DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(63)

But he didn’t. He just smiled like a child who’d gotten the best present ever for Christmas, then went back to his worktable and hummed under his breath as he decorated a cake for a retirement party.

And I turned back to my own tasks, wondering if I’d just made another in a long list of horrible, devastating mistakes.

~~~

The crowd was already thick when I arrived at the football stadium—or, at least, our small town version of it—friends and neighbors laughing and catching up on the week’s gossip. I found a seat in the center of the stands, waving to customers who stopped their conversations long enough to notice me trying to sneak past them.

I was exhausted. Fridays were always an exceptionally long day. I’d been up since three to open the bakery, worked until an hour ago trying to get orders out and getting a jump start on tomorrow’s orders. I’d wanted to grab a nap before the game, but that didn’t happen. I’d barely had time for a quick shower before it was time to head over. But I never missed one of JT’s games. I might not be the best guardian in the world, but this was important to him, so it was important to me.

I saw him before he saw me. The teacher. He was walking along the bottom of the stands, searching for an open seat. A couple of students called out to him and he stopped to speak to a couple of girls who seemed quite taken with him. Again I wondered how different my high school experience might have been if just one of my teachers had looked like him. But most of my teachers were older women, a couple of middle aged me, most of them still working at the school. It certainly would have been a more interesting experience.

Then he looked up and our eyes met. I almost felt like I was sitting under a spot light, the way he stared at me. I tugged my light sweater tighter around me, unconsciously drawing my bottom lip between my teeth as I dropped my eyes to my toes, my hair falling around my face like a veil. There was something about him that made everything inside of me turn to jelly. The way he was staring at me just made it worse.

I felt like one of those teenagers with a crush on teacher.

“Is this seat open?”

I looked up, the color draining from my face as he towered over me.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

He sat down, a little closer to me than the long, empty bench required. Before I could say something, our football team stepped out onto the field. Everyone stood, cheers rising from all around us. I stood, too, shaking the cowbell with JT’s number on it—35—pride bringing a smile to my face as he ran through the inflatable jackrabbit with the rest of his teammates. We stayed on our feet as both teams gathered in the center of the field for the playing of the National Anthem. And then we settled in for the beginning of the game.

“People take football pretty serious here, don’t they?”

“Don’t they where you’re from?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. But not quite like this.”

I glanced at him. “Where are you from?”

“Oregon.”

My eyebrows rose. “You’re a long way from home. What brought you out here?”

Mr. James looked out on the field for a long minute. “The job market’s a little tight up there. I saw an opportunity to start fresh here and I took it.”

“I guess I understand that.”

“I hear you used to work in New York City.”

“Yeah. A lifetime ago.”

“Did you like it there?”

I thought about my loft apartment, my close knit group of friends, the man I left behind there and a familiar tightness settled in my chest for a long minute.

“Yeah,” I said. “But that was a different life. I was a different person there.”

“I can imagine.”

I studied the field for a minute, watching as our team made a little progress down field. JT made a dive for a pass, but missed, causing the crowd to groan in one, overwhelming voice. But then he redeemed himself with the next play, catching a wild throw and getting the first down.

“He’s pretty good.”

I glanced at Mr. James. “He works hard at it.”

“Too bad he doesn’t put that much effort into his school work.”

“Do you know many teenage boys who put that much effort into school work?”

He actually cracked a smile. And that smile was breathtaking. I had to force myself to look away before I did or said something that would embarrass us both.

“Despite the impression I might have given you, I was not an angel when I was JT’s age. I was something of a nightmare to my parents.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sure my mother could tell you stories that would make you incredibly grateful that sleeping in class is the worst thing JT has ever done.”

“I can’t imagine you were that bad.”

He laughed, the sound like a fine ganache running down the surface of a cake. I liked the sound, wanted to hear more of it. But then the crowd groaned again—another missed pass—and drowned the sound out.

I caught sight of the infinity symbol on the inside of his wrist and touched it before I could stop myself.

“Is this one of your rebellious acts?”

“It is,” he admitted. “My father was a very religious man. He raised my brother, my sister, and myself to believe that altering the body in any way was an insult to God. So, when I was nineteen, I went to New York City with a group of college friends and one of the first things I did was get this tattoo. And this one.” He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed me a simple cross on the inside of his other wrist.