The Christmas Child. Linda Goodnight

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      “I’m aware the project does a good deed, but the worry is academics. Aren’t your students losing valuable class time while baking cookies?”

      “Not at all. They’re learning valuable skills in a reallife situation. I realize my teaching style is not traditional but students learn by doing as well, maybe better, than by using only textbooks.”

      Biff took a pencil from his desk and tapped the end on a desk calendar. He was unusually fidgety today. Whoever complained must have clout. “Give me some specifics to share with the concerned parent.”

      “Who is it? Maybe if I spoke with him or her?”

      “I don’t want my teachers bothered with disgruntled parents. I will handle the situation.”

      “I appreciate that, Biff. You’ve always been great support.” Which was all the more reason to be concerned this time. Why was he not standing behind her on the cookie project? Who was putting pressure on the principal? “The project utilizes math, economics, life skills, social ethics, research skills, art and science.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “There are more. Is that enough?”

      Biff scribbled on a notepad. “For now. You may have to articulate exactly how those work at some point, but we’ll start here.”

      “I really don’t want to lose this project, Biff. It’s a high point for my students.”

      “As well as for their teacher who loves everything Christmas.” With a half smile he bounced the pencil one final time. “Why don’t we have dinner tonight and discuss this further?”

      The offer caught Sophie as much by surprise as someone’s objection to the cookie project. She sputtered a bit before saying, “Thank you, but I have to say no. I’m sorry.”

      Her thoughts went to Davey and the way he’d clung to her this morning. She couldn’t wait to see him again and let him know she kept her promises. She’d phoned after lunch to say hello and see how he was doing. Kade had answered, assured her Davey was doing fine and was at that moment sound asleep on Ida June’s couch. The memory of Kade’s voice, clipped, cool and intriguing, lingered like a song she couldn’t get out of her head.

      No, she definitely did not want to have dinner with the principal.

      “I’ve already made other plans.”

      Biff’s face closed up again. He stuffed the pen in his shirt pocket. “Ah. Well, another time, then.”

      At the risk of encouraging him, Sophie nodded and quickly left his office. The mystery casserole churned in her stomach. As her boot heels tapped rhythmically on highly waxed white tile, she reviewed the unsettling conversation. As much as she wanted to believe Biff’s dinner invitation was purely professional, she knew better. Carmen was right. The principal liked her. She liked him, too. It wasn’t that. He was a good man, a by-the-book administrator who strove for excellence and expected the same from his staff. As a teacher, she appreciated him. But as a woman? She hadn’t thought seriously about her boss, and given the buzz of interest she’d felt for Ida June’s nephew, she never would.

      Frankly, the concerns about her teaching methods weighed more heavily right now.

      Would Biff go as far as vetoing the cookie project?

       Chapter Three

      Kade pushed back from the laptop perched on Ida June’s worn kitchen table and rubbed the strain between his eyes. Hours of poking into every law-enforcement database he could access produced nothing about a missing mute boy named David. He’d chased a rabbit trail for the past hour only to discover the missing child had been found.

      Hunching his shoulders high to relieve the tightness, he glanced past the narrow dividing bar into Ida June’s living room. Davey still slept, curled beneath a red plaid throw on the 1970s sofa, a psychedelic monstrosity in red, green and yellow swirls that, ugly as sin, proved a napping boy’s paradise. In sleep, Davey had released his beloved book to fall in the narrow space between his skinny body and the fat couch cushion. Sheba lay next to him, her golden head snuggled beneath his lax arm. She opened one eye, gave Kade a lazy look and went back to sleep.

      “Traitor,” he said, softly teasing. The boy had taken one look at the affable dog and melted. Sheba could never resist a kid. When Davey went to his knees in joyful greeting and threw his arms around her neck, Sheba claimed him as her own. He’d shared his lunch with her, a sight that had twisted in Kade’s chest. The kid had been hungry, maybe for days, but he’d shared a ham sandwich with the well-fed dog. Whatever had happened to Davey hadn’t broken him. It may very well have silenced him, but his soul was still intact.

      Kade rubbed a frustrated hand over his whiskered jaw and asked himself for the dozenth time why he’d gotten involved. He knew the answer. He just didn’t like it.

      Leaving the pair, he poured himself another cup of coffee and went to finish the laundry. At the moment, Davey wore one of Kade’s oversize T-shirts and a ridiculously huge pair of sweats tied double at the waist. Now, when he awoke, Davey’s clothes would be as clean as he was.

      Once the boy had been fed, cleaned and his clothes in the washer, Ida June had barked a few orders and gone to work at the little town square. With Kade’s less-than-professional assistance, she’d been erecting a stable for the town’s Christmas celebration. She’d promised to have it finished this week, and leaving Kade to “mind the store” and “find that boy’s mama,” Ida June had marched out the door with a final parting shot: “Promises are like babies squalling in a theater—they should be carried out at once.”

      He was still smirking over that one. His mother’s aunt was a colorful character, a spunky old woman who’d outlived two husbands, built her own business and half of her own house, drove like a maniac and spouted quotes like Bartlett. And if anyone needed a helping hand, she was there, though heaven help the man or woman who said she had a soft heart.

      Kade removed Davey’s pitiful jeans and sweatshirt from the dryer and folded them next to clean socks and underwear before tossing the washed sneakers into the stillwarm drier. He set them on tumble with one of Ida June’s fragrant ocean-breeze dryer sheets and left them to thump and bang.

      He wasn’t much on shopping any more than he was on doing laundry, especially at Christmas when the holly, jolly Muzak and fake everything abounded, but a single man learned to take care of business. The boy needed clothes, and unless Sophie Bartholomew or Ida June offered, he’d volunteer.

      Sophie. The wholesome-looking teacher had played around the edges of his thoughts all day, poking in a little too often. Nobody could be that sweet and smiley all the time.

      “Probably on crack,” he groused, and then snorted at the cynical remark. A woman like Sophie probably wouldn’t know crack cocaine if it was in her sugar bowl.

      His cell phone jangled and he yanked the device from his pocket to punch Talk. With calls into various law-enforcement agencies all over the region, he hoped to hear something. Even though he was a stranger here, with few contacts and no clout, his federal clearances gave him access to just about anything he wanted to poke his nose into.

      It had been a while since he’d wanted to poke into anything. When he turned over rocks, he usually found snakes.

      He squeezed his eyes shut. The year undercover СКАЧАТЬ