Dance Away with Me(45)

Winchester cut in. “And now we discover you’ve been filling our daughter’s head with filth.”

“Define filth,” North said, from behind her.

Tess had forgotten he was there. He stepped forward, a wide-awake, towel-wrapped Wren in his arms. Unlike Wren, Ian looked pissed.

“I know it when I see it,” Winchester shot back.

“And filth is what you see when you look at your daughter?” North countered.

The situation was difficult enough without Ian making it worse, and Winchester took a threatening step forward. “I can’t believe you said that.”

Tess shot between them. She would have loved to see North take a swing at the pompous Brad Winchester, but not with Wren in his arms. “Mr. Winchester, I have years of experience in women’s health, and I can tell you that simply ordering kids not to do it isn’t the most effective form of sex education. If you don’t want Ava coming here, tell her that. But I’m a nurse.” I was a nurse. “It would be ethically irresponsible for me to deny anyone information that keeps them healthy, and if those kids show up at my door with questions, I’ll answer them.” Even to her own ears, she sounded overbearing, but she was also right.

A muscle in the corner of Ian’s jaw twitched. “I strongly advise you not to get caught between this woman and her ethics. She isn’t very flexible.”

Winchester didn’t like being challenged. “What about your ethics, Mr. North? Living with the woman who killed your wife.”

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Ian said with a cold dignity.

Ian might not be rattled, but Tess was. And so, it seemed, was Kelly. “Brad . . .”

She took her husband’s arm, but he shook her off. “That baby’s mother hasn’t even been dead for a month, yet the two of you are already shacking up. Maybe the sheriff needs to look a little more closely into exactly what happened here.”

Tess caught her breath, but Ian didn’t flinch. “He’s welcome to.”

“You’ve been warned.” He grabbed his wife and pulled her toward the door. Kelly’s stiletto turned under her, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t had such a tight grip on her arm.

The slam of the door startled Wren, and her arms flailed.

“Well,” Ian said, “that was fun.”

She waited for his “I told you so.” When he didn’t deliver it, she did it for herself. “I know this is exactly what you warned me about.”

“Forget it. He’s an ass.”

“A powerful one. Just because I’m right about this doesn’t mean I should be telling anyone how to raise their kids.”

“Which is why you need to take a big step back.”

“The rumors about Bianca . . . About us.”

“A bunch of stupid people. Do you know what I’m really concerned about?”

“No idea.”

“The fact that your little bundle of joy has peed all over me.” He held Wren out to her. Sure enough, there was a damp blotch on his shirt.

She took the towel-wrapped baby from him. “Way to go, Wren.”

One corner of his mouth curled. He moved to the stairs but paused halfway up and gazed back down at her. “Posing for me last night . . . You’re a good subject.”

A jumble of feelings churned inside her. She reached for a wisecrack to diffuse them. “Yeah, Da Vinci told me the same thing, but he paid better.”

She thought that was pretty darned cute, but he didn’t smile. Instead, he said, “You have an interesting face.”

“And the body to go with it.” Shut up. If you can’t do better than that, keep your stupid mouth shut!

“It’s a good body,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“It would be a lot better if there were less of it.”

“Amazing how misguided you women continue to be.” He disappeared up the steps.

*

Tess needed to think about her future. Get away from the schoolhouse. Find a new career. She focused on the simplest of her problems and called the man who was supposed to be dealing with her furnace. “Hasn’t shipped yet, ma’am,” he told her. “There’s a labor strike. I’ll let you know when it arrives.”

For the next few days, she worked morning shifts at the Broken Chimney while Heather took care of Wren. With the exception of a group of men who seemed to enjoy talking to her, the atmosphere had grown even chillier. Only a few customers openly asked about Bianca’s death, but she could sense others talking about her behind her back. One of the customers who didn’t shun her was Artie, the nicotine addict. Wearing a new trucker’s cap, he wandered in at the end of her shift. “Damn, Tess. When did you start working again?”

“This morning. But Michelle will be here in half an hour if you want cigarettes. Which I hope you don’t. Seriously, Artie. You’ve got to give those things up.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He leaned against the counter. “Me and my girlfriend broke up.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. She decided I wasn’t good enough for her.”

“Then I guess breaking up wasn’t such a bad thing.”

“That’s what I keep tellin’ myself. Still . . . Man, she was hot.” He rested an elbow on the glass top, directly above the Long Johns. “So you want to go out tonight?”