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white teeth dazzling in a round black face.
    â€œDon’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” John said sternly to the boy. “Please don’t be mad at my boy.”
    â€œOh, I’m not,” Grace said quickly. He had been so proud, but now he hung his head in response to his father’s scolding. She smiled down at him. “And you are?”
    â€œGeoffrey, ma’am.”
    â€œThank you very much, Geoffrey, for a job well done.”
    He squirmed with pleasure.
    â€œYou need anythin’ else you just ask me or Hannah,” John said as he left, shooing his son out before him.
    Grace went looking for the schoolroom, and found it down the hall. It was obviously the nursery. Margaret Anne was there, the image of her sister, except chubbier,sitting on the floor and playing with a very expensive-looking doll. She stopped playing to look up and stare.
    Grace smiled and came forward to kneel next to her. “Hello, Margaret Anne. What a pretty doll. I’m your teacher.”
    â€œIt’s mine,” she said, hugging the doll tightly. “And I hate school. I don’t want to read.”
    â€œI hated school too, did you know that? Especially when I was your age.”
    â€œI hate school,” Margaret Anne said, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t want to read!”
    â€œThere is no school today,” Grace said calmly, standing. “But tomorrow we’ll get started and I’ll show you just how much fun we’re going to have together.”
    â€œI hate lessons,” Margaret Anne cried, throwing the doll so hard it skidded across the floor, its head cracking.
    Grace stared at the beautiful, golden-haired doll with the broken head.
    Margaret Anne screamed and ran out of the room.
    Grace sighed, a headache beginning, and started after her.
    â€œMama, Mama,” Margaret Anne sobbed, turning a corner.
    Grace broke into a run. The last thing she needed was the child fleeing to her mother in tears with her not twenty minutes on the job. She turned the corner—and wham! She ran into a solid brick wall of warm, male flesh. Muscular arms enfolded her, pulling her against steel thighs and a rock-hard chest. Her face was buried against a soft white linen shirt, slightly damp with sweat. A heady, musky odor filled her nostrils. Large hands held her hips firmly, intimately, against his. A rich chuckle sounded.
    â€œWhat do we have here?’”

Chapter 3
    She came out of her state of stunned immobility.
    She was pressed intimately against a man…a strange man. His hands were even more intimate, moving against her hips. Her heart was racing and her knees were weak; something liquid seemed to be collecting deep inside her. And then he laughed again, another warm, rich rippling sound. She pushed her arms up and braced herself away.
    And looked up.
    She recognized him instantly.
    Not because of his gorgeous looks—the beautifully carved cheekbones, the straight, flared nose, the full, sensual lips, the sky-blue eyes and the sun-streaked hair—but because, of all the people who had been at the van Horne mansion that night two years ago, he had been the only one to find her amusing. He had been the one laughing, as if the issue of women’s rights was a joke! Not to mention the fact that then, as now, he had handled her as if she were a sack of beans, hauling her out upside down while patting her behind—yes, she remembered that! She didn’t know his name, but she knew him.
    He was grinning. His eyes sparkled. At the corners of his mouth were two well-formed dimples. His teeth were white and even.
    â€œHow dare you!” Grace said.
    He lifted a brow. “Oh, I apologize for running into you!”
    His Texan drawl was thick and sweet. Grace blushed,much to her chagrin, for as they both knew, it had been she who had run into him. She squared her shoulders ramrod straight and started to move past, but he blocked her