, but he was almost positive that she was speaking to him with veiled sarcasm.

  “Well, I apologize for disrupting you so much,” Clay said, his brow furrowing slightly. “I would appreciate you being a little more lenient and not assuming that your students’ parents are as flaky as you seem to think I am.”

  She looked as if he’d slapped her.

  “Now, I’m going to go run your plates and registration,” he said, perhaps more curtly than was necessary. “You sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m sorry, Officer Barber, I didn’t mean–”

  But he’d turned his back already and started back toward his car, the lights still spinning, the red and blue lights bouncing off the back of her silver SUV.

  He slid back into the front seat of his car, slamming the door behind himself.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Come on, Clay, calm down. It’s not worth getting this upset over.

  Maybe it wasn’t, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t annoyed that she’d decided to try and put him in his place right there on the side of the road.

  He typed her information into the system and let it do its thing. It never worked as fast as he’d liked, but in that moment, he was grateful for a moment to collect his thoughts.

  He remembered that email, all right. It had been very polite, the first one. He’d made a mental note to get back to her. The reality was that time got away from him and he’d forgotten.

  He recognized that was his fault.

  The second email was just as chipper, and a bit more persistent. She sent it two weeks before Thanksgiving, and reminded him to get back to her with a time that worked for him. She’d provided her available times, of course, and expected him to fit his own life into it.

  It was for his kids, so he knew it was important.

  But the third email had really grinded his gears. He knew that he’d been putting it off for too long, and had forgotten about it more than once, but that still didn’t give her the right to send him a barrage of messages. Wouldn’t it have been better for her to call him?

  His anger simmered below the surface, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was his fault.

  It annoyed him even more that she was as pretty as she was, and that he’d been taken off guard by her at first. He’d looked like a fool in front of her. He knew it was dumb to turn around and try to blame her for being too pushy, especially when he knew that he’d been the one who was the dunderhead for not getting back to her in the first place.

  He huffed as he got out of the car, knowing he’d have to see her again and actually commit to a time to sit down and speak with her.

  He scribbled down her information on a ticket as he walked back to her car. He knew that his original intention was to just give her a warning, but he was so annoyed in that moment that he decided it was best to leave the decision up to the law instead of his own compassion…or lack thereof.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Summers, but I have to give you a ticket,” he said, ripping it off his little pad and passing it through the open window to her, along with her license and registration cards.

  She gazed up at him with mingled horror and anger. “For going eleven miles per hour over?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s the law, ma’am. And nobody, not even my kids’ teacher, gets out of a ticket they deserve.”

  She took the ticket and frowned. “No, you’re right. I apologize for challenging you.”

  “It’s all right, Miss Summers,” he said, tipping his hat to her. He was having a hard time looking anywhere but at her, and as soon as he’d passed her that ticket, he’d felt awful about doing it. “Just take this as a lesson to be careful of your speed.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “You can be on your way, then,” he said, stepping away from the car. “Take care, now. And I’ll get back to you tomorrow about that parent teacher conference.”

  She smiled, but it was forced this time. “Great, I look forward to it,” she said.

  He knew better than to believe that. He would probably be the last person she’d want to see walk through the doors to her classroom now.

  He watched her drive off down the road, a strange twinge in his heart. She was beautiful, all right, but there was something else, too. He shrugged it off and headed back toward his car.

  His kids were never going to believe it when he told them who he’d run into that day.

  3

  The day passed way too quickly. Every time that April looked up at the clock over the door to her classroom, her stomach wriggled. Another whole hour had gone by? How hadn’t she
noticed that?

  She knew it was because she wasn’t looking forward to school being over. She’d gone to great lengths to distract herself over the course of the day. Craft time had been particularly distracting, as none of the kids could use their glue sticks without getting it everywhere but on the colored construction paper Christmas trees they were decorating.

  She was having one of her last parent teacher conferences of the year that day. All of the other conferences had gone very well. Parents seemed engaged and interested, and she’d been glad to get to know each of them a little better. One mother even brought in a succulent plant for her desk that was in a tiny pot that her son had painted for her. April had been so touched that she set it out on the desk to make sure her student could see how much she appreciated his gift.

  But this conference that was coming up was making her squeamish. Her coworkers even noticed that day when the kids were all out playing at recess.

  “Why do you look so pale?” asked Sarah, one of the other second grade teachers.

  “Yeah, you look like you might pass out at any second,” said Darla, a third-grade teacher.

  “I have a parent-teacher conference tonight that I’m not looking forward to,” April said, the knot in her stomach growing tighter.

  “I’ve had those before,” Sarah said sympathetically. Darla nodded in agreement.

  “Just be kind and get through it quickly. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  April wasn’t really sure why she’d decided against telling them why she wasn’t looking forward to it. It was all she’d been able to think about.

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t been pulled over before. She’d gotten a few tickets as a teenager, speeding being the most severe. But she’d never imagined she’d get pulled over as an adult.

  Granted, she’d been careless, that much she had to acknowledge. But it was embarrassing to think that the state trooper who’d been the one to write the ticket was going to be walking into her classroom today, and she was supposed to act normal about the whole thing.

  She sighed, glancing up at the clock again. She was being childish, she knew that. But she couldn’t get the butterflies to go away, no matter how hard she tried to focus on something else.

  Soon, the end of the day bell rang, and the normal end of the day chaos ensued. She helped collect backpacks, missing jackets, and artwork that probably wouldn’t make it home without getting crinkled. After the usual few minutes of struggling, she got every child to stand in a single-file line as she marched them down to the lobby and out to the buses.

  She waved at them all as they made their ways to their different buses, paying particularly close attention to Ella and Eric. They really were sweet kids. And she suspected their father would have told them about what happened. In a way, she was grateful that it seemed he hadn’t, because their attitude toward her hadn’t changed a bit.

  It was time, and she knew she had to face him. With a heavy sigh and a wave toward Sarah and Darla, she marched back to her classroom to wait.

  She spent almost five minutes straightening everything on her desktop, and another three tucking half of the stuff she normally kept on it into drawers. She didn’t want him to think she was as careless in her classroom as he might think she was on the road. She wanted to be the picture of organization—the perfect teacher and example away from home for his children.

  Her calendar was decorated in red and green, all of the week’s events neatly written on her dry erase board beside the blackboard. The tile floor was clean of stray pencils, erasers, and scraps of their paper Christmas trees. Even the window decorations of elves, Christmas ornaments and reindeer were neatly arranged.

  She sat down at her desk and folded her hands in front of her, preparing to wait.

  There was a knock on the open door and she sprung to her feet, smoothing out her black pencil skirt.

  Mr. Barber was standing just inside the door, wearing what appeared to be his normal, everyday clothing. He had donned dark blue jeans and a fishing shirt that looked like it might have cost more than her whole outfit put together.

  Her heart fluttered. Despite the fact that she’d been somewhat annoyed and intimidated by him during their first introduction, she couldn’t help but notice just how attractive he was. His chiseled jaw was scruffy with a closely trimmed beard, and his light brown hair was clean cut on the sides and a little longer on top. It looked like he’d run his fingers through it just before he walked inside.

  She realized that was the reason why she was intimidated by him… because he was so good looking.

  Stop it, April. He has children, and so therefore, is probably married. You’ve got to set these bizarre feelings aside and just talk to him like you would any other father coming in to talk about his kids. And you drive too fast for his taste, anyway.

  His blue eyes fell on her behind the desk.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Barber,” April said. She was standing stiffly, her eyes not leaving his.

  “Afternoon, Miss Summers,” he said, taking a few more steps into the room toward her.

  She lifted her hand and extended it outward to him, a sign of respect that she hoped he recognized. There was going to be no funny business in her classroom. She was the perfect teacher, and she was going to prove that to him. She didn’t want the parent of any of her students to be leery of her just because she’d been driving a little too fast down a backroad.

  He took her outstretched hand, which pleased April. She gestured to the chair in front of her desk that she’d dragged from the back of the classroom; it was the chair she normally read books from during reading time. “Please, sit down.”

  “Well, thank you,” he said, and he sat down.

  She realized just how tall he was as his knees came up almost to the top of her desk, despite sitting in a normal sized chair. She was immediately thankful that she hadn’t pulled out one of the student’s chairs for him to sit in.

  “So where do my kids sit?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  She tried not to notice the way that his shirt clung to the muscles in his arms as he stretched them.

  “Ella sits there beside the window,” April said, pointing to the second desk back. “And Eric sits over there beside the door.”

  “Let me guess, he’s sitting with Kyle, isn’t he?” Mr. Barber asked.

  April smiled. “Yes, he is. Have they been friends for a while?”

  “Since kindergarten,” Mr. Barber said.

  “That’s very sweet,” April said.

  When he turned his big blue eyes on her, she thought she might leap out of her chair. She cleared her throat and picked up the same form she’d used for each student to give to parents during the conferences.

  “So, I’d like to first say what a pleasure it is to have both Ella and Eric in my class,” April said, finding some comfort in being able to hide behind her persona as a teacher. Here, in her classroom, she was the one with the control. And there was no danger of him writing any more tickets out for her. “As I’ve told you already, they are some of my best students.”

  “Good to hear,” Mr. Barber said, nodding his head.

  She was grateful he didn’t acknowledge the time and place where she’d shared that information with him originally.

  She glanced back down at the sheet, trying hard to keep her face from flooding with color. She was finding it hard to think under his piercing gaze.

  “The one thing that I’ve noticed, though, is a lack of parent and child interaction when it comes to their work,” April said. “I send homework for them to do and ask each parent to sign the bottom of the paper to let me know they’ve checked their child’s work. More often than not, I receive marks from who Ella and Eric tell me is their aunt.”

  Mr. Barber nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. She’s their sitter when I’m at work.”

  She glanced down at his left hand, and found there was no ring there, nor an indentation from one. “I apologize for being so intrusiv
e, but where is the children’s mother in all this?”

  Mr. Barber looked down at his hands knotted in his lap. “She passed away about five years ago,” he said.

  “Oh…” April said, frowning. “I’m very sorry to hear that.” And she meant it.

  He looked away as he pursed his lips and took a deep breath. When he looked back at her, he blinked twice before speaking. “Thank you. I’m used to it now and the kids don’t remember her.”

  That was a sad thought, Eric and Ella never knowing their mother.

  “So, since I work such long hours, my sister agreed to help watch the kids for me until I get home in the evenings,” he said.

  “I can understand that,” April said. “But I think it would be good for both you and Ella and Eric if you were to spend some more time with them while they did their school work. Even if it can only be one night a week.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be more involved,” he said. “But work is work, and I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “I do understand that work is important,” April said. “But your kids are more important.”

  She wasn’t really sure what made her say it, but she regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that he’d given her a ticket, or if she was annoyed with herself for being so darn attracted to him. She wasn’t even sure if it was because she didn’t like how flippantly he’d spoken about Ella and Eric’s mother.

  Mr. Barber didn’t seem all that pleased about that comment either. She’d crossed the boundary that teachers were never supposed to cross. Telling parents how to parent their own children wasn’t a teacher’s job at all.

  “Yes, well, I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts about my priorities to yourself. I really am doing the best I can, and my kids know that,” he said. “Their opinion is the one that matters to me.”