by Elle Thorpe
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Rowe shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his uniform. “Yeah, well, you kind of forced my hand when you showed you had no real regard for your own personal safety. Don’t you know how many women are attacked in dark parking lots every day? Just because there are big-ass security gates, doesn’t mean you’re safe, you know? An attack can come from anywhere at any time, and especially when you’re paying more attention to your phone than what’s going on around you.”
Truce over, apparently. “I pay attention,” I huffed.
He scoffed.
“I do!”
“Where are your keys then? Do you already have them out, ready to enter your vehicle? And are you aware that there’s a man in his car, just three space down from you?”
My fingers tingled, empty and irritated by the fact he was right. My keys were still buried somewhere in my bag. But when I glanced to my left, squinting to try to make out anyone sitting in a vehicle, I couldn’t see a thing.
“Oh, for Christ’s sakes.” He reached out and grasped my chin between two fingers.
Our gazes crashed, and for the tiniest of moments, he held it.
The annoyance in his expression flickered into something different. Something more. Something that made parts of me come alive with realization of what that look could do to my body if only he allowed it out.
But he didn’t. He locked it down tight and twisted my face in the opposite direction. Away from him, and the possibility that if he let it, standing like this could have led down a completely different path.
“There,” Rowe said, pointing to a car to my right. “Black Nissan Skyline. Unidentified male sitting in the driver’s seat, and you had no idea.”
I hated that as his fingers fell away; I instantly missed them. I swallowed down the urge to find a new way to get him to touch me and focused instead on the fact that he was actually right.
There was someone else in the quiet parking lot with us, and I hadn’t had a clue.
Dammit. I hated when Rowe got one up on me.
The car door opened, and the male in question got out, pausing to grab a lunch bag from the back seat. When he straightened, the light from the interior of the car lit up his guard’s uniform.
I elbowed Rowe. “He’s a guard, you jackass! He’s hardly about to attack me!”
Rowe turned a withering gaze in my direction. “It’s always the ones you least suspect.”
I raised an eyebrow in challenge. “So I need to be worried about the guards now, too? By that logic, I should be wary of you.”
“You probably should be.”
“Oh, please. You talk the talk but you’re about as scary as a lamb with a bow tie.”
Rowe wrinkled his face in what was probably supposed to be disgust but on him still managed to be hot.
The other guard wandered over and slapped hands with Rowe before turning to me. “Hey, you’re Miss Donovan, right? The teacher? We haven’t met yet. I’m Colt.”
The name set off a bell in my head. “Oh! Colt!” I rushed forward and engulfed him in a hug, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing him.
Over Colt’s shoulder, Rowe folded his arms across his chest and glared at me.
He could pretend he was annoyed all he wanted. But I had the sneaking suspicion that there was a hint of jealousy behind his actions. That was interesting. Partially because I liked having ammunition to use in our verbal sparring matches. And partially because Rowe intrigued me. The man was beautiful and smart and the fact he was guarded and closed off only made me want to dig deeper, push beneath the layers, and find out who he really was.
Because no one was as permanently grumpy and scowly as he was. Not without a good reason.
Locked in a stare off with Rowe, I’d almost forgotten I was still hugging Colt. And that it had now been going on for an uncomfortably long time. Colt was stiff in my embrace and awkwardly patting me on the back, like he was considering pulling out his cuffs and taking me off to the psych department on the third floor.
I stepped back quickly. “Sorry! I’m not normally so overenthusiastic with my greetings, I swear. That was from Selina. She said to tell you happy birthday.”
His body relaxed as he stepped back and grinned. “You saw her?”
I smiled at his enthusiasm for his mother-in-law. “She joined my class at the women’s prison.”
He chuckled at that. “You know she went to a fancy private school and has a college degree, right?”
I gaped at him. “She does? What on earth is she doing in a prison GED class then?”
He shrugged. “She got five years for taking her husband out. Probably just filling her time.”
“What?” I struggled to comprehend how the tiny, quiet woman I’d met could have killed someone.
Colt patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. She had a good reason. She’s harmless, and she’ll likely be your best student.”
I hoped so. Because I liked the woman. But it was a reminder that Rowe was probably right. There were dangers lurking here, not just in the darkened parking lot, that I needed to take more seriously.
An odd shiver rolled down my spine, and I told myself to stop being stupid. This job was perfectly safe when I had Rowe by my side. I wasn’t even in the prison anymore and wasn’t due back until next week. My first week was officially over.
“So, what are you doing for your birthday?” I asked Colt.
He shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder and cringed. “My girl is throwing me a party. It’s a surprise.”
I chuckled. “Not much of a surprise if you know about it.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Lacey and Banjo are pretty much the worst secret keepers in the history of forever. I worked them out about five minutes after they decided they were doing it.”
“And they don’t know you know? You didn’t tell them?”
Colt lifted one shoulder, a small, fond smile playing around his lips. “Nah. Why ruin their fun? That sort of shit makes them happy. And I’m happy when they’re happy.”
His partner was a lucky woman. I glanced over at Rowe and his annoyed scowl. I threw my hands up in annoyance. “What now?”
“Are you ever gonna quit blabbering about Colt’s partners and get going? Some of us haven’t finished our shifts, you know?”
I ignored his complaining and focused instead on something else he’d said. “Partners?” I asked Colt. Then I rushed on, realizing what a busybody I was being. “Sorry. None of my business.”
But Colt was quick to smile. “Nah, it’s cool. Everyone is always curious. Come to my party on Saturday night. You can meet everyone. Lacey would love to talk to you about Selina, I’m sure.”
“Pretty sure she’s busy,” Rowe interjected.
Colt and I both looked at him.
“Despite what Rowe seems to think, I am actually capable of speaking for myself.” I glared at him to prove my point. I got it. He didn’t want me encroaching on his social space. But I’d hardly just invited myself or rocked up without an invite at all. So Rowe could just pull the stick out of his ass. I needed friends in this place. Plus, it was fun to piss off Rowe. I turned back to Colt. “A party sounds great. I’d love to come.”
Rowe groaned and mumbled something about having to wash his hair that night.
We both knew he wouldn’t. He’d be there.
29
Mae
Colt had given me a Providence address for the party, which I hadn’t really thought twice about until I was actually driving through the familiar streets I’d grown up on. The elementary school I worked at was on the other side of the main road that cut through the center of the suburb, as was Tori and Will’s place, so for years now, even though I worked mere minutes away, I’d managed to avoid coming to this side at all.
Driving past my childhood home wasn’t exactly something I did for fun. Fun and that house just didn’t go together in the same sentence.
I checked the GPS and parked a few doors down as
instructed, since this was supposed to be a surprise party after all. I walked the rest of the way, past sprawling mansion after even bigger sprawling mansion. Despite the fancy neighborhood, Rowe’s warnings about safety echoed in the back of my mind, and I sighed grudgingly and gripped my keys a little tighter, instead of putting them away in my bag. I should probably buy myself some Mace. Jayela had always harped on about that, too.
A dark chuckle behind me had me spinning around so fast I actually dropped the keys. “Shit!” I scooped to grab them, but Rowe beat me to it.
He plucked them from the ground. “Well, I was about to commend you on the fact you at least thought to have your keys out, ready to use as a weapon, but then you went and screwed it up by dropping them.”
“You scared me!”
“And what would an attacker do? Walk up politely and offer you a bunch of flowers before he jumps you?”
He had a point, but I was annoyed. Both at the fact he’d caught me unawares again, and at the fact I’d dropped the freaking keys. I wasn’t some helpless damsel. I was a perfectly capable, full-grown woman, but something about Rowe seemed to short-circuit all of that and leave me fumbling.
Rowe out of uniform was even more mind-melting than Rowe in uniform.
I drank in the jeans that looked as if they’d been made especially for him, and the button-down short-sleeved shirt worn open over a tighter-fitting T-shirt that hugged his abs.
Lucky freaking T-shirt.
We fell into step and turned down the drive simultaneously.
“Jesus, this place is insane,” Rowe muttered.
“You haven’t been here before?” I asked, making idle chitchat to cover the fact I was also busily inhaling the delicious, clean, fresh scent of him. Whatever cologne he wore had me wanting to suck in deep, greedy lungfuls.
“I have. Just to pick Colt up or drop him off. But it still kind of takes my breath away every time.”
It really was a beautiful house. One that reeked of money. “Why is Colt working the graveyard shift at the prison if he lives here? He can’t be short of cash if he can afford the rent on this place.”
We reached the front door, but Rowe touched one hand to my lower back and guided me around to the side of the house, and along a pebbled path that led to the backyard. The gate was open, and the quiet hum of chatter met my ears as we moved farther in.
I gasped at the huge swimming pool and the crazy number of fairy lights strung up across the rafters and through the trees that edged the property. A crowd of people gathered in an entertaining area, and a small bonfire flickered in the center of a stone pit.
“Yeah, he definitely doesn’t need the money. But this is his girl’s place. She inherited when her aunt went to jail. She and the aunt were real close. The woman raised her like she was her daughter, so when she went away, it all went to Lacey.”
“Selina’s her aunt?”
He nodded. “Colt’s from Saint View. He’s used to having to work for every cent. It doesn’t sit well with him to just let Lacey pay for everything. And working at the prison pays a whole lot better than working at McDonald’s.”
“Yeah. But at least nobody tries to kill you at McDonald’s.”
Rowe raised an eyebrow. “You’ve obviously never eaten at the McDonald’s in Saint View then.”
I widened my eyes. “Is that true?”
He laughed at me. “So sweet and innocent.”
That irked me. It was the automatic assumption that everybody made about me. Blonde hair. Soft, curvy body. Teaches elementary school. All seemed to add up to: must be completely naïve.
“Did I tell you I was in a drive-by shooting the other day?” I dropped it so casually, like I was talking about getting milk from the supermarket.
Rowe snorted. “Yeah, okay. I’m sure they shot up your uptown apartment real good.”
I didn’t say anything.
Rowe stopped walking and spun on me. “You fucking serious?”
“As a heart attack. Which is what I nearly had when bullets started coming through the walls.” I laughed, though it was strained. The memory was still a little too fresh in my head to be making jokes about it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I frowned. He seriously seemed annoyed. That was a bit rich. “I’m sorry. Did you turn into my father when I wasn’t paying attention? Why would I have told you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Water cooler conversation, perhaps? Generally people share that sort of information with their friends.”
I glanced at him in surprise. “Is that what we are?”
He shrugged. “Co-workers. Same difference.”
But I turned away and smiled to myself. Co-workers and friends were two completely different things. They were not the same at all. “You like me.”
Rowe rolled his eyes.
I was just about to tease him some more, but a tall, cute, blond guy who looked like he’d just stepped off the beach, started waving his hands in the air and shushing everyone. “Hey. Shut up, you guys. He’s coming.”
“Prematurely. As always,” a dark-haired guy called out, and there was a titter of laughter around the group.
“Stop it, Rafe,” scolded a young dark-haired woman with a baby on her hip. But she wrapped her free arm around him, tucking herself into his side.
The blond man joined the couple, kissing the woman on the top of her head. “Yeah, behave. You know Colt can’t take a joke.”
I took in the three of them standing together, natural and easy in each other’s company. “Is one of them her brother?” I asked Rowe quietly.
He grinned devilishly. “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but then Colt strode into the backyard.
“Surprise!”
“Wow. What’s everybody doing here?” Colt called in the most wooden, stilted voice I’d ever heard. His acting was awful. Like, seriously bad. If there had been a critic here, he would have handed Colt whatever the opposite of an Oscar was.
People rushed forward toward the guest of honor, but Colt sidestepped them deftly. He made a beeline for the two men and the woman with the baby on her hip. He stopped a mere inch in front of her and grinned.
She pouted up at him. “You knew?”
“Yeah. I knew. You and Banjo are the worst secret keepers ever. But I still love you.”
He bent down, taking her face between his hands and kissing her. He didn’t seem to care that she had her arm wrapped around another man, or that a third was hovering nearby. He claimed her lips like he owned them, and she kissed him back deeply, sinking into his touch.
The baby patted them both on the face with delight, her chubby hands flapping.
They broke apart laughing, and Colt plucked the baby from the woman’s arms. “You want a kiss, too, Luna? I got all the kisses in the world for you, baby girl.”
I turned wide eyes on Rowe. “Spill the tea, sis.”
He chuckled. “Love is love. Why choose when you can have them all?”
“But how…? Did they…? I don’t even know how that would work.”
“You need me to draw you a diagram?” He was battling back laughter.
I gave him a withering look. “You probably perfected those in high school, right? Pornographic stick figures?”
We shuffled toward Colt, who had let go of his partner long enough to allow his guests wish him a happy birthday.
“Like you can talk. I heard all about what you drew on the chalkboard in the women’s prison.” Rowe’s amusement danced in his eyes.
“You did?” Well, that was kind of embarrassing.
“The massive dick?” Colt interrupted. “The whole prison heard about that. Pretty sure someone took a photo and posted it in the staff group chat. Thanks for coming by the way. Mae, this is my daughter, Luna. And this is the rest of the family.” He pointed to the smiling young woman at his side, then the dark-haired man, then the blond. “This is Lacey. Rafe, and Banjo.”
/>
The woman stepped up and hugged me. “I’ve already heard all about you from my aunt. She really likes you. It’s great they’ve got a teacher in there now. That must be so hard but rewarding for you, I guess? Are you enjoying it?”
“I am.” A tiny stab of guilt curdled in my stomach, knowing I wasn’t there just for the sake of educating prisoners.
“Well, thank you. I know it means a lot to my aunt, to have something to help fill her time.”
Her eyes turned a little glassy, and Colt put his arm around her, squeezing her shoulders. “She’ll be out soon, Princess.”
But we all knew it would be years before Selina was released. I could only imagine how difficult it was. I couldn’t even let myself think about the possibility of Heath being in jail for years, with a sentence set in stone, and no chance of leaving. At least Heath’s case hadn’t gone to trial yet. No sentence had been passed down, so there was still hope.
Colt’s little daughter made a happy, gurgling sound and smiled a gummy smile in my direction. I smiled back at her, touching her soft cheek. “Colt, she’s gorgeous. She looks just like you.”
Banjo groaned. “Erg. Don’t get him started about having the strongest swimmers. He’s been bragging about that ever since Luna was born.”
“I can’t help it if the truth hurts you, Banjo.”
Luna laughed like she’d understood the joke and reached chubby hands toward me.
I blinked in surprise.
“Do you want to hold her?” Lacey asked.
My ovaries gave a little leap of delight. I did very much want to hold her. She was adorable, with a navy blue bow in her wispy dark hair, and a tiny navy blue with white polka-dot dress. “Yes please.”
I reached for the baby, taking her carefully from her father and nestling her on my hip. I couldn’t resist the urge to smell the top of her baby head. My maternal urge was strong. It always had been, and it was part of why I’d gone into teaching.
Lacey grabbed Colt’s hand. “Excellent. Because I want to dance with the birthday boy.”
He groaned good-naturedly but willingly followed her onto the makeshift dance floor they’d created to one side of the pool. Lacey glanced back over her shoulder at me. “If she gets fussy, her grandparents are around here somewhere. Or just hand off to one of the other guys. Or anyone here really! They all know and love her to pieces. Anyone will take her off your hands when you’ve had your fill of baby smell.”
