by Jenny Penn
“Are you going to marry my daughter?” Lynn Anne demanded to know, pinning Nick with a pointed look that should have had him worried, but the damn man just grinned and relaxed.
“So you’re the mother.” Nick returned Lynn Anne’s scrutiny and gave her a once-over but with a far less inappropriate eye. “I was warned about you.”
“Lies.” Lynn Anne drew herself up self-righteously and jumped to the wrong conclusion. “My daughter tells nothing but stories. Now answer my question, young man. Do you or do you not intend to treat my daughter with honor?”
“I swear to you, Mrs. Allison, that I plan to honor your daughter as well as treat her to the kind of loving care she deserves,” Nick declared nobly, managing to make Kitty Anne’s heart melt, even if his words had less effect on her mother.
“That’s what they all say.” Lynn Anne sighed. “So few actually mean it, but if you do, then you’ll understand why I have to move in here.”
“What?” Kitty Anne almost fell over at that proclamation, and she responded without thought. “No!”
“Yes.” Her mother rounded on her with a cliché that Kitty Anne knew she didn’t believe. “A man does not buy the cow if he’s getting the milk for free.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, and you’re not moving in here to protect me.” Kitty Anne knew the truth. She knew her mother. “You’re just jealous of my bungalow.”
“Um…excuse me. Technically, it’s my bungalow,” Nick tried to interject, but neither woman paid him any mind.
“You always think the worst of me, but I’m doing this for your own good.” Lynn Anne wagged a finger at Kitty Anne. “You’re reputation is already in tatters. You can’t live out here with all these men without a chaperon.”
“I’m an adult woman, and it is the twenty-first century,” Kitty Anne declared, taking her stand. “I can do whatever I want. I’m in charge here!”
* * * *
“You are kidding me, right?” GD asked hopefully, though the look on his face said he already knew the answer to that question. “You really let Kitty Anne’s mom kick you out of your own home?”
Nick sighed. He wasn’t thrilled about the current sleeping arrangements either. “I don’t know how it happened. All I know is that woman scares me.”
“That’s because she’s scary,” GD agreed. “But that’s not why you let her take over your house. You did it for Kitty Anne. Go on and admit it.”
“I—”
“—am whipped,” GD finished for him with a laugh.
“I am—”
“—whipped!”
“I—”
“Pussy whipped!”
“You’re just jealous,” Nick snapped back, irritated by GD’s laughter. “Because you haven’t had a taste of that.”
“I could have a taste whenever I want,” GD assured him. “At least, I’m not living in a dorm with three hundred boys.”
“Yeah? And at least I’m living not ten minutes from Kitty Anne’s front door.” Nick had every intention of taking advantage of that fact.
“You mean Lynn Anne’s door,” GD corrected him. “Because you got to get passed mommy first.”
That gave Nick pause as he considered that he should have arranged for Kitty Anne to meet him tonight after her mom had passed out, but he hadn’t had a chance to have a single private word with her since Lynn Anne had showed up. That woman was something else.
“I don’t know how she did it. I went back to work and before I even reached my office, she had half a dozen boys packing up my stuff and…well, look at it. My entire world reduced to boxes while dollies are now decorating the arms of my leather sofa!”
“The woman is evil.” GD nodded as he sipped the root beer Nick had gotten from the vending machine at the end of the dorm’s hall.
The thing didn’t operate on cash but on tokens that the boys earned from exercising. It was a good system. They were good boys. Still, Nick would rather have been spending his nights with the plush comfort of Kitty Anne’s curves than in a small bedroom that served a young boy’s needs than a grown man.
There were actually full-sized apartments on each floor of the dorms. There were two, one at either end of the long hall. That was where staff normally stayed, allowing them to have both private space and keep an eye on the kids. The apartments were also all full, except for Saul’s, but that unit was being cleaned and prepped for the next teacher.
The one Nick still had to hire.
That problem paled, though, in comparison to the other one he was facing.
“Lynn Anne has got to go.”
“She’s going to be the mother-in-law from hell.”
“Oh God.” Nick breathed out at that comment. He hadn’t even thought about that. “You think maybe we could bribe her into leaving…like with a small condo down along the coast?”
“Good luck with that,” GD shot back, sounding far from excited about that idea. “Something tells me that, despite all the attitude and antagonism, Lynn Anne and Kitty Anne are tight. Real tight.”
Nick heaved a sigh at that, having to silently agree that he sensed the same undercurrents between Kitty Anne and her mother. After all, Kitty Anne was the one who’d brought her out there in the first place.
“Then I better plan on building two houses, or something tells me she’s going to be living with us.”
“Man, what is with these houses?” GD glanced up, pinning Nick with a pointed look. “You really planning on building them?”
“I got the land and it’s not like I can move. I need to be near the kids.” Which was just why Nick had bought the hill next door.
It was perfect and, given it wasn’t on school grounds, he could even have a drink every now and again. That was a treat he shared with his staff. Kitty Anne, though, would be a private treat that shared his bed…and GD’s.
“Kitty Anne wants a metal roof and wraparound porch with a lattice.” Nick glanced up to share a look with GD. “You got any requests?”
“A gym.”
“We got one here at the school.”
“Not for us. For Kitty Anne.” GD paused to offer Nick a toothy grin. “Or didn’t you notice just how limber the girl was?”
“Trust me. I noticed.” He’d like to be doing a lot more than that right then. “But we’re talking about the house. So focus.”
“Fine,” GD grumped. “I want an office. If I’m going to live out here, I’m going to need a place to work…but I think I’d like for it not to be attached to the house. Maybe, I’ll get a shed or something.”
“You want to work in a shed?”
“Why not?” GD shrugged. “Put a light in it, cut a hole for a window and another for a window AC unit and I’ll pee out the back door.”
While that last bit might have made some people think GD was joking, Nick knew he wasn’t kidding. The bastard really would pee out the backdoor. Nick would let that be Kitty Anne’s problem. After all, GD’s idea had some merit.
“Fine. Whatever. Go buy yourself a shed.”
“Really?” GD frowned, eyeing Nick as if he were sick. “You don’t mind if I go buy some nasty, used, redneck shed and plant it in your perfectly manicured yard.”
“My yard is not manicured.” Nick snorted, thinking of just how messy his yard had gotten lately. Between the heat and the camp overflowing with summer camp students, he hadn’t had the time to keep up with simple maintenance.
“Please.” GD snickered. “I’ve seen you on your knees next to the mailbox cutting the grass with scissors.”
“So?” Nick really didn’t get what was funny about that. “What am I supposed to do? A weed eater string would mar the wood post for the mailbox, and I can’t just let the grass run wild.”
“No, of course not,” GD agreed, but Nick could hear the laughter in his tone.
“I really don’t get what’s funny here.”
“And that is what is funny.”
“Whatever.” Nick dismissed. “You want to
sit here and laugh at me or do you want to go see if we can liberate Kitty Anne from under Lynn Anne’s watchful gaze.”
“Well, if nothing else this should be entertaining,” GD suggested as he followed Nick out of the dorm room and started down the hall with him. “Of course, you’ve got a logistical problem…no place to take the woman after you’ve absconded with her.”
“Absconded?” Nick repeated, raising a brow at GD’s sudden use of a big word.
“Would you prefer abducted?”
“I’d prefer it if you’d hush up and let me think,” Nick shot back as he slammed open the door at the end of the hall.
It led out onto a large balcony. There was a long flight of stairs to the right. All dorms had to have extra entries and exits in case of a fire. These steps, while attractive, were built just for that purpose. They were wide and gently slopped downward, allowing both Nick and GD to all but race down them side-by-side.
Too soon, they reached the ground. Nick still didn’t have an answer to the question plaguing him. Where were they going to take her?
Alex and Heather had already scandalized enough kids with the show they’d put on at the obstacle course just a week or so back. The obstacle course, now there was an idea.
It was completely encased in a thick wall of shrubbery that hid an even thicker wall of cinderblock. That made it nice and private, not to mention it was on the other side of the campus from the dorms, so they’d be far away from the kids, who should all be bedding down for the night. Even if one or two of the kids managed to skip out, they wouldn’t make it into the obstacle course.
It was gated with a separate security system. Those were the requirements of the insurance company. They hadn’t been particularly thrilled by the idea of the large obstacle course and had, ironically, made Nick jump through a number of loops before agreeing not to revoke his insurance.
Nick was betting that Kitty Anne would enjoy jumping through some loops. In fact, he bet she’d love it.
* * * *
Kitty Anne lay stretched out on the small couch she’d bedded down on and listened for the telltale sounds of her mother’s deep-chested snores that assured her Lynn Anne had sunk far enough into her dreams that not even a grenade would have awakened her. Conversely there was no way any normal human being could sleep through the racket her mother was making.
That explained why Lynn Anne was with Mr. Whellon. That man was half-deaf and ugly to boot. He was rich, though, and Kitty Anne suspected that was what her mother found most attractive about the man. There really was nothing else to recommend him, and he had a wife, who was known to be ravenously jealous. Of course anybody who knew Mrs. Whellon couldn’t blame Mr. Whellon for looking for affection elsewhere.
The woman was cold, bossy, and all-around unpleasant…not that Kitty Anne’s mother was much different. So maybe Mr. Whellon had a type. Of course, Lynn Anne didn’t boss Mr. Whellon around. No, she bossed Kitty Anne around. For some sick reason she couldn’t explain, Kitty Anne let her.
So had Nick.
Kitty Anne knew he was just as confused as she was about how it was that Lynn Anne came to be the one sleeping in his bed. Somehow her mother had managed to cast Nick off to the dorms and demote Kitty Anne to the couch. She did it all under the guise of protecting Kitty Anne’s honor, but they both knew that was a lie.
Her mother wanted something. The only question was what and Kitty Anne suspected she knew the answer—Nick’s money. It was clear that Nick had done well for himself somewhere along the line because the campus below did not only appear large, it appeared perfectly tailored. There was just something about the design of it all that reeked of wealth.
Lynn Anne was attracted to wealth, but Kitty Anne wasn’t going to let her mom use Nick like that. While she’d always taken care of her mother and always would, there had to be limits. Limits that one day she hoped she had the strength to enforce.
That day had not been today. Today, Kitty Anne felt like she’d regressed. Feeling very much like the teenager, all giddy and silly over her new boyfriends, Kitty Anne had embraced the regression. Why not?
If her mother wanted to treat her like a virginal child then she’d act like the wild one she’d actually been and sneak out of the house. Sneak out of the house to infiltrate an all boy’s school in search of the hottest guy on campus? Just the thought kind of thrilled her. It added a forbidden element to her plans.
That was just why Kitty Anne had gone to sleep wearing a set of sexy black sweats and tank that clung to her body. She’d put her hair up into a ponytail but had been forced to forgo, making herself up more appropriately. After all, one did not wear makeup to bed.
At least she had shoes. Kitty Anne had planned accordingly, tucking a pair of sneakers beneath the couch, and thankfully, her mother hadn’t noticed them on her final inspection before bed. Otherwise, she’d have put them in the closet, as was appropriate. After all, everything had a place, and everything was put in its place according to Lynn Anne.
Everything that was but Kitty Anne, who slunk out from beneath the covers and tiptoed across the floor to the front door. She was careful to grip the bells her mother had hung on the back of the door in a tight fist, assuring they didn’t ring as she removed them and placed them silently on the little table that served as the entryway’s counter. Then out the door she went.
Kitty Anne couldn’t help but smile as she felt the cool night air crisp against her cheeks and the rough cement beneath her feet. It was as though she’d been transported back in time to her teenage years when she used to sneak out of her mother’s trailer, normally to go run off and meet some boy. Tonight, though, she was older and felt the weight of her maturity as she considered how much trouble she might cause if she went down the hill to sneak through the boy’s campus.
Being led around was one thing, but Nick had made it clear when he came to get her and her mother for dinner that women weren’t really allowed on the campus. Nick was making an exception for meals, but also made it clear that they would be escorted to the dining hall for everyone.
Her mother had scoffed at his attitude, and Kitty Anne had a suspicion she was going to get kicked off of the campus. She certainly had appeared like she was trying to all through dinner. That had been an interesting experience, watching Lynn Anne eating with well over two hundred boys surrounding her.
Her mother had been torn between lecturing Nick about proper child-rearing techniques, snubbing GD, and correcting any boy that came too close to her about proper manners and how to treat a lady. It had been a long meal, and Kitty Anne hadn’t even gotten a chance to ask GD why he was there, though she could guess.
He was up to no good. No doubt he’d arrived to see if she’d obeyed his outrageous demand and left the dildo in. He should have known better, and he probably did, which only meant it was time for her to be punished. Normally, Kitty Anne wasn’t much into those kinds of games but couldn’t deny the wicked thrill that had her tense and eager at the very idea of GD dominating her, especially if he planned on doing it in front of Nick.
Nick was such a sweetie. It was almost cruel to unleash her mother on him. He was simply no match for Lynn Anne. Not that Kitty Anne believed for a moment her mother had vanquished either him or GD when she’d firmly told them good night over an hour ago and slammed the door to Nick’s bungalow in his face. That had been a priceless moment, though not worth having to put up with her mother’s traditional lecture. Lynn Ann had a beauty routine that took nearly two hours to complete. It ended with twelve hours of sleep, which meant the lights were out by nine, even though the sun was technically still up.
Who the hell could sleep when there was light still shining through the windows?
Not Kitty Anne. There was a reason why she preferred to live in a monthly suite at the motel than at home in her old bedroom.
Her mother was nuts or, as Lynn Anne would have said, two peas short of a pod. That right there made no sense, which went to prove Kitty Anne’s original
point. She didn’t question whether her apple had fallen far from that tree, even as she began climbing the magnolia that draped over Nick’s bungalow.
It had nice thick branches and fat leaves that hid her from sight even as she heard her men come grumbling down the path that led up from the dormitories down at the bottom of the hill. Soon enough they’d be right below her and Kitty Anne planned to drop down and give them the start of a lifetime. She knew that was a little childish, but it would also be funny.
“Will you stop that?” Nick’s complaint weighed heavy in the night air, drawing Kitty Anne’s attention to the two supposed knights in shining armor who had arrived to save her.
“Stop what?”
GD sounded innocent, but even from a distance, Kitty Anne could tell he was full of shit.
“Making that infernal racket.”
“I’m whistling a tune.”
“I don’t think you know what a tune is,” Nick muttered, and Kitty Anne had to agree.
She’d noticed that GD tended to like to whistle, but he couldn’t hold a tune or follow along with one. Unlike Nick, though, Kitty Anne had found it kind of an endearing trait. Of course, her opinion might be a little colored by the lust that filled her whenever he was near. Nick, on the other hand, sounded far from entranced as he continued to pick on GD.
“And don’t think I don’t know what tune you’re trying to whistle. This is not a death march,” Nick informed him haughtily. “There is no need for you to whistle your own whacked-out rendition of ‘Taps.’”
Kitty Anne smiled at that complaint as she slid along the shadowed curve of the bungalow until she could spy on the two of them marching across the yard toward the back of the small apartment. They were easily visible in the moonlight and were making no attempt to approach with any kind of stealth, not even bothering whispering.
“So you say, but I wouldn’t test Kitty Anne’s mom. That woman is scary,” GD grumbled as their footsteps began to shuffle through the yard.
That Lynn Anne was, and Kitty Anne knew her mother would take that observation as a compliment because the truth was Lynn Anne was all bark. It was Kitty Anne they had to watch out for because she was planning on taking a bite or two. That thought had her grinning and scheming as GD pressed Nick for a plan of action.