“I’m in the mood to demonstrate how much I love my new fiancée.” He grins down at me as he lays me on the bed.
“Jolly good!” I cry and laugh with him as he covers my body with his.
“You’ll get it eventually, love.”
prologue
Can you believe that Edna took off like that?”
“What do you expect, Bethel? Her grandbaby needed her,” Eileen replied.
“I know. I know. But the Christmas pageant is coming and it just won’t be the same without her,” Bethel said.
“Yes, of course, but don’t you see the opportunity this presents?”
Both women turned to look at their friend Maggie, whose grin ran from ear to ear. The three women were thought to be in their sixties, but no one knew for sure—they guarded their age more securely than Fort Knox guarded its gold.
“What do you mean?” they asked in unison.
“We don’t get too many new people here in town,” Maggie told them. “Hawk’s been single for long enough. Now that my boy Bryson has gotten married and settled down, I’m more than ready to see the same happen for Hawk.”
“Ooh, I like your thinking, Maggie,” Bethel said, her eyes twinkling with understanding.
“So, we just need to find an . . . appropriate teacher,” Eileen said with a giggle.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Bethel burbled. “I’m so glad to be on the school board, so we have the task of finding Edna’s replacement.”
“Did they include photographs with the résumés?” Maggie asked.
“Sure did!” Eileen told them as she flipped open her laptop.
“Shouldn’t we bring Martin in on this?” Eileen asked quietly, and a slight blush tinged her cheeks.
Bethel and Maggie knew that something was happening between their friend and town businessman Martin Whitman, but they weren’t about to call Eileen out on it.
“We will . . . eventually,” Bethel said. “But not right now. This girl needs to be for Hawk. Martin would try to steal her away for one of his four boys.”
“Well, we need to find some women for those ornery sons of his, too,” Maggie chimed in.
“Let’s just focus on one kid at a time,” said Bethel, always the logical one. “Besides, I already have plans brewing for my granddaughter Sage and one of the Whitman boys. As soon as she’s done with medical school . . .”
Maggie’s eyes widened. “Oh, do tell.”
“Now’s not the time.” Bethel said, clicking through the résumés. “Girls, I think we have a winner!”
The other two women leaned over, and then all three of them smiled as they read about Natalie Duncan, who was seeking work as an elementary-school teacher.
“I think you might just be right,” Maggie said.
Poor Natalie had no idea what she was about to step into . . .
chapter 1
Her heels clicking on the hard tile floor of the airport, Natalie Duncan smiled and popped a Hershey’s Kiss into her mouth. Her first teaching job! It was a dream come true. Four years of college, thousands of study hours, even more volunteer hours, a teaching internship at a beautiful elementary school in sunny LA, and she had finally received the call she’d been waiting for.
Sure, it was November, and sure, she’d been called only because another teacher was going through some sort of family emergency and had to leave the state suddenly, but Natalie was still stoked. She’d been the one the school had called. She was the one who would be stepping into her very own classroom come Monday morning.
The small town of Sterling, Montana, wasn’t exactly where she’d wanted to begin her career, but it was a job teaching what she loved. This was only a stepping-stone.
Wholly unaware of the masculine eyes that were following her in her sharp blue pencil skirt and four-inch heels, Natalie pressed forward. With her slim five-foot-three-inch frame and her fiery red hair, green eyes, and full lips, she was made to turn heads. The thing was, Natalie wasn’t looking for male attention. She had plans. She had goals. And men were far down on her list of priorities. After all, she was only twenty-three. Work first. Marriage and family later.
A smile flitted across her lips as she thought about her life fifteen years down the road. She’d have a white picket fence and one girl and one boy running through the sprinkler on a nice, hot day while she sat next to her husband and enjoyed the successes of her life.
Wrapped up in her fantasy future, Natalie stepped through the airport doors buzzing with excitement and a huge smile plastered on her face, which vanished in an instant when the biting Montana wind slapped her in the face.
“What the hell?”
Her voice came out choked as she struggled to regain the breath that had been sucked from her.