“It’s not exactly the same town I grew up in,” she agreed.
They reached the end of the block. Suddenly, a pair of yellow eyes twinkled in the dark, and a moment later, a cat dashed across the sidewalk and almost tripped Sienna.
“Whoa.” Mike tightened his hand on her elbow, and heat zoomed straight into Sienna’s core. Damn. This friends-only dinner hadn’t done anything to cool the chemistry between them. If anything, it had fueled it.
“Did you know there were stray cats around here?” She took a few steps off the pavement, but she couldn’t go far on the uneven, frozen ground. “I’ve seen them a couple of times. They’re way too skinny and matted to be anyone’s pets.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll tell Zane to mention it to Becca. Maybe she can bring some traps over from the animal shelter and get them.” He rubbed his arms. “Pretty cold this time of year. Tough to survive.”
“Look at that.” Sienna pointed. “Maybe Becca’s already been here.” Three roughly made shelters sat close to the underbrush, large plastic tubs that had holes cut in the front and what looked like blankets inside. In front of each container sat a small dish of food.
“Huh.” Mike bent down. “Maybe.” As he straightened, another cat, smaller than either of the ones Sienna had seen before, bolted in front of him. It slipped into one of the tubs. A moment later, green eyes looked out at them. Mike chuckled. “Guess maybe we don’t have to worry after all.”
Sienna stared into the silent night. Evergreens took over where the sidewalk ended and stretched into the dark. If she remembered correctly, a ribbon of river ran along this side of Pine Point, all the way to the mountains outside of town. It never quite froze in winter. It ran deep enough that a current always slid along beneath the frosty surface, moving even in the dead of January.
“Where did you park?” he asked. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
She pointed down the block and around the corner.
“You’re okay to drive home?”
The buzz from her martini had long since worn off. “Yes. Perfectly fine.” They reached her Mazda in a matter of minutes, and she unlocked the door but didn’t get inside. Mike leaned against the car, his blue gaze on hers.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said. “It was nice to have a conversation with someone outside of school.”
He inclined his head. “You’re very welcome.”
On impulse, she took his coat sleeve. “I meant that offer about us being friends. I’d really…” Her voice caught in her throat. “I’d really like someone to vent to or work out with. This would be nice to do, every once in a while. But nothing more. I understand. We’ll keep a proper distance and all that.”
“No kissing,” he said.
“No kissing. Or touching.” She withdrew her hand. “Or anything else that might be mistaken for, you know, romance or a relationship.”
His Adam’s apple moved up and down as she spoke. “I think that’s probably for the best. All things considered.” He held out his hand and Sienna took it. “Friends only.”
“Friends only,” she echoed. “It’s a deal.” And she made herself climb into her car and drive away without looking behind her, without wondering if Mike felt the same quiet sadness at their agreement as she did.
Chapter Thirteen
The following Wednesday, Mike dropped a set of keys into Hans’s hand. “I’ll be back around four. Text me if you need anything.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
A respite from snow the last few days had left Pine Point cold and gray, with dingy snow banks along Main Street rising almost as tall as Mike’s waist. He eyed the sky. Didn’t look like precipitation, but he had the tow trucks ready just in case. He hadn’t had much action the last couple of weeks, and he could do with some cash flow from his side business. After L.A., he never wanted to be caught without extra savings again.
He climbed into his pickup and drove straight to Pine Point Elementary School. He glanced at the load in the bed of his truck a couple of times. It’s the kind of thing friends do for each other, he told himself as he turned into the parking lot and found a visitor’s spot near the door. But once there, he couldn’t make himself get out of the truck.
Shit. I’m back at school. Didn’t matter that he had decent memories of Pine Point Elementary. The bad stuff hadn’t started until high school, when words swam on the pages of his textbooks and dates and places got all messed up inside his head. Eventually he decided skipping class was easier than going to it and getting Ds and Fs. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the squat brick building. The flag whipped in the wind above the courtyard, and Mike remembered on sunny days in the spring, the whole school used to go outside and say the Pledge of Allegiance before the day began.
You never think when you’re that age anything bad will happen, he thought as he watched the stars and stripes ripple in the wind. The hardest decision is where to sit at lunch or who to play ball with at recess. He thought of the tattoos on his right and left calves, matching sides of the yin and yang. He’d gotten them when he was eighteen, first ones he could, back when he thought he knew when yin and yang stood for.
Good and bad. Light and dark. He figured getting one on each leg would balance him out, would somehow give him stability as he moved into adulthood. Mike killed the engine and made himself get out of the truck. Now he knew finding balance was tricky at best and elusive most of the time. He trudged across the shoveled sidewalks and swallowed away the lump in his throat. Me at a school again. Who would’ve thought?
Eva Hadley greeted him at the desk inside. “Mike Springer.” She folded her fingers under her chin and flashed him a toothpaste smile. “This is a surprise.”
“Uh huh.” Mike scribbled his name on the visitors’ log.
“What brings you here today?”
“Just dropping off some things for Sienna Cruz’s class.”
Eva’s carefully plucked brows lifted. “Really? I didn’t know…she didn’t mention anything to me.”
“She doesn’t know.” He clamped his mouth shut. That sounded idiotic. “I mean, she doesn’t know I’d be here today,” he added lamely.
Eva glanced down the hallway. “It’s Room Eighteen. Down the center hall, all the way to the end on the right.”
“Thanks. Think I’ll go…” He gestured back outside and didn’t bother to finish. Instead, he trotted to his truck and pulled around to the school’s back entrance. He positioned the truck as close to the building as he could get it and then knocked on the small door marked Custodial.
A moment later, it opened, and Darryl Cobalt’s wrinkled face peered out. Darryl lived down the road from Mike and his mom and had worked at the school as long as Mike could remember. The old man beamed and pushed open the door. “Michael Springer. My good man, what on earth are you doing sneaking around the back of my school?”
“Little special delivery for a friend.” He gestured at his truck. “Do you have a minute? Do you think you could you help me? It’s for Sienna Cruz’s class.”
Darryl’s smile widened. “Ah, of course. She’ll be thrilled.”
Pleasure slid through Mike at the thought. She needs a friend, she said so herself the other night. Plus, his mother would be over the moon at the thought he’d done something nice for Sienna. He told himself that was the reason he was here, and not because he hadn’t stopped thinking about her hand on his arm for the last five days.
Darryl produced a master key and unlocked the double doors that faced the playground as Mike lifted a brand new table from the back of his truck. Only three feet off the ground and painted with cartoon figures, it looked like something that might work for a class of eight-year-olds. He hoped. He blew out a long breath and carried the table inside.
Criminy. Did all elementary schools smell the same? Like paint and pizza and faint antiseptic? A cool
sweat settled on his head and neck, and it took a long minute before he could make out the numbers on the doors. Room Eighteen. There. Right beside him. Before he knocked, he peeked through the window. Sienna sat in a rocking chair with one boy on her lap and three others sitting in front of her. She wore her hair down over a navy sweater and jeans. Silver hoops in her ears matched a long silver necklace that hung almost to her lap. The boys stared at her, rapt, as she turned the pages of a brightly illustrated book.
Mike knocked gently.
At once, the students turned. The tallest one jumped to his feet, pointed at Mike, and began talking rapid fire to Sienna. She put a finger to her lips and stood. The boy on her lap slid to his feet, and Mike could see it was Silas Turner.
Mike pushed open the door. “Hi, there.”
When she looked up, the look of genuine pleasure on her face was worth every penny he’d spent. He set down the table just inside the door. “Surprise.”
“Wow. Hello. I’d say it is. “
The boy who’d first jumped up took a few steps across the room and then stopped. “You’re Mr. Springer. I met you once when my daddy took me to your gym.”
Mike yanked at his collar. The kid didn’t look familiar, but that didn’t mean much. “Ah, yes, I am. Hello there.” Four pairs of curious eyes settled on him, and he fought the urge to turn around and flee.
“Yes, Caleb, this is Mr. Springer,” Sienna said. “How do you say hello to adults?”
The boy walked over and stuck his arm out stiffly. “My name is Caleb Arthur Williams. It’s very nice to meet you.” He spoke in clipped tones and looked at Mike’s belt.
Mike took his hand and shook it. “It’s very nice to meet you too, Caleb.” His nerves settled a fraction.
“This is definitely a surprise,” Sienna said again. “A very nice one.” She ran her fingers over the table. “You shouldn’t have. This must have cost a lot.”
“Nah. Anyway, doesn’t matter. That’s what friends are for, right?” Without waiting for her response, he returned to his truck. The next gift took him two trips. When he was done, five brightly colored beanbag chairs sat on the floor of the classroom. Within minutes, the boys with identical faces had plopped themselves down on two of the bags.
Caleb remained standing and watched Mike from the middle of the room. “These are very nice,” he said. He walked over and patted them each with a careful hand.
“Beanbag chairs,” Sienna said in wonder. “You remembered.”
Mike picked up the table. “Where would you like this?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Say thank you and please put it over in that corner,” Darryl offered.
Sienna smiled. “That sounds as good a place as any. They need a place to spread out when they’re doing art projects.”
“I’m pretty sure I can find some extra chairs to go with it,” Darryl added.
“You are too much,” she said, with a squeeze of the old man’s arm. “Both of you.”
Mike shuffled his feet, not sure what else to say or what to do with his hands. Caleb walked over to the table, next to the Turner boy, and the two of them stroked its smooth surface.
“Would you like to stay?” Sienna asked. “We were doing our afternoon read-along.”
Caleb looked over in alarm. “Miss Cruz,” he said, “we don’t do read-along with anyone else. No strangers.”
“You just met Mr. Springer,” Sienna said. Her gaze never left Mike’s face. “He isn’t a stranger.”
“I can’t stay,” Mike said. “I have to get back to the gym.”
“Oh. Sure.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. Mike’s traitorous mind took full notice of the way they hugged her hips.
“Maybe another time,” he added. Yeah, right. He had no plans on spending extended periods of time inside a school. This was a one-time deal.
“We have Friday afternoons free,” she said. “Drop in any time after two. Honestly, it would be good for the kids to interact with someone besides me.”
He nodded noncommittally. He went to leave, but a motion to his right made him look over. Another student he hadn’t noticed before, the lone girl in the room, began to walk. Backwards. Around the room she went, toe to heel, her gaze on Mike the entire time. She pinched her fingers together in a measured motion as she walked. What the hell is she doing? Her eyes held no expression, and her entire body had gone rigid.
“That’s Dawn,” Sienna said, and he remembered what she’d told him the other night at dinner. Selective mutism. She doesn’t speak.
Hell, and I thought I had it rough. At least his troubles hadn’t started until he hit junior high. How did an eight-year-old get so messed up that she dealt with the world by keeping her distance from it and staying silent?
“Nice seeing you,” he said, and pushed open the door. “And nice meeting your kids. I hope everything comes in handy.”
“It will. Thank you again. Really. It’s more than you should have done.” She reached for his hand, and Mike’s heart flopped in his chest until he remembered their stupid agreement. No touching. But this wasn’t going to be anything except a handshake, right? Her hand was almost inside his when a familiar voice called out his name.
“Mike Springer?”
Sienna froze. He turned. Harmony Donaldson, too made-up and too smiley, stood in the hall. A gaggle of kids stretched out in a long line behind her. “What are you doing here?” Her gaze moved from Mike to Sienna and back again.
“Just stopped in to say hello.”
“Well, hello.” The tips of Harmony’s ears turned pink, and she motioned to the boy at the head of the line of students. “Brandon, you know where to go. Straight up the stairs and wait for me at the top.” The boy nodded and skipped down the hall with the other students following in a meandering line.
Surely Harmony couldn’t think he was here to see her. Yet the way she focused her gaze on first his mouth and then his chest, he wasn’t sure.
“You know, the offer still stands,” she said in a low voice. She took one step closer and gave him a look he couldn’t mistake. “No strings attached.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, okay,” he stammered, knowing full well Harmony didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of spending the night with him, no matter how many times or how many ways she offered.
She reached out and patted his arm. Then she turned and followed her students, but not without one last wink in his direction.
I can only imagine her getting her claws into someone. Harmony Donaldson was someone to watch out for. Word around town was that she’d faked a pregnancy last year with a lawyer over in Silver Valley, and he’d almost popped the question before a phone call from the doctor’s office set everyone straight.
Mike turned back to Room Eighteen, but Sienna had disappeared inside. He hoped she hadn’t seen or heard that exchange with Harmony. He looked through the window. She had rejoined her students on the rug, but she looked up with a smile as he waved goodbye. “Thank you again,” she mouthed over the twins’ heads. It took all he had not to let the movement of her lips turn into something wicked inside his head.
Friends. We’re just friends. Mike repeated the words all the way back to the gym, through his workout with Zane, and later that night, when he stepped under the shower and found himself thinking of Sienna naked and wet and wishing for just an instant he hadn’t screwed up his life royally in the past so that he could enjoy someone like her in his life and his bed without knowing how it would all end.
Chapter Fourteen
He brought me a table. And beanbag chairs.
Sienna couldn’t stop staring at the new furniture in her classroom. Even the weird, flirtatious exchange between Mike and Harmony couldn’t dim her pleasure.
Friends. We’re just friends. She had t
o repeat the words to keep her feet on the ground. Still, it took a pretty solid friend to buy things out of his own pocket and deliver them here himself. “He’s such a nice guy,” she said aloud as she walked down the hall to check her mailbox after school.
“Yes, he is,” Darryl the custodian said as he wheeled a mop bucket past her in the opposite direction. Then he winked. “Course, I don’t see Mike Springer dropping off a special delivery to anyone else at this school. And he’s friends with a lot of people.”
Before Sienna could answer, the old man turned the corner. She trailed her fingers along the cool cinder-block wall. Drawings by the kindergartners and first-graders filled the display cases by the lobby, and she slowed to take a look. Words ran across the page in crooked lines below some of the drawings.
My favorite food is green beans.
My favorite color is black.
My favorite sport is baseball.
Sienna shivered in the frosty lobby air. What she wouldn’t give to be sitting in a baseball stadium on a hot summer day, with peanuts and a hot dog and a beer in her hand as she watched the Yankees kick the crap out of the Red Sox.
“Hi, Hillary,” she said as she fished next week’s lunch menu and a book catalog from her mailbox. She checked the clock behind Hillary’s gray braids. Three twenty-five. She still needed to ask Jenny a couple of questions about testing and the possibility of taking the students on a field trip in the spring. But the principal’s door was tightly shut.
“She’s busy again?” Sienna asked.
Hillary nodded.
“You know what, I’ll wait.” She plopped herself down on the vinyl couch and rolled her neck. She needed new worksheets for Caleb, and she needed to talk to the special ed consultant about Bailey’s IEP. She also needed—
Spring Secrets: Pine Point, Book 3 Page 8
