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enough guy to be Kaylie’s father. She couldn’t drop her guard, couldn’t let her attraction get in the way. Attraction as much as rebellion had led her down too many wrong paths in her youth.
    There was the twenty-five-year-old who took her to Texas over spring break when she was sixteen, and then an aspiring rocker who hit her. After that a football star who tried to turn her into a beauty queen, and the band instructor at her boarding school. The one thing all four had in common was her parents’ hatred of them.
    It was the younger man—one of her father’s students—whom she dated the year after earning her degree that had made Paige take a hard look at what she had been doing with her life. He accused her of using him as an accessory when all her life she’d felt like the accessory her parents used to make their family seem perfect. Until that night she had floated from dead-end boyfriend to dead-end job, not using her degree, not practicing her own art, because at least when she was underachieving it annoyed her parents to the point they would call to tell her how much potential she was wasting.
    That was when she took a substitute teaching job at the school, stopped looking for a new guy in every grocery aisle or bar and decided she wouldn’t hedge her future on the chance her parents might approve of her, hell, might pay attention to her, now.
    She’d turned her life around, but she couldn’t erase the memories of those mistakes. Paige couldn’t allow Alex to be another in her long line of romantic misadventures, not when Kaylie could be the one hurt this time. She squeezed once more before letting Kaylie go.
    “So, kiddo, Alison’s picking you up tonight because Mommy has an appointment.”
    “But Auntie Al picked me up—” Kaylie beetled her brows and then snapped her fingers like she had when she was singing “—Wednesday. That’s when she took me swimming.”
    “I know, and now it’s Friday. But I have a boring, grown-up appointment and Auntie Al says she has a craving for pizza and maybe a princess movie. Sound like a good trade-off?”
    “Two princess movies. Merida and then Belle, because they are the best princesses ’cept for Princess Amidala.”
    Paige laughed. “You’ll have to talk that over when she picks you up, sweetpea. But I do agree with you on the Amidala-Merida-Belle thing.” She glanced at the clock and realized Alison would be there in just a few minutes. She pulled Kaylie’s class papers out of her backpack and ooh’d and ahh’d over her coloring and name-writing skills until Alison poked her head around the corner.
    “Sweetpea! You ready for Princess and Pizza Night?” Alison came into the classroom, wearing tapered trousers and a tuxedo blouse with her long red hair wrapped up in a bun. She worked at a local winery in the HR department and always looked put together. Paige looked at her own pencil skirt and cap-sleeved shirt. At least she didn’t have chalk on her butt today.
    “Merida and then Belle, Auntie Al.” Kaylie threw her arms around Alison’s hips, hugging her. “And if there’s time, maybe we could find Princess Amidala on Netflix?” She turned her hopeful gaze on Alison, batting her eyes.
    Alison laughed and tousled the little girl’s hair. “If you agree to a half-pepperoni half-cheese pizza, I could be persuaded to find an Amidala short.”
    Paige put Kaylie’s jacket over her shoulders and strapped her backpack onto her back. “Bedtime is still eight o’clock, even though it’s Friday, okay?” Kaylie nodded. Paige stood. “Thanks for watching her on short notice—again. Twice in one week, I owe you a girl’s night.”
    “And you know I’ll collect. So what’s going on?”
    Kaylie wandered across the room to the whiteboard on the wall and started drawing.
    “I...have this thing.” She hadn’t told Alison about Alex’s surprise visit that week.
    Alison raised a brow. “Thing as in D-A-T-E ?”
    Paige shook her head, crossing