Ready for Anything, Anywhere!

by Beverly Barton

  “I can’t discuss details of an ongoing investigation.”

  Even being a suspect brought such a total lack of privacy she felt exposed. Her hands twitched to check her sapphire button-down shirt with her black slacks. She hated the vulnerable gesture, the near irrepressible need to be sure she was totally covered.

  She forced her hands back to her sides and hoped Reis hadn’t noticed—only to realize the shark-eyed investigator hadn’t missed a thing. In fact his gaze was still locked on her clothes.

  On her body?

  Okay, now she was totally feeling exposed and completely freaked out. He couldn’t be interested in her. Could he?

  He was an intriguing man, no doubt, handsome in a dark and serious kind of way. Which made him completely not her type since apparently she had a real weak spot for fair-headed charmers. But how did she discourage this guy without embarrassing both of them? Provided she was even reading him right.

  Thank God Billy Wade Watkins chose that moment to amble through the library entrance, silver chains on his baggy clothes jangling. “Ms. Price? Sorry I’m late. I had to drop off my dad at some church meeting thing so I could use the truck.”

  “Over here, Billy Wade.” She backed away from the investigator. “Agent Reis, thank you for bringing my things, but I have to get to work.”

  “Of course. Let me know if you remember anything more.” He leaned closer, his eyes over her shoulder. “Be careful. Schools aren’t the safest places to hang out these days.”

  He brushed around and past, leaving behind his Double-mint gum scent and unwelcome doubts about her students, as well as questions about that whole strange once-over moment from Reis that still totally creeped her out. She’d been so looking forward to this tutoring session, yet suddenly she wanted nothing more than to rake pine straw with Carson.

  And that unsettled her as much as the prospect of Reis prying in her personal life.

  Prying the dog tag on his flight boot out of Jamie Price’s mouth, Carson passed the toddler a graham cracker in exchange. If only adults were as easy to figure out as the pint-size versions. “There ya’ go, kiddo.”

  The chubby-cheeked child snatched the treat and shoved it into his mouth in a shower of crumbs and cuteness. Carson ruffled the fella’s dark curls, wiped the drool off the dog tag and climbed back up the ladder in the Price kitchen to replace the battery on the smoke detector.

  He’d already checked every battery, furnace filter, window and door lock, and still it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough until Nikki was in the clear and he knew exactly what happened the night Gary Owens died.

  So he worked to fix what he could.

  After leaving Nikki and her too-tempting rake, he’d run himself into a stupor until three in the morning. Not that sleep came easy with her eyes haunting the back of his eyelids. By sunrise, he’d decided his idea to spend more time with her may have been ill-advised. He would return to his original plan to check in with her family and Reis.

  Except halfway to the marina for a day of sailing, he’d turned toward her parents’ place to ask her to join him—just to keep her occupied and cheer her up after her forced sabbatical. Right.

  Wrong.

  Jesus. He hadn’t been led around by his libido like this since high school. Still he waited for Nikki rather than simply leaving. And actually, hanging out with her mama and short stuff wasn’t a great hardship. He suspected there were a lot of clues to what made Nikki tick to be found in this ivy-stenciled kitchen.

  Rena reached into the cabinet and pulled down two Mason jars like the others perched on her windowsill. Water and plant clippings filled each glass container, some stems sprouting new root webs. “You’re really going above and beyond in your acting commander duties.”

  He folded the ladder and propped it beside the fridge.

  “The squadron’s only at half power with the rest deployed overseas.” This house brimmed with so much life—plants, kid, pregnancy, even rising bread—he could hardly take it all in. Take. He hated that word and was trying his damnedest not to be a taker like his parents.

  She twisted on the faucet and slid a jar underneath the gushing flow. “Even at half power, you’re still dealing with quite a load if you’re giving everyone this much individual attention.”

  Of course she would know better. He was doing his job and pulling overtime, but even that didn’t involve multiple home visits in a week. “These are extraordinary circumstances. Besides, J.T. and I have history from crewing together. He would look out for my family in the same way—if I had one.”

  Out of smoke detectors and furnace filters to fix, he dropped his restless butt at the table. For years he’d never questioned his decision to stay single, but parked in this kitchen, he couldn’t ignore the regret tugging at him as strongly as the toddler yanking on the dog tag on his boot again.

  The water overflowed. “Do we have reason to worry about Nikki?”

  He held out his hands to the little guy on the floor to buy himself time to think. Plunking the kid on his knee, Carson tugged the dog tags from around his neck and passed them over. “I wish I had the answer to that one, Rena, but I honestly don’t know.”

  She shuffled the jar to the counter and filled the other, then tossed two fern clippings inside before placing them on the sill. “She only tells me the basics about what happened with Gary Owens, so I worry all the more.”

  “The OSI agent leading the investigation seems sharp.”

  Rena sank into a chair across from him, nudging a line of tiny Tonka trucks across the table toward her son who ignored them in favor of his new favorite teething toy—dog tags. “So the worst that could happen is that Nikki—” she paused, swallowed, then continued “—killed him in self-defense as opposed to an accidental death.”

  The worst? Someone could be gunning for her, far worse. And there were two women and a child here with just a college kid for protection. He didn’t like this at all. To hell with worrying about treading warily while rebuilding a friendship. Damn straight he was concerned and he intended to talk to Reis about protection options. This would be easier if Rena and J. T. Price lived on base, except this whole mess had started on base. So if someone else had killed Owens, that someone had access to military installations.

  All serious concerns, ones a pregnant woman didn’t need. He studied her face as she rubbed her swelling belly.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She swung her feet up onto a spare chair. “Like I’ll go stircrazy sitting still for four more months.”

  “Seems to me there’s plenty going on around here.” He slid a discarded piece of junk mail across the table and started folding. “Don’tcha think, little guy?”

  Jamie flashed him a gummy grin broken only by a few baby teeth and the remnants of graham cracker. Damn he was cute with all that dark hair and those saucer-wide dark eyes, in fact resembled the baby pictures of Nikki packing the house.

  “You’re good with children.” Rena interrupted his thoughts.

  Uh-oh. He knew that matchmaking tone well. He folded faster. “Uncle on-the-job training.”

  “You’ll be a good father someday once you find that right woman.”

  He needed to put a stop to this line of conversation as quickly and politely as possible. He cranked a smile. “Why do all women assume a man’s only single because he hasn’t met the right woman?”

  Her face pinked in sync with her embarrassed grimace. “I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me. Blame it on the inquisitive counselor not getting to log in those hours at work—” The phone chirped from the wall, interrupting whatever else she’d been planning to say.

  Passing the kid the folded paper airplane to keep him quiet while Rena talked, Carson used the moment to gather his thoughts before the woman managed to wrench God-only-knew what else out of him. He definitely had too many secrets to let down his guard around her. He’d all but forgotten she was a shrink, she’d put him so at ease. Probably why she was reputed to
be such a good one.

  After the shoot-down and rescue in the Middle East, he’d been evaluated at a base in Germany. He’d managed to sidestep the head examiners over there, a skill honed in his childhood.

  Hindsight showed him his mistake. His alcoholism had flared after his return until he’d hooked up with A.A.

  However sharing details in a therapeutic setting was totally different than spilling his guts to Rena Price. He was coming to terms with his childhood, but that didn’t mean he wanted to take out a billboard about all his neglectful parents had forgotten to do for him and all the things their coked-up friends had tried to do to him. He couldn’t understand how his sister managed to trust her genes enough to marry, much less procreate.

  Procreate?

  He could almost hear Nikki teasing him for his stuffy word choice. She was every bit as full of humor and life as this house.

  Rena tucked the cordless phone under her chin and reached for Jamie, clutching him close with an urgency that spoke of maternal fear. “I’ll track down your brother to pick you up, sweetie.”

  Pick Nikki up? “What’s wrong?”

  She fished the paper airplane out of Jamie’s mouth, hugging him tight again. “Nikki’s stranded at the high school, car trouble.”

  Relief slammed through him. A simple spark plug or flooded car. Except wait. J. T. Price, a proficient mechanic, had taught his kids well. Premonition pricked a second before Rena continued.

  “Someone slashed Nikki’s tires.”

  Nikki kept her eyes on the access road leading into the high school parking lot, a preferable sight to her pitiful little truck with its deflated tires, currently being loaded on a flatbed tow truck.

  Billy Wade shuffled from foot to foot, his baggy clothes defying gravity by staying on his body in spite of the weight of the mint of silver chains hanging off them. “Too bad we don’t have four cans of that flat-fix-it stuff.”

  “It’s okay, really. My ride’s on the way. And honestly, I think my tires are beyond any can of foam repair.”

  “This really blows.” Dyed black hair, long on one side, hung over his face in a greasy curtain. “When I find out who did this to you, he won’t be bothering you no more.”

  “Anymore. And thank you. That’s sweet of you to worry, but once the school checks surveillance video footage, they’ll probably be able to nail the person responsible.”

  He went stock-still. Too still. “They have cameras out here?”

  “Yes, Billy Wade, they do.” God, she hated suspecting him of doing anything illegal, but Reis’s suspicions still rolled through her mind.

  “I could, uh, just give you a ride, you know. My dad’s truck might not look like much, but it runs real good and has four full tires.”

  “Your dad’s truck looks a lot like my father’s Ford.”

  “Really?” The teen’s mask of bored insolence slid away for a rare second. “Your old man drives a beater, too? I wouldn’ta guessed we had anything in common.”

  He stepped closer. Too close. Into her personal space.

  Okay, uncomfortable moment. Step back, keep her composure and take heart in knowing those surveillance cameras would show she hadn’t made a single improper move with this kid. Although it saddened her heart that the days had long passed when a teacher could even pat a student on the back. A few pervs had ruined it for everyone else.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Thank you for the offer, but I have a ride on the way.”

  “That him?” Billy Wade pointed to the turn lane.

  And Carson’s sparkling truck. That sure wasn’t her brother behind the wheel.

  Oh boy. Her mama was gonna have some explaining to do. Except that would necessitate showing how much it bothered her that Carson was the one picking her up instead of Chris, and in the middle of all those muddled emotions she was so darn relieved to see Carson driving their way. Four slashed tires, close on the heels of Agent Reis’s warning really gave her the creeps.

  “I can see why you’d rather go with him.” Billy Wade’s face returned to surly, a cover for insecurity—she was pretty sure.

  The impulse to assert she and Carson were just friends bubbled up, then fizzed in light of better sense. Letting Billy Wade and any other boys around here think she and Carson were dating would work to her advantage. She wasn’t much older than these students, so erecting boundaries was all the more important. “Thanks for hanging out to help.”

  “Sure. Whatever. Nothing else to do.”

  Billy Wade ambled over toward his father’s rusted-out truck, chains on his saggy black pants jangling with each heavy step. He really was a sharp kid with a good heart, and a very real chance of landing in jail someday like his brothers.

  Carson’s truck shooshed to a stop beside her, hunky fly-boy behind the wheel in a navy-blue windbreaker for sailing and a smile that turned her heart over faster than that big cylinder engine of his.

  “I hear you need a lift.”

  She turned her back on Billy Wade and the new host of worries she couldn’t do anything about today.

  Her eyes slid from Carson’s chest to his scowl—directed right at Billy Wade as the teen continued his badass strut right past his truck and melded into the smoking cluster of other in-school-suspension students.

  Nikki circled around to the passenger side and stepped up inside, supple leather warming her. Heated seats? An awesome feature she hadn’t been able to afford in her little econo-truck currently on its way to a garage for a set of tires she was hard-pressed to finance. “You can wipe that disapproving look off your face.”

  Scowl showing no signs of fading, Carson eased his foot off the brake. “He’s twice your size and a thug. This so-called ‘look on my face’ is totally justified.”

  “Appearances are deceiving.” She instinctively defended her student as Carson drove from the lot. “He’s a kid who’s had a tough start and doesn’t stand a chance at making anything of his life if he doesn’t get extra help. It’s frighteningly easy for a child with problems or special needs to go unnoticed.”

  He went silent at that for two traffic lights, stopped at the next before turning to her. “What happened to make him fall behind?”

  “Dyslexia, which is especially tough to diagnose in a kid with a gifted IQ. He’s smart, really smart, which helped him skate by for years with average grades. Add frequent military moves into the mix and it was easy for him to fall through the cracks.”

  “He’s a genius with some kind of disability?”

  “It’s not as unlikely as you would think. One in three mentally gifted children has some kind of learning disability. The numbers could actually be higher since it’s easy for schools to miss out on diagnosing the gifted dyslexic, especially when they’re surprised a kid from his background is even passing at all.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought about it that way. It sucks to think how many students could get lost in the system based on misconceptions.”

  He was being more insightful on the subject than she’d expected. Perhaps she’d been a little quick to judge him based on his silver-spoon background. “There are complexities to the levels and every dyslexic student is different. Basically, we figure out ways to send the information through another channel of the brain, usually a multisensory approach.”

  “For example?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested rather than merely making polite conversation.

  That was more enticing than a surprise peek at his pecs. Well, almost.

  “I have younger students trace spelling words in corn meal with a finger.”

  “Why not have all students do it that way? Sounds a helluva lot more fun than gripping a pencil until your fingers go numb.”

  “I agree.”

  He flashed a killer smile her way, sun reflecting off his aviator shades, darn near blinding her with the vibrancy. “Where were you when I was drilling spelling words? Wait.” He thumped his head. “You weren’t born yet.”

  “Are we beating that de
ad horse today?”

  “With your vintage music fixation and my tapioca pudding, maybe we’re not so far apart in age after all.

  Something dangerous fluttered to life in her empty stomach. “Took you long enough to figure that one out.”

  “Too late, I’m guessing.”

  Was he regretting that? Hinting for something now? And sheesh, but she hated how even thinking it flipped her hungry stomach around. Not gonna go that route again. “Seems so.”

  “At least I can take comfort in knowing I’m not a COG.”

  “COG?”

  “Creepy Old Guy.”

  Not by a long shot. She chewed the lip gloss off her suddenly aching lips. “Thanks for the ride and for showing up so soon, but where’s Chris?”

  “I was at your mother’s when you called so I offered to come instead rather than waste time trying to track down your brother.”

  “Oh.” That threw her for a second. Her stomach was in serious peril. “Uh, why? Anything wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  So why had he been there? She waited. And waited. “Thanks for coming out.”

  “Good thing, too. Probably didn’t hurt for those students to see a man in your life.”

  “This is not your problem.”

  “I’m a male. I can’t ignore it.”

  “I’m careful. I’m never alone with a student. Teachers are given training on just this subject for our protection and the students’. That’s a part of why I always tutor on school property.”

  “All right. But I’m still picking you up until we find out what went on with Owens.”

  How silly to argue. She’d had the same concerns today. Her mother was confined to the house. Her brother was in and out of town visiting his girlfriend during college winter break.

  And she couldn’t hide from the truth. She wanted to be around Carson if for no other reason than to figure out a way to forget him as completely as she’d forgotten that night last week. “Since I don’t have tires, I gratefully accept. For now.”