My head snapped up. “What?”
He gestured around the mostly empty room. “You said you didn’t have anything else to do in here, right? And I sure don’t know my way around the building. It would be really nice if you could show us a few highlights?”
The Conners called out their goodbyes as they left, and Josie came running over.
“Daddy, they have a robot in here,” she said, sounding kind of out of breath. “And I think that Gabby girl is going to be my friend, she was real nice.”
“See?” He ruffled her hair. “What’d I tell you, Josie girl?”
Alarm bells went off in my head as I watched him smile down at his daughter. There was so much love in his face, so much pride. He looked at her the way every child deserved to be looked at by their parent. Mix that tenderness with how dangerously hot he was? Yeah, my ovaries were howling.
“I was just asking Miss K. if she wouldn’t mind showing us the rest of the school,” he said, and Josie turned her happy little face to me.
“That would be cool,” she said. “Gabby was telling me they have lots of games in the media center.”
Liam nudged her foot with his then said, in a loud stage whisper, “do the puppy dog eye thing. We’ve nearly convinced her.”
Josie widened her eyes then batted her long lashes prettily. “Oh no,” I said, smiling over to Liam. “You’re in trouble. That is one dangerous trick she has.”
Liam laughed. “You’re telling me.”
Knowing I had no decent excuse not to give them a tour—and also fully aware it was exactly what I would have done for any new family—I grabbed my bag and keys from my desk. “Let’s go check out that computer lab.”
Our school was a newer building and it had a lot of bells and whistles we never had in our school back home. I showed Josie the computer lab and the gym, complete with a padded gymnastics station.
All the while I could feel Liam’s presence right behind me. I was somehow sure that he was watching me, like I could feel the heat of his eyes on my skin, but that was ridiculous. Why did my imagination always have to get the best of me when he wasaround? I’d been seeing more than was there with this guy since I was a teenager.
“And this is my favorite place in the school,” I told Josie, swinging open the double doors to the library. “When I started here, there weren’t all that many books so we’ve been doing a lot of fundraisers to buy more.”
From the way her eyes lit up, I knew that I was dealing with a fellow book worm in Josie. “Do you have theHis Dark Materialsseries?” she asked. “That’s what I was reading at my other school but I didn’t get to finish it. I only read the first one.”
My eyebrows went up. That was a pretty advanced series for a third grader.
“I don’t have them in my classroom,” I told her and her face fell. “I have them at home though. It’s actually my favorite series ever.” I leaned down to her and lowered my voice. “In fact, if you think you can keep a secret, I’ll show you something.”
“I’m an awesome secret keeper,” she told me solemnly.
I grinned, squatting down so I was on her level. “Okay then. I don’t usually show this to students but…” I pulled on the cap sleeve of my shirt, revealing the back of my shoulder. “Do you see that?”
She peered over my shoulder and her eyes got big. “You have a tattoo!”
“I do. Can you tell what it is?”
She squinted at the two-inch simple line drawing of a badger-like animal on my shoulder and then a smile broke out over her face. “That’s Pan!” she squealed.
“He’s my favorite character.”
Josie clapped her hands while I straightened my shirt. I happened to look up at Liam and saw his jaw clenching.Crap. Did he not approve of tattoos? Had I just crossed a line? Showing a kid my tattoo wasn’t exactly professional.Swallowing, I turned back to Josie, who was excitedly telling me about her favorite character, a goose named Hester.
“Or maybe it’s Lyra,” she said. “I can’t decide. And I like the witches, too.”
“Those are all good choices. But Pan is my favorite.”
“What do you think your daemon looks like?” she whispered conspiratorially, and Liam cleared his throat.
“Demon? Is this a horror novel they were letting you read at that school?”
Josie rolled her eyes. “No, Dad, not that kind of daemon.” She gave me acan you believe this guylook. “He doesn’t read much, if you can’t tell.”
