DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(61)
“Yeah, but—“
“Give her a break, Harry. It’s only been a little while. Maybe she needs more time to figure things out.”
“And maybe more time will just lead to JT going to jail. Or worse.”
“I know you’re frustrated. But marching in there and taking custody of that boy—her only surviving family—isn’t going to make things any easier on JT. And the last thing you want to do is traumatize your son before you even have a chance to tell him who you are.”
Why did she always have to be right?
“Fine,” I muttered. “But I’m telling you, if something happens to him, I won’t hesitate to call my lawyer and set things into motion.”
“It sounds to me like he’s just acting out. He’s like his father that way.”
There was laughter in her voice that I didn’t appreciate. But, then, I couldn’t deny the truth in her words. I wasn’t exactly the best behaved teenager, either. I was, after all, the guy who went to New York on a college summer trip and came home with two tattoos and a kid I didn’t know about. My father must have hit the roof when he realized what had happened. Worse than the time I came home drunk off my ass and threw up in the bushes in front of the house when I was sixteen.
But my behavior wasn’t the issue here.
We hung up a while later, after discussing business back at Ashland-Philips. Libby was a great CFO, but the big decisions still had to cross my desk. So, on top of grading high school essays, I spent most of my evenings making phone calls and reading over contracts. It made for a very long day, and morning often came much sooner than I would like. Exhaustion made my temper a little sharper than it needed to be. I was beginning to regret my words to Penelope Monroe when the principal of the school called and made me feel even worse.
“I understand that you’ve never worked in a small town like this. But things move a little slower around here. And we don’t usually make threats against the guardians of our students unless they give us no other choice.”
“I realize my words might have been a bit hasty.”
“More than a bit, Mr. James. You can’t threaten to call child protective services just because a child doesn’t turn in his homework as often as he should.”
I closed my eyes, picturing JT—hair unwashed, clothes wrinkled, creases in his cheeks from sleeping on his crossed arms in my class—and bit my lip to keep from saying that I believed there was more at stake here than just unfinished homework. I was learning my lesson, slowly, but I was learning it.
“I’ll apologize to Miss Monroe.”
And that’s exactly what I was attempting to do the next morning when I pulled up in front of the ranch style house where JT had lived since he was three years old. It looked quite innocent from the sidewalk, a neat brick exterior that looked just like the other houses on the block. But as I made my way to the front door, I could hear screaming coming from inside.
“I go to bed plenty early enough,” JT’s voice said.
“You go to bed at one o’clock in the morning and then don’t understand why you can’t stay awake in class. How many teachers are going to call me into the school to talk about you sleeping at your desk?”
“It’s bullshit!” JT yelled. “Mom and Dad never cared how late I stayed up as long as I kept my grades up. My grades are fine.”
“When you bother to turn in homework, yeah, they’re great. But you’re not even turning in homework anymore! What are you trying to do, JT? Do you really want to flunk out of high school before you’ve even started?”
“Why don’t you go to work and leave me alone?”
The door suddenly opened and JT rushed out without looking up, likely completely unaware that I was standing there on his front porch.
“JT…”
But he didn’t hear me, either.
Chapter 3
Penelope
“Why don’t you go to work and leave me alone?”
Those words stabbed me in the chest almost like JT had wielded an actual knife. Was I really spending too much time at the bakery? Was that why he was becoming so insolent? So disrespectful? Or was there something else going on?
Drugs had crossed my mind a few times, as I’m sure it crosses the mind of most parents of a teenager. But a cursory search of his room didn’t turn up anything. And he had that physical at the beginning of the school year. That would have picked up something, wouldn’t it have?
Nick kept insisting it was just teen angst. But that seemed too easy.
I grabbed his backpack and went to the door, his name on my lips. But Mr. James was standing there, looking quite professional in his jeans and sports coat, a quizzical lilt to his eyebrows that made it pretty clear that he had witnessed at least the explosive last minute of our family dynamics.
Great.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my tone a little sharper than I’d intended.
“I came by to apologize for what I said yesterday. It was…uncalled for.”
That took a little of the wind out of my sails. I wondered if Susan had said something to him. I hadn’t meant to complain to her, but she was the principal of the high school and she had come into the bakery to order some cookies for a staff meeting later in the week…and it felt so good to take a little control of the situation.