the woman sound happy with a weeping, hysterical child in her arms? She didn't reveal any of the desperation he felt. Angela would have been throwing fits and screaming at him by now. This woman looked as serene as the Madonna he'd pictured earlier.
Constance shook her head, but Maya held her so firmly that there was no ferocity to the movement. A grubby hand wiped at a wet eye as his daughter peeked upward.
Frozen in the spell of the moment, Axell continued kneeling, watching. He suddenly understood how women had been cast as witches through the ages. Their spells were inexplicable by any other means but magic.
"Have you told your daddy you don't want to go away?" she asked, still stroking Constance's hair as if gentling a pony.
The little head shook back and forth again, and tear-filled eyes disappeared into Maya's shoulder. Axell wanted to reach out and draw his daughter into his own arms, but he didn't dare. He'd not been able to get a word out of Constance since last night, not that he got much out of her at any other time either.
"Constance, you don't have to go if you don't want," he heard himself say. He'd lain awake all night, agonizing over his decision, unable to avoid the conclusion that Constance needed the guidance of an experienced parent, a mother.
He'd tortured himself with the realization that he was a lousy excuse for a father, that he couldn't balance work with his daughter's needs, and that Constance had to come first, that his hollow life in her absence would be a small price to pay to see her smiling again. He threw all those logical conclusions out the window with the fall of a few tears.
The sobs lessened, but his daughter's face remained hidden. Axell glanced hopefully at Maya. She caught his look and shrugged, apparently not impressed with his concession.
"Constance, honey, I think your daddy would like to talk with you, and I really need to sit in a chair before I fall over. Why don't you let me get up and let your daddy hold you for a little while? He's got big strong shoulders for crying on. That's what daddies are for."
Appalled at his selfishness in not seeing she must be in some pain from her position on the floor, Axell stood and tugged gently at Maya's elbow to help her rise. She shook her head in refusal, nodding at Constance instead. With reluctance, Axell put his large hands around his elfin daughter and lifted her away. To his astonishment, Constance flung her skinny arms around his neck without protest.
A sopping little face soaked his stiff shirt collar, and the scent of baby shampoo filled his nostrils. He didn't know what to do with her. Axell wondered when he'd held his daughter last. As an infant? A toddler who'd scraped her knee, maybe? Angela had always been there, running interference for scraped knees and childish tantrums.
Axell glanced anxiously at the heavily pregnant woman trying to pull herself upright. Shifting Constance to one arm, he held out his free hand to haul her up. The schoolteacher's hand curled in his, and he thought he caught the fragrance of sandalwood as she used his strength for leverage, but she drifted away as soon as she reached her feet. For a moment, he felt oddly protective toward this unorthodox young woman. She was much more delicately built than he'd realized.
The sympathetic moment dissipated the instant she opened her mouth.
"I believe you and your daughter have a good deal to talk about, Mr. Holm," she snapped in a crisp California accent. "Perhaps you'll reconsider your offer about the school and stop by the shop a little later." Her frosty tone spoke her opinion of his parenting skills.
He almost panicked and begged her to stay, but the little arms clutching his neck decided the matter. Still completely at a loss, Axell nodded and watched a shaft of sunlight spill over the teacher's fiery cascade of hair. She looked almost as lost as his daughter as she slipped into the hall and pulled the door closed.
A woman that pregnant should be tucked comfortably on a soft couch with her feet up, not traipsing up and down stairs and streets, Axell thought irrelevantly, before his attention reverted to his daughter. Holding Constance, he collapsed into the nearest chair and prayed he could pry some answers out of her. How did one know if an eight-year-old's answers were the best ones?