Joanna's Highlander (Highland Protector #2)(17)
“Sorry, sweets. Guess that was hitting below the belt.” The cellphone fell silent for so long, Joanna thought Lucia’s call had been dropped.
“You still there?”
“I’m here,” Lucia answered with a long, drawn-out sigh. “If you really want to swap places with me tomorrow, I’ll do it. But Tyler has a class trip and I volunteered to go along as teacher’s helper.”
“I’ll take second graders over this bunch any day.” Joanna smoothed down her running shirt, adjusted her thumbs through the holes in the cuffs, and strapped on the belt she always wore that held her keys and identification. She pulled her shoulder-length red hair up into a ponytail, then smoothed the wide fleeced headband in place snugly over her ears. “Where’s the class going?”
“Highland Life and Legends.”
Joanna stared at the phone, waiting for Lucia to end her bad joke and say Tyler’s second-grade class was really going somewhere else on their trip tomorrow. When Lucia remained silent, Joanna plopped down on the side of the bed, still glaring at the phone. “Seriously? Highland Life and Legends?”
“Yep. ’Fraid so, sweets.”
Well, isn’t that just freakin’ lovely? The white reproduction French mantel clock on the nightstand beside her phone caught Joanna’s attention. The chipped gold-leaf second hand of the small, boxy clock and the tiny dented pendulum were happily ticking her life away and about to seal her fate with a tinny bong at the bottom of the hour. It was nearly nine thirty. Time to go downstairs and meet her running partner—the kryptonite to her self-control.
Joanna blew out a despondent breath. “I’ve gotta go.”
“So, we’re good then? Keep the status quo as is?”
Stretching as high as she could reach, then bending at the waist and flattening her palms on the floor until the backs of her legs felt a renewed rush of blood, Joanna groaned. “Yes. We’re fine.”
“Jo…really? You know I don’t want you miserable. Not after all you’ve sacrificed to help me and Tyler.” Lucia’s voice grew so soft that Joanna had to pick up the phone and turn up the volume to hear her.
“How many times do I have to tell you that we’ve helped each other? We’re family.” Joanna did her best to speak with renewed energy and determination. Lucia and Tyler had helped her get over the tanking of her career and the revelation that the man she’d planned to marry already had a wife—and also didn’t have a problem beating the living shit out of her when she’d finally decided to challenge him. She’d helped Lucia and Tyler get past Jason’s death and piece together a fledgling tour-guide business to help them all survive.
She took Lucia off speakerphone and held the phone to her ear. “Really. I’ll be fine. I just needed to talk it out. You know how I am.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” Lucia’s voice tapered off, her tone clearly saying she wasn’t convinced that Joanna really meant it.
“I’m sure.” The metallic bong of the clock on the nightstand sounded. Joanna rolled her shoulders and grabbed the doorknob. “I’ve got to go. I’ll look for you and the pack of second graders at the park tomorrow. Tell ‘T’ that I love him.”
“Will do,” Lucia replied. In a lighter tone, she quoted one of Tyler’s favorite superheroes. “Remember, young one. You are fearless and wise. Believe that you can do this and it will be so.”
Joanna punched the off button on the phone and belted it into the holder strapped to her upper right arm. “Fearless and wise, my ass,” she grumbled as she locked the door to her room, then stuffed the antique skeleton key into the slender bag strapped around her waist.
She rolled her shoulders again, then shook out her arms as she trotted down the hall and jogged down the steps. Grant MacDara was a fine-looking man and seemed…so…dammit. She blew out a frustrated breath, unable to settle on the word that accurately described the male trait he possessed that caused such an unsettling assault of emotions and severe case of take me until I scream your name more and more each time she was around him. She’d never been this attracted to anyone—not even Matthew, and she’d supposedly been engaged to that liar’s sorry ass.
All her postpubescent life she’d been a loser magnet and fallen for the wrong guy. If she was this attracted to Grant, something had to be really wrong with him. Super wrong—like he-hid-the-bodies-of-his-enemies-in-the-mountains-behind-Castle-Danu kind of wrong. She just hadn’t figured out what it was yet or seen any reason to avoid him—other than the danger of sabotaging a potential lucrative contract with Highland Life and Legends. She’d heard rumors about him. Moody. Loner. Asshole. So far, that’s all they’d been. Rumors.
So what was wrong with him? She’d never fallen for a legitimately “nice” guy before. She’d always paired up with jerks. It was like she had the word gullible stamped on her forehead and unsuspecting tattooed across her ass. Had to be a damaged recessive gene she had or something carried over from childhood. Abusive father. Cowering mother. Well…cowering and passive until Mom got a gun and brutally ended the abuse and then took her own life after she’d shot her husband. Joanna shook away the dark memories, forcing yet another chapter of her life back into lockdown.
“Maybe he’ll change his mind and not show up,” she mused aloud as she rounded the last corner and hit the final landing with both feet. “He doesn’t exactly look like he’d run—even if a bear was chasing him.”