Schooled

by RaeLynn Blue

  “You’re an idiot, a liar, and a felon,” she shouted, not caring who was around.

  “Was.”

  “Was?” She frowned at him. His tone clearly meant he didn’t agree with her assessment of him. “Was? Zebras don’t change their strips, Mr. Pearson,” she said in her best teacher voice. “Those markings are permanent and DNA engrained.”

  “No, I paid my debt for my stupidity—and then some,” he replied, arms crossed defensively over his chest. The solid and serious tone infiltrated his voice. Eyebrows crouched down into a V and his apologetic smile had meld into a thin line of irritation. Nathaniel stood his ground and appeared to have dug in his heels for a verbal battle. “I was framed. Set up by Tara’s ex-boyfriend. I am innocent, but was convicted by a jury of people who didn’t know any damn better.”

  “Whatever. Everyone in prison says they’re innocent.”

  “Yeah, but I was. I served time anyway. Tara is the last person you want to look for the truth, since she stood by and let me take the fall for her druggie boyfriend.”

  “I don’t care! You lied. End. Of. Story.”

  “I didn’t lie! I care about you. I mean, I love you and that’s why I didn’t tell you,” he said, tossing his arms up in exasperation.

  “You shouldn’t have hidden it from me. That’s the point.”

  “Are you kidding?” Nathaniel scoffed. “You would’ve gone out with me if I’d told you? Me? A convict? Hell, Harper, I had to fight for you to go out with me when you knew I was Scott’s father!”

  She glared at him. “You asked me anyway, and I said yes.”

  “Yeah, but would that be the same answer if you knew I’d done time?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to say yes, but then she closed it.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Maybe,” she said, lifting her chin higher in defiance. “I might’ve, but you didn’t give me a chance.”

  “Maybe? Might? I’m crazy about you. I couldn’t take a chance!” He reached for her, but she flinched, falling back a few steps out of his reach. His eyes widened at her action.

  “Don’t touch me,” she spat, anger firing up once more. “Don’t you ever touch me!” Though she said the words, her entire being wanted the exact opposite.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I’m sorry,” the injury plain in his voice. It mirrored her own.

  “Really? Well, you lied to me. What did you think that did? The talk of bad food,” she continued as realization dawned on her, “back two weeks ago when I cooked for you the first time—that was your chance to set it right.”

  “I’m sorry, Harper. I didn’t want to lose you,” he said, putting both hands in his hair and rubbing briskly as if trying to warm up his brain.

  “As if you had me in the first place,” she sneered, fury forcing her eyes to narrow and her heart to pound.

  She spun on her heels and stalked down the parking lot to the elevator. Fighting the urge to run, she became aware that he wasn’t following her upstairs to her condo. She couldn’t take being alone with him anymore.

  The elevator ride up from the parking lot felt like eternity, but finally the slatch of the deadbolt allowed her to relax. She dropped her keys, purse, and anger to the hardwood floor. After sinking into the sofa, Harper gave in to her heart’s ache. Tears flooded her resistance and spilled over, coursing down her cheeks like a waterfall.

  What was she going to do?

  She loved him. Him! The great smile, warm personality, and passionate lover, Nathaniel had been all she wanted in a man. He worked, took care of himself, and had his own home and vehicle. In today’s world, a woman couldn’t ask for much more than that, but the one thing she hadn’t wanted was his background.

  A criminal.

  He used to be a prisoner! All sorts of lewd images from pop culture and horror films shot through her. Was he gang raped? Tortured? HIV positive?

  “God!” Nausea swished around in her belly. Harper curled into a human ball and wept. How could she not have known? She’d been so blinded by her horniness, she’d been sideswiped. Where the hell did she think he was for all those years?

  “I’m an idiot.”

  She dissolved into despair.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nathaniel stared at the closed metallic doors of the elevator as if he meant to burn right through them. The woman of his dreams had vanished behind those doors, and every cell in his body demanded he follow, but his heart warned him not to follow the instincts pounding through him. Instead, he forced himself to return to his truck.

  Pushing her wouldn’t work. She’d only dig in her heels and raise the wall she kept around her heart even higher. The cool professional demeanor she showed everyone hinted at the tight control she kept on her heart, her emotions. Working with students and parents warranted nothing less, he could imagine.

  As the truck rumbled to life, he backed out of the parking space, did a U-turn, and exited the garage. He turned the CD player on and the falsetto heartbreak of Robin Thicke poured from the surround sound speakers. The air conditioning rushed through his ears, caressed his face, but he felt icy cold, achy. Deeper than the air-conditioning, this frigidness burrowing into his bones. Chills zipped up and down his spine at the thought Harper didn’t want him.

  He turned off the a/c. His eyes burned from lack of sleep—night after night of lying in bed, balled in a tight knot thinking about Harper. And the fear gnawing gleefully at his insides kept him from slumber. Two nights ago seemed like two damn years, and his chest ached at the thought of never seeing it through. Even now, his stomach quivered like a bucket of worms wiggling around in anxious frenzy.

  He pulled into the parking lot outside his apartment. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the passenger side of his truck. Vacant now, but a couple of days ago, his life, Harper, sat in the seat, legs crossed delicately at the ankles, dressed in black slacks and crimson sweater for their dinner date. So beautiful, she’d stolen his very breath, and made his heart hammer as hard as his cock would later that evening when he successfully unclothed her and exposed her true beauty.

  What the hell was he going to do? He couldn’t breathe without her. He shuddered again, despite the cozy warmth his apartment provided. No, the chill came from a lack of warmth his sun once bestowed. Now it seemed only shadows clouded his face, and without the constant heat she inspired inside him, Nathaniel felt very much like the empty shell of the man that spent six years in prison.

  He hungered to have Harper’s liquid heat, her sunny joy back in his life—he would lay his heart, his purpose, and his soul bare. Scary, if she rejected it, him, well he wasn’t going to think about it.

  Even still his stomach burned at the thought and the terror that possibility raised. “No,” he growled to the apartment and plopped down on the sofa. “No, I’m going to get her back. No matter what it takes.”

  He took out his cell phone, not bothering with the lights, the thermostat, or even to shut his front door. His mind zeroed in on Harper and the dilemma of getting her back in his arms. Little else mattered, say for Scott.

  The first step to winning her back had to be in giving her the truth. Yes, he tried it in the parking lot, but Harper couldn’t really hear anything he said. Not really. So emotionally injured and raw, she rebuffed his every word, smacking his verbal defense down with deadly accuracy. Already assembling the wall around her heart, to protect herself, Harper backed out of reach. She heard him, but she didn’t really hear.

  If he could prove he had been framed, then she’d know he was telling the truth. She might be able to place her trust in him again, and if he could harness her trust, her heart would surely follow.

  He grimaced in the shadowy gloom. If he’d been able to prove his innocence to begin with, he wouldn’t have given away six years of his life. And risked losing the best thing that had ever happened to him—Harper.

  Except for Scott, Harper consumed his entire being. He was a broken, barren man, b
ut Harper had been his oasis, providing nourishment both physically and emotionally.

  He sighed. “Your home isn’t here.”

  And truth was, Harper felt like home, a place he belonged when in her arms, nestled inside her, or spooned against her soft glorious globes on the one time she spent the night. He couldn’t, wouldn’t live without her.

  Truth. If he could prove himself innocent, she’d see him as less a convict and more of a man—a man she could trust, love. So who knew the truth and could vouch for him?

  Tara.

  His eyes flipped open. The grim smile on his face widened as a plan took root. Yeah. Tara.

  Six years ago she wouldn’t stand up and testify that the drugs belonged to her boyfriend, but she was overdue for an overdose of truth. Would she be willing to confess her role in Nathaniel’s set-up and tell the truth now?

  He sat upright on the sofa and balled his hands into fists. He’d make sure she did.

  Without waiting, he picked up the phone and dialed her number. She’d answer his call, because she wanted to rub it in that she wrecked his relationship with Harper. No voicemails for Tara. Nope. She’d want her fifteen seconds of taunting and to inhale his misery.

  She had another thing coming.

  Sure enough the first buzz hadn’t died before Tara’s smoked ravaged voice coughed out a “Yeah?”

  “Hello, Tara,” he said, not allowing the flash of fury to show in his voice.

  He wanted to make her pay for putting Harper through such torment, and she would. Tara wouldn’t come out clean again. Nope. She’d pay for what she did to Harper. He’d never wanted to hit a woman, ever, but Tara had strayed so far from fighting fair it wasn’t funny. Still, he had to keep a lid on his emotions. Because despite her minor success at sending Harper into hysterics, little did she know she was going to be the instrument for getting Harper to come back to him.

  Laughter. Evil laughter met his greeting.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked as if he didn’t know. Pacing around the living room, he listened and forced himself to think about the end goal: Harper. Deals with the devil had a way of biting back, but he didn’t give a damn about the risk. He had to make sure Harper understood he wasn’t a criminal, but an innocent used and mishandled by the woman who swore to honor and cherish him.

  “You actin’ all like you dunno nuthin’,” Tara said, a bit of a slur blurring the words into one long string of hate. “That black bitch leave you, didn’t she? Ain’t no criminal good enough for her educated ass. You ready to come on home?”

  Nathaniel blew out an angry sigh. “No.”

  “No?” The merriment floating around her tone fell sharply. “Whatcha mean no?”

  “I mean, I’m not ready to come home,” Nathaniel said firmly. He made himself relax his grip on the cell phone. Already his knuckles hurt from gripping it so hard. “Har—uh—Ms. Perry and I weren’t an item. That’s not why I called.”

  Silence. That threw her for a loop. Good. Tara off-balanced played to his benefit.

  She thought she’d done something wonderful in destroying him and Harper, but she never had real confirmation about their relationship. No way on God’s green Earth would Harper confirm for the parent of one of her students that they were an item. The woman’s profession weighed heavy in her life, so he knew Tara had been shooting in the dark when she told Harper about his prison record.

  “I want to talk to you, in person,” he said lightly. “I got a call from Detective Brown.”

  “Detective…” Tara stammered, the mocking glee from earlier had been transformed into a terrorized whisper. “Brown?” Good. She remembered him.

  “Yes, he gave me a call and I need to discuss it with you.”

  “Why? Reggie’s dead.”

  “That’s exactly the point.”

  Tara’s raspy, phlegm-filled breathing filled the void. He could envision her drug-soaked brain struggling to comprehend what he implied. She wouldn’t be able to see this one coming, because the entire thing had just hatched in his brain.

  “Whatcha want talk ‘bout?” she barked at last, and her anger was music to Nathaniel’s ears.

  “Yes, about that,” he said with a grin. “I want to meet with you and tell you, but not over the cell phone like this when anyone can pick up what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, dat true. Tomorrow when you come to git Scott.”

  “Fine. But this is important, Tara, so try to be sober.”

  “Fuck you,” she snapped and disconnected the call.

  “Thank you,” he replied with a satisfied smile. Tomorrow he’d pick up Scott and have that little conversation with Tara. Plenty of time to get the supplies he required, and to place one more call.

  He scrolled through his contact list and highlighted Detective Brown’s name. With a deep breath he pressed the send button. If this didn’t work, he didn’t know what would.

  He had to try. Risky? Yes.

  Harper was worth his 100% effort and he’d try everything until his last breath to land her in his arms once more.

  “Greensboro Police Department, VICE,” the deep tenor answered.

  “I need to speak to Detective Brown.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Friday Afternoon, James Tennison Middle School

  Harper closed her puffy eyes and swallowed the ache permeating her sore throat. Despite the time the day had crawled sluggishly by, and her students, especially Scott, had behaved as if Thanksgiving break was today. Her body groaned with fatigue as she lowered it into her chair. She slowly opened her eyes and sighed. Though she slept last night, it’d been rough going. Twisting and turning most of the night, the sheets confessed to her tortured slumber.

  “TGIF,” Carlita sang, sailing into her room with the clicking of black patent-leather heels and the scented swirl of Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion. She stalked in like she owned the place. Her scarlet red dress fit like a glove and the oversized patent-leather black belt wrapped around her narrow waist.

  Harper grinned despite the ache spreading throughout her person. She hadn’t felt like smiling all day and Carlita’s entrance bought the first authentic smile in the last twenty-four hours.

  “Yes,” Harper conceded. Had the day been Monday, she would’ve surely called in sick tomorrow. Her heart felt as if she’d been racked over the coals and gutted. “Thank goodness it’s Friday.”

  Carlita crossed the sea of desks and tables to stand in front of her desk. “Damn girl. You look hell ravished.”

  “Thanks,” Harper said dryly, busying herself with straightening her desk. “You mentioned that this morning.”

  Carlita laughed and then her eyes became serious. “You really shouldn’t let that crackhead get in your head.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Care?” Carlita interrupted. “Yeah, you do. You wouldn’t have been bawling your pretty brown eyes out all night if you didn’t. So don’t lie to me. We’ve been friends for too long.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to take a chance on love,” Carlita said grabbing one of the student chairs and moving it right in front of Harper’s desk. “Really, trust love this time. You took Tara’s word at face value, and you and I both know she ain’t about shit. You believed it.”

  Harper put both hands on her desk, palms down and rose from her chair. Steadying herself, she made herself meet Carlita’s eyes. “He confirmed it.”

  “What?” Carlita said, scarlet-painted mouth opened in a round, surprised O.

  “He said he did time. Told me yesterday, so don’t be all over me about Tara. She wasn’t lying.”

  Carlita swallowed and dropped her gaze from Harper. It shouldn’t have pleased Harper, but it did. She had every right to be upset with Nathaniel, and she intended to be mad and hurt for as long as she damn well wanted.

  “So, it means nothing,” Carlita said, recovering from her misstep. “I’ve seen that man’s eyes on you, Harper. He loves you, truly, deeply, and crazy-ass ga
ga over you. And I don’t mean the lust-inspired longings of a man locked up for years. I’m talking about that love, the kind that could last decades, and even until death.”

  Harper gaped at her friend. What the hell would Carlita know of love lasting until death? The woman had been divorced three times and even the current boyfriend, Tom, was on the chopping block. Commitment had no entry in Carlita’s dictionary, so why was she lecturing her?

  “I see that look,” Carlita said, eyes downcast, and suddenly sad. “You think I’m just spitting theory, don’t you? See, you’d be wrong about that.”

  Harper eased herself back down into the seat, feeling a confession on the horizon.

  “I know the look in Nathaniel’s eyes because Tony had that same look for me,” Carlita said nearly so low, Harper had to lean forward to hear it. “He was my true love, but I was stupid. Looking only at what he didn’t have. The man didn’t have a pot to piss in. No college education, no sweet car, and no extra money to lavish on me. And you know me, Harp. It’s all about me. He didn’t have deep pockets, but he had a good heart. Something you can’t put a price tag or a dollar value on. I didn’t care that his heart was true, his love for me unwavering. I only saw the physical, the materialistic, and the frowned-up disappointed faces of my family. I focused more on what people wanted for me, not what I wanted for myself. Everyone told me Tony was beneath me, not up to my standards. When in reality, he wasn’t up to their standards. I let those standards roll over me and I lost him. Well, I threw him away and sought what everyone told me was better.”

  Harper had never heard Carlita talk about Tony. This story was new, and from the pained expression wrinkling Carlita’s mouth, an excruciating one. Eyes shiny with unshed tears, Carlita met her questioning gaze. She didn’t dare cry in front of Harper. No, too tough for that, Carlita wouldn’t allow the pain to leak too much from the tight lid she kept it under.

  Harper’s heart reached out to her even as she sat rigid in her chair. Carlita had shared this with her. It stunned her to see her strong, bulldog of a friend harbor so much hurt and regret.