“Miss Bristow?”
I jumped at the sound of the small voice behind me.
“Hey, JJ.”
I thought I was alone. I had let my thoughts drift to places I never should have let them go at the center. Teaching here was my true calling. These kids needed me. And they needed me to get my shit together.
I could relate to them. I thought maybe more than some of the other teachers. There was a part of me that was like them. I had lost my mom at a young age. I knew what it was like to feel that kind of pain. To feel like I had been abandoned. I knew it too well. If these kids were lucky, they had one parent. But looking at JJ, I knew he wasn’t one of those.
“Is it ok if I stay inside?” he asked.
“Don’t you want to play with everyone else?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I just want to read.”
He scuffed his feet along the linoleum floor. It wasn’t the worst request he could make.
“All right,” I caved. JJ was one of those kids who was quiet. He’d rather bury his head in a book than play kick ball or tag.
He settled into his desk and pulled a mystery ghost story from his backpack. I pulled out my chair and finally braved my phone. I pulled a news page and started skimming for a headline.
I had been nervous all day. I wondered if there would be news about Hawk. I wondered if I would be called in. Would he need me to testify? Would he have a fair judge? Should I try to call his attorney and offer to make a statement?
Should I call my dad at work and get his advice? I knew that was pointless. He was a huge Sharks fan, but he worked in family court. He couldn’t get involved to help in this situation. Add to that, I hadn’t told him I took a job waiting tables and I would have more explaining to do. I didn’t need that right now.
I looked up when I heard the shuffle of more feet enter the classroom. Recess was over. I sighed when the bell rang overhead. Another day gone. Another lesson taught. The students rushed in, grabbing their backpacks and lunch boxes before lining up by the door. I hurried them down the hall to the carpool line and then to the bus line, dropping them off along the way.
I returned to the classroom and smiled at Cameron.
“So what club do you have today?” I asked, patting him gently on the shoulder.
He shrugged just slightly from my touch. Over time, I had gotten used to his aversion of being close to other people. But there were moments when I could reach out. Show him warmth.
There were a variety of programs set up at the education center for underprivileged kids and their families after school. There was everything ranging from ballet and gymnastics to soccer and swimming.
“I don’t know.” He looked at the floor. “Football, I guess?”
I felt a small wave of relief. Today would be a good day. I wouldn’t have to prod and convince him. Normally he chose not to participate in any of the clubs, but for some reason, football had sparked his interest.
I hoped it pulled him out of his shell.
Something had to work.
“Well, come on then.”
We scurried through the maze of halls past my third grade classroom door and out the exit door to the playground, where just a few minutes ago I had spotted Cameron watching the other kids play.
I couldn’t say what the exact date was that I decided Cameron was going to be my project. Or when I decided that I would do everything I could to watch over him and protect him. It just sort of happened. Like when the leaves changed in fall. It happened in front of my eyes day after day until I was the one responsible to pick him up in the morning from the foster home where he stayed. I enrolled him in the center’s community club program and was responsible for returning him home at the end of the day.
Some days I kept him a little late and we’d get dinner. Or if we had an early release day I’d take him to a movie.
One look at those big green eyes and a face that was constantly covered in smudges. Shaggy blond hair that fell into his eyes and my heart fell for this kid.
“Have fun, Cameron. I’ll be inside grading the writing assignments, ok?”
He had wandered to the outside of the circle. I was worried he might not make it inside the group and would spend the afternoon on the perimeter. I couldn’t hover. I couldn’t intervene every time. I knew that.
“Excuse me, Mia?” I heard someone call my name and I turned on my heels.
Raising my hand to my forehead, I blocked the sun from my eyes and squinted trying to get a better view of the person with that deep booming voice. But I knew who it came from before he came into focus.
Seven
Crawford
“You are Mia Bristow? This has to be a fucking joke.”
I stared at the woman I had defended last week. But instead of tight cutoff shorts and a barmaid apron, she was wearing heels, a pencil skirt, and a cardigan.
“Oh God.” Her mouth dropped open.
I chuckled. This was fucking sweet.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, tugging me away from the group of children near her.
“Reporting for volunteer service. You are my sentence.” I felt a primal urge kick in. Something from last week was unearthed when I laid eyes on this angel-turned-devil again.
“I don’t get it. What are you talking about?”
“The judge today assigned me to the community center. Something about helping a bunch of fucking kids.”
I saw the fury in her eyes. “Don’t you dare say that here.” She moved me farther from the group. “You aren’t going to march in here and start dropping f-bombs around my kids.”
“Then why don’t you sign off on this damn piece of paper and I’ll be out of here?”
I lifted my arm and extended the court order I had received only a few hours ago. The paper was crumpled and folded four times. I had almost shredded it in front of the judge, but my attorney stopped me. Savannah was right behind me too. She would have never forgiven me if I did that in the courtroom.
“I don’t need to read it.” She folded her arms across her chest. It was hard to believe the woman I had taken in the back room was living in the same skin as the uptight teacher in front of me.
“Guys! Guys! It’s Crawford Hawkins.”
We were instantly surrounded up to our waists by at least fifteen boys. Damn it.
Mia’s eyes landed on mine.
“Could I maybe have an autograph or something?” One of the smaller ones weaseled his way to the front of the pack.
“Not right now, kid. Get lost. I’m in the middle of something.”
Mia gasped. “Cameron, it’s ok. Mr. Hawkins and I were just working on something.” She lowered herself to meet his eye level. “I didn’t know you knew who he was.”
The shaggy-haired boy nodded. “I do. I watch all his games.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Ok. Let me talk to him about some things. You and the other boys go back to club.” She shooed them away and set her gaze on me.
“Follow me, now,” she demanded.
“Hell,” I muttered.
I didn’t take orders from women. And not women I had come close to fucking the way I wanted. I wasn’t done with Mia. Seeing her again was screwing with my head, not to mention my dick.
I thought the cutoffs were hot, but nothing compared to how her ass poured into that tight skirt.
I followed her across the field and inside. It smelled like school. It didn’t bring back the best memories. Her heels clacked along the hallway. She was pissed.
We entered a classroom and she slammed the door behind me.
“How dare you?” she growled at me. Her voice was low and dangerous. “Do you know how many words that little boy speaks in one day?” She took a step closer to me. She wasn’t intimidated by the fact I was well over a foot taller than her. “Less than ten, and most of them are the word no. No I don’t want anything to eat.” She jabbed her finger into my rock solid chest. “No I don’t want anything to drink.” Again.
“No I don’t need anything.” And again.
I took a step backward as she advanced, bumping into the side of the desk. “And yet when he saw you, his eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and you were the best present he had ever been offered, and then you decided to be a dick.
“You were a complete and total ass to him and I will be damned if I let you around him or any other children here. Consider your community service terminated!” she screamed.
“You can’t do that,” I replied, not moving from my place against the desk.
“I can and I will. You just watch me.”
“No. Like you said, that little boy showed more excitement seeing me than you have gotten from him ever, right? And if you call the judge and tell him to terminate my community service, then I will go to jail, and that means no more football for me, which means no more role model for him.” I hung my head. “Look, Mia. I fucked up. I shouldn’t have been an ass to the kid. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“If you so much as wrinkle your brow at one of these children I will pick up the phone and make the call. Don’t test me,” she threatened.
“Understood,” I replied, standing up straight.
“And you need to apologize to Cameron. Make it right, because so help me God, if he hides back in that shell of his because of you, I will skin you alive. Football will be the last thing on your mind. I promise you that.”
“Got it. I’ll see to that now.”
“Good.”
“You done lecturing me now?” I cocked my head to the side.
She was worked up. Her face was red and her breath was as heated as it was last night.
She took a deep intake of air. “Yes.”
“Can we talk about what happened the other night?”
I saw the recognition in her eyes. Damn. In the light of day, they were a beautiful light blue.
She shook her head. “Nothing happened.”
“That’s not how I remember it.” I leaned against the desk, touching her arm lightly as I relaxed now that she had laid down her laws. “I’m here because of you.”
“What?”
I laughed. “I decked the guy, protecting you.”
She wriggled back. “I didn’t tell you to get in a fight,” she whispered. “I never asked for your help.”
“You think I’m going to kiss you. Lick you. Suck you until you’re ready to come and then let some other fucker put his hands on you?” I leaned toward her, the energy growing between us. “I might not be that good with kids, but there was no way in hell I’d let him hurt you. Do you understand me?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll go talk to the kids now.”
I walked out of the room, leaving her speechless.
Eight
Mia
I had always been a firm believer in not judging a book by its cover, but in Crawford Hawkins’ case the cover was great, and it was the past that worried me. Especially when a certain eight-year-old was staring up at him with nothing but complete adoration on his face. If he could pull this type of reaction from a boy who hid within himself ninety-nine percent of the time, then I’d give him a chance.
I turned my back on Hawk and waited for the click of the door before I took a deep breath and let myself relax. It was easy to not notice anything about him while my anger was running hot, but as my temper cooled, I felt myself flushing for a totally different reason.
Never in my life had I been affected by a man’s presence the way Hawk affected me. I went from wanting to murder him with my own bare hands to wanting to rip his clothes off and lick up and down each and every inch of his body.
If he had stayed in the room for ten more seconds, I felt certain that my morals and dignity would have gone out the window and I’d have ended up in a similar position to last night.
It was the eyes. I thought to myself. The darkest of browns, outlined in such a deep shade of brown they almost looked black as the light shone off them. I felt certain he could see straight to the depths of my soul.
It was the same look he gave me the other night when I looked down between my legs and saw his desire and hunger for me. Damn it.
It took almost ten minutes before I felt like myself again and even then, every time I closed my eyes I saw piercing chestnut eyes staring back at me, daring and unapologetic.
That night I had been reckless and irresponsible. I couldn’t let that side of myself emerge again. Not with Cameron involved. I loved that child as if he were my family. I wasn’t going to let the lust I had for Hawk cloud my judgement.
It didn’t matter why he was here. He had been sentenced to serve his public service here with these kids and I wasn’t going to let his flirty, cocky personality knock me off track.
Nine
Crawford
As I walked out of the school and onto the field where the pack of boys was huddled, fighting over the ball, I paused to call Savannah. She had to get me out of this.
I pressed the phone to my ear as if that would make her answer faster. “Damn it, Savi,” I muttered. Where in the hell was she? She knew I had been sentenced to this shit. She should be here for me.
She answered before I was dumped into her voicemail.
“Aren’t you supposed to be saving the world’s children?” she mocked.
“Savi, look, you have to do something. I want out of this.”
“Not happening. You got in a bar fight. This is your only chance of redemption. So suck it up and do the time.”
I looked out on the field. How in the hell was this supposed to work?
“I’m one week away from playoffs. I don’t have time for this shit. You know it. I know it. What’s more important?” I asked, appealing to the sports side of her. If there was anything I knew about that woman it was that she loved to represent a champion.
I heard her groan. “Hawk, you either get your ass at that center every day and work with those kids or you heard the judge—he’s going to release the court statements and make your case public.”
“It’s already public.”
“You know what I mean. He’ll put you in jail. At least this way it’s not officially a sentence. You are volunteering. And the league is ok with this situation if you volunteer. Volunteer work makes you redeemable in their eyes.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m not fucking volunteering. It’s blackmail.”
“Damn it, Hawk. I don’t have time to waste on a guy who wants to sink his career. The judge threw you a life raft. Take it and work with the kids.”
“You know it’s bullshit, Savi.”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. If I’m going to continue to represent you I need to know you’re going to volunteer there every day. You have to put the hours in there if you want them on the field. Can I trust you?”
“Does anyone care I was defending a woman? She was being attacked.”
“One of your regular whores?” she asked.
I felt the anger sweep through me again. Mia was anything but a whore. I knew she didn’t fit in at the bar. The fact that she was now the one supervising my time at the center only cemented what I knew in my gut—she was a good girl. A good girl I wanted to hold and kiss. I wasn’t done exploring her body. I wasn’t done tasting her. I needed more.
But this situation was fucked up. The way she looked at me five minutes ago, I was going to be lucky if she let me within ten feet of her. At the bar, she was a different person.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Get your hours in. Go to practice. Call me tomorrow. Ok?”
Savannah was such a hard ass. “Fine.”
I hung up and stuffed the phone in my back pocket. I couldn’t help but feel as if I had zero people in my corner. No one thought Crawford Hawkins could do this.
I shouldn’t even be here. I should be on the field practicing with the Sharks, but because some drunken asshole decided it was ok to put his hands on Mia’s ass, after being told time and time again to stop, I had to sa
ve her. It damn sure didn’t look like anyone else planned on helping her out.
Everything would have been fine still, if the dumbass would have just paid his tab and left the bar, but no. He had to get riled up and take a swing at me.
He couldn’t walk away.
He couldn’t take no for an answer.
Even after I knocked him back the first time with an uppercut to the jaw, he still kept coming back for more. I just wanted to relax and enjoy a night out with my team. Drink a few beers. Score a little action.
The chair flying through the air was the final straw for me. Up until that point I was trying to take it easy on the drunk. I figured he’d had a bad day and needed to blow off steam, but you don’t strike a man when his back is turned and you damn sure don’t do it with an inanimate object. Luckily Jason, my center, was there to shove me out of the way and snatched hold of the chair before he hit someone else with it swinging it wildly through the air.
When I finished laying into him that time, he didn’t get back up. Joe pulled me to my feet as the police filled the building, blue and red lights ricocheting across every surface.
I was in handcuffs and thrown in the back of a squad car before you could even say who did it. Not that I blamed them much. I was the only one standing with blood dripping down my arms and fingers, pooling on the ground at my feet where the biker lay motionless.
It wasn’t the first time I had blacked out when fighting. I liked to think of it as my escape mechanism. The one tool that had kept me alive over the years when I had no one to protect me.
I was alone.
Left to fend for myself with nothing but my mouth and my own two fists.
I shook my head and kept walking toward the kids.
What the fuck was I doing here?
The kids were setting up the kickstand at what I assumed was the fifty-yard line. It was hard to tell since there weren’t any markings anywhere. I stood back, watching as they bossed each other around.
Double Mountain Trouble Page 38