I was about halfway through the stack—they were better than I’d expected—and an appreciated knock came on the door. An excuse to stand up and stretch a little.
I stood and smiled as Veronica, the vice principal, stuck her head through the door.
“Do you have a minute, Miss Frakes?”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
Veronica stepped through the door and was followed by a tall, broad shouldered cowboy in dusty jeans and a well-used work shirt. He took off his hat and his hair, plastered to his head by sweat, revealed itself to be full and thick, dark hair that had a tendency to curl on the edges. I found myself wondering what it would look like fully dry and untouched by that tight hat. He had a wide jaw that was covered in a dark five o’clock shadow and blue eyes that seemed out of place with his otherwise dark features. He was more handsome than he had a right to be, the kind of guy who looked like he was better suited to a billboard than the back of a horse.
There were a lot of cowboys out here, but not a lot of Hollywood hunk kind of cowboys.
“Miss Frakes, this is Hank Stratton. He’s investigating the break-ins here at the school on behalf of Gray Wolf Security.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stratton,” I said, stepping forward, my hand shaking a little before he snatched it up in his big paw.
“You, too, Miss Frakes.”
He had a deep voice that sounded like I imagined the flowing dark goodness on a chocolate fountain might sound if it had a voice. Deep and rich and full of silky sweetness.
“I was just telling Mr. Stratton about the night you nearly surprised the vandals,” Veronica continued, a little spark of curiosity in her eyes as she regarded the two of us.
“I didn’t actually see anything. I just heard them. Down the hall.”
Mr. Stratton turned slightly. “This hall?” he asked, pointing toward the door.
“Yes. I was down by the stairs and heard the sound of breaking glass. I guess I was quiet enough that they didn’t hear me coming.”
“You believe they were inside the building already?”
“Must have been. I was told the next day that the broken glass was from the technology room door.”
“You didn’t see it, though?”
“No.” I blushed, glancing at Veronica as I did. “I’m ashamed to say that I ran out of the building, locked myself in my car, and then called the police.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of that,” Mr. Stratton said. “I would have told you to do the same exact thing.”
I inclined my head, acknowledging his advice. He was the first person who didn’t ask me why I didn’t confront the vandals and stop them from stealing five thousand dollars’ worth of computer equipment.
I liked this guy.
“Mr. Stratton is going to hang around here for a while, see if he can find any leads on the case that the police haven’t been able to generate,” Veronica said, glancing at her watch. “I have a meeting in a few minutes. Would you mind giving him the two-cent tour, Miss Frakes?”
“Of course not.”
Veronica’s eyebrows rose just slightly, her eyes moving from me to Mr. Stratton and back again. Then she smiled, a knowing look on her expressive face before she nodded.
“I’ll leave you to it then.”
Mr. Stratton watched her go, politely stepping back to hold the door open. He was a classic cowboy, the kind who thinks of himself as something like a knight in shining armor. I’d never really appreciated that kind of cowboy until I moved to this teeny town from my hometown of Austin, Texas. Cowboys in Austin were more of the drugstore variation. The cowboys here were true blue, the kind who actually went from riding cattle to doing the two step in a local bar.
I didn’t realize how brightly I was smiling until he turned back toward me and his expression clouded with something like confusion.
I consciously relaxed my face, trying to project a more professional expression. It wasn’t easy. When he looked at me with those blue eyes, my bones melted and it made it so difficult for me to keep my thoughts on what I was supposed to be doing over what I really wanted to do which was something like what my students called ‘fan girling.’
“The school is fairly small,” I said. “This hall is the fine arts hall. There are two English teachers, me and Mr. Holland across the hall. Then there’s Miss Bell’s art class, Mr. Collins’ Spanish class, and the technology room down on the end.”
Mr. Stratton inclined his head. “The high school is attached to the middle school?”
“And the elementary. We’re a one stop, serve all sort of place.”
I cracked a smile. It was a joke all the teachers told at least once a day in the teacher’s lounge; he didn’t seem to get the joke.
I cleared my throat and led the way out into the hallway.
“Could you show me the tech room where they hit the last time?”
I nodded, gesturing for him to follow me. We stopped outside the door. The partition where the glass once was, was still covered with a thin piece of cardboard the janitor had put in place, the bottom corner pushed in where students had stuck their hands through to unlock the door during off hours. Mrs. Collins—the wife of the Spanish teacher—complained every day, trying to get the administration to replace the glass, but there were budgetary issues that were getting in the way.
I knocked on the door, aware that Mrs. Collins was often in the room until after five because of students who needed internet access for their homework, but who didn’t have internet at home.
She was a thirty-something woman with bright red hair and wide hips. She smiled widely when she saw me standing there, but her smile changed when she saw Hank Stratton.
“Well, hello there,” she said with charm dripping from her tone despite the fact that her husband was sitting at her desk just a few feet behind her.
Mr. Stratton lowered his head in a polite nod.
“Karen, this is Hank Stratton. He’s working with the administration to find the vandals.”
Mrs. Collins’ eyes lit up. “Is that right? Maybe if you find them, they’ll replace my equipment.”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am,” Mr. Stratton said. “But I would hope so.”
She reached over and touched his arm. “You are a sweetheart, Mr. Stratton.”
“Please, call me Hank.”
“Hank. What a cowboy name.”
He stared down at his cowboy hat, the dusty, brown thing he held between both hands. He was embarrassed, but Mrs. Collins didn’t seem to notice. She simply kept talking.
“I’m sure Jonnie has already told you that she heard them break in to this room this past weekend. She was coming up the stairs to get her laptop and heard the glass break. By the time the cops arrived, they’d already gone, taking several laptops with them.”
“Just laptops?”
“As far as I know.”
He nodded. “I’d like to come back and speak with you about that, but right now Miss Frakes is giving me a tour of the school.”
Mrs. Collins glanced at me, something like jealousy in her eyes.
“I’m here all the time,” she said. “Stop by whenever.”
I could feel her eyes on us as I led Mr. Stratton back up the hall. I pointed out each of the rooms we passed before leading him down the narrow corridor that led to the front hall.
“This is the history hall. Mr. Thomas and Coach Bertram have their classrooms here. And the janitor closet is toward the back.”
We were on the stairs when he touched my arm.
“You were standing here when you heard the glass break?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’d come in the door at the base of the stairs, and I paused here. That’s when I heard them.”
“Them?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure how many there were. I just assumed at least two.”
“Why?”
I really didn’t know. It just seemed logical. The kids around here rarely did anything solo
. He didn’t wait for my answer. I supposed the look on my face was answer enough for him.
We walked through the rest of the school, me pointing out the different classrooms, him quietly watching and listening. When we had gone full circle, and were back at the base of the stairs, I stopped.
“You’ll just be hanging out?”
“They want me to get to know the teachers, listen to any information they might have about the vandals.”
“You think you might be able to figure out who it is just by listening?”
“You’d be surprised how much information is just floating around out there. Sometimes listening is all you need to do to learn something.”
“Sounds very profound.”
He made a sort of waving motion with his hat. “Not really.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. I leaned back against the wall, trying not to stare at his hands, the calluses that spoke of the hard work he’d done most of his life.
“I didn’t realize we had a security firm here in Midnight.”
“This is our first case, actually.”
“You must be good at what you do to get the first case.”
“No. I’m just the only operative they have at the moment.”
“Operative?”
“It’s what they call their employees. I guess it sounds more impressive than security guard.”
“Is that how you think of yourself?”
His eyes fell to the hat in his hands again. There was just the hint of a blush on his cheeks that made me feel this stupid, giddiness in my chest. I was quickly sliding back in time, becoming a teenager with her first crush all over again. Like it had gone so well the first time…
“I think of myself as a cowhand. I work on MidKnight Ranch. The only reason I’m doing this is because my boss is the one running the new Gray Wolf office.”
“Sutherland Knight?”
“You know her?”
“It’s a small town. I’ve never met her, but I’ve heard of her.”
He nodded. “It is a small town.”
Again, an awkward silence fell between us. I felt this overwhelming need to touch him, but I restrained myself. We’d only just met. But I could already imagine myself moving into his arms, folding myself into his chest like I was a piece of him and he was a piece of me.
I must have been going insane! I’d never had thoughts like that, even when I was engaged to my college sweetheart.
“I should let you get back to work,” he said politely.
“I suppose so,” I agreed, even though I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get back to those mediocre essays. But again, now was an excuse to touch him again. I held out my hand with a smile. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Stratton.”
“Please call me Hank,” he said as he took my hand.
“If you’ll call me Jonnie.”
“Jonnie is an unusual name for a girl.”
“It is.” I squeezed his hand, this tingle rushing from my fingers all the way up my arm. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you the story behind it.”
“I’d like that.”
He pulled away, executing a funny little bow before he strutted down the hall toward the principal’s office. I watched him go, wondering which sight was better: that handsome face coming toward me, or that tight ass walking away. They were both equally beautiful to look at.
I had to shake myself once he was out of sight.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was beginning to act like one of my students!
But with a man like that, how could I not?
Chapter 4
Hank
“Mr. Stratton,” the vice principal said as she passed me in the hall, pretending that she hadn’t come out of her office with the intention of running into me. There was just something about the smile on her face that made it obvious – that, and the snide comments I’d heard the teachers make about her these last few days.
I inclined my head, reaching up to slide my cowboy hat off my head. I’d showered before I headed over today and my hair was still damp, though I don’t suppose it was much different from the sweat that often plastered it to the front of my skull. And it didn’t seem to deter her too much. Her smile widened as she continued down the hall.
I wasn’t supposed to be a distraction. I was supposed to wander the halls, listen to the kids talk, see if anyone offered any hints as to who had committed the robberies. And then I was supposed to get to know the teachers, see if any of them seemed to know more than they let on. Especially Mrs. Collins, the technology teacher. Kirkland suspected that she might have an idea who’d committed the last vandalism, and she was protecting them because they were her students. But he hadn’t heard her long conversations about the broken window that left all her classroom vulnerable to another break in.
Kirkland had no idea what was going on down here, because he hadn’t bothered to come down and see it for himself.
I walked down the long hallway and headed up the stairs, my boots making a soft pinging sound that ricocheted off the walls. It made me wonder how Miss Frakes had made it up the stairs without making those kids aware she was coming. Then again, women’s shoes were made differently. And I’d noticed that she favored these soft soled flats that probably didn’t make much sound.
Miss Frakes… I’d noticed a lot about her. She blushed when asked questions about herself, but she didn’t seem bothered by asking other people leading questions. She was good with the kids, though. She was always out in the hallway between classes, always calling out greetings to the kids, always taking a moment to listen to a child tell her about his struggles in other classes. And she always seemed to have some sort of quick advice for the kids, even when their problems seemed insurmountable to them.
She reminded me of a teacher I had in high school, a math teacher who was deeply disappointed when I decided to drop out to help my father around the ranch when he could no longer afford the hired man we’d had most of my life. I liked to stand near her classroom at the end of the school day. That was when she taught her advanced literature class. I liked listening to her discuss As I Lay Dying with the class.
“What would you do if your mother or grandmother asked you to travel on a nine-day journey to bury her?” she’d asked the students yesterday.
“Say no,” one of the boys had quickly answered.
“Would you?” she’d asked him when the class settled down from the titters of laughter his comment had created. “Would you really deny someone you deeply loved their last wish?”
That had caused the class to grow silent, their young minds mulling over that question. And then she popped another question that likely blew their little minds. “Do you think that family loved Addie? Or do you think they did it only because they never knew how to say no to her?”
Silence continued to lay heavy in the classroom. I leaned closer to the door, curious what the students were thinking. I’d always sort of believed that the family took Addie to her funeral in the distant town because it was something of an adventure to disrupt their ordinary little lives. But I could have been wrong.
I wasn’t intelligent. I was a high school dropout. I had my GED, but I’d only done that because it was the only way I could get into the army. I’d passed each test easily, but the work was all stuff I’d done my freshman year of high school. It wasn’t like it was that difficult of an ordeal.
I could shoot a rifle. I could brand a cow, ride a horse, tell with uncanny accuracy when a cow will deliver her calf. I could saddle a horse, treat it for colic, and win a few ribbons riding a bronc. But I’d never be the CEO of anything, never make million-dollar business deals before lunch. I would never be the kind of man this modern world held up as its standard of masculinity.
I was a cowhand. Nothing more, nothing less. But I was curious. I liked hearing what other people thought of books I’d read.
“Who here believes that the only reason the family took Addie to Jefferson was so that Anse could get his false teet
h?”
A few titters of laughter filled the room, but then one girl spoke up.
“I think it was heroic of the family to take her. They might not have done it for her, in the end, but they all participated, and they made sure the chore was completed.”
“That’s true,” Miss Frakes said. “But what about heroism? What does this novel say about individual acts of heroism?”
Another long silence followed the question. As I stood outside that door, I could almost imagine the patience on Miss Frakes face as the students waited for someone else to speak up.
“I think it’s all kind of ironic,” someone finally spoke up.
“Yes, but how?”
“Don’t know.”
“Because Spark Notes told you so?”
More laughter.
“You’re right, though,” Miss Frakes said. “Faulkner has painted a greatly heroic picture of each of his characters, but then he twists it within the plot, pointing out how useless some of these acts were, how ironic. He shows the reader that in the overall picture of life, in the struggles of life, that their individual acts of heroism were pretty much futile.” Silence again. “Does anyone agree?”
“I think Faulkner was trying to point out how simply futile all of life really is.”
The bell rang at that moment, cutting the discussion short. Miss Frakes reminded her students to read the final fifteen chapters of the book as they left the room, coming to the door herself to watch them make their way out into the sea of humanity that filled the hallway. I stepped back, crossing the hall so that she wouldn’t realize I’d been outside her classroom for such a long time. She spotted me, a soft blush touching her warm cheeks.
“Mr. Stratton,” she said.
“Hank.”
She inclined her head. “Hank. How’s the investigation going so far?”
“Slow.”
A bit of a wistful look crossed through her eyes. “I can imagine.” Then she turned and went back into the classroom, the door left slightly ajar; it was almost an invitation. But I ignored it in favor of sticking close to the students, struggling to overhear snippets of conversation here and there, doing my job.
***
I was outside her door again today, listening to more on the Faulkner discussion.
Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming Page 3