Rescued by his Christmas Angel Read Free Page A

Cecilia arrived with a very, er, odd, hairstyle. I’m afraid it left her open to some teasing even before she revealed her secret holding ingredient.”
    â€œShe told me it was hair gel.”
    â€œIt was gel, but not hair gel.”
    He looked askance at her.
    â€œShe didn’t know gel wasn’t gel. She used gel toothpaste.”
    He said a word people generally avoided using in front of the first-grade teacher. And then he ran a hand through the thick darkness of his own hair. Her eyes followed that motion helplessly.
    â€œDidn’t you say anything to her about her hair before she left for school?” she managed to choke out.
    â€œYeah,” he said ruefully, the faintest chink appearing in that armor. “I told her it looked sharp.”
    It had looked sharp . Literally. But if she planned to be taken seriously, Morgan knew now was not the time to smile.
    â€œMr. Hathoway, you cannot send your daughter to school with a shark fin on top of her head and expect she will not be teased!”
    â€œHow do I know what’s fashionable in the six-year-old set?” he asked, and a second chink appeared in the armor. A truly bewildered look slipped by the remoteness in his dark eyes. “To be honest, her hair this morning seemed like an improvement on the raised-by-wolves look she was sporting before she finally let me talk her into cutting her hair.”
    Remembered hair battles flashed through his eyes, and Morgan found her gaze on those hands. It was too easy to imagine him trying to gentle his strength to deal with his daughter’s unruly hair.
    But the last thing Morgan needed to do was couple a feeling of tenderness with the animal pull of his male magnetism!
    â€œIt was not an improvement,” she said firmly, snippily,trying desperately to stay on track. “The children were merciless, even after I made it clear I wanted no comments made. The recess monitor told me Cecilia got called Captain Colgate, Toothpaste Princess and Miss Froggy Fluoride.”
    â€œI’ll bet the froggy one was Bradley Campbell’s boy,” he said darkly. “Ace told me he’s called her Miss Froggy before, because of her voice.”
    â€œHer voice is adorable. She’ll outgrow that little croakiness,” Morgan said firmly. “I’ve already spoken to Freddy about teasing her about it.”
    Nate glowered, unconvinced.
    Morgan pressed on. “To make matters worse, today at lunch break someone noticed her overalls. They said she had stolen them, that they belonged to an older sister and they were missing.”
    â€œSomebody accused Ace of stealing? ”
    Morgan thought he was going to have problems with the joint in his jaw if he didn’t find a different way to deal with tension.
    â€œCecilia said she had taken the overalls from the lost-and-found box.”
    â€œBut why?” he asked, genuinely baffled.
    â€œWhen’s the last time you bought her clothes?” Morgan was aware of something gentling in her voice. “Mr. Hathoway, I sent you a note suggesting a shopping trip might be in order.”
    â€œI don’t read your notes.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I don’t need a little fresh-out-of-college snip like you telling me how to raise my daughter. Oh, and I also don’t do shopping.”
    â€œObviously! And your daughter has suffered as a consequence!”
    He glared at her. A lesser woman might have just touched her forelock and bowed out the door.
    But blessed—or cursed—with the newfound strength of a woman who was working her way through Bliss and making careful notations in the margins, and who had purchased a sofa in a rather adventurous shade of purple, she plunged on.
    â€œCecilia told me that’s why she took the overalls from the lost-and-found box…to spare you a shopping trip. She doesn’t have anything that fits properly. She wears the same favorites over and over. She