Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (61 page)

Two minutes later, I heard the roar of a motorcycle outside, and my heart began pounding in my chest. I was glad that I didn’t happen to be speaking in front of the class at that moment, or I would surely have stuttered and stammered at the sudden violent vibration of the windows. 

I looked over at Rosie putting her toys away and saw a serene smile cross her face.  That sound must be reassuring to her, I thought.  It signals safety and security.

I wasn’t sure what it signaled to me.  At this point, it was making my palms sweat and my stomach quiver.  The fact that my nipples were hardening under my white sundress was something that I was doing my best to ignore.

The vibrations stopped at the sound of the motorcycle’s engine cutting off.   Kids and parents trailed in and out of the classroom and I stood politely waving goodbye and smiling to them all.

After a few moments, heavy footsteps sounded outside and I held my breath and nervously braced myself as I reached up to straighten my long, blonde hair.  I had been waiting for this moment all day.  And I would be lying if I said I didn’t have Mike Montgomery’s face in my mind when I decided to wear my favorite white sundress this morning.

As he rounded the corner, I gasped.  He was easily one of the biggest men I had ever seen.  His curly grey hair was unruly and messy, sticking out of his head like angry, fuzzy snakes.  His beard matched his hair exactly and his huge, furry eyebrows almost made him appear comical.  Until you looked at the rest of him.  His huge shoulders were broad and strong under his cut, the patches covering it doing nothing to distract from the intensity of the man wearing them.

“Reaper!”  Rosie ran over to the huge scruffy man and jumped into his arms.  He laughed and hugged her tightly before he put her back down.  She jumped up and down gleefully, almost more excited than when her dad picked her up.  She grabbed the man’s hand and pulled him over towards me.

“I want you to meet Ms. Daisy!”  she squealed.

“Okay, okay, not so fast!”  He walked along behind her, laughing the whole way.

“Ms. Daisy!  This is my friend, Reaper!”

He smiled, his black eyes crinkling at the corners as he outstretched his calloused hand to me.  I shook his hand and smiled at him.

“Hello, Reaper!  Nice to meet you.  Rosie’s told me a lot about you,”  I said, doing my best to breathe again now that I was recovering from the fact that he wasn’t Mike.

“Well,” he said, as his gaze slowly slid up and down my body. “Rosie said you were pretty, but she didn’t say you were this pretty!”

Normally, his comment might have made me uncomfortable, but the way he said it with a smile, all the while holding Rosie’s hand and standing in my colorful classroom made me laugh.

“Well, thank you…Reaper.”  He stood there surrounded by the last of the students leaving my class for the day, his cut displayed prominently on his back, his wild hair and large frame making him look like some sort of deranged, gentle giant.  He looked totally out of place, but completely at ease.

“Hey Rosie,” he said, turning his beaming smile down to her. “What did you have for lunch today?”

“You ask me that every day!”  Rosie said, laughing and smiling at this man she was clearly fond of.  

“I know!”  he replied, ruffling her bouncing black curls.  “You eat lunch everyday, don’t you?”

She erupted in a fit of giggles and shoved her backpack into his arms.

“Take my backpack, please, Reaper! I want a piggyback ride!”  He obeyed her wishes with a smile, and easily picked her up and settled her onto his back as he looked at me again.

“Big Mike is busy with work, and he asked me to pick up Rosie today.  I’m on the list,” he said.

“Oh, okay, yes, I saw that.  That’s fine.”  It’s true, I had seen his name right there next to Mike’s on the approved guardians list in Rosie’s file.

“It was nice to meet you, Ms. Daisy!” he said, before he began walking towards the door.

“Bye, Ms. Daisy! See you tomorrow!”  Rosie yelled and waved as she was carried happily down the hall.

“Bye, Rosie!  Work on your math worksheets!”  I yelled after her.   I had noticed Rosie was struggling with her math skills, compared to the other students in class.  She was great at writing and learning new words, and she had told me her first day of school that she planned on being a writer someday.  She told me she made up stories all the time, and her dad and Reaper helped her write them down.

I had to admit, I was impressed with Rosie.  She was a lot more well-adjusted than I imagined she would be.  She was grounded and solid in a way a lot of kids weren’t.  She seemed confident and curious about the world, and yet at the same time, sensitive of others.  Now that I had met both Mike and Reaper, I had a different perspective on this unusual family.

And I was intrigued.  Beyond intrigued.  I was almost impatient to learn more about them, and get to know them better.

One of them in particular I wanted to get to know a whole lot better.  

The fact that I hadn’t seen Mike that afternoon filled me with disappointment.  I had built up the moment so much in my head throughout the day that it just wound me up even more when I didn’t have that release.  It just tightened the twisting thread of anticipation in my gut, and I wondered to myself, as I lay in bed that night, my mind wandering in the darkness, if I would feel that everyday now.

I hoped not.

Something had to give.

****

The next day was even worse.  I stumbled through the day like a zombie, constantly reprimanding myself to focus and forget about him.  But it was no use.

Rosie was in my class all day long.  The only time she wasn’t within my sight was at lunchtime and even then it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to find her.  And every time I saw her, in my head I saw Mike.

I struggled through it, determined not to let my ridiculous obsession with the man I had only met once keep me from being the best teacher I could be.  So, instead of avoiding Rosie, I embraced her and did exactly what I planned to do all along.  I took her under my wing, picking her as the first student to be my class helper for the week, hoping I could undo some some part of the pain I knew had to be in her heart.

It was halfway through the day, when we were completing our math lesson that I saw Rosie quietly staring at her worksheet and biting her lip in confusion.  When I walked over to her, her worksheet was completely blank.

“Are you okay, Rosie?”  I asked quietly, as I leaned over to her.

“Yeah…” she said, for the first time her voice lacking in confidence.

“Are you sure?” I prodded.

“Yeah, I guess…”  she looked up at me, her brown eyes full of sadness.  “I just like words better than numbers.”

I smiled, and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“Me, too!”

She looked at me with surprised eyes.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yep. But, it’s important to learn them and how to use them, just as much as words.  And, sometimes they can even be fun, believe it or not.”

She looked at me skeptically.

“I don’t know about that…” she murmured.

“It’s true.  You just have to spend some time with them.  Sometimes words come easily to people.  Sometimes numbers do.  Maybe you’re just a word person, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do both.”

She stared at me pensively for a moment, then a small smile spread across her face.

“Okay, I understand.  It’s like at home.  Reaper is much better at making pancakes than my daddy is.  But daddy makes the best cupcakes ever!”

I burst out laughing at the vision of Mike making cupcakes and Rosie laughed with me.

“If it’s okay with you, Rosie, how about I ask your dad if I can give you a little extra tutoring in math?  Before long, you’ll be the first one in the class to finish those worksheets!”  I said it before I thought about what the offer entailed.  We weren’t allowed to be in the school very long after school ended because of deep budget cuts, and I didn’t consider where this tutoring would actually take place at the time.

“I would love that, Ms. Daisy!”  Rosie beamed at me, her gratefulness shining in her eyes.

**** 

“Tutoring?” 

Mike was standing in the exact place Reaper had been yesterday, and I struggled to breathe, let alone get the words out coherently.  I reminded myself that I was a professional, and if I could handle a class full of seven year-olds, I could just as easily handle Mike.

But then he walked in.  No, scratch that.  He didn’t just walk in.  He strutted in, and I swear I heard loud, pounding rock music in my head as I watched him slowly walk across the linoleum floor of my classroom at the end of the day.

He was a few minutes late again, and by the time he arrived, it was just me and Rosie in the room.  

“I’m sorry I’m late again.  I’m not always late,”  he said, greeting me with yet another warm, enveloping handshake and a breathtaking smile.

Every muscle in my body tightened as he held my hand for just a fraction too long, before once again, holding my gaze steadily.  And once again, I couldn’t break away.  

Was it going to be like this?  Was he really going to stride in here and steal the breath out of my lungs and the air from the room, practically putting a spell on me, every single time?  If so, I didn’t know how in the hell I was going to be able to resist wrapping myself around him in every way possible.

“Yes you are, Daddy,” Rosie said quietly, as she stood at his side, watching the two of us stare at each other.

“What, honey?” he asked without breaking eye contact with me.

“Late.  You’re always late.”  She said it simply and easily, with no trace of accusation or disappointment.  She stated it as a simple fact.

“Oh,” he said, finally glancing down at her quickly before looking at me again.  “Yeah, she’s right.”

We laughed at the same time and Rosie just shook her head at both of us.  

“Well, it’s good to know yourself, I guess,”  I said to him.  He was wearing his leathers again today, a black t-shirt tightly stretched across his chest under his patched vest, his arms bare, muscular and covered in tattoos.  A snake wound around his huge bicep, and I glanced at it quickly before looking back into his smiling eyes.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.

Work, Daisy!  You’re here to work!

“Oh!” Yes, work. “I wanted to talk to you about Rosie.”

Immediately his expression went from flirty to concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong.  It’s just that she was struggling a little with her math skills earlier,”  I said.

“Oh?” 

“Yes, and well, um…I wanted to offer some tutoring for her.  It probably wouldn’t take long to get her up to speed, but I think she could benefit from a few one on one sessions.”

“Oh, okay, alright.” 

His gaze was too intense and I looked away from him as I spoke.  Unfortunately, I looked down and right at the huge bulge in the front of his pants.  His jeans fit him like a second skin, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

I looked away again quickly, my eyes darting around and trying to land on anything but another one of his amazing body parts.

“Well, how do we go about doing that?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, we can’t use the school after hours.  I’d be happy to tutor her from my apartment, it’s not far from here.  Or we could go to a coffee shop or something, if you are uncomfortable with that.  I could do it right after school.”

“I wanna go to your apartment, Ms. Daisy!” Rosie began jumping up and down excitedly.

“Oh!”  I said, laughing.  

Mike laughed at Rosie, and caught my eye once more.  

“I don’t have a problem with her coming to your place.  I can just pick her up there afterward.”

“Okay.  We could start tomorrow if you want?”  For a brief moment, I heard a nagging voice in the back of my head asking me what the hell was I doing inviting an outlaw biker to my house.  “Should just take an hour or so.”

I ignored it as I heard Mike’s deep rumbling voice agreeing and asking me to write down my address and phone number for him.