Toby Newkirk considered himself a fairly together guy. He had a successful business that employed over two thousand people across the western United States. He had an eight-year-old son who was happy and smart and had plenty of friends. He had a nice home, and he took care of his grandmother. He paid his bills on time, had a college fund for his son and could bench press his own weight without breaking a sweat. Okay—he broke a sweat, but he could still do it. So why did the thought of a private meeting with his son’s third-grade teacher make him feel both guilty and apprehensive? Harrison was fine. He was reading above grade level and had the beginnings of what Toby thought might be a heck of a fastball.

He shook off his sense of dread, then signed in at the main office, after which he was told to report to Ms. Somerville’s classroom.

The hallways of Wishing Tree Elementary were quiet—all the kids were in their monthly musical assembly. Harrison had mentioned it over breakfast, saying the high school choir would be performing.

Toby found Dena Somerville at her desk. Harrison’s teacher was a year older than him, and he’d known her much of his life. She was of average height, with medium brown hair and brown eyes. Boringly ordinary, her younger sister, Reggie, had always complained about Dena and herself, back when he and Reggie had been in high school, and more significantly, an item.

A lot of years ago and even more miles, he thought, knocking on the open door. There had been nothing ordinary about Reggie Somerville.

Dena looked up and gave him a wan smile. “Toby, hi. Thanks for stopping by. This won’t take long.”

She waved to the chair by her desk—an adult-sized chair, for which he was grateful. There was no way he could squeeze into one of those kid chairs.

As he sat, he noticed Dena seemed a little pale—as if she wasn’t feeling well.

“Everything all right?” he asked, not sure if he really wanted to hear the answer. Sometimes when a guy asked a woman what was wrong, he got back way too much information. The more they shared, the easier it was to respond wrong, and then it all went to crap.

“Harrison’s doing great,” she said, looking away and swallowing. “Give me a second, please.”

She seemed to be breathing more deeply than normal, and her hands shook a little as she reached for the mug on her desk. He would swear that for a second she started to turn green, but then she exhaled sharply and relaxed.

“I’m good.”

He had no idea what had just happened. All he knew for sure was he wanted to be far, far away—the instinctive male need to bolt when something female-based and uncomfortable happened.