“No problem.” My eyes scan the other groups, most of which have their plywood booths up already and are starting to set up the games. “What’s the carnival for?”
“I guess they’ve been raising money for the last few years for new playground equipment, and this is the last big push. The PTA says that’s a deathtrap,” she says, gesturing to the rusting metal jungle gym in the middle of the playground. “They’re hoping to make the last thousand they need for the play structure they want.”
I look at the pile of wood on the ground. “This doesn’t look too hard.”
“Cars are my thing,” Adri says. “Construction, not so much.”
It’s basically one four-by-six plywood wall for the back and two three-by-six walls for the sides, along with brackets to hold them together and two-by-four supports for the back. I lift the four-by-six wall so it’s vertical. “Can you hold this here?”
She takes it and holds it by an edge. “That much I can probably handle.”
I position one of the two-by-four support braces behind it and line up the holes for the bolts. “So, what time Saturday?”
“Seven?”
“I’ll pick you up at your house,” I say, tightening the wing nut onto the first bolt.
Her tongue darts over that full lower lip as her eyes sweep over the other groups. She’s nervous. About her job? Her father? Or maybe PTSD Chuck is more than a friend. “I’ll meet you at the end of my street.”
Her father, then. I can’t say I blame her. I’m every father’s nightmare.
I give her a slow nod.
Her eyes flick to me and then away as I start on the bolts for the second support bracket. “I’m sorry I pushed you about getting help last week. A good friend of mine reminded me last night that it’s not my job to save everyone. I care a great deal about Sherm, but I overstepped my bounds as a teacher when I stuck my nose into your family business. I’m sorry.”
If I didn’t already know how tightly this woman had me wrapped around her little finger, the fact that the part of that statement that’s making me crazy is that she was with PTSD Chuck last night cements it. “You’ve worked wonders with Sherm. I had no right to jump down your throat.”
“Thank you. He’s a wonderful little boy.”
I finish with the supports and lift the first sidewall into place. “Hold this here.” She does and I grab one of the corner brackets and start on the bolts. “Where do you want to go Saturday? I don’t know the area very well.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she works something out, her eyes flicking to her colleagues and back to me several times in the process. “I know a great place off-island.”
The fact that she obviously wants to do this on the sly makes it so much hotter. “Sounds good.”
There’s a long tension-filled silence as I finish up the first wall and start on the second. The air is so charged with anticipation, I feel the hair on my arms standing on end. She keeps sending me these looks and licking that full lower lip. By the time I’m done with the booth, her cheeks are pink, and the hair on my arms isn’t the only thing standing at attention.
“Can you help me with the rest?” she asks.
I nod. “I’m in no rush.”
She waves me toward a storage shed near the office. “The dart setup is over here.”
We step inside. She points toward the corner, to a roll of what looks like carpet covered in trash bags. I unearth it from the cobwebs and other things stacked around it as she grabs a plastic tub off the shelves on the back wall. We take everything to our booth. When she pulls the plastic off the roll, I see it’s cork-backed green felt. The C-clamps in the bag of bolts make sense now. We roll the felt out and clamp it to the top of the wall so that it covers the entire back of the booth.
“I need a table,” Adri says, pointing to a stack of folding tables on the grass near the parking lot.
I haul one over and she unfurls a red paper tablecloth onto it, then sets the plastic tub on top. Inside are three sets of darts, several packages of balloons, and a box of thumbtacks.
“So, we’re just supposed to tack balloons to the wall and if they pop one with a dart, they get a prize.”
I poke at the green felt. “Will the darts stick in this?”
She shrugs and pulls one out of the container. “Only one way to find out.” She gives it a toss. It hits the felt sideways and drops to the ground. “It must be dull,” she says, looking woefully at it in the grass.
“You throw like a girl,” I say with a shake of my head.
She gives me a pouty little smile. “I am a girl, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Hell yeah, I’ve noticed. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you to throw a dart?”
“I didn’t know there was anything to learn. I thought you just threw them and they stuck.”
I come around to her side of the table and pick one up. They’re crappy toy darts, not the real thing, so the weight’s all wrong. I aim, shoot. It sticks into the middle of the back wall.
“Show-off,” she mutters. “Bet you can’t hit a balloon.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “What are we wagering?”
She looks at me with wide eyes for several long heartbeats before saying, “Dinner. You hit the balloon, I pay.”
I shake my head. “I’m paying either way. Think of something better.”
That pink tongue slicks over her lower lip again. “You hit the balloon, I’ll let you drive me home.” The same embers of desire that exploded into an inferno that day on her desk ignite deep in her eyes as she says it.
Electricity sizzles over my skin, starting a slow burn inside me. I give her a nod, move to the outside of the table. “I can live with that.”
She snatches a red balloon out of the bin. I can’t take my eyes off her lips as she blows it up. She ties it and tacks it to the wall, then turns to me with a challenge in her eye.
“These darts suck,” I say, thumbing through them, looking for the best of the bad. “How many chances do the kids get?”
“Three for a dollar,” she says.
I reach in my pocket, peel a hundred off the roll, set it on the table, punch a dart through it to hold it there.
Her jaw falls fully open. “That’s a hun—”
Before she can finish, I send a dart flying without taking my eyes off her and smile when I hear the pop and solid thunk of the tip into the plywood.
“No way!” She looks at where the flat red balloon is pinned under my dart with disbelieving eyes. “You didn’t even aim!”
I shrug. “Just lucky.”
“How did you do that?” she asks, still incredulous.
I reach for her hand, pull her around to my side of the table. “Geometry.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second when I let her go. I’m not sure if it’s my answer or my touch that has her stunned silent.
She clears her throat and looks at me. “Explain.”
“The dart is going to move on a parabolic curve, just like anything you throw. It needs to leave your hand already traveling on that curve, so it’s all mechanics.”
She folds her arms over her chest, bringing my attention there. “I thought you said it was geometry.”
I can’t stop the chuckle. “Okay, maybe there’s some physics involved too.”
Her face twists into an adorable scowl. “Let me guess, you’re a math geek.”
I shrug a shoulder. “I’m not an anything geek, but math’s always come easy. It’s logical. Numbers make sense. They never change the rules halfway or turn into something different. They’re constant and dependable.”
Her gaze, which had been playful and a little hungry, turns into something more solemn, and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. But that’s harder than it should be with those clear blue eyes staring at me, so open and trusting, making me want to open up and trust her back.
I hold up a dart. “Open your hand.”
She does.
I set the dart in the middle of her p
alm. “You need to find the center of gravity of the dart. Roll it to your fingertips and find the balance point.”
I watch as she moves the dart on her fingers until she finds where it balances.
“When you grip it, you want your thumb just behind the center of gravity. You can use two fingers, or all four. Four give you better control and velocity, but the release is trickier. Either way, you want to be sure your grip is firm, but not tense.”
She grips the dart lightly between her thumb and two fingers. “You seem like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I’ve played a lot of darts.” The truth is, I blew off my geometry homework most nights, opting for an experiential lesson in geometry instead. In addition to geometry, I got schooled in economics and sociology as I hustled darts in the bar below Pop’s office.
I step up behind her and lift her arm into throwing position. “Remember the curve. If your hand moves in a straight line, the trajectory of the dart after it leaves your hand is going to change, and it won’t end up where you aimed.”
She turns her eyes to the flattened balloon on the wall.
“Right foot in front of the left and turn your shoulders.” I grasp her hips and rotate them slightly. “Stay in balance through the whole throw.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Who knew this was so complicated?”
“Feet farther apart,” I say, feeling the charge between us growing. I keep a hand on her right hip and glide my other up her waist to her shoulder. “More turn.”
She loses her balance and presses back against me. The full-body contact boils my blood. There’s a long second where neither of us moves—I don’t even feel her breathing.
I shift her over her feet again and let go. “Got it?”
She nods. I don’t miss the tremble in her hand where she holds the dart poised for launch.
I move around the table to the wall and stand well to the side of the red balloon. “Eye on the target and follow through.”
Her eyes flick to me. She cringes a little. “Are you sure you want to stand there?”
“Eye on the target, not the prize,” I say with a smirk.
She takes a deep breath. After a long pause, she pulls her eyes away from me and lets the dart fly. I’m so wrapped up in the contours of her lips that there’s a beat where I don’t even realize where the dart is. I jump out of the way, but not fast enough. I feel the jab as it lodges in the outside of my left thigh, just below the hip.
“Oh my God!” Adri’s hands are over her mouth. Her eyes look like they’re about to fall out of her head.
I reach down for the dart. It stings when I yank it out. “Nice shot.”
“Oh my God,” she says again, finally moving toward me. “Are you okay?”
“Just a scratch,” I say. “Nothing to worry about.”
She lowers her hands. “You’re bleeding.”
I glance down at the small red bloom growing on my jeans. “I’ll put a Band-Aid on it when I get home.”
She’s still staring at me in sheer panic. “Can you walk? Should I call an ambulance?”
I laugh despite myself. “It was a dart, Adri. I’m fine.”
She grabs my hand. “Come on.”
I follow as she tows me out to the parking lot. The crowd has cleared, only a few last people setting up the bottles for the ringtoss game. They’re too busy arguing about whether the bottles should be touching to notice us.
Theresa comes out of the dark of the shed just as we come to it. Adri instantly drops my hand. “Everything all set down there?” she asks.
Adri nods, still heading toward the parking lot. “Mr. Davidson made a donation. It’s on the table.”
Theresa smiles at me. “The children thank you.”
“My pleasure,” I say, but Adri’s already halfway to the Lumina.
I follow her and she pulls up short when we reach it.
“Crap. This is yours.”
“Frank is in the shop,” I remind her. “What’s the problem?”
She holds out her hand. “Give me your keys.”
“Why?” I ask warily.
“Because you’re injured. I’m driving.”
“But I won the bet. I drive you home.”
She shakes her head adamantly. “You are not safe to drive. You could go into shock or something.”
I laugh for real this time. It strikes me that I can’t even remember the last time I laughed out loud. What this woman does for Sherm, she also seems to do for me. “I’m not going into shock. Look,” I say, turning my leg for her to see. “It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
“Give me the keys,” she demands, “or I’m calling an ambulance.”
I shake my head, hand over my keys.
She unlocks the doors. I adjust my jeans around my growing erection as I slide into the passenger seat. We fall into a charged silence as she navigates the Lumina through town to her house.
She’s not going to resist. She’ll give me what I want when we get there. I can read it all over her.
And then I’ll be able to focus again.
Chapter 16
Adri
It’s not until I make the turn onto my road that I remember I can’t just drive up to my house with Rob, larger than life, in the passenger seat.
I feel my face get even hotter. I threw a dart at him. In my defense, he was totally distracting me, and I warned him not to stand there, but still. And now, to top off my total mortification, I have to sneak him into my house like a teenager.
I take a deep breath and can’t bring myself to look at Rob as I say, “I need you to get down.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just slouch down a little, okay?” I know he’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and I feel my face pull into a self-conscious cringe.
“What’s this all about?”
I take a breath and turn to him. “My neighbor reports everything back to my dad.”
A sexy smirk breaks over his face. “And a strange man at your house is going to be hard to explain?”
An incredibly sexy strange man. I press a hand to my face. “Sorry. This is stupid. I’ll just take you home.”
He adjusts the seat all the way back and lifts his knees, pressing them into the dash and scooching as low as his six-three frame can manage. “Okay?”
“Sorry,” I say again, but I start rolling slowly up the street. I wave at Sergeant Dixon, who’s sitting on his porch with his golden retriever, then drive up our driveway to the garage in back.
“Coast is clear,” I say once we’re stopped out of Sergeant Dixon’s line of sight.
Rob sits up and pushes out his door, looking at the white stucco house with an amused glint in his eye. “That felt like a reverse getaway.”
I lead him up the short walkway to the back door, where I turn the key. We step through into the kitchen, and I’m glad I did the dishes before I left for work this morning.
“Come on.” I take his hand and tow him though the kitchen, but he pulls back as we pass the wall of Adri at the entrance to the hall.
I try not to cringe as he takes his time perusing school pictures as I progressed through the missing-front-teeth stage, to pimples, to braces, and finally high school graduation.
“That’s a lot of history,” he says, his eyes stalling on a shot of me hugging Chuck at eighth-grade graduation.
“Dad and Mom bought this house when they got married. Mom just kept adding to it,” I say with a wave of my hand at the wall. “Called it the wall of fame.”
He turns to face me, and everything inside me is at odds. I want to kiss him in the worst possible way. I want him to sweep me up and ravage me in my childhood bed. How can I feel this way about someone who won’t let himself show?
There’s still so much I want to know … about why Rob lied about their father, what brought them here, and why Rob’s so scared. He’s like a feral animal I’ve been able to coax into trusting me enough to come closer. He’s just starting to let down
his guard. One false move will send him bolting. And, like a wild animal, there’s always the chance if he feels cornered he might bite. It should scare me that after all these weeks, I know so little about him.
But after that day in my classroom, I can’t make myself feel afraid of Rob.
Maybe it’s because underneath all that cold intensity, I can see his heart in the way he loves his family. It’s bigger than Florida. Or maybe it’s because I feel our connection. As much as he’s fighting it, it’s real and it’s strong. I know he won’t bite me.
But I wish he’d trust me enough to let me help him.
“Come on,” I coax, tugging on his hand.
He lets me pull him down the hallway, and I try not to think about what might happen if I just kept going all the way to my room at the end. I flick on the light switch outside the first door and pull him into the yellow-tiled bathroom.
“Sit,” I say, indicating the toilet seat.
He does, and I dig through the medicine cabinet and drawer until I have a small stockpile of first aid supplies. It’s not until I turn back to him and see the smile twitching one corner of him mouth that the logistical problem occurs to me.
“Um …” My eyes roll up to the ceiling because I can’t look at him as I ask, “Are you wearing underwear?”
“As far as I know.” I hear the amusement in his voice, and I can’t decide if I want to hit him or kiss him.
He thinks this is funny. I dart him in the leg and he’s laughing at me.
I yank a towel off the rod and hand it to him, trying to pretend the idea of him in his underwear isn’t making me tingle in places I shouldn’t be. “Take down your pants and put this over yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
He stands and sets the towel on the counter next to him, and I look away again as he reaches for the button of his jeans. When I hear his zipper, the sound goes straight to my groin.
I start reciting the times tables in my head, but it doesn’t block out the sound of denim sliding down skin, tightening every muscle south of my waist.
“Ready?” I ask after a minute.
“I was born ready.”
The teasing is gone from his tone, replaced by the same dark intensity as when he kissed me in my classroom. When I turn back, he’s seated with the towel draped loosely over him, but not so loosely that I can’t see the bulge underneath. I make a point of focusing all my attention on his left thigh, cleaning the tiny wound with a damp facecloth.
Outside the Lines Page 17
