by Peter Styles
My gaze landed on Grayson Barker and Dylan Wexler. They were seated at a table near the front window. Grayson’s casual roughness seemed to be a total mismatch for Dylan’s clean-cut good looks. You’d never guess the two were crazy about each other, and just about to get married, but they were, and just a few minutes with them would prove to anyone they were a perfect match.
“Hey, lovebirds,” I greeted them and did a quick scan of the filled coffee cups in front of them. “Bill said you wanted to see me. Everything okay?”
Grayson lifted his cup. “Better now, I needed the caffeine. It’s just the kind of swill I miss.”
“Hoorah,” I chuckled as I shook Grayson’s hand.
Dylan laughed. “God save me from marines. We’re doing good, Wyatt, thanks. We just wanted to talk to you about having the diner cater our wedding at the MacNamara estate.”
“Finn and Houston’s place, yeah. I got the invitation,” I said. “Of course, I’d be happy to. It’ll gimme something to focus on.”
Grayson raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t bother digging into my business. Dylan, though, didn’t have Grayson’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell attitude when it came to personal stuff. “Everything okay?”
I waved the question off. Grayson and I were of a cloth. “It’s nothing,” I muttered. “New assistant manager’s a bit of a meathead.”
Last thing I wanted to get into just this moment was the tangle of troubles slowly mounting a full-scale assault on my sanity. I smiled and sank into the booth next to Dylan.
“What kind of menu were you thinking?” I asked. “I can whip up just about anything. Steak, fish, a risotto.”
“Beer and burgers would suit me,” Grayson grumbled.
“We were thinking more of a Texas barbecue. Fun. Casual.” Dylan glanced at Grayson as if needing to see he agreed before he continued, “Why don’t you come up with menu suggestions and we can go from there? We trust you.”
“Sounds good.” I knocked on the table once, pleased that my brain was already starting to percolate a few ideas. The distraction was certainly welcomed. “I’ll get you something by the end of the week.”
My phone vibrated at my hip. I started to let it go, but it was the first day of school. One glance at the number on the screen and my heart pounded as I stood.
“’Scuse me,” I said as I squeezed Dylan’s hand and clapped Grayson on the shoulder, “I’m gonna need to take this. It’s Tempy’s school. I’ll get you something soon. You two be good.”
I put the phone to my ear as I stepped outside to take the call. Trees lined both sides of the street providing shade to ease some of the sticky, summer heat. “Wyatt Worth.”
“Mr. Worth, this is Dr. Rickson, the principal at Worthington Middle School.”
My gaze zeroed in on a building I’d just purchased on the opposite side of the street that still needed some restoration work. Somehow I doubted the principal would be calling if Tempy was simply not feeling well.
I swallowed a groan. “Dr. Rickson. What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling with regard to Temperance,” he said in that voice that told me most of what I needed to know. “I’m afraid there was a bit of an altercation. I’m going to need you to meet with us to discuss what happened and the consequences involved.”
My gut twisted. There is was, then—no longer just tension at home; whatever was going on with her had finally spread to school. I glanced at my watch. The lunch rush was just getting ready to really start. I looked along the street, noticing traffic beginning to pick up. “What time?”
“The sooner the better. I’m afraid this can’t wait.”
Great. I guess I had known that. After all, principals didn’t call you just to shoot the shit about your kid. “I’ll be right there.”
After disconnecting the call, I stared up at the bright blue sky and blew out a puff of air. Not even through the first day, and already Tempy was in trouble. It seemed my baby girl had disappeared to be replaced by a terrible tween. Damn. I felt nearly as helpless as I had the day I’d brought her home from the hospital. Terrified that it would be just her and me.
Even if, for a little while, there had been three of us.
3
Vance
“I think there are some extenuating circumstances here, Dr. Rickson,” I tried to explain, but the principal’s expression remained closed, and Temperance wasn’t helping. In fact, she hadn’t said a word since the PE teacher escorted her in from the gym. “I think she was getting hassled.”
The hustle and bustle of the front office went on just outside the closed door. We were in our own world—the principal, Wyatt Worth’s daughter, and me.
I had only caught the tail end of the incident as I was making copies in the teacher workroom just outside the gym. So I didn’t know exactly what had precipitated it. I was purely making a guess based on what I had seen out of Kirk in homeroom and what I already knew of his family.
Rickson looked ever at Temperance. “Is that true, Miss Worth? Were you being harassed?”
She huffed and rolled her eyes, refusing to look at either one of us. If only I could have a few minutes to talk to her, I felt like I might be able to get her to admit what had really happened, but not with the principal looming over her. The silence stretched without her doing anything but scuffing the toe of her pink sneaker on the floor.
“If you won’t explain your side of the story,” the principal told her, “then my hands are tied. I’ve already spoken to your father. He’s on his way.”
The shoe scuffing stopped. Temperance shot a worried glance at Dr. Rickson before mutely staring back down at the floor again.
My heart beat faster. Wyatt was on his way here? Of course he was. I glanced at Temperance, newly nervous.
Did she know that I had held her as a baby, changed her diapers, and helped feed her? For a while, at least, I had been as close to her as another parent. I had hoped I would have a role in helping her grow up, but that hadn’t happened.
I always suspected Wyatt had ghosted me because of the rumors about us. They had been nasty, but no one had ever known anything for sure. We had both been discreet. However, when you were a Worth, the heir to the founding family of Worthington, discreet probably wasn’t enough, and rumors became reality in a town of this size. She could have heard something, even if Wyatt didn’t tell her about me, but it wouldn’t have been anywhere close to the truth of it.
“I should probably go,” I began, anxious to be anywhere but there when Wyatt arrived.
No such luck. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay, Mr. Waite, given that you broke the fight up.” Dr. Rickson waved us to the door. “If you’d wait with Temperance for Mr. Worth to arrive?”
I didn’t have a class for my last period, so there was no excuse to turn the request down. Tempy glanced at me from the corner of her eye, as well, and it tugged at my heart. She expected me to leave her. “Of course,” I said. “Happy to. Tempy?”
We left Dr. Rickson’s office and took seats on the bench outside, me at one end, her at the other. For a long moment, the silence seemed like it would start smothering someone.
“You know,” I told her quietly, “You could probably avoid a lot of this just by telling Dr. Rickson what happened.”
She crossed her arms and shifted slightly away from me. Any other student and I might have pressed, but with her the message stung a little too much for me to risk pushing for more. Would it have made a difference if she knew who I was? What she meant to me?
Before I could tackle that mountain, the door to the hallway opened to admit Wyatt—an overwhelming presence anywhere, but especially here in the office at Worthington Middle School. With his height and build, it seemed every person in the room paused just to soak him in. That included me, just like the last few times I’d found myself standing near him over the last decade. For a moment that transcended the passage of time, our gazes locked.
I’m not sure what I expected. Some sign that he re
gretted disappearing from my life, regretted ignoring my calls, any acknowledgment at all beyond the sudden wariness in his gaze. How many times did I need to have my heart and my ego trampled? It was always the same with him.
There were changes in the twelve years since he’d disappeared from my life—a touch of gray at his temples, a face that had grown a little leaner, a little harder—but what hadn’t changed was the effect of his potent masculinity and the delicious spicy scent that seemed to be his alone. My heart pounded, like it had at the Dyer ranch only a few months ago, like it had Austin and Benji’s wedding, like it had during Caleb and Ethan’s engagement party. My skin felt flushed and damp. I wanted a moment just to absorb him, but this wasn’t the time or the place. It was never the time or place.
Wyatt’s gaze shifted from me to his daughter, releasing me. From the way it happened, every time, it was like he didn’t even remember what we’d been to one another, once.
“I’m supposed to escort the two of you back to Dr. Rickson’s office,” I said in a rush.
His eyes bored into me again. “What happened?”
“Temperance got into a fistfight with another student—a boy—Kirk Smallwell.”
He nodded, his gaze impersonal, before focusing once again on his daughter.
“Come on, Tempy,” Wyatt told her. “Let’s deal with this.”
He held out his hand. His daughter’s chin trembled slightly as she stood, some of her bravado vanishing now that her father was here. I was glad to see Wyatt put his arm around her shoulders, and even gladder to see that Tempy accepted it. She might be settling into adolescent rebellion, but not so far she couldn’t acknowledge she still needed her dad now and then.
“Follow me, please.” I led the way back to the principal’s office.
Once Wyatt and Dr. Rickson exchanged grim pleasantries, we sat—Tempy and Wyatt on one side of the desk, Rickson on the other, myself on the small sofa to one side.
“Mr. Worth,” Dr. Rickson began, his tone a little less stern in the face of Wyatt’s presence, I thought, “Temperance was, I’m afraid, seen by a security guard striking another student in the face. There was no serious injury to either of them, but I’m sure you can understand how serious the matter is.”
Wyatt kept his eyes on Dr. Rickson, but seemed like he was speaking to Tempy. “How did it start? I’m pretty sure she didn’t hit another kid for no reason.”
“Well, that’s the other issue at hand,” Rickson replied, spreading his hands in helplessness. “Tempy won’t tell her side of it, and Mr. Kirkwell insists that she hit him for no reason.”
Only now did Wyatt glance at me. “And Mr. Waite is here because…?”
I spoke up when Rickson glanced at me. “I was there as well,” I said. “I didn’t see how it started. Tempy is, ah… in my homeroom class. But I doubt she instigated the altercation.”
Wyatt nodded, maybe appreciative or maybe just thoughtful. He looked Tempy over. “Well? Now that I’m here, wanna tell me what happened?”
Tempy met her father’s eyes only briefly, and then looked past him to me, of all people, before her eyes drifted to Rickson and then down to the floor again. She folded her arms, shrank into the chair, and locked down under a cloak of tangible teenage stubbornness.
Oh, she was her father’s daughter, all right.
Rickson’s grimace said everything before he had to put it into words. He was a fair man, or tried to be, but she’d tied his hands. “I’m sorry, Mr. Worth, but without Temperance providing any explanation that might mitigate her actions, I have no other choice but to suspend her for the remainder of the week. Since this is her first disciplinary referral, that’s the extent of the action the school will take, but you should know that if something similar happens again, she could face a disciplinary hearing. Fighting of any sort has become a zero tolerance issue in most schools. It’s lucky Mr. Smallwell wasn’t injured. His parents don’t appear to want to press charges.”
“I’m sure it won’t happen again, Dr. Rickson,” Wyatt said, his tone serious. “If that’s all, I need to get back to the diner.”
I followed them out. As we stepped out of the office door into the main hallway, I wondered if Wyatt would even acknowledge I was still with them. When he finally turned to me, I rushed into speech.
“I’ll see what I can find out, Wy… Mr. Worth, and let you know.” I shifted on my feet, and resisted the urge to rub my neck like some shy middle schooler talking to a crush. “I’m sure there’s more to the story.”
His gray gaze was shuttered. “There’s no need to go out of your way, Mr. Waite. Temperance got herself into trouble, and there are consequences she now has to face.” He turned to Tempy. “Go on out to the truck. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He waited until she was walking across the parking lot, her book bag slung over one shoulder before he turned back to look at me. My insides were ready to melt—so inappropriate—and I had to say something. Do something.
“Wyatt, it’s no trouble for me to try to find out more about what happened,” I said quietly.
His mouth was tight. “I appreciate you trying to look out for her, but we’ll be okay. I’m going to drop her off at Caleb and Ethan’s house, but I’ll speak to her tonight.”
In other words: I wasn’t needed, wasn’t a part of his or his daughter’s life, and should mind my own business. I felt like a kid who keeps throwing himself against a locked door, but I couldn’t help it. The passing of the years hadn’t calmed the way he made my heart pound. “It’s good to see you, Wyatt. Seems like this keeps happening, lately. Running into each other.”
Something flashed in his expression for a heartbeat, and then it was gone. He glanced out to the parking lot before his gaze skated across me. “Yeah. Look, I need to go.”
He held out his hand. I took it as though we really were no more than the strangers he wanted it to appear we were. Long after he’d walked out the door, the feel of his firm touch lingered. It was way too easy to recall how that touch had felt on me. There had never been anything uncertain about his caress as we’d made love.
At least, not at the beginning and the middle. At the end, of course…
We had started out as friends. He was straight. I wasn’t. Maybe he’d sensed my crush, I don’t know. Maybe I had just been what he needed at that point in his life—someone to help him forget the grief of losing his wife. We hadn’t rushed into a sexual relationship. Being with another man had been new for him, but when we had gotten together it had been dynamite.
I waited until the door closed with a loud boom before I let out the breath I’d been holding as he walked away from me.
That fuse had burned down a long time ago, and the bomb hadn’t gone off. There was nothing left to wait for. But that didn’t change the fact that his touch stayed with me as the last period let out, as I packed my papers and prepped assignments for the following day, and all the way home to a lonely house.
Hell, it even followed me to bed, and into my dreams.
4
Wyatt
A good father would have had nothing but his daughter on his mind at that particular moment. Which must mean I was every bit as bad at this as I thought. I had one hand clenched into a fist, and the other forcibly relaxed just so I could hold on to the bit of buzz in it from shaking Vance’s hand.
Twelve years. I’d seen him, we’d exchanged a few pleasantries, terse and short and not enough that anyone who saw us would have any clue what was between us—what had been between us, that is.
Twelve years, plenty of opportunities—but not a single touch. No idea what I was thinking doing that. Feeling the smooth, warm softness of them. Brought back memories I generally avoided revisiting.
We reached the truck and I crawled into my side of it like a sanctuary, like it could save me from that touch. It didn’t. Tempy, though, climbed into the passenger side and tossed her backpack on the floorboard with a huff. That did it. My temper surged a little before I tamped it do
wn and considered my words carefully.
Tempy preempted me. “So I guess I’m grounded.”
I stared straight ahead, exhaling slowly. “I think that’s getting a little ahead of things. Why don’t you tell me what happened? I might be able to help.”
She slouched even deeper into her seat. “I can handle it on my own, Dad. I’m not a baby anymore. I don’t need your help.”
I shifted slightly in the seat to look at her. I recognized the determined angle of her jaw, the light of battle in her eyes. She got that shit from me. It made me that much more curious to know what had actually happened.
“I know that, sugar,” I told her. “You are my little tiger.” She rolled her eyes. “But I still want to know what’s happening at school…especially if I need to go pound someone’s dad.”
“I can handle it.” Now irritation colored her tone.
I needed to back off. My advice book had a long chapter on the importance of not being a helicopter parent, always hovering over a kid without giving them the space they needed to make mistakes and grow up.
Instead of pressing her, I attempted to follow some of that PhD-level advice and cracked my neck as I turned back to the wheel. “I’m here if and when you need me, Tempy. Just so you know.”
She had too much of that Worth pride in her to answer, so I put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “I’ll have to go back to the diner for a while. Do you want to go to Ethan and Caleb’s house? I’ll just be a couple hours.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.” She breathed. “I’m not going anywhere. Everyone I know is still at school.”
I would normally never leave her on her own for an entire day, but… I needed to show her some trust and validate her feeling that she was no longer a little girl. Maybe she would open up if I did.
