“Mr. Montgomery!”
Drat. He’d almost escaped from the ballet studio to the sidewalk outside.
Aiden turned away from the glass door to face the owner of that strident female voice.
It came from the girls’ instructor, of course, and one hand rested on Beth’s shoulder and the other on Angelica’s. He’d escorted the girls into her classroom only moments ago. How much trouble could the twins have gotten into already?
He’d glimpsed the teacher through the viewing window in the lobby during last week’s class. She was slender and regal and he’d felt the power of her commanding voice through the glass. Up close, he couldn’t help but be caught in the tractor beam of her ice-blue eyes. One dark curl had escaped her ponytail and lay along the curve of her cheek. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
If he’d met her three weeks ago, he’d have acted on the stirring of attraction lighting up his gut.
But right now he only felt frazzled and bone-tired as his tattered brain tried to focus on her words.
“I let it go last week when the girls didn’t adhere to the dress code, but it can’t happen on a regular basis.”
He glanced at the girls. Black leotards. Pink tights. The Pinchy Ballet Slippers he’d had to visit three stores to find and Beth hated with a passion. Her Perfect Ballet Shoes had been lost somewhere in the move to his apartment.
The twins were dressed exactly the same as all the other little girls that had bounded and twirled into the class only minutes ago.
Right now the girls looked up at him with wide-eyed trepidation.
And he looked back at their teacher. She must’ve seen the confusion and mild panic written on his face.
She took pity on him. “It’s their hair. It must be in a bun.”
“A bun.” He wanted to cry. But instead, he put back on the trial attorney he’d left at the office. “Your hair isn’t in a bun.”
The smile she’d given him turned flat. “I am the instructor. They are the students. Students must adhere to the dress code.”
“Their hair isn’t long enough.”
Beth and Angelica wore shoulder-length bobs. He’d fought and fought to try to get Angelica’s hair into pigtails for school last Tuesday. Styling a five-year-old’s hair was like cross-examining a cat. Impossible.
She must’ve heard the rising desperation in his voice. “Connie, can you lead the class through warm-ups?”
The college-aged girl setting at the front desk jumped up and went into the classroom. She was probably glad she could stop pretending not to listen to their conversation. The moms in the lobby area had no such compunction. One even shushed her toddler daughter, making no pretense that she wasn’t eavesdropping shamelessly.
The teacher slipped behind the desk and rummaged in a drawer. “I’ll show you, just the once. But Mr. Montgomery—“
“Aiden, please. Miss…?”
There was a soft flush on her cheeks when she rounded the desk and returned to them, extending a handful of toothpick-thin pins to him. “Camilla Penn.”
He tried to refuse the pins, but quailed under the force of her teacher-stare and finally took them.
He’d thought—hoped—she would demonstrate the right way to tame the girls’ hair into a bun, but she made him do it himself. First watching and then her soft hands closing over his when he fumbled. HIs fingers were too big, too clumsy.
But she didn’t take pity on him this time.
She sent the girls into the classroom, where piano music tinkled louder as the door opened and then was muted again.
He sent one longing look at the exit. And then manners dictated he look back at Miss Penn. She hadn’t dismissed him yet.
“Your wife has been bringing the girls since mommy-and-me class when they were two. I just wanted to check in and find out—Is everything all right?”
And the grief hit him hard in the solar plexus. He had to clear his throat. “Mia was my sister-in-law. She and my brother—“ He couldn’t say the words. It’d been two and a half weeks and he was still drowning. He shook his head, hoping she’d ignore the wetness now standing in his eyes.
His skin was crawling with the sensation of all the eyes in the lobby on him. Now full of pity, no doubt.
Not Miss Penn. Her gaze was filled with compassion.
He inhaled sharply and then exhaled again, forcing away the worst of the pain. “The girls and I are still adjusting. Their new therapist thought it would be best for them to stick to their regular routine—I’m sorry.” Was he apologizing for the hair or for spilling his guts like a weak witness? He tried to smile. “I’ll work on the hairdo’s—“
She touched him. Only a light brush of her hand on his forearm, but it was enough to halt the flow of his words.
“I’m so very sorry.” And she looked it, her eyes shining with what might be a sheen of tears. If he wasn’t careful, she’d have him bawling like a baby. “If there’s anything I can do… If you need help with the girls’ hair next week, come a few minutes early.”
She squeezed his arm and let go. Nodded and then moved to return to her class.
He was free to go, but instead of heading down the street to the coffee shop to return emails, he stood on the sidewalk and tried to put his heart back together.
It’d been two and a half weeks and it still didn’t work. He and Chris had been close growing up. They’d grown apart as Aiden’s career had bloomed and Chris’s family had grown.
Now Chris was gone and Aiden barely knew the two little girls inside the dance studio. Every time they looked at him with expectancy in their identical gazes, he wanted to curl up into a ball and pull blankets over his head. How had his brother done it? This parenting thing was as foreign to Aiden as if he’d landed on the moon.
But he loved Beth and Angelica fiercely.
His breathing evened out, the tightness in his chest easing some.
He was going to do it. Find a balance with his demanding job. Take care of the girls. Love them.
And now he had one ally. At least he would be able to tame the ballet buns, with Miss Penn’s help.