Matt Sanders

Tears. Books thrown. And pencils. Breakage. Name-calling. Screaming. Hair Pulling. It was like a scene from a bad marriage or the kind of drama that a reality television show adored, rifle with mayhem, conflicts, conspiracies.

But it wasn't a bad marriage, or bad TV.

It was Aubree Dawson's life, and it didn't help one bit that each of the perpetrators in today's drama had been under four feet tall. the day had culminated with a twenty-one-child "dog pile on the rabbit."

It was the kind of day they had failed to prepare her for at teacher's college, Aubree, first-year first-grade teacher, thought mournfully.

And somehow, fair or not, in her mind, it was all his fault.

Matthew Sanders, father of Emmaleigh Sanders, the child who had been at the very center of every single kerfuffle today, including being the rabbit in that unfortunate dog pile.

Now, Aubree Dawson paused and stared at the sign in front of her. Sanders' Home. Her heart was beating hard, and it wasn't just from the walk from school, either.

[i'Don't do it, her fellow teacher Elizabeth Adams had said when Aubree had asked her at lunch if she thought she should go beard the lion in his den.

Or the devil at his fire, as the case might be.

"But he's ignoring my notes. He hasn't signed the permission slip for Emmaleigh-"

"Emmaleigh?"

Aubree sighed. "Ace. Her real name's Emmaleigh. I think she needs something feminine in her life, including her name. That was the first fight this morning was about. Her hairstyle."

Not that the hair cut was that new, but today there had been a very unusual new styling for the haircut. how could he have let her out of the house looking like that?

"And then," Aubree continued, "one of the kids overheard me ask her about the permission slip to be in The Christmas Angel. She didn't have it."

The production of The Christmas Angel was descending on Huntington Beach, California.

The town had been chosen for the second annual Christmas extravaganza.

The fact that they were using local children--the first graders would be his back up choir if Emmaleigh managed to get her permission slip signed--had whipped the children in a frenzy of excitement and dramatic ambition.

"Aubree, rehearsals are starting next week! The director is arriving to supervise the choir!" Elizabeth said this urgently, as if the fact could have somehow bypassed her fellow teacher.

"I know. And I already told the class that we are all doing it, or none of us is doing it."

"That was foolish," Elizabeth said. "Can't Ace Sanders just sit in the hall and read a book while the rest of the children rehearse?"

"No!" Aubree was aghast at the suggestion. But meanwhile, poor Emmaleigh was being seen as the class villan because she was the only one with no permission slip. "If I don't talk to him, Emmaleigh is going to continue to suffer."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Just let her sit in the hall."

"It's not just the permission slip. I have to address some other issues."

"You know that expression about going where angels fear to tread? That would be particularly true of Sanders' Home. Matt wasn't Mr. Sunshine and Light before his wife died. Now..." Elizabeth's voice trailed away and then she continued. "It's not entirely Matt's fault anyway. Kids always get high strung around Christmas. It's hitting early because of all the hoopla around the whole Christmas Angel thing."

Naturally, Aubree had chosen to ignore Elizabeth's well-meaning advise about going to visit Matthew Sanders.

Now, taking a deep breath, she turned off the pavement and up the winding drive way, lined by trees, now nearly naked of leaves. The leaves, yellow and orange, crunched under her feet, sending up clouds of tart aroma.

Aubree came to a white house, cozy and cottage like, amongst a grove of trees. It was evident to her that while once it had been well loved, now it looked faintly neglected. The flower beds had not grown flowers this year, but weeds, now depressingly dead. Indigo paint, that once must have looked lively and lovely against the white, was peeling from the shutters, the window trim and the front door was set deep under a curved arch.

Despite the fact light was leeching from the late-afternoon autumn air, there were no lights on in the house.

Aubree knew Emmaleigh was at the after school program.

The road continued on to a building beyond the house. It dwarfed the house, a turn-of-the-century stone building, but a chimney belched smoke, and light poured out the high upper windows. Aubree realized it was the studio.

She drew nearer to it. A deep, solid door, under a curved arch that mirrored the one the house, had a sign on it.

Go Away

That was the kind of unfriendly message, when posted on a door, that one should probably pay strict attention to.

But Aubree hadn't come this far to go away. She drew a deep breath, stepped forward and knocked on the door. And was ignored.

She was absolutely determined she was not going to be ignored by this man anymore! She knocked again, and then, when there was no answer, turned the handle and stepped in.

She was not sure what she expected: smoke, darkness, fire, but the cavernous room was large and bright. What was left of the days natural light was flowing in windows high up the walls, supplemented by huge shop lights.

In a glance, she saw whiskey-barrel bins close to the door, the room was full of album memorabilia of previous albums produced and engineered. Under different circumstances, she would have looked at the wares with high interest.

Matthew Sanders, she had learned since coming to Huntington Beach, had a reputation as one of the finest engineers in the world.

But today, her gaze went across the heated room to where a fire burned in great hearth, a man in front of it.

His back was to her, and even though Aubree suspected he had heard her knock, and even heard her enter, he did not turn.

From the back, he was breathtaking speciman. Dark brown hair, thick and shiny. His shoulders were huge and wide, tapering perfectly down to a narrow waist. Fadded jeans rode low with boxers peaking out the top, hugging the slight swell of a perfect masculine butt.

Even though his name was whispered with a kind of reverence by every single female Aubree had encountered in Huntington, she felt unprepared for the pure presence of him, for that masculine something that filled the air around him.

She felt as if the air was being sucked from her lungs and she debated just leaving quietly before he turned.

then she chided herself for such a weak thought. She was here for the good of a six-year-old child who needed her intervention.

And she was so over being swayed by the attractions of men. A bitter break up with her own fiance' after she'd had the audacity to consider the job--her own career--in Huntington still stung. Conor had been astonished that she would consider the low-paid teaching position in the town, then openly annoyed that his own high-powered career didn't come first. For both of them.

Aubree was making a new start here. No more stars in her eyes, no more romantic notions.

Her mother, whom Aubree had thought liked Conor, had actually breathed a sigh of relief at Aubree's break up news.

Darling, I do wish you'd quit looking for a father figure. It really makes me feel so guilty.

Not guilty enough, however, to postpone her vacation to Thailand so they could spend Christmas together. In lieu of sympathy over her daughter's failed engagement her mother had given her a book.

it was called Bliss: The Extraordinary Joy of Being a Single Woman.

Surprisingly, given that she had initially resented the book being given to her in the place of some parental direction about how to handle a break up, Aubree found she was thoroughly enjoying Bliss.

It confirmed for Aubree the absolute rightness of her making the break, learning to rely only on herself to feel good. Not her boyfriend. And not her mother, either.

Two and a half months into her teaching career and her new location in Huntington, Aubree loved making her own decisions, living in her own home, buying the groceries she liked without living in the shadow of a nose wrinkling in disapproval--Do you know how many grams of sugar this has in it?

Just as Bliss had promised, every day of being an independent woman who answered to no one but herself felt like a new adventur.

But now, as the man at the studio turned to her, Aubree was stunned to find she has no idea at all what the word adventure meant.

Though something in the buccaneer blackness of his eyes promised he knew all about adventures so dark and mysterious they could make a woman quiver.

One who wasn't newly dedicated to independent living

Aubree fervently reminded herself of her most recent joy--the absolute freedom of picking out the funky purple sofa that Conor, and possibly her mother, too, would have hated. The author of Bliss had dedicated a whole chapter of the book to furniture selection and Aubree felt she had done her proud.

But now that moment seemed far less magical as the man, Matt Sanders, stood regarding her, his eye made blacker by the flicker of the firelight, his brows drawn down in a fierce lack of welcome that echoed the sign on the door, his stance of a warrior. Hard. Cynical. Unwavering.

One hand, sinewy with strength, held a soldering iron.

Aubree felt her breath catch in her throat. Emmaleigh's father, Matt Sanders, with his classic features, strong cheekbones, flawless nose, chiseled jaw, sensuously full lips, was easily the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on.

"Can't you read?" he growled at her. "I'm not open to the public."

His voice was rough, impatient and impossibly sexy. It shivered across the back of Aubree's neck like a tough.

Ignoring her, he place the hot iron back in it's cradle and moved around some form of wire and connector in front of him. She watched, dazed at the concentration of every little finger twitch.

"Um, Mr. Sanders, I can read, and I'm not the public. I'm Emmaleigh's teacher."

The silence was long. Finally, his sign was audible, he said, "Ah, Mrs. Dawson." He shot her a look that seemed uncomfortably hostile and returned his attention to the cable. He connected the solder, soldering iron, and cable making a little cloud of smoke form above the connection, and placed the cable into the connector cup. and he turned his eyes to look at her, assessing.

Maybe it was just because they were so dark that they seemed wicked, eyes that would belong to a highwayman, or a pirate, or an outlaw, not to a father of a fragile six-year-old girl.

Aubree drew in a deep breath. It was imperative that she remember the errand that had brought her here. The permission slip for Emmaleigh to participate in The Christmas Angel was in her jacket pocket.

"It's Miss, actually. The kids insist on Mrs. I corrected them for the first few days, but I'm afraid I've given up. Everybody over the age of twenty-one is a Mrs. to a six-year-old. Particularly if she's a teacher."

She felt as if she was babbling. She realized, embarrassed, that it sounded as if she needed him to know she was single. Which she didn't.

"Miss Dawson, then," he said, not a flicker in that stern face showing the slightest interest in her marital status.

He folded those muscular, extremely enticing arms over the massiveness of his chest, rocked back on his heels, regarded her coolly, waiting, the impatience not even thinly veiled.

"Aubree," she said. Why was she inviting him to call her by her first name? She told herself it was to see if she could get the barrier down in his eyes. Her mission here was already doomed if she could not get past that.

But part of her knew that wasn't the total truth. The total truth was that she did not want to be seen only as the new first-grade teacher, and all that implied, such a boring and prim. Part of her, weak as that part was, was clamoring for this man to see her as a woman.

But that's what the devil did. Tempted. And looking at his lips, stern, unyielding, but somehow as sensual as his voice, she felt the most horrible shiver of temptation.

"It's obvious to me Emmaleigh is a child who is loved," Aubree said. It sounded rehearsed. It was rehearsed, and thank goodness she'd had the foresight to rehearse something, or despite her disciplined nightly reading of Bliss, Aubree would be standing here struck dumb by his gorgeousness and the fact he exuded male power.

Now, she wished she had rehearsed something without the word love in it.

Because isn't that what fallen angels like the man in front of her did? Tempted naive women to believe maybe love could soften something in that hard face, that maybe love could heal something that had broken?

He said nothing, but if she had hoped to soften him by telling him she knew he loved his daughter, it had not succeeded. The lines around his mouth deepened in an expression of impenetrable cynicism.

"Emmaleigh has the confidence and quickness of a child sure of her place in the world." Originally, Aubree had planned on saying something about that quickness being channeled somewhere other than Emmaligh's fists, but now she decided to save that for a later meeting.

Which assumed there would be a later meeting, not that anything in his face encouraged such an assumption.

She had also planned on saying something like in light of the fact her mother had died, Emmaleigh's confidence and brightness spoke volumes of the parent left behind. But somehow, her instinct warned her not to speak of the death of his wife.

Though nothing in his body language, in the shuttered eyes, invited her to continue, Aubree pressed on, shocked that what she said next had nothing to do with the permission slip for The Christmas Angel/.

"it's the mechanics of raising a child, and probably particularly a girl child, that might be the problem for you , Mr. Sanders."

It's none of your business, Elizabeth had warned her dourly when Aubree had admitted she might broach the subject while she was there about the permission slip. You're here to teach, not set up family counseling services.

Aubree did not think sending the odd note home qualified as family counseling services. Though Matt Sanders' failure to respond to the notes should have acted as a warning to back off, rather than invitation to step it.

Obviously, he was a man who did not take kindly to having his failings pointed out to him, because his voice was colder than the Antarctic.

"Maybe you'd better be specific about the problem, Miss Dawson."

Emmaleigh needed her, and that made Aubree brave when it felt as if courage would fail her. "There ahve been some incidents of the other children making fun of Emmaleigh."

In half a dozen long strides hew as across the floor of his studio, and staring down at her with those mesmerizing, devil-dark eyes.

She could smell him, and the smell was as potent as a potion.

"What kids?" he asked dangerously.

Aubree had to tilt her chin to look at him. She did not like it that his eyes narrowed to menacing slits, that the muscle was jerking in the line of his jaw, or that his fist was unconsciously clenching and unclenching at his side.

This close to Matt Sanders, she could see the beginning of dark whiskers shadowing the hollows of impossibly high cheekbones, bugging his chin. It made him look even more roguish and untamable than he had looked across the room.

His lips were so full and finely shaped that just looking at them could steal a woman's voice, her tongue could freeze to the roof of her mouth.

"It's not about the kids," she managed to stammer, ordering her eyes to move away from the pure sensual art of his mouth.

"The hell it isn't."

"You can't seriously expect me to name names."

"You tell me who is making fun of Ace, and I'll look after it. Since you haven't."

Aubree was shivered at his accusing tone, but felt her own strength shimmer back to life, her backbone straightening. She was as protective as her mother bear with her cubs. All of those children were her cubs. Sometimes, looking out at the tiny sea of eager faces in the morning, still stunned her how tiny and vulnerable six-year-olds could be.

and, after a day like today, it stunned her how quickly all the innocence could turn to terror on wheels. Still, she was not going to sic him on her kids!

She took a deep breath, tried not to let her inner quiver at the expression on his face show. "We are talking about six-year-olds. How would you propose to look after that, Mr. Sanders?"

"I wasn't going to hunt them down," he said, reading her trepidation, disdain that she would conclude such a thing in the husky, controlled tone of his voice. Still, he flexed one of the naked muscles of his biceps with a leashed anger.

Aubree's eyes caught there. A bead of sweat was slipping down the ridge of a perfectly cut muscle. She had that tongue-frozen-against-the-roof-of-her-mouth feeling again. Thank goodness. Otherwise she might have involuntarily licked her lips at how damnably tantalizing every single thing about him was.

"I wouldn't deal with the children," he continued softly, "but I grew up with their parents. I could go have a little talking-to with certain people."

The threat was unmistakable. But so was the love and pure need to protect his daughter. It felt as if that love Matt Sanders had for his daughter could melt Aubree as surely as that fire blazing in the background.

"Mr. Sanders, you just need to take a few small steps at home to help me."

"Since you are unable to help her at school?"

The sensation of melting disappeared! So did the tongue-stuck-to-the-roof-of-her-mouth feeling. She was not going to be attacked!

"That's unfair!" She was pleased with how calm she sounded, so she continued. "I have twenty-two children in my class. I can't be with every single one of them every single second, monitoring what they are saying among themselves, or to Emmaleigh."

"What are they saying?"

There wer old incidents she could bring up: the fun they made of Emmaleigh's hair before he had cut it, how someone had cruelly noticed how attached she was to a certain dress. Though it was always clean it was faded from her wearing it again and again. With boys' hiking boots, instead of shoes. They were situations that had caused teasing. Emmaleigh was no doormat. She came out fighting, and looking at the man before her, Aubree was pretty sure where she'd learned that!

Still, Aubree had prided herself on creatively finding a remedy for each situation. Only it was becoming disheartening how quickly it was replaced with a new situation.

Aubree had to get to the heart of that problem.

"Just for example, this morning Emmaleigh 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."

"She told me it was hair gel."

"It was gel, but not hair gel."

He looked askance at her.

"She 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.

"DIdn't you say anything to her about her hair before she left for school?" she managed to choke out.

"Yeah," 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, Aubree knew now was not the time to smile.

"Mr. Sanders, you cannot send your daughter to school with a shark fin on top of her head and expect she will not be teased!"

"How 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 Aubree 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 Aubree needed to do was couple a feeling of tenderness with the animal pull of his male magnetism!

"It 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 Emmaleigh got called Captain Colgate, Toothpaste Princess, and Miss Froggy Flouride."

"I'll be the froggy one was Bradley Edens' boy," he said darkly. "Ace told me he's called her Miss Froggy before, because of her voice."

"Her voice is adorable. She'll outgrow that little croakiness," Aubree said firmly. "I've already spoken to Robert about teasing her about it."

Matt glowered, unconvinced.

Aubree 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."

"Somebody accused Ace of stealing?"

Aubree knew he was going to have problems with the joint in his jaw if he didn't find a different way to deal with tension.

"Emmaleigh said she had taken the overalls from the lost-and-found box."

"But why?" he asked, genuinely baffled.

"When's the last time you bought her clothes?" Aubree was aware of something gentling in her voice. "Mr. Sanders, I sent you a note suggesting a shopping trip might be in order."

"I don't read your notes."

"Why not?"

"Because 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."

"Obviously! 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 though Bliss and making careful notations in the margins, and who had purchased a sofa in a rather adventurous shade of purple, she plunged on.

"Emmaleigh 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 wears hiking boots with skirts, Mr. Sanders! Haven't you noticed that?"

He said the word again, and something besides hardness flickered in those eyes again. It was worse than the hardness. Pain so deep it was like a bottomless pool.

"I guess I didn't notice," he said, the warrior stance shifting ever so slightly, something defeated in his voice. "Ace could have said something."

"She seems to think if she asks nothing of you, she's protecting you in some way."

The smallest hint of a smile tickled across lips that had the potential to be so sexy they could make a woman's hear stop.

"She is protecting me in some way. Grocery shopping is tough enough. I have to go out of town for groceries to avoid recipe exchanges with well-meaning neighbors."

Whom, Aubree was willing to guess, were mostly female. And available. She could easily imagine him being swarmed at a market in a town where everyone would know his history. Wife killed, nearly two years ago, Christmas Eve care accident. Widower. Single dad.

"The girl's department is impossible," he went on grimly. "A sea of pink. Women everywhere. Frills." He said that word again, softly, with pained remembrance shadowing his eyes. He shook his head. "I don't do shopping," he said again, firmly, resolutely.

"I'd be happy to take her shopping."

It was the type of offer that would have Elizabeth rolling her eyes. It was the type of offer that probably made Aubree's insanity certifiable. Could she tangle her life with those of the Sanders without dancing with something powerful and possibly not tamable?

But whatever brief humanity had touched Matt's features it was doused by carelessly.

"I don't do pitty either."

Good, Aubree congratulated herself. She had done her best. She should leave now, while her dignity was somewhat in tact. Elizabeth would approve if she left without saying another word.

Naturally, she didn't.

"It's not pity. I happen to love shopping. I can't think of anything I would consider more fun than taking Emmaleigh on a shopping excursion."