“Oh!” She glanced at the shepherd again. “Shouldn’t he be wearing a service dog vest or something?”
“Not a service dog. He’s a police dog.”
“Oh! Then you’re a cop.” And yet he was here for a couple of months?
Suddenly, realization washed over her. “Wait a minute. You’re not the volunteer for the academy program, are you?” She’d known she was getting a police-related volunteer, but not who it was or where he’d be living.
He nodded glumly.
“Starting Monday?”
He nodded again. “Yeah. I just found out about it. Not exactly my thing, but it’s a condition of getting the house, which I need until my disability payments come in.”
“So...you don’t have any training with teenagers?”
He shook his head. “Zilch.”
“Great.” She wondered whether it was too late for them to choose another candidate for the position.
“I mean,” he went on, “I’ve worked with little kids some, in classroom demonstrations about police work. But teenagers I’ve mostly arrested. Philly cop,” he clarified, probably in response to Erica’s frown.
She looked over at him without speaking while her thoughts and emotions raced. It hadn’t been all that long since she’d had the surgery that had destroyed her dream of having kids of her own. Since then, she’d gotten even more dedicated to her students, especially now that she’d been hired to finish out the school year in Pleasant Shores Academy’s behavior support program.
Having a volunteer assistant who thought of teenagers as criminals wasn’t exactly ideal.
He—Trey, he’d said his name was—glanced over at her and something must have shown on her face. “What’s your interest in the program?”
“I’m the cooperating teacher,” she said slowly. “I’ll be working closely with you...with whoever Officer Greene recommends to be my assistant in the program.” And she’d be having a conversation with Officer Greene just as soon as she got back to her place. Maybe there was still time to replace the movie star with someone who actually wanted to work with kids.
She’d helped Officer Greene organize the program that would get some much-needed help for her classroom full of unruly teens. It was a big part of the proposed solution to the fears Pleasant Shores’ latest, wealthiest residents had about their private junior-senior high school—the only school in town—housing a program for at-risk kids. They didn’t like that, but they also didn’t want to bus their kids to distant public schools up the shore.
She had to do everything in her power to make the academy a success. For the kids, of course. For her niece, Hannah, who needed stability and a good school. And most of all for her sister, Amber, who deserved to have one dream, at least, come true.
If that meant throwing the handsome movie star under the bus, well, that was what she’d have to do.
CHAPTER TWO
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you turned the poor guy in!” Amber hooted with laughter and shook her head at Erica, all at the same time.
“His attitude is worse than any of the kids’,” Erica said as she lifted a second slice of pizza from the box and put it on her plate. “I mean,” she said to her seventeen-year-old niece, Hannah, “you wouldn’t want some giant, sulky cop helping in your class, would you?”
Hannah lifted an eyebrow. “Depends what he looks like.”
“That’s part of the problem!” Erica said. “He looks like a movie star. Like that guy who played Thor.”
“Chris Hemsworth?” Hannah laughed. “He could sit in on my class anytime.”
“No way. His looks just make his bad attitude more of a pain.”
“Why?” Amber asked. “Nothing wrong with having some nice scenery in the classroom, even if he doesn’t do much.”
Erica stood to pour more mineral-infused water into Amber’s glass, then Hannah’s. It was a balancing act, trying to appeal to two picky appetites while making meals as nutritious as possible. “I can just imagine him sitting there in the back of the room, all handsome and sullen. It’s hard enough to get the kids motivated without having a male role model slouching around acting like everything we do is stupid.”
“Maybe you can convert him, change his attitude,” Amber said, waggling painted-on eyebrows. “Or at least have fun trying. You need to get out more.”
“And upset Principal O’Neil? Remember, he doesn’t like his single teachers to date. He’s afraid it would somehow hurt the school’s reputation.”
“That’s not fair!” Hannah ripped the crust off her slice of pizza. “Isn’t it, like, an invasion of privacy?”
“Yes, it is. And to top it off, he freaks out if any of his teachers gets pregnant.” Erica looked out the window toward the bay, and immediately her blood pressure eased back down. Golden sunlight slanted low, making the scattered clouds go shades of pink and purple and turning the bay to a glowing mirror. Pleasant Shores’ location on the tip of a Maryland peninsula meant that both sunrises and sunsets were spectacular.
“Didn’t O’Neil just have a new baby?” Amber asked. “So he didn’t mind his own wife getting pregnant.”
“She doesn’t work, from what I’ve heard, and that’s the way he thinks families should be. He’s old-school, he always says.”
Amber snorted. “He’s out of touch, is what he is.” She leaned back in her chair, furtively sneaking a pizza crust to Ziggy.
“He seems weird,” Hannah said in the dismissive tone of a teenager.
Erica leaned back in her chair. “In retrospect, I can’t believe he hired me, but he was desperate to find someone who could finish out the school year.”
“And who he thought he could push around,” Amber said.
“Right. But the academy’s behavior support program is super important, and the kids are great. If I keep working hard, I hope I can convince O’Neil—and the board—to keep funding it.”
“I think you should give the hottie another chance. Flirt with him,” Amber said.
“No. No way. Officer Greene is going to try to find me someone else.” Erica didn’t want to listen to her sister telling her she needed to date, have fun, meet men. It wasn’t on her agenda and she didn’t want to discuss the reasons why with her big sister. “Hannah, how was your math test?”
They talked about school for a little while, all of them eating just a little pizza. Hannah constantly worried about gaining weight, while Amber, who actually needed to gain, found that a lot of food didn’t taste quite right. Erica had always been someone whose appetite was affected by her emotions, and those were running a little high tonight.
After a few minutes, Hannah picked up her mother’s plate and her own and carried them into the kitchen. There was a slight slump to the seventeen-year-old’s shoulders.
Erica looked quickly over at Amber to see if she’d noticed.
She had. She was looking after her daughter, biting her lip.
The sound of dishes clanking told them Hannah was loading the dishwasher. Erica raised an eyebrow at Amber. “She’s a lot more responsible about chores than we ever were,” she said.
“She hasn’t had much choice.” Amber sounded discouraged, and who could blame her? Her first bout with breast cancer, when Hannah was ten, had been difficult, but Erica and a bunch of friends had all rallied around, helped with food and with Hannah, and thrown a party when Amber had been declared free of disease.
Now that it had recurred and spread, now that Hannah was old enough to help her mom—and also, to understand the implications of a cancer recurrence—things were different. More challenging. The outcome less likely to be positive.
A glance at Amber suggested her thoughts were traveling down the same road. Time for another change of subject. “We should start on those curtains and valances we were talking about making.”
“Eh, I don’t know.”
>
“If you’re too tired—”
“I’m fine! Every time I don’t want to do something it’s not because...” She trailed off as Hannah came into the room. “It’s not because I’m sick. And sure, I’ll help with the curtains, though why we’re making them for a rental I don’t quite get.”
Because it’s a project, something to keep us busy. “A long-term rental,” Erica said.
“Let’s hope so.” She glanced up at Hannah and added quickly, “I just mean we might not be able to afford this place through the high season.”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Hannah’s smile looked forced.
“Do you want to help?” Erica asked her niece. “You’re so good at crafty stuff.”
“Um, no, thanks. I have homework.” Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, then hurried out of the room.
Wanting to wipe the worried look off Amber’s face, Erica got the bolt of filmy fabric, embroidered with tiny blue and green seashells, and started to unroll it across the table. “I’ll measure. You cut,” she said.
“Sure.” Amber pushed herself out of her chair and walked slowly to the kitchen. “Where’d you put the scissors?” she called back.
Erica gripped the back of a chair to prevent herself from rushing in to help her sister, making her sit down, doing it all herself. “Drawer by the stove, I think. Do you see a tape measure in there?”
“Yep.” Amber came back into the room brandishing scissors, handed them and a tape measure to Erica and then eased herself down into a chair. “So what’s really going on with that cop you turned in?” she asked, sounding a little out of breath.
Erica measured the width of the dining room window and jotted it down. “I just really, really want the academy program to continue, help more kids.”
“Because you can’t have any,” Amber said flatly.
“It’s not just that, but...yeah.” Erica sighed. She didn’t like to talk about her own issues when Amber’s were so pressing. “I guess that’s part of why.”
“That’s a lot of weight to put on a bunch of troubled kids, making them stand in for all your old dreams,” Amber said.
“They’ve lost so much in their lives. I really want to make a difference to them.”
“You’ve lost so much. And was this guy possibly too good-looking?”
“Stop it.” She didn’t want to discuss her decision to avoid any kind of real relationship with her sister, who’d just argue with her. It was an old argument, predating the cancer and her recent resolution. Amber had loved boys as a teenager and had run pretty wild. She’d tried to get Erica to take advantage of the fact that their mother was usually too busy working to supervise them closely. But Erica had been the responsible one, trying to rein Amber in, rarely agreeing to even a simple date.
Now that she knew what she was facing, she kind of wished she’d taken Amber’s route.
From upstairs, a blare of loud music sounded. Erica wrinkled her nose. “Ugh,” she said.
“Yeah. The ‘I hate women’ music.”
“Well, to be fair,” Erica said, “it’s what all the kids listen to.”
“Promise me you’ll make her know not to think of herself that way, if...” Amber’s voice tangled on the last word.
Erica’s throat tightened. “Of course, but you’ll be here to do that.”
“Yeah.” Amber cleared her throat. “Listen, I think I actually am a little too tired to help with this tonight. Rain check?” She was scooting back her chair as she spoke, hunched over, like a hollowed-out shell.
Erica wanted to hug her and reassure her that everything would be all right. But she didn’t know that. And moreover, she thought as she watched Amber stare up the steps on the way to her first-floor bedroom, she couldn’t even really imagine what her sister was feeling.
* * *
THE POUNDING RHYTHMS of Metallica and the throb of his muscles as he scrubbed floors and carried boxes distracted Trey from thinking about the depressing thing he was doing: cleaning out the house he’d shared with his wife.
He’d pay for it tomorrow. He wasn’t supposed to lift anything over ten pounds, but come on. How could he clean out what remained of his married life without lifting a few boxes? And when his friend Denny from the force had volunteered to help, well, he couldn’t sit around and let the guy work alone, could he?
The smell of bleachy cleaning solution got to him, so he left Denny finishing the kitchen floor and headed upstairs, taking it one step at a time, jaw clenched against the pain that radiated out from his lower back into his hip and leg. From his position by the front door, King rose and dutifully followed him.
As he ran the vacuum cleaner over the bedroom carpet, trying not to twist or make any sudden movements, he saw the lighter-colored squares on the walls where their pictures had hung. In a side nook was one they’d neglected to take down. A caricature they’d gotten of the two of them at some street fair was framed: him looking like a giant cartoon cop, Michelle like a tiny, cute perp begging for mercy.
She’d spent time begging during their marriage, all right, begging him to give up his notions of an Ozzie and Harriet family and come out partying, until the begging had turned to anger and then she’d stopped talking altogether. Meanwhile, his cop side had grown bigger and bigger until it had overshadowed the marriage. Chicken-and-egg thing: he didn’t really know which had come first, Michelle’s withdrawal or his own.
Truth was, they’d been poorly suited from the start. His growing desire to start a family and Michelle’s flagging one had sealed their fate.
He stuffed the caricature into the trash bag he’d been hauling from room to room and walked down the hall to check the other two bedrooms. One painted pink and one painted blue, a relic of the previous residents who’d had a boy and a girl and then outgrown the little house.
He’d wanted a boy, some antiquated notion of building a family line. But a girl would’ve been fine, too. One of each, even better. He did a quick check of the two rooms and found one of Michelle’s thongs and a bra in the back of the blue room closet. Strange, considering neither of them had spent much time in that room unless they’d had guests, which hadn’t happened in a couple of years.
King stuck his nose into Trey’s hand, a welcome distraction from thinking about what the lingerie meant. He stuffed it into the garbage and hauled it downstairs, leaning hard on the railing, King at his side. At the bottom of the stairs he checked his watch, considered taking a pain pill early and then forced the thought away.
In the kitchen, Denny finished rinsing out the mop and stood it near the back door. He checked his phone.
“Thanks, man,” Trey said. “Take a break. There’s cold beer in the fridge and I’m about to order us some pizza.”
“I’ll grab a beer, but then I’ve gotta go. Milo’s starting T-ball and normally Laura would take him to practice, but she’s leaning on me a little more.” Denny didn’t look at all upset.
“Are you in trouble with her?” Denny had been a big womanizer before falling for Laura and learning to walk the line.
“No, but...she’s pregnant again,” Denny blurted out, kneeling down to pet King.
Trey stopped in the middle of pulling out two beers and stared at his friend, ignoring the twist in his gut. “That’s great, man. When is she due?”
“Six months, so end of October.” Denny wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “I’ve been taking some extra shifts to bring in a little more. When I’m off, I feel like I should be with her, take care of Milo so she can get some rest.”
“You should. I appreciate your coming out today. I’d have hired a cleaning company, but money’s tight.”
“No problem. You’d do the same for me.”
It was true. They’d been partners before Trey had become a K-9 officer, had dodged plenty of bullets together, had commiserated over beers about department politic
s and women and life. But their connection went back way further. Having spent time in the same foster home, they were practically brothers. “Give Laura a kiss for me, and tell her I’m sorry I stole you away today.”
“Will do. She said to tell you she’s already counting on you babysitting for us.”
“Anytime.” Although Denny had been sunnier and more beloved in the foster home, it had been Trey who’d helped with the babies, known for being the one who could make them stop crying, adept at changing diapers and heating up bottles. Denny remembered, and had entrusted Trey with Milo often enough that Milo called him Uncle Trey.
On some level, he guessed, he liked babies and wanted to be a dad so he could show the world he wasn’t the same kind of slacker his own father had been.
“Got an offer on the house pretty quick, huh?” Denny cracked open a cold beer and guzzled half of it.
“Inspection tomorrow. Should go well. Closing’s next week.” And that would be that.
“Young family, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah.” The little brick two-story was perfect for kids, with a fenced yard sporting a tire swing and a picnic table, and a basketball hoop above the garage. That was why the place had appealed to him, too.
“You’d think Michelle would’ve helped. She owns half, right?” Denny waved his phone at Trey. “Looks like she’s partying instead, if you believe what she’s posting.”
Trey had blocked his ex-wife on social media, but he did still know her whereabouts. “She’s doing a girls’ week at the beach. Florida. Or so she said.” He swallowed down a sour taste in his mouth.
“You’re over her, right?”
Trey thought about it. It had been a year and a half since they’d separated, and their divorce had come through six months ago. The sense of failure still nagged at him, and he regretted losing his dream of a family. But Michelle?
Thinking of her partying down in Florida didn’t make him jealous about the men she was probably meeting. It just made him feel like a sucker, agreeing to take on the cleaning. “Yeah, I’m over her.” Then, restless, he took hold of two of the trash bags and started dragging them toward the door, ignoring the shooting pain in his back.
Cottage at the Beach (The Off Season) Page 2
