Chapter Seven
Tanner couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he parked his car and ambled into the center on Monday morning. Sunday was Mary’s day off, and he and Hayley had spent the day together. They swung on the swing set, kicked a soccer ball around the yard. Shoot, he’d even put up with her slathering makeup all over his face and painting his nails.
The polish had come off last night after Hayley had collapsed into bed exhausted, of course. He would bear no amount of ribbing from his co-workers and the kids alike if he showed up with bright pink nails.
But every minute of his time with Hayley was worth it. Hearing her childish giggles, seeing the easy smile on her face. It was hard to imagine the shadows that often haunted her when the pure happiness radiated from her face like it had yesterday.
But now that he was here, it was time to hunker down and catch up on what he’d neglected this weekend. Sure, he knew as well as everyone else that he couldn’t be expected to work all the time, but that didn’t stop the issues from piling up when he actually enjoyed his down time. Teenage emergencies don’t take off for the weekend, so there were many times he couldn’t as well.
But things had been quiet at the center since the call about Sandra being caught with the robbers.
He slid his key into the lock and pulled the glass door open.
He’d only taken two steps inside before he pulled up short. What the hell!
Red spray paint cut a swath across each of the walls in the social room, ugly words and sentiments scrawled across the surface that he and the kids had worked hard to paint. More paint marred the sofas and chairs that sat in another part of the open room. They had been used and weren’t the greatest, but they gave the kids a place to hang out and talk. The cushions had been slashed, and the stuffing had been pulled out and thrown around the room.
The side window had been broken out, and glass was all over the floor. That must have been how they’d gotten in. The baseball bat that lay on the floor was the likely culprit.
His hands fisted at his sides as a metallic taste built on his tongue. He shook his head against the ringing in his ears. Who in the hell could have done this? They didn’t have any enemies. Jason’s House was the place where teens felt safe to go, to be themselves when they didn’t feel that way at home. Why would anyone want to do this? His heart lurched. All of the hard work that had gone into the center had been trashed in one night.
A gasp sounded behind him.
“Oh my God!” Monica’s hand landed on his. “Who did this?”
He wrapped his arm around her trembling shoulder. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“What are we going to do?” Monica straightened and swiped under her eyes. She loved the center and the kids they helped as much as he did. This had to be killing her, too.
Tanner inched further into the center, stepping over piles of books that had been pulled off the shelves and thrown around the room. “We’re going to start by filing a report with the police and then cleaning up this mess. The kids need this place, and we can’t let this shut us down. Let me put my bag down and we’ll get to work.”
They would find out who did this, but for right now, the kids came first, and they could not find the center like this.
Two hours later, they had made statements to the deputies and the walls were covered with black dust from where they’d checked for fingerprints. The sheriff’s department didn’t have a lot of confidence that they’d find who had broken in, but if anything else happened, they had evidence.
He and Monica collected the books and slid them back onto the shelves, those that weren’t trashed beyond use, at least. The side window had been boarded up, a temporary barrier until they could locate the funds to get it repaired. The whole time they were cleaning, Tanner ran the budget through his mind and wondered how he could shuffle the accounts around to replace what they couldn’t fix.
And pondered who could have done this to the center.
“What about a mural?” Monica’s words interrupted his budget calculations.
“What?”
She was staring at the wall that bore the majority of the spray paint, her hands on her hips and her feet spread wide. He’d seen her like this, when she had made up her mind. When Monica was determined, there was no stopping her. Cleaning up the center had helped her get past her distress and be part of the solution. Hell, it worked for the kids, so it might as well work for them, too.
She waved her arm at the damaged wall. “You know how artistic Marcus is. I bet he could design a great mural for this wall. We could get all the kids involved. The best way for them to appreciate what they have is for them to work for it.”
He slung his arm over her shoulder. “Aw, Monica, I think I’m rubbing off on you. A mural is a great idea. I’ll get some paint so we can prime the wall and cover the spray paint. I’m sure Marcus would love to draw us something fantastic.”
Tanner kept his voice calm so Monica couldn’t tell how rattled the ransacking had him. And it would do no good for him to be upset when the kids arrived after school. This was a refuge for them, and their emotions would run high when they saw the damage for themselves. Having Tanner upset would just pile on to their distress. But that didn’t stop his stomach from wrenching at the thought that someone they knew, someone he had reached out to, had repaid them in this way.
* * *
Izzy stared at the dark and silent phone sitting on her desk. Tanner hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t stopped by the studio. Hayley’s class wasn’t until later today, so he hadn’t even used that as an excuse, either. Except Izzy could admit she wanted to be the reason he stopped by.
It had been three days. Maybe her expectations were unrealistic. She could be out of practice. No, correct that, she was out of practice. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d waited by the phone for a guy to call. Probably back in high school. Not that she’d had much time to date in high school. Her homework and the hours she spent in the dance studio at her fine arts high school in Philadelphia didn’t leave much time for a social life.
And then there was her overbearing father. She never wanted to have friends over for fear of what he might say or do if he was drunk. Which was most of the time. He was what she had come to know as a functioning alcoholic. He went to work and came home, but he couldn’t go a day without a drink.
That is, the days he came home. He didn’t always. And now Izzy knew why. Her father hadn’t been faithful to her mother for most of their marriage. Izzy had been blissfully unaware of her father’s indiscretions until the meeting last month with her father’s lawyer and the revelation of a half-sister none of them had known about. Rachel. That was her name.
What else didn’t she know about her father?
Izzy picked up her phone and pulled up the photo that had been sent to her. Rachel’s face smiled back at her, her arm comfortably wrapped around a man wearing a sheriff’s uniform. Her boyfriend, Izzy had come to find out. This was the only photo she had of her sister—her half-sister. She studied it for a moment. If she looked closely, she could see her father in Rachel’s eyes. In the way she tilted her head like he did when he was thinking.
She and her siblings hadn’t discussed their new half-sister since the lawyer had dropped the bombshell. It was probably time for them to do just that.
Izzy dashed off a quick group text to her siblings. Family meeting at my house tomorrow night. 9pm.
Her classes would be done for the night and that should be late enough that none of them could refuse. This information had been eating at her since last month, and she needed to know what the others thought.
She had received the last of the confirmations from her siblings when the chimes of her ringtone filled the room. Tanner’s name flashed across the screen. She dropped the phone, barely catching it in her other hand. She flipped it around and swiped across the screen. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
Tanner’s smooth voice was deep and thick, like hot caramel flowing over cold ice cream. She nearly melted into her chair. Her face grew hot and she waved her hand in front of it.
“Izzy, Are you there?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” That was real slick. “How are you?”
He sighed on the other end of the phone. She could almost picture him running his hand through his thick, brown hair. Or maybe he was laying back in a chair, shirt off, a sprinkling of hair covering his chest and trailing down to…
What in the heck was she doing?
“I’m good. It’s been a rough few days at work.”
“I don’t even know what you do.” That right there should have set off alarm bells. She shouldn’t be fantasizing about a man she barely knew. In all the time they’d talked at the movie, he didn’t talk about his job.
“I run a teen center called Jason’s House.” All previous signs of exhaustion and frustration disappeared, and a new energy laced Tanner’s voice. “We help at-risk teens by offering them a safe place to stay off the streets. We have tutors who work with them on their schoolwork and counselors so they have someone other than their parents to talk to.”
Wow. She had no idea. Just listening to him talk, to learn all the good he was doing for the kids, made her like him even more. As if that were even possible. “That sounds really neat. I’d like to visit sometime, if that’s okay?”
“I’d like that.” He paused for a moment, and Izzy wondered if he regretted his response. “But I didn’t call to talk about my job.”
“What did you call about?” Izzy couldn’t help but tease him a little. She had forgotten what it felt like to have a crush on someone, the butterflies that took up residence in her stomach when she thought about him or talked to him. She could feel the heat rising on her cheeks. She hadn’t blushed as much as she had since she met Tanner in a long time. Curse of her fair skin—she couldn’t hide anything.
“I was thinking.” He paused again. “Does your offer still stand to help us pick out a dog?”
Izzy’s heart fell. He wasn’t asking her out, after all. But still, this was a chance to spend time with him. “Absolutely. When did you want to go?”
“I figure that you have classes every night during the week, and my work hours are so unpredictable, I thought we could go on Saturday.”
“Saturday works.” She couldn’t help but be disappointed that all he wanted was help choosing a pet.
“And then… I thought you and I could go out to dinner. That is, if you want to.” He huffed out a breath and she stifled a chuckle. “Daggone it, I’m doing this all wrong.”
“Doing what?”
“Asking you out to dinner.” He drew in a deep breath, and she held her own as she waited for his next words. “Would you like to go to dinner with me on Saturday night?”
She let out the breath that burned her lungs “I’d love to. But… what about Hayley?”
He chuckled. “She’s not invited. Well, she’s going to the animal shelter with us, but then she’ll stay with Mary so you and I can go out.”
“Who’s Mary?” Come to think of it, Izzy didn’t know who took care of Hayley. He talked about working long hours, and he’d been out at FitzGerald’s a couple of weekends ago. Where was Hayley all those times?
“Mary’s our live-in nanny.”
“Live in?” Izzy tried not to let her mind wander where it shouldn’t until she gathered more information.
“Yeah, she’s wonderful and Hayley loves her.”
This wasn’t helping. Izzy didn’t like the subtle gnawing in her gut. If he’d asked her out, surely she had this all wrong. God, she was a mess.
“She’s like a grandmother to Hayley. My Dad’s in Colorado, and her other grandparents moved to Florida.”
A grandmother? Boy, Izzy blew that completely out of proportion. She couldn’t help her suspicious nature. Between Erik and the recent knowledge of her father’s indiscretions, she no longer knew who to trust. “That sounds wonderful.”
“Does Saturday work for you? I figure we can make a day of it. Shelter in the morning and then you can go home and change and we can go to Willow Creek Inn for dinner.”
Eep. Willow Creek. One of the nicer restaurants in Cedar Hill. She hadn’t been since she’d moved back home, but she remembered celebrating birthdays there with her family. She loved getting dolled up in her pretty dress and wearing makeup. And having Daddy sitting beside her as she blew out her candles. That was one of the few good memories she had of her father. It was so easy to forget the good for all the bad. “That sounds great. Should I meet you at the shelter?”
“Yeah, how about ten? Then, if we find a dog we like, I can take it home and get it settled with Hayley and Mary before dinner.”
“It’s a date, then.”
“It’s a date. And Izzy?”
“Huh?”
“I can’t wait to see you again.”
He clicked off before she could respond, his final words hanging in the air. Her stomach flipped and her heart kicked up a rapid beat.
She had a date.
She sat there for a long time after the call was over, the phone still in her hand, and her mouth gaping open.
“What’s going on? Izzy, are you okay?” Natalie’s hand waved in front of Izzy’s face.
She dropped the phone on the desk and shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“You were staring at your phone. Did something happen?”
“He asked me out.”
“What?!” Natalie bounced up and down. “That’s so exciting. When?”
“Saturday night. We’re going to the shelter in the morning so I can help him pick out a dog to adopt, and then he’s taking me to Willow Creek.”
“You know what this means?”
Izzy eyed her friend suspiciously. “No, what?”
“It’s time for manis and pedis. We’ll go tomorrow during the day, before classes. How about it?”
Izzy had been so busy getting the studio ready that she’d hardly had a chance to think of anything else. A little girl time sounded like just what she needed. “You’re on.”