The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(6)

“I can only hope that this will help ease the pain,” Reed said as he put his laptop in his bag and stood up, more than ready to call it a day.

“It will, Principal Bradford. It will,” Jen said with another little sniffle as she headed for the door, only to stop dead in her tracks with a horrified gasp when she looked down at the note.

“If you hurry, you should be able to make it to the library before it closes,” Reed said, heading for the door.

“How could you after I shared my pain?” she asked before adding, “How?”

“Easily,” he said, locking his office before walking past the little miscreant that should probably be heading to the library if she wanted to avoid another two weeks of detention.

“Ten pages?” the little deviant asked, catching up with him in the main lobby.

“Not enough?” he asked, reaching for the note only to have her jump back with a startled gasp and a, “No! It’s more than enough!”

“Good, then I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, once again heading for the front door and freedom.

“Did I mention that my gerbil died?” his little shadow asked, once again catching up with him.

“No,” he said, heading for his truck.

“He did. It was tragic. Very tragic,” she murmured with a sniffle that had his lips twitching.

“When did he die?” he asked, opening his truck door and carefully tossing his bag on the passenger seat.

“Ten years ago, but the pain is still fresh,” Jen said as she stood there, hugging herself and giving him a sad little smile that had him sighing in defeat.

“Fine,” he said, plucking the note out of her hand and crossed out the ten-page paper that he’d assigned her and made another quick note before handing it back.

“Bless you, Principal—No!” she gasped in horror.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, gesturing toward the large hall that housed the library.

“That’s just so wrong,” she said in mock horror as she turned around and headed to the library where she would probably spend the next hour conning some poor unsuspecting freshmen into doing her paper for her, but that was a problem for another day.

Right now, the only thing he cared about was going home, grabbing an ice-cold beer, throwing a steak on the grill, and catching up on some paperwork while he did his best to forget about all the bullshit that could wait until tomorrow. That all changed when he looked down at his phone and saw the text message that was waiting for him.





Chapter 3

“This isn’t so bad,” Joey mumbled to herself, backing up that lie with a nod as she tightened her hold on her grandfather’s old work ladder and gave it a good yank to free it from the mass of briars that had at some point in the last twelve years decided to accept it as one of its own.

It took a few minutes, several curses, and a few mishaps that ended with her sprawled out in the large puddle that she’d been trying to avoid, but finally after several tugs, prayers, and a mishap with her grandmother’s old bird bath, she finally managed to pull the ladder free only to realize that at some point in the last ten minutes, that her only means of getting inside the house had fallen apart. Letting the pieces fall to the ground, Joey turned around and tried to make out the old imposing house that she hadn’t seen since she was twelve, through the freezing, pouring rain.

Maybe she should go find a hotel for the night and come back in the morning, she thought only to immediately dismiss the idea since her car was currently stuck in the mud and her keys were in one of five puddles that she’d fallen into when she’d tried to navigate the front yard full of weeds, rocks, and the occasional garden gnome. After an extensive search for her old hide-a-key that had ended with her discovering that there was a raccoon living under her front step, she’d realized that she didn’t have any choice but to pick the lock.

That had ended with her making a mental note to pick up a new lock in the morning. After a ten-minute break, which had resulted in her locking herself out of her car, she’d decided to try her luck with the second-floor bathroom window, praying that Jackson hadn’t fixed it since she’d moved out. That had resulted in her traversing the huge backyard with the hopes of finding her grandfather’s old ladder, which the briars had already reclaimed.

Still, things could be worse, she reminded herself with a shrug as she headed back to the old house that her grandparents had given them with the hopes that one of them would pick up where her grandfather had left off. This old house had been her grandfather’s dream. Since he was a kid, he’d dreamed of getting his hands on one of these old houses and fixing it up, but the war, his parents dying unexpectantly and leaving him to raise his little brother, marriage, kids, and life had gotten in the way.

Every day when he’d forced himself to punch in at the old-time clock to do a job that he’d hated, he’d dreamed of the day when he would be able to buy an old house and restore it. He’d waited over fifty years for his chance, and when he got it, he’d suddenly found himself with two small children to raise when his daughter died in a car crash, and their father decided that leaving them on their grandparents’ doorstep in the middle of the night was for the best.

But he never complained. He’d simply rolled up his sleeves and did his best. He’d taught Jackson how to be a man, how to do the right thing, and how to work hard to get what he wanted, and with her…