by Julie Kenner
She folded her arms, frustration making her curt. “Not interested, okay? I got bigger problems than being dateless. And . . .” She cut off her next words. Had she just confessed her lack of a social life? God, she was way off today. “Let’s just call this a misstep and go home, okay?”
He touched her arm. His hands were large—cop hands, work-roughened and strong—but also gentle as they hovered against her skin. “And what?”
She blinked, pretending to not understand.
“You were going to say something. ‘And’ something. What?”
She debated a moment about telling him the truth, but apparently there were no restraints on her tongue today. “And you’re cute, too. Another time, I would be interested.” She had been interested at the beginning of the school year, but he hadn’t looked at her twice. And then she’d realized how in over her head she was as a teacher, and all other thoughts had disappeared. “I just want to get through this school year alive. Everything else is secondary.”
He cocked his head to study her face. She let him for a bit, but quickly began to feel uncomfortable with his scrutiny. What did this cop see when he looked at her? Incompetent wuss? Underdeveloped waif? At last he shook his head. “No, you’re not really afraid for your life. You’re afraid you can’t hack it as a teacher.”
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She didn’t know how to respond, especially since he was absolutely right.
“You can, you know,” he said. “You can be a good teacher, just not for these kids.”
She swallowed, her chest too tight to breathe. In two short sentences, he had just confirmed her worst fears. She wasn’t cut out to be a teacher—not to the kids who most needed her. She forced a breath into her chest, then spoke, keeping her voice low and calm. “Anyone can teach future Ivy Leaguers. I know, because I did it for five years. They teach themselves; you just have to lay out the content. It’s these kids that need someone.” Someone who apparently wasn’t her.
He gestured to her chair. “Please sit. We can talk shop.”
“I think you’ve said what you really think. That’s about all I can handle for one day.”
“But I think now I was wrong.”
She almost smiled. “No, you don’t. You think I’m an upper-class idealist who hasn’t a clue how to handle inner-city kids.” Honesty forced her to continue. “You’re right about that. I just thought I could learn.”
“You still can. You’ve just started.”
“It’s March, Mr. DeLuce. I think I’ve had enough time.” She looked over his shoulder at the parking lot rather than admit this to his face. “I’ve taken the tough-love classes, I’ve done self-defense and read a library’s worth of material on the subject. But my heart just isn’t in the hard-line attitude. I still think that leading with the heart is the best thing any teacher can do.” She shifted her gaze back to his face, challenge ringing in her voice. “You still think I can teach, what with my bleeding heart?”
He swallowed. After a moment he said, “I think you’ll get disillusioned, burn out, and turn bitter. And that’d be a damn shame.”
She gave him points for honesty. “Caring is never in vain,” she answered. It was the motto she lived by, but by Christmas the words had begun to ring hollow. She wondered if she really believed it anymore. She’d cared. She’d tried. Nothing changed.
“Let me buy you another coffee,” he urged. “Please.”
She shook her head, but her lips softened at the obvious disappointment in his eyes. And then she found herself agreeing when she was sure her brain had given orders to leave.
“On two conditions,” she said. “One: you buy me a brownie. I’ve had enough coffee for one day. And two: you tell me how you do it.”
“Do what?” Wariness crept into his tone, and she could tell she’d have an uphill climb trying to get to the core of this man.
“You were shot by a kid on drugs. It’s crippled you, possibly for life.” She gestured at his leg. He usually masked his limp, but she knew it was there. Everyone knew it was there. “And yet you work every day in a high school without anger or bitterness. So, I want the full story, Mr. DeLuce. I will sit back down if you tell me how you keep the faith when your problems are so much bigger than a stupid little rich girl who wanted to be a teacher.”
He looked at her. “Is that really how you see yourself?— as a rich girl who wanted to slum it?”
“We’re talking about you here. Or I’m leaving.”
They stood at a stalemate, and Micki could feel her disappointment grow. He wasn’t going to open up to her, and that made her really sad. She would have enjoyed getting to know him better.
With a sigh, she turned toward the door.
“I’m buying two brownies,” he grumbled. “I’m not spilling my guts without more sugar.”
“It was Lucy’s brother, you know.” Joe watched as Micki nearly choked on her soy latte. Soy. Who knew there were people outside of California who drank it?
She glared at him, and he smiled at the spark in her blue eyes. “You timed that deliberately so I’d choke.”
He grinned. “Gave me an extra flash down your peekaboo blouse.”
She slapped a hand to the white linen over her cleavage. She needn’t have bothered. The tiny buttons had stayed closed, not showing any extra skin. Then she frowned. “This is not a peekaboo blouse!”
No, it wasn’t. But that didn’t stop a man from imagining. “Not with your hand right there,” he laughed.
She slowly removed her hand and peered down at her chest. “There is no cleavage showing, Mr. DeLuce. I think you’re stalling.”
She was smart, he’d give her that. And a lot tougher than he’d initially thought. He knew better than to dismiss someone based on looks, but she’d seemed so easy to peg. A petite blonde with class, obviously from money, idealistic and fresh out of graduate school. She’d cut her teacher chops in an elite suburb of wealthy Detroit, then for some quixotic reason decided to work with the Indianapolis poor. He hadn’t expected her to finish out the quarter, much less the year. And, yet, she was still here, and apparently hadn’t given up. But she was close.
He kept his expression congenial, but inside he grimaced. It was his unfortunate duty to push her over the edge into running. A bleeding heart could so easily die on this side of the tracks. “There are messed-up kids in the wealthy part of town, you know,” he said gently. “They need you just as much as these kids.”
“I know,” she said, breaking off a dainty bite of brownie. “But we were talking about you.”
He grimaced, adding tenacity to her list of attributes. Flirting hadn’t distracted her, though he sensed she wasn’t as opposed to him as she pretended. Career advice hadn’t derailed her. It looked like he really would have to spill his guts. “Okay,” he said as he bit off a huge chunk of triple-chocolate brownie. “So, Wayne Varner—Lucy’s brother—got high one night and thought I was Satan come to claim him or something.”
“Were you?”
He looked up from his brownie, surprised. “What?”
“Were you coming to claim him.”
“As Satan?”
She laughed. “Did the boy have reason to feel threatened?”
“I wasn’t asking him out for coffee, if that’s what you’re asking.” Pain shot up his thigh. It wasn’t real, however; it was a memory, and one he worked hard to suppress.
“Look, Mr. DeLuce. Joe. I didn’t mean to—”
“Yes, you did,” he snapped. “You said you wanted to know what made me tick. Well, here it is: Wayne was high that night on a new drug—a hallucinogen called Chem that’s messing up kids all over Indianapolis. I was tracking a supplier and stumbled onto him. Yeah, I was gonna hassle him. Yeah, I was gonna make damn sure that he ended up in jail for dealing. And yeah, I ended up with a bullet in my knee, Wayne in jail, and still no closer to the drug connection I was looking for.”
She let him sputter down into a furious silence. He glared at her,
and she didn’t so much as blink, just took a sip of her latte and waited in silence. In his experience, women either tried to bury him in sympathy or poke into the inner workings of a drug investigation. Micki did neither. She merely waited. He had her complete attention, though she wasn’t pushing for more. And she wasn’t judging him, either.
He quickly took another bite of brownie before he started respecting her strengths or something. He barely tasted the rich chocolate. Instead, he shifted his leg in a vain attempt to ease the pain there, then steeled his spine. Time to give her that little push back to her wealthy suburbs. Truth was, she’d been right about the pity coffee. He really didn’t think she belonged here, though he admired her courage for trying.
“There’s drugs in our school, Micki.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know, Joe.”
“This new drug brings new money, new guns, new violence. I got shot because of it. Kids have died because of it. And frankly, you aren’t equipped to either bond with these kids or handle yourself when things become violent. The kids roll over you, the adults don’t respect you, and your idealism just won’t be enough to keep you alive.” He shook his head, wishing to hell it was different, but it wasn’t. “I’ve been school cop here for a year now, but before I made detective, I walked this beat. And before that, I grew up three blocks from Washington High. You’re not the first idealist to wander through.”
“Naive, starry-eyed teacher,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or not. “God, do you really think I’m that young?”
“I think you’re admirable,” he said. Enough that he’d noticed her the very first moment she’d walked into the school. Beautiful, compassionate, and destined to disappear in a few months. He’d seen it dozens of times. Most were smart enough to leave before they got into serious trouble, but one in particular had left in a body bag. He’d been the detective who caught that case. He’d also been sure it was Damian’s gang, but was unable to gather any evidence. That was the hell of it. Everyone else thought Damian was another surly teen on a power trip, but he knew just how dangerous the little psychopath was.
But that was tomorrow’s problem. Today’s task was to make sure Micki didn’t wind up as another one of Damian’s victims. “The truth is that you can’t understand these kids. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t help them.”
He watched the blood drain from her face, and her hand shook slightly as she raised her empty coffee mug to her lips. But she didn’t leave. Instead, she set her mug down and met his eyes. Almost. “So, you were shot in the leg and then, instead of taking a desk job during the extensive rehab phase, you chose to work in the very school that spawned the problem you’re trying to fight.”
“Where else would I go?” he muttered.
“You can understand these kids.” It wasn’t a question. “Ergo, you can help them.”
He almost laughed. “Nah, I’m not that idealistic. I’m just tracking the drugs, Miss Becker. And if I keep some kids alive while I’m at it, all the better.” He dumped a packet of sugar into the dregs of his coffee. “They’re our future, after all,” he half-sneered.
She was silent a long time. She hadn’t even finished her brownie, but her coffee was long gone. In the end, she nodded and smiled warmly at him. “Thank you, Mr. DeLuce. I appreciate your candor.”
He blinked, startled. Worse, she was standing up again. “Have I just been dismissed?” he asked, his tone harsher than he intended.
“I got the impression that you were dismissing me.” She lifted her chin. “Look, I know it’s hard. And I know you think I belong back in the land of Richie Rich. But the truth is, I want to be here. I want to show these kids that someone cares, even if it means I get intimidated in my classroom, laughed at by other teachers and . . .” She sighed. “And I end up a bitter, old woman who tried too hard. If that’s where I’m headed, so be it. But I won’t reevaluate until I start getting mean.” She held his gaze for a long moment, then added, “Mean like you.”
And with that, she turned and walked out.
He was on his feet and moving after her as fast as his bad leg would allow—which was decently fast—but she had no interest in talking to him and was quickly out of sight. Truthfully, he didn’t blame her. He’d come on pretty strong. But it bothered him that he’d been exactly what she’d accused him of—mean—and still had not accomplished his goal. He hadn’t nudged her away from anything but himself.
“Micki, wait!” He hadn’t a clue what he was going to say to her, but . . . He frowned, peering at the parking lot in the cold half-light of the overcast afternoon. The lot was tiny, hemmed in on all sides by straggly bushes and tall, dirty buildings. Nothing unusual for this side of Indianapolis, but something was off. Nothing he could see. A sound? He only heard cars. Smell? Coffee, exhaust, and . . . cologne? A fancy kind, favored by some rich folks. Rich folks plus Damian Ralston, hell-spawn of Washington High.
Where had Micki gone? She’d turned left and then . . . There! She was walking down an alleyway to her car, and sure enough, there was Damian cutting in behind her. And where one reprobate went, the others were sure to follow.
She didn’t notice, of course. The woman had no survival skills. Joe quickly considered his options. Normally, he’d just charge up and warn the gang off. He might even be able to do it hard enough to keep Damian and his crew off her for the rest of the school year. But that would only give Micki a false sense of security. Eventually she’d challenge the wrong gangbanger and end up dead. He had to give her a good scare. And what better way to do that than by letting Damian and his gang at her? Not for long. Just long enough to make her appropriately terrified. Meanwhile, Joe was here to make sure it didn’t get out of hand.
He followed about seven steps behind, slipping behind cars and generally feeling like an idiot. He wasn’t low profile enough to be really hidden, and not out in the open enough to be acting normally. He stopped at the corner of the building, hugging the brick wall as he crouched behind a bush. Micki had almost made it to her car—a ridiculously chipper yellow Beetle—when Damian stepped around to confront her. She jumped, obviously startled. Her shoulders tightened and she shied backward but there was nowhere for her to go. She butted up against a delivery truck.
Joe couldn’t hear what was said, though he tried. The group’s body language told him exactly what he expected: Damian was being threatening, Micki was scared, especially as a couple more thugs slid around from the other side of the truck. None of them looked out of control—not even Micki—so there really wasn’t any danger to her. Damian was just trying to scare the teacher who had embarrassed him. It was something gang leaders did. And yet . . .
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t watch this happen, even if it was the best thing for Micki in the long run. He pushed out of his crouch and stomped up to Damian. “You got a special interest here, Mr. Ralston?”
Micki visibly relaxed, and Joe felt a brief surge of male pride that his presence could reassure her. But Damian turned, a shit-eating grin on his face. That was never good. “I knew you were around here somewhere. Joey wouldn’t let a fine woman like Miss Mouse wander alone.” Then the bastard reached out to touch Micki’s face.
He only made it halfway. “Touch her, Damian, and I’ll kill you.” Joe spoke the words quietly, but everyone froze at his tone. Even he was startled by the vehemence in his voice.
Damian smirked, but he drew his hand back. “Got a thing going here, Joey?”
Joe raised his eyebrows and tried to stare Damian down. It didn’t work. Damian was hopped up on something, but it didn’t seem like drugs. No, this kid got off on something entirely different: power, pain, maybe even blood. Whatever it was, Joe didn’t want Micki right in the middle of it.
“You’re pushing it, Mr. Ralston. Be on your way.”
“Aw, no, I ain’t.” Damian lounged back on his heels, the smirk back. “I came here specifically to see you.”
“Then you got n
o business with Miss Becker.” He glanced at Micki. “Go on. Get in your car.”
Her eyes widened, but predictably she shook her head. She wasn’t leaving him. Joe grimaced. Very soon now, he was going to have to explain to her the difference between being a help in a fight and a liability. Meanwhile, Damian gestured to his friends. “I found someone, Joe. Someone who says he belongs to you.”
Joe frowned, but Micki gasped in shock. From behind the truck, another couple of punks dragged out a boy beaten to a pulp. Stevie Crames—a kid who had come to Joe once to warn that Damian was power-mad and going to get someone killed. Joe’s breath squeezed tight as he quickly scanned the kid. Stevie was conscious—which meant he was alive—but all that blood!
Joe started to move around Damian, but Micki got there first, wrapping her arms around the kid. “What have you done?” she cried. “Oh my God!”
The thugs released Stevie to Micki, who staggered under his sudden weight.
“Call 911,” Joe said. His voice was tight, the guilt threatening to eat him alive. The boy was beaten up, but not dying. In truth, he looked like he was conscious and pissed off. Good. He wasn’t as bad as he first looked, which meant Joe’s priority was to get control of this situation. A quick scan told Joe he faced one gun—on Damian—and four knives. Not good odds, given his bad knee and two civilians who needed protection.
“Found him over there,” Damian continued, waving vaguely toward the school. “Said he’s been talking with you, Joe, and some people don’t like that much.”
Joe narrowed his eyes and put on his best confused frown. “Who is it?”
“It’s Stevie Crames,” Micki said from around her cell phone.
Joe blinked and stared. “I haven’t been talking to Stevie Crames!” he lied. Then he stepped up to Damian, not needing to fake his fury. “You beat up a kid for no damn reason! Jesus, Damian, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Damian lifted his hands, his grin still in place. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joey. We jes’ found him, right, boys?”