A Man Worth Marrying

Chapter Two

Gray saw the surprise in Eve’s expression, and only then realized that he hadn’t told her he was a single father. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t intend to mislead you. Tinker’s mother and I have been divorced for three years. We share custody, but she works part-time as hostess at a restaurant, and because of our rather unconventional working hours—I go to work very early in the morning and she works four hours, midafternoon and early evening—I have Tinker from the time she gets home from school until bedtime. Bambi has her throughout the night and until she goes off to school in the morning. We alternate weekends.”

Now Eve looked confused, and he braced himself for further questions. He didn’t like discussing his private business with others, but he would make an exception in her case if she pressed the issue.

She didn’t. “I see,” she said instead. “Then I’ll meet with you and Tinker tomorrow.”

They started walking toward the door, then Eve suddenly stopped and turned to face him. “One more thing,” she said seriously. “Does Tinker know you’re arranging to have her tutored during school vacation?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. She’s not going to be pleased, and I wanted to be sure I could find an available teacher before I told her. I didn’t want to upset her unnecessarily.”

Eve looked perplexed. “But isn’t that what you’ll be doing by introducing her to me? It’s not at all likely that I’ll accept the position—”

He didn’t like the sound of that, but decided to play it lightly. Touching the tip of her slender nose, he smiled. “Ah-ah, there you go again—making up your mind before you’ve explored all the facts.”

She frowned, and he decided he’d better not press his luck. Reluctantly he withdrew his hand before he could give in to the overpowering urge to run his fingers through her glistening black curls.

“I’ll talk to her tonight, explain to her why it’s necessary, and tell her I’ve arranged for a teacher to come by tomorrow afternoon to meet her. Everything will be all right. You’ll see,” he assured her.

He gave her his address and phone number, then thanked her for taking the time to talk to him and left the school building.

As he drove, his mind shifted back to Eve Costopoulos. She wasn’t at all what he’d expected. She was much younger, for one thing. Erik, the district superintendent. hadn’t mentioned her age, and for some reason he’d pictured someone closer to his own. This one seemed hardly out of her teens—although she had to be in her early twenties, at least, in order to have graduated from college and taught for close to a year.

He also hadn’t expected her to be such a knockout! Taller than average, possibly five foot eight, with ample curves that couldn’t be downplayed even by the simple gray skirt and matching cardigan sweater she wore with a tailored white blouse.

She had ebony hair that was a twirling mass of curls swirling around her shoulders making her look like a gypsy, and he’d been disconcerted at his strong urge to tangle his fingers in it.

He stopped for a stop sign, but his contemplation didn’t even slow down as he started up again and made a left turn.

As for Eve’s eyes, it was best not to think of them at all. They were black as her hair, and every bit as unsettling, with their deep-set beauty and their way of looking straight into him. They stirred up feelings that he didn’t welcome, called up emotions he’d sworn never to let get the better of him again.

So why was he so eager to have her tutor his daughter? If his initial attraction to her was this keen, then having her in his house, working with his child several days a week, could be disastrous!

He swore softly. What had gotten into him? Once he’d finally taken all he could of Bambi’s capriciousness and asked for a divorce, he’d vowed never to get seriously involved with a woman again. He sure had no intention of falling in love!

He knew there were adequate teachers who would be happy to have part-time employment for the summer. They might not come as highly recommended as Eve, but they could have done the job. Why hadn’t he just accepted her refusal and let it go at that—?

Because he was spoiled, that’s why. As a minor celebrity in this small city, he was used to getting his own way. And he wasn’t prepared to have a slip of a girl tell him he couldn’t beg, borrow or buy her expert services—

The car in front of him stopped suddenly, and he slammed on his brake and almost rear-ended it. He’d been so lost in his musing that he hadn’t seen the red light ahead.

Enough of this old nonsense! He wasn’t going to take a chance on getting involved with any woman, and certainly not one who was his daughter’s teacher. He didn’t have Eve’s home phone number, but he could call her at school in the morning and tell her that he was regretfully willing to accept her initial refusal, after all. He knew she’d be relieved.

Now that that was settled, maybe he could concentrate on his driving, on picking up Tinker from Judy, the baby-sitter who was a stay-at-home mom and who was on call when his work hours collided with his custody responsibility—without wrecking his sports car.

Gray rolled out of bed at three o’clock the next morning when the alarm went off. He had to get up early every morning in order to be ready to do the weather at five, on the first newscast of the day. It wasn’t much of a hardship. He usually retired at nine on weeknights, and got by nicely on six hours of sleep.

His first thought was of Eve and his need to call her, but obviously it was much too early. She wouldn’t be at school for at least four more hours.

Unfortunately things hadn’t gone last night as he’d planned. In fact, everything that could go wrong had. The outcome was that he hadn’t even seen his daughter, let alone been able to talk to her about being tutored.

He sighed. Not that it really mattered, since he wasn’t going to hire Eve anyway.

But by then it was too late to phone her. After all the fuss he’d made yesterday about wanting her, and only her, to tutor his child, it would be impolite to wait until the last minute to contact her and tell her he’d changed his mind. No, now he’d just wait until she arrived and then graciously accept her initial refusal to take the job.

A suspicion niggled at him, but he shook it off. He wasn’t having second thoughts about not hiring her. Certainly not! He hadn’t deliberately frittered away the time—it had just gotten away from him, was all.

He had no intention of pursuing any kind of relationship with her. Not even a business one.

Eve drove through the neighborhood of well-kept upscale homes. The houses were large, but not ostentatious. Although the lawns were still brown and the big old trees just beginning to leaf, she could see that they received good care during the warmer seasons.

She spotted the address she was looking for, and pulled over to the curb in front of the house. It was one of the smaller homes on the block: a one-story Tudor-style built of red brick with a red tile roof. Handsome as well as sturdy.

Getting out of her silver-gray compact, she approached the house and climbed the steps to the covered porch. She rang the bell, but as she waited she was sorely tempted to turn and run. Although she’d promised to consider tutoring Gray’s daughter, she didn’t like being outwitted, especially by a man who attracted her so strongly. She neither needed nor wanted a man in her life at this time. Certainly not one who had already been married and had an eight-year-old child!

Before she could act on her urge to flee, the inside door opened. Gray stood on the other side of the storm door; he must have been watching for her, to have gotten there so quickly.

“Hi,” he said, and unlocked the outside door to open it. “I...I hope you haven’t been too badly inconvenienced by my insistence that you come here instead of meeting at school.”

Eve was struck by the fact that he seemed ill at ease today. He hadn’t been at all unsure of himself yesterday.

“It’s out of my way, but not much,” she said as she walked into the foyer and looked around. The living room was on the right, the dining room on the left and separated from the kitchen behind it by a chest-high breakfast bar. Straight ahead was a long hall with rooms on either side and at the end. The floors were covered in thick brown-and-beige carpeting, and the furniture was heavy and masculine. Expensive but serviceable.

“You have a very attractive home,” she said. “Did you decorate it yourself?”

He smiled. “Not exactly. When I moved in, I hired a decorator to work with me. And then Bambi got into the act—”

“Is Bambi your ex-wife’s name?” she interrupted. “Or am I misunderstanding again?”

He sighed. “No, you’re not misunderstanding. I told you she was flighty, but you really have to know her to know what I mean. She was christened Bernice after her grandmother, but she didn’t like that name, so she started calling herself Bambi after she saw the Disney movie when she was a child. Now she even uses it as her legal name.”

“My word.” Eve murmured. “She certainly is creative.” It was the only way she could think of to describe the muddled impression she was getting of his ex-wife.

“Oh yes, she is that,” he agreed as he helped her off with her coat. His strong hand touched her shoulder, totally by accident she was sure, but it sent a tingle down her spine.

“I have fresh coffee made,” he said as he hung the coat in the closet of the small entryway. “If you’d like to go sit down in the living room, I’ll bring the cups and things out.”

She’d smelled the coffee perking the minute she stepped inside the house, and she wasn’t going to be coy about accepting a cup. She needed something to keep her wide awake and shrewd enough to deal with this man.

“Let me help,” she said, and followed him into the kitchen. There she saw a carafe, china cups, saucers, sugar, creamer and silver spoons arranged on a tray. She was sure this wasn’t the way he had his coffee when he was alone. He’d gone to some trouble to make things nice for her.

He accepted her offer without hesitation. “If you really want to, you can bring the can of soda and the glass of ice over there on the counter. That’s for Tinker.”

She picked up the items and walked into the living room, where Gray set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the sofa that faced the brick fireplace.

“I’d intended to light a fire,” he said, motioning for her to sit down, “but I had some errands to run after I picked Tinker up at school, and by the time we got home, it was too late.”

She had the distinct impression that he was grasping for small talk rather than coming to grips with the issue that had brought her here—but why?

“Everything is just right,” she assured him as she settled herself on the couch. “But you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. Where is Tinker, by the way?”

Gray sat down beside Eve. “She’s watching television in my office down the hall. She doesn’t have many friends. Once in a while she’ll bring a classmate home with her, or she’ll be invited to go to someone else’s house, but mostly she keeps to herself. I think it’s her poor grades. She doesn’t want to talk about them with the other students, so she remains aloof.”

Eve felt a stab of compassion. “Oh, the poor child,” she murmured. “She really does need help. That type of thing can damage her self-image for a lifetime.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Gray said. “But there’s something I have to tell you before we go any further with this.”

He shifted nervously on the cushion. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tinker last evening about having her tutored.”

Eve’s eyes widened with dismay. “But you promised—”

“I know,” he said mournfully, “and I had every intention of doing it, but when I left the school after talking with you I got a call on my cell phone from the TV station, telling me some new weather-tracking equipment we’d ordered had been delivered. I needed to be there to learn how it’s set up, and how to use it.”

He shrugged. “All I could do was phone Bambi and tell her to pick Tinker up at the baby-sitter’s instead of at my house. I hadn’t seen her since I left you yesterday afternoon until she came home from school today. By then it was so late that I decided I’d better wait and talk it over with you. You know better how to handle children than I do.”

“She doesn’t know why I’m here.” Eve’s voice was filled with chagrin. She felt trapped. This was supposed to be a getting-to-know-each-other meeting to see if she and Tinker could connect as student and teacher. It was important that the child accept being tutored before her father sprang his choice of tutor on her. This wasn’t fair to either student or teacher.

Gray ran his fingers through his hair. “No, she doesn’t,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Eve, but it’s just one of those things that snowballed out of my control. I didn’t even have a chance to call you and postpone the meeting. As long as you’re here now, though, I would like you to meet her. She knows you’re coming.”

Eve glared at him. “You told her about me?”

He sighed. “I had to. She saw me fixing the coffee things, and asked who was coming.” The corners of his mouth raised in a small smile. “I don’t usually use the best china and silver when I serve coffee to neighbors or the gang I work with.”

Eve had to admit that sounded reasonable. “What did you tell her about me?”

“Only that we had some business to discuss,” he assured her. “She didn’t think anything of it. In my profession you meet a lot of new people, so she’s used to strangers coming and going.”

Eve fidgeted with her purse. “I really don’t see any advantage to meeting her until you’ve told her about the tutoring sessions.” She hemmed.

She was surprised to discover that she’d actually been looking forward to seeing Gray’s little girl. Eve was curious about how the youngster looked, how she was progressing with her schoolwork, and how she and Gray got along together.

“Please, Eve, stay for just a little while. I always introduce Tinker to my guests. She expects it, and if you run off without even saying hello to her, it’s going to hurt her feelings.”

Gray caught himself up short. What was the matter with him anyway? He’d wanted a graceful reason not to hire her. Now here it was, handed to him on the proverbial silver platter, and he was practically pleading with her to stay and get acquainted!

Meanwhile, Eve could see it was important that she stay at least long enough to meet Tinker and have a cup of coffee. She relaxed and leaned back against the leather upholstery. “All right, if you really think it’s best, I’d love to meet her. But make it plain that I’m just a business associate.”

“I’m sorry it has to be that way,” he said sadly, “but I understand.”

He stood up and headed for the hall. “Now, if you’d like to pour us some coffee I’ll go get Tinker.”

Gray returned in a few minutes with a young girl in tow. She was wearing a black skort and white cotton blouse: the private school uniform. And she showed promise of blooming into an attractive teenager in a few years, but for now she was all arms and legs—bigger than most children her age and lacking the gracefulness of a smaller child.

Eve felt a twinge of empathy. She’d been too big and awkward at that age, also. She didn’t know what Bambi looked like, but she could see a lot of Gray in his daughter. The girl had his dark brown hair and blue eyes.

“Tinker, I’d like you to meet Ms. Costopoulos,” Gray said.

He turned to Eve. “And Eve, this is my daughter, Sarah, but everybody calls her Tinker.”

The child hung back and looked at the floor shyly, so Eve took the initiative. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said softly. “May I call you Tinker?”

“I...I guess so,” Tinker said unenthusiastically, still not looking up.

“Fine,” Eve answered, keeping her tone friendly. “My name is Evangeline, but everyone calls me Eve. I hope you will too.”

Tinker didn’t respond, but for the first time she raised her head and looked up at Eve. There was a strong negative emotion in her eyes. Fear? Resentment? Eve couldn’t tell.

“Are you going to be my teacher?” Tinker asked angrily.

That stunned Eve. What was going on here? Gray had just told her that Tinker didn’t know he was making plans to have her tutored!

Her head jerked up to scan Gray’s face, but he looked as shocked as she was. He scowled and shook his head, then hunkered down beside Tinker and put his arm around her. “Honey, Ms. Costopoulos—Eve—is a teacher, but she teaches third grade at a school on the other side of town. Who told you she was going to be your teacher?”

Tinker looked at him. “Mom did. She said I’d have to study all summer because you were going to get a teacher to—to come to the house and make sure I did.”

Her face contorted and there was a sob in her voice. “Please, Daddy, don’t make me do that. I do study. Honest I do, but it’s so hard. I’ll never learn all that stuff.”

Gray muttered an oath under his breath as he drew his daughter closer. Bambi! If he didn’t know better he’d think she was deliberately sabotaging his efforts to bring Tinker up to the learning level of the rest of her class.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Bambi didn’t mean any harm; she just didn’t understand how important it was to tread softly so as not to further damage Tinker’s already low self-esteem. He should have known better than to tell her what he was planing to do until it was an accomplished fact.

“Tinker,” he said gently, “I’m afraid your mom misunderstood. What I want to do is find a teacher who will come here for just a couple of hours several afternoons a week, and help you catch up with the rest of your class. She won’t push you, but she’ll teach you all you’ve missed because of your dyslexia. When school starts again next fall, you’ll be able to read, write, and do the arithmetic along with the others.”

Tinker scrutinized Eve, and there was fear in her eyes. “No, I don’t want her to teach me,” she cried, and threw her arms around Gray’s neck.

Eve was getting more distressed by the minute. Tinker didn’t want to be tutored, but she clearly needed the one-on-one help.

Eve spoke before Gray had a chance. “Tinker, you don’t need to be afraid of me. Your father thought you and I should get acquainted because I can help you—but only if you want my help.”

She glanced around and picked up the glass of cola and ice she’d poured for Tinker. “Here, honey,” she said, and held it out to the youngster. “Your dad said this glass of soda is for you.”

Tinker hesitated, then raised her head and looked back at Eve. After a moment, she twisted out of her father’s arms and walked across the floor to take the beverage.

“Why don’t you sit beside me here on the couch,” Eve said, making it a suggestion, not a command.

Tinker said nothing, but finally did sit down.

Next, Eve deliberately shifted her attention from Tinker to Gray, giving Tinker a chance to observe her. “How do you take your coffee, Gray? Cream and sugar?”

“Black,” Gray said, and stood to walk over and get the cup and saucer.

He pulled up an upholstered occasional chair and sat down next to his daughter.

For a few minutes there was strained silence, then Gray spoke. “Tinker, I bought cookies at the bakery and put them in the cookie jar, then forgot to bring them out. Would you mind getting them?”

The child’s eyes lit up. “Peanut butter with chocolate chips?” she asked.

Gray nodded. “Your favorite.”

“All right!” she said excitedly as she jumped up and headed for the kitchen.

Gray let out his breath. “Now where do we go from here?” he asked anxiously.

“Nowhere,” Eve said firmly. “It’s out of the question for me to tutor Tinker now. We got off to an impossible start, and she’ll never trust me. I’m sorry to say this, but the first thing you must do is undo the damage her mother has done. Then you’ll have to find another tutor.”

His cup clattered in the saucer as he put it down on the low table. “Unfortunately, I made the mistake of discussing my plans with Bambi.” There was bitterness in his tone.

“Did you tell your wife you didn’t want Tinker to know you were making plans to have her privately tutored?” Eve asked.

Gray ran his hand over his face. “Ex-wife,” he corrected her. “And of course I did, but when did that ever stop her. She gets upset if I make plans for Tinker without telling her, but when I do tell her, she broadcasts it all over town. If the kids at school hear Tinker’s being tutored, they’ll undoubtedly tease her, call her dumb or stupid. Children can be so cruel without ever meaning to.”

Eve knew all about that, both from her experience as a child when she’d been teased about her long, Greek, almost-unpronounceable last name, as well as her height, and now as a teacher whose pupils constantly fought for recognition and didn’t care how they got it. They often taunted those who were different, or spread vicious rumors about a student who was smarter or had a few more possessions than most of the others did.

She shuddered. “Yes, I know,” she murmured softly, wishing there was a way she could shoulder some of his child’s pain.

Tinker’s young voice came from the kitchen. “Daddy, I can’t find the cookie jar. I think it’s on the top shelf, but I can’t reach it.”

Gray jumped out of the chair. “Just stay where you are, and I’ll get it,” he called as he hurried into the other room. “I don’t want you to climb up on something and fall.”

They were back in a few seconds with a plate of cookies that Gray passed around. Tinker took two, then picked up her glass of soda. “I’m going back to the office and watch television,” she announced sharply, and turned to walk away.

“Just a minute, young lady,” Gray said in a tone that stopped his daughter in her tracks. “I didn’t hear you ask to be excused.”

“Please-may-I-be-excused.” She ran all the words together, her back still turned to them.