JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “But you talked to Susan. And he apologized.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t see the look on his face when he saw the mess at the house. And he probably heard JT and me arguing. I can just imagine what he took from that.”

  Nick moved up behind me, trapping me between the work table and the length of his body. He was taller than me, a little on the heavy side, the heat of his body both comforting and suffocating.

  “Let me help you,” he said softly.

  “How?”

  “I could take over the early shift. I could come in at four and start the donuts so that you can be at home with JT.”

  “Nick…”

  “I know we’ve talked about this before and you feel like it’s your responsibility to handle that part of things. But I used to come in at four with your dad. I know what I’m doing.”

  I turned, nearly falling into his arms. Nick has been a part of my life for a long time. He started working at the bakery in high school and was a fixture here. I knew he was capable of taking over the morning shift. It just…it seemed wrong to ask someone else to open the bakery in the middle of the night – to take charge of the most important part of the business while I lay at home asleep.

  I studied his dark features, his rounded face and hazel eyes, the five o’clock shadow that was already darkening his jaw at nine o’clock in the morning. I lay my hand in the center of his chest, wishing he’d back off just a little. I knew Nick had ideas about our relationship. He’d asked me out a few times over the last three years, assuming that my negative response had more to do with my circumstances than the fact that he simply wasn’t someone I saw myself dating. That sounded a bit pretentious of me, but it was the truth. If he’d known me when I was in New York, if he’d seen the life I had there, maybe he would understand. But, of course, he hadn’t. And that reality was gone, never to be my reality again.

  “Do you really think if I didn’t have to come in so early things would be better with JT?”

  “I think it wouldn’t hurt.”

  I thought about it for a second, the memory of that teacher’s expression as he stared at our house filling my mind. I had to do something. I had to get my priorities straight.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll try it for a week and see how it goes.”

  Nick gripped my upper arms and pulled me closer to him. “I won’t let you down.”

  I was afraid for a second he might try to kiss me. And then I’d have to tell him to back off and he’d quit and everything would just fall apart and…

  But he didn’t. He just smiled like a child who’d gotten the best present ever for Christmas, then went back to his worktable and hummed under his breath as he decorated a cake for a retirement party.

  And I turned back to my own tasks, wondering if I’d just made another in a long list of horrible, devastating mistakes.

  ~~~

  The crowd was already thick when I arrived at the football stadium—or, at least, our small town version of it—friends and neighbors laughing and catching up on the week’s gossip. I found a seat in the center of the stands, waving to customers who stopped their conversations long enough to notice me trying to sneak past them.

  I was exhausted. Fridays were always an exceptionally long day. I’d been up since three to open the bakery, worked until an hour ago trying to get orders out and getting a jump start on tomorrow’s orders. I’d wanted to grab a nap before the game, but that didn’t happen. I’d barely had time for a quick shower before it was time to head over. But I never missed one of JT’s games. I might not be the best guardian in the world, but this was important to him, so it was important to me.

  I saw him before he saw me. The teacher. He was walking along the bottom of the stands, searching for an open seat. A couple of students called out to him and he stopped to speak to a couple of girls who seemed quite taken with him. Again I wondered how different my high school experience might have been if just one of my teachers had looked like him. But most of my teachers were older women, a couple of middle aged me, most of them still working at the school. It certainly would have been a more interesting experience.

  Then he looked up and our eyes met. I almost felt like I was sitting under a spot light, the way he stared at me. I tugged my light sweater tighter around me, unconsciously drawing my bottom lip between my teeth as I dropped my eyes to my toes, my hair falling around my face like a veil. There was something about him that made everything inside of me turn to jelly. The way he was staring at me just made it worse.

  I felt like one of those teenagers with a crush on teacher.

  “Is this seat open?”

  I looked up, the color draining from my face as he towered over me.

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

  He sat down, a little closer to me than the long, empty bench required. Before I could say something, our football team stepped out onto the field. Everyone stood, cheers rising from all around us. I stood, too, shaking the cowbell with JT’s number on it—35—pride bringing a smile to my face as he ran through the inflatable jackrabbit with the rest of his teammates. We stayed on our feet as both teams gathered in the center of the field for the playing of the National Anthem. And then we settled in for the beginning of the game.

  “People take football pretty serious here, don’t they?”

  “Don’t they where you’re from?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. But not quite like this.”

  I glanced at him. “Where are you from?”

  “Oregon.”

  My eyebrows rose. “You’re a long way from home. What brought you out here?”

  Mr. James looked out on the field for a long minute. “The job market’s a little tight up there. I saw an opportunity to start fresh here and I took it.”

  “I guess I understand that.”

  “I hear you used to work in New York City.”

  “Yeah. A lifetime ago.”

  “Did you like it there?”

  I thought about my loft apartment, my close knit group of friends, the man I left behind there and a familiar tightness settled in my chest for a long minute.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But that was a different life. I was a different person there.”

  “I can imagine.”

  I studied the field for a minute, watching as our team made a little progress down field. JT made a dive for a pass, but missed, causing the crowd to groan in one, overwhelming voice. But then he redeemed himself with the next play, catching a wild throw and getting the first down.

  “He’s pretty good.”

  I glanced at Mr. James. “He works hard at it.”

  “Too bad he doesn’t put that much effort into his school work.”

  “Do you know many teenage boys who put that much effort into school work?”

  He actually cracked a smile. And that smile was breathtaking. I had to force myself to look away before I did or said something that would embarrass us both.

  “Despite the impression I might have given you, I was not an angel when I was JT’s age. I was something of a nightmare to my parents.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m sure my mother could tell you stories that would make you incredibly grateful that sleeping in class is the worst thing JT has ever done.”

  “I can’t imagine you were that bad.”

  He laughed, the sound like a fine ganache running down the surface of a cake. I liked the sound, wanted to hear more of it. But then the crowd groaned again—another missed pass—and drowned the sound out.

  I caught sight of the infinity symbol on the inside of his wrist and touched it before I could stop myself.

  “Is this one of your rebellious acts?”

  “It is,” he admitted. “My father was a very religious man. He raised my brother, my sister, and myself to believe that altering the body in any way was an insult to God. So, when I was nineteen, I went to New York City with a group of college friends and one of the first things I did was get this tattoo. And this one.”
He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed me a simple cross on the inside of his other wrist.

  “Do they have special meaning to you? Or were they just random choices?”

  “This one,” he said, gesturing with the arm that sported the cross, “was a roundabout insult to my father. Though I didn’t think of it that way at the time. I thought it was more to prove to him that you could believe in God and still do whatever you wanted with your own body. And this one,” he stared down at the infinity symbol, a sort of dreamy look coming to his perfect caramel eyes, “was a request of a young woman I met that summer.”

  “Hmm, so it was an attempt to get her into your bed. Were you successful?”

  “I was,” he admitted, his eyes moving to the football field just as our defense took over.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine him romancing some young woman when he was a young man himself. Hell, it wasn’t hard to imagine him doing it now. He seemed like a very charming man who often got what he wanted. And, as stupid as it might sound, I was a little jealous of that young woman who got him to permanently disfigure his body for her. She must have meant a lot to him.

  I don’t think I’ve ever mattered that much to a man before. There were men in my life. Boys, really. I dated in high school, but never anything serious, and most of those guys were married with small children now. And college. There’d been one guy in college I would have done almost anything for. But he was so focused on his studies that I’m not sure he ever realized just how deep my feelings for him went. And the man in New York. But I hadn’t heard from him in more than a year. He’d clearly moved on. And I…I suppose I was just a memory to him now.

  At least, I hope I was.

  “Do you have others?”

  Mr. James looked at me as though he’d forgotten I was there.

  “Others?”

  “Tattoos.”

  “A few.” He touched his forearm. “There’s one here.” Then he touched his chest. “One here.”

  I started to ask what they were, but the way he spoke, especially when he touched his chest, left the impression that they were kind of personal and he really didn’t want to talk about them.

  “We don’t get many teachers out here with tattoos.”

  “I got that impression on the first day of school when I took off my jacket and half the class gasped and the other half stood up to get a better look.”

  I smiled. I could imagine.

  “This town is pretty tight. People are friendly, but they don’t let you in easily.”

  “We don’t get a lot of outsiders around her.”

  “Do you like living in such a small town?”

  I shrugged. “It has its pros and cons, just like any other place.”

  “You’ve lived here all your life?”

  “No. We moved here when I was thirteen. Just in time to start junior high.”

  “Must have been tough.”

  “I hated it,” I admitted. “It took forever to make friends and I struggled with the curriculum for a while.”

  “But you settled in.”

  “Eventually.”

  “Would you have come back, if not for what happened?”

  “No. I was happy in my life.” I looked out at the field, watched as JT high fived a couple of his teammates following a turn over. “I mean, I would have come back to visit. But I don’t think I would have lived here again.”

  He nodded. I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. I wondered if I’d said something I shouldn’t have. After all, this was the teacher who’d threaten to have my brother taken from our home. But he seemed—

  The crowd erupted into loud cheers and stomping that vibrated the metal stands under my ass. I stood up, realizing a little too late that we’d just made a touchdown and it was JT holding the ball in the in zone. I shook the cowbell and screamed his name, forcing more enthusiasm into my voice than I felt. Someone behind me patted my shoulder as though it was as much my achievement as it was JT.

  The extra point kick was good. The crowd cheered again, the band playing a triumphant melody, and then everyone settled back for the next set of downs.

  A couple of teenagers wandered toward us, one of the girls waving with a deep blush on her cheeks at Mr. James.

  “They seemed to really like you.”

  He shrugged.

  “They’ll all be talking about how you sat with me at the game. By Monday, they’ll have us engaged.”

  He cocked an eyebrow as he glanced at me. “You think so?”

  “Oh, sure. You have to be really careful who you spend time with at these public events.”

  He started to say something, but then his cellphone rang. He tugged it out of his jeans pocket and I caught sight of a woman’s name—Libby—before he muttered, “I have to take this,” and wandered off.

  He had a girlfriend.

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  Chapter 4

  Harrison

  I left the stands and wandered toward a quiet spot at the back of the stadium as I answered the phone.

  “Hey, Lib. What’s up?”

  “Where are you? I can barely hear you.”

  “Football game.”

  “Oh? How’s JT doing?”

  “Just scored a touchdown.”

  “Awesome.”

  I stood with my back to the fence, watching the game progress through a crowd of bored teenagers and parents with small children who refused to sit still. My thoughts, though, were on Penelope, that enigmatic beauty who seemed so vulnerable and so resilient all at the same time. She was clearly suspicious of me, the way she looked at me spoke of a fear that was very basic, very instinctual. But there was something else there…and the way she engaged in casual conversation spoke of a basic kindness and charm that was beginning to make me think that maybe I didn’t want to just snatch JT from her custody as coldly as I had planned. And that made me wonder what other options I might have.

  “We have a little problem here,” Libby said, breaking into my thoughts. “That contract that was supposed to go so smoothly with the lumber people didn’t go quite as well as we had hoped.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They insist that we make changes. They don’t like some of the changes you made to the original contract.”

  I groaned. “We had a deal.”

  “I know. And I reminded them of that. But their representative says he needs to talk to you directly. He’s going to be here for the rest of the weekend…”

  A cheer drowned out all sound around me. I stepped forward a little and just caught sight of JT running down the field, yards ahead of the opponent, scoring another touchdown. The band began to play as cowbells, foghorns, and all kinds of noise filled the air around me. Pride swelled in my chest as I watched JT celebrate with his teammates.

  That was my kid.

  “Send the jet. I can fly out in the morning,” I said to Libby, wondering what JT would think if he could see the company’s private jet, if he could see my impressive house built into the side of a cliff overlooking Ashland, if he could see the corporation I’d built, see the press that had forced me to use a false name here so that no one would realize who I really was before I had a chance to tell JT the truth about me, about our relationship.

  I needed to tell him soon. The truth was becoming a burden I wasn’t sure I could carry much longer.

  But then I thought about Penelope, and a part of me wanted to hide the truth for a while longer if it meant protecting her from a reality she wasn’t prepared to face. I don’t know why I should care about some small town girl who’d made her own bed. She could have taken JT to New York, could have kept her job, her tiny apartment with a plush address. She would still have those things that had clearly meant so much to her. It wasn’t my fault she’d made the choices she had.

  Yet, I still felt bad when I thought about the moment when I would leave this small town with JT.

  I hung up and made my way back into the stands just as
the refs called halftime. Penelope was talking to some older man, smiling through the exhaustion that clouded her face. Another teacher from the high school waved me over, asking about a staff meeting that took place that afternoon. It took me a minute to get her caught up, earning myself a grateful smile and another tally mark on the cooperative coworker column. Penelope was once again alone when I slid back into my seat beside her.

  “Some half,” I said.

  She nodded. “JT’s on fire tonight.”

  “Must be all that rest he’s getting in my class.”

  She stiffened and I immediately regretted the quip. But before I could say anything, JT came running up into the stands still in full uniform.

  “Hey, sis,” he said, sliding backward onto the bench in front of us. “What did you think of that?”

  Penelope’s eyes burst with light as she leaned into him, a smile on her full lips.

  “You were brilliant.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Definitely.”

  He beamed. “Coach says that if I get an average of three touchdown in the rest of the games this year, I’ll make some sort of record. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Very cool.”

  His smile widened. It was pretty obvious Penelope’s approval was deeply important to him. It changed the dynamics I’d thought existed between the two of them. I had assumed things were more contentious than they clearly were. I had thought that taking him away wouldn’t matter as much to him. But now I was having a few more doubts.

  “Listen,” JT said, leaning close enough to Penelope that his sweaty forehead was nearly touching hers, “Sean’s having a party at his house after the game. Would it be okay if I go for a couple of hours? I promise I’ll be in bed by two.”

  Penelope’s shoulders tightened. “You have chores that need to be done.”

  “I know. I promise I’ll do them tomorrow. All of them.”

  “Even cleaning your bathroom?”

  JT groaned, but he nodded. “Even the bathroom.”

  Penelope smiled, though the tension in her shoulders stayed. “You’ll text me when you get there and you’ll text me if you’re going to be late.”