by Leanne Banks
Angie winced. “I could probably graduate with a general degree next spring. With this particular degree, I would be qualified to ask, ‘Do you want fries with that?’
“Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad. You have experience in a lot of things,” he said.
“Yes, but I’m doing most of them for free or for very low wages. I’ll figure it out,” she said with a shrug. “I usually do.”
“You’re very good with the ROOTS kids. Would you want to work full-time with them?” he asked.
“I would, but ROOTS doesn’t take on a lot of full-time workers. I might have to go somewhere else.” She glanced down into her cup. “I’m not ready for that.”
“That’s okay,” he said in a low voice and slid his hand over hers.
Angie looked up and met his gaze. “Thank you for saying that.”
He nodded slowly. “You’ve made a huge impact on those kids, and you continue to do that.”
She took a deep breath. “Thanks—” She broke off when her cell phone rang. “I should ignore it,” she said then frowned. “But, I can’t.” She dug in her purse. “Angie here,” she said into the phone.
Forrest watched as her eyes widened. A gap of silence followed and Angie’s brow furrowed in concern. “I’ll be right over, Lilly. Thank you for calling me.” She turned off her phone. “I have to go. Lilly’s brother Joey was beat up after school.”
Forrest’s gut clenched as he remembered the skinny kid who had clearly loved animals. “I’ll go with you,” he said, shoving aside his hot chocolate. He was no longer hungry.
“Are you sure? Between Lilly and her mother, there might be a bit of emotion,” she said.
“I can handle it,” he said. “I’ll follow you in my truck.”
Less than a half hour later, Forrest joined Angie as she entered Lilly’s house. Lilly was crying. Her mother hadn’t made it home.
“He’s got bruises on his face,” Lilly said, sobbing. “His hands are messed up too because he was trying to shield himself.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He’s locked himself in his room and won’t come out. Probably because I went crazy when I came home and saw him.”
“Where is your mother?” Forrest asked in a low voice.
“At her second job.”
“She needs to come home.”
“She’s afraid she’s going to lose her main job and—”
“She needs to come home now,” Forrest said.
Lilly took a deep breath and lifted her cell phone. “What do I tell her?”
“Tell her you need her at home now,” he said. “If you need me to talk to her, I will.”
Lilly nodded. “I’ll call her,” she said and punched a button. “Mom,” she said. “We need you to come home. We’ve had some problems.” Silence followed. “I’d rather tell you when you get here. We’re mostly okay, but we need you here.”
When Lilly hung up, Forrest looked at her in approval. “Good job. Can you take me to your brother’s room?”
“Sure, but he probably won’t let you in,” she said and guided him upstairs.
Forrest stood in the hall as Lilly knocked on the door. “Joey?”
“I’m not talking to you,” he said through the door.
“Will you talk to Major Traub?” she asked.
A long silence followed. “No.”
Forrest shrugged. “No problem. I’ll talk to him. You can go back downstairs and wait for your mom with Angie.”
Lilly nodded. “Okay, but I’m not sure that’s going to help.”
“We’ll see,” he said and waited until she descended the stairs. He knocked on the door. “Joey, it’s me, Forrest Traub. You don’t have to do the talking. I will,” he said and leaned against the doorjamb.
“When I first entered the military, there was a guy who bullied several of us. He beat us up when no one was looking,” he said. “We didn’t want to rat on him. We were supposed to be a team,” he said. “The army sent in a Special Forces guy to talk to us. We found out he had been bullied, too. Bullies need to be reeducated and retrained. They’ll just bully someone else until they learn to act differently.”
Forrest was quiet for several moments. “Yeah, so even though I was an adult, I was bullied.”
He waited again. “My leg’s killing me. Do you mind letting me in so I can sit down?”
The door immediately opened and Forrest walked inside toward the chair in his room. “Thanks,” he said as he sat.
Joey kept his head lowered, but Forrest saw the bruises already forming on his forehead. He swore under his breath. “Some people just need to be totally reprogrammed.”
“Yeah,” Joey said. “If I tell, I’ll be a rat.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t, this guy will never learn. And he’ll bully someone else,” Forrest said. “I’m betting there’s someone at your school who wants to help whoever did this to you and more importantly, help you.”
Joey glanced up, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. The sight made Forrest want to punch the guy who had done this to the kid.
“You have good stuff inside you. You’re bigger than this. Hang on to that,” he said.
Forrest heard female voices outside the door.
Joey rolled his eyes. “Oh, no. Mom’s home.”
A couple moments later, the rest of the women stormed Joey’s room. Forrest sat silently in the background while his mother asked questions and Lilly cried. He met Angie’s gaze. She seemed tense at first then relaxed.
After the interrogation wound down, Joey hid himself in his sleeves.
Joey’s mother began to pace. “This is all my fault,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have been working so much. I shouldn’t have—”
“This is going to be okay,” Forrest said. “Joey is going to talk to the school counselor, who will be appalled and will immediately enact an anti-bully program. Joey’s bully will be supervised left and right and taught empathy. The entire school will improve as a result of Joey taking the proper action tomorrow. Right, Joey?”
Joey peeked above his arms. “Would you go with me?”
“Sure,” Forrest said and shot Angie a vengeful grin. “It will be my pleasure.”
A half hour later, Forrest escorted Angie to her pickup. “Interesting evening,” he said, his leg aching like nobody’s business.
“True,” she said, stopping and looking up at him. “Thank you for coming. I think you really made a difference. I also think Joey will feel better talking about this to someone at school with you by his side.” She shrugged. “Well, anyone would feel better doing something tough with you by their side.”
His heart jumped at her words. Her admiration, no it was far above admiration, meant more to him than he could have expected. “That was nice,” he said.
“Just true, like you,” she said. “If I were the type to throw myself at a man, I would do it now.” She shot him a Delilah kind of smile. “But you and I both know I’m not that kind of woman.”
“Right,” he said and walked beside her to her truck, half wishing she would throw herself at him.
She turned toward him and smiled. “I knew you were pretty darn awesome the first time I met you, Forrest Traub. You just keep proving that over and over. G’night,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
Forrest watched her get behind the wheel and drive away, and damn if he didn’t wish he was going to the same place she was headed.
The next day, Forrest stood by Joey’s side as he spoke to the counselor. Just as Forrest had predicted, the counselor was appalled. An anti-bully program would immediately be implemented. It wasn’t his most mature thought, but he would have liked to beat the hell out of Joey’s bully. He arranged with Joey to get together in a couple days. Forrest figured Joey’s mom and sister would be hovering and Joey would be screaming for a break by then.
Leaving the school, he thought about calling Angie, but he resisted the urge to call her and went to the local gym to work out. After the gym, he would go to his cont
ract position at the architectural firm. By the time he finished his workout, though, he was exhausted. He grabbed a sandwich at a sub shop and walked toward the firm.
Halfway there, a loud shot rang out from the street. Forrest immediately went on the alert, reaching for his firearm. Which wasn’t there. For a millimeter of a second, the street in front of him turned sideways. His heart pounded. He couldn’t breathe.
He forced himself to take in air and his vision cleared. His mind cleared. The sound he’d heard had been that of a car backfiring. Not a warning shot from a gun. Everything was okay. Everyone was okay.
He took another deep breath and felt the unwelcome perspiration that always followed an episode. Damn this so-called syndrome. He wasn’t in Iraq any longer. When would his mind and body know it?
Swiping the back of his hand across his damp forehead and above his upper lip, he began to talk to himself, assuring his body that it no longer needed to be on alert. He walked slowly to the office and inside the door.
“Hello, Forrest,” the receptionist said. “It’s good to see you. How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he said. He just had to convince his brain of that fact.
It took awhile, but since there was an empty conference room available, Forrest took the room and calmed down enough to complete his work scheduled for the day. He left a little later than he’d intended, and his cell phone rang as he walked out the door.
“Forrest Traub,” he said, after he saw Angie’s number on his caller ID.
“Are you still downtown? I’ve been in class all day. How’d it go with Joey? I’ve been dying to know,” Angie said.
“Not bad. He did a great job. You would have been proud of him. I was,” he said.
“How did the counselor respond?” she asked.
“Very well,” he said. “Honestly appalled. Good woman,” he said. “I’ll stay on top of it.”
“So will I,” Angie said. “Let me take you out for some hot chocolate tonight. We were interrupted last night.”
“Not tonight,” he began. “I—” He broke off when he heard her laughter and it wasn’t via the phone. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught her just before she rushed him.
“But you have to,” she insisted, smiling up at him.
Still dealing with his episode earlier this afternoon, he gently, but firmly pushed her away. He shook his head. “I’m not up for it tonight.”
Her smile fell. “Aw, come on. It’s not that big of a commitment.”
“It’s not about commitment,” Forrest said. “I just want to be alone tonight.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh.”
That oh held a wealth of hurt, but Forrest couldn’t help Angie with it. He couldn’t give her any hope. If anything, what had happened earlier today underscored that fact. Not that he had forgotten it, he reassured himself. “I’ll walk you to your truck,” he offered.
She immediately shook her head. “No need. I’ll just head over to ROOTS to check on things.”
“You shouldn’t be walking around town in the dark,” he said, and walked alongside her.
Angie gave a short laugh. “I walk around downtown by myself all the time. I’m strong and careful,” she said, giving a toss of her hair.
“But you’re also young and female,” he said.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay,” she said and ran into the dark.
With his bum leg, he couldn’t go after her. And it irritated the hell out of him. One more reminder why he shouldn’t encourage her. His injuries made him eons older. Angie needed a man who laughed easily and could run beside her. He would never be that man.
* * *
The sound of Angie’s boots thumping against the payment echoed in her ears as she ran toward ROOTS. The sound and feeling of Forrest’s rejection ripped through her. Foolish tears burned her eyes. He’d seemed so open to her lately. She’d fallen even more for him when he’d stepped forward to help Joey.
He’d seemed to enjoy their hot chocolate breaks. There had even been a few times when she’d felt him resisting the urge to touch her. She’d felt him wanting her. She’d seen it in his eyes. The electricity had hummed deliciously between them.
Or not? she wondered.
She’d been determined not to push him after the kiss they’d shared. The kiss he’d said they shouldn’t have shared. For the first time since she’d met Forrest, a tiny sliver of doubt eked past her confidence that he would come around. He’d seemed so cold and distant tonight.
Her belief in her own feelings for Forrest, however, was rock solid.
Angie slowed to a walk and sighed. She was just going to have to be patient.
* * *
Two days later, she finalized the menu for the soldiers’ families’ dinner with Shane Roarke, the new super chef at Thunder Canyon Resort. This was going to be a crazy busy day because the community was holding Old Thunder Canyon Days downtown. Despite the threat of snow, crowds always came out to sample goodies from local shops and charities. A rancher sponsored an elephant for rides. For the truly brave, there would be ballroom dancing in the streets with accompaniment by the Thunder Canyon Community Orchestra. The ROOTS kids were taking orders for pumpkin bread loaves and pies for Thanksgiving.
It was midmorning and already the streets were cordoned off from traffic, so she parked several blocks from the city center and jogged to the ROOTS booth where several kids were giving away samples. “Hi there. How’s it going?” she asked Brooke and Andrew, two of the ROOTS volunteers.
“We’ve got them once they taste it,” Brooke said.
“Of course we do,” Angie said.
“The only problem is the bakery shop has a booth three doors down from ours,” Andrew said.
Angie made a face. “Well, darn. Do you want me to go out and direct people to our booth?”
“It can’t hurt,” Andrew said.
“Done,” she said and took a poster out among the crowd. “Free pumpkin pie. Booth 117. Free pumpkin pie. Free pumpkin bread. Free pumpkin chocolate chip bread.”
Angie kept shouting her invite for the next hour. Her voice began to sound raspy to her own ears, but she kept on. “Free pumpkin pie. Booth 117—”
“Sounds good to me,” a familiar male voice said from behind her.
Angie whipped around to face Forrest. Her heart tripped over itself. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi to you. Are you always in the middle of everything?” he asked.
She smiled. “I try. I like it better than looking from the outside in. What are you doing here?”
“I’m headed to work in about an hour,” he said.
“Then you can get a free sample of pumpkin pie and order one from ROOTS,” she said. “Booth—”
“One-seventeen,” he said. “I heard you. What am I going to do with a pumpkin pie?”
“Eat it?” she asked. “We’re taking orders. You can pick it up the day before Thanksgiving. Is someone fixing a Thanksgiving dinner for you? This would be the perfect gift to take as a guest.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be training to go into sales? You’re so good you could sell ice cubes in a blizzard.”
“You exaggerate, Major,” she said.
“Not me,” he said and music began to play. “Is that an orchestra?” he asked, clearly surprised.
Angie nodded. “And soon, there’ll be dancing. In the street,” she added. “Dare you to dance,” she said impulsively, almost surprising herself with the challenge.
He shook his head. “It would be ugly,” he said. “Very ugly.”
“Double dare you,” she said.
He shot her an uneasy look and shrugged. “I think I’ll go order a pumpkin pie instead.”
Angie sighed, wishing Forrest would make just a tiny move toward her. Just a tiny move was all it would take.
“What are you staring at, Angie?” Brad Graham, one of her old boyfriends, asked. “Come dance with me.”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve
gotta hawk for ROOTS. Find somebody else.”
“You can take a break for a minute,” he said. “Consider it your duty to the community.”
“That’s why I’m hawking for ROOTS,” she said.
“Your voice is hoarse. Come on,” he said, taking away her sign to lay it down and dragging her to the center of the street where several dancers already stood.
The orchestra switched into a number perfect for a tango. Angie swore under her breath and really hoped Forrest wasn’t watching her dance in the arms of another man.
Chapter Five
Forrest went ahead and bought two pies and two loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread. He could give them to someone or maybe Antonia could freeze them. The ROOTS reps said the stuff could be frozen. He didn’t know why he’d bought so much except that the idea of dancing with Angie did something strange to his gut.
“Hey, look. Angie’s gonna rock it again this year,” Andrew, a ROOTS volunteer, said.
What? Forrest swallowed the question and searched the crowd to the open street area. Angie was held in the arms of a young man. His stomach fell to his feet. The music was romantic, filled with longing. It struck at the secret heart of him.
Her partner led her, pulling toward him, pushing her away, then pulling her back. Her hair whipped with her movements.
“She’s really good, isn’t she?” Andrew said beside him.
Forrest glanced at the guy who was watching with his arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah, she is. When did she learn this?”
“It was her brother and sister’s idea. They made her learn all kinds of dances so she would be well-rounded. Her mother died when she was young,” Andrew said.
“Thirteen,” Forrest said, staring at Angie as she continued to dance. He couldn’t quite force his gaze from her.
Andrew chuckled. “Poor Brad’s always trying to get back with her.”
“Back with her?” Forrest echoed, feeling his gut clench for what had to be the fifth time.
“Yeah, they were together for a while. Then he stepped out on her. She wrote off love. Brad works on her every chance he gets,” Andrew said.
Brad bent Angie into a low dip and lowered his mouth toward hers. Forrest held his breath. Angie slid her hand around Brad’s neck at the same time she turned her cheek to his mouth.