Lola tried to glance at her watch without letting the child with her see what she was doing. Laurel Grisham was absolutely never late picking up her daughter, and Lola didn’t want to worry the pint-sized angel in front of her. Grace was sweet, kind, and well-behaved; staying late with her wasn’t much of a burden. But it was concerning all the same. Laurel hadn’t called or texted and was half an hour late. It wasn’t like her. The center theoretically closed at four-thirty, and it was pushing five o’clock now. Everyone else had left, with Lola agreeing to stay and wait. If Laurel weren’t here in the next few minutes, Lola would have to start calling emergency numbers to try and get someone here. For the child’s safety, if nothing else.
Grace glanced up from the puzzle she was putting together, and the girl offered a small smile. “I know my mom is running late. You don’t have to pretend.”
Lola forced herself to smile reassuringly. “I’m sure she’s just stuck in traffic, kiddo, nothing much to worry about.”
“She’s not usually late. She’s very careful. She knows I worry a lot.” Grace spoke like she was repeating something she’d heard a bunch of times before, and Lola pushed herself to keep smiling, even as she worried whether she was starting to look unbalanced.
“Are you hungry?” Lola asked, feeling a strong need to change the subject. “I have some crackers in my desk, and we can have a little extra snack if you want?”
“No thanks,” Grace said.
The child was almost too well-behaved in situations like this. Lola had been working at the center for the past two years as part of the after-school team while she worked on getting her Masters in Education. She wanted to work with young kids who had learning disabilities and autism, helping them to understand and work with their differences instead of trying to extinguish them. She’d wished before that she had the authority to ask Laurel to get Grace evaluated. A child should be nervous in this situation, maybe even acting out because of feeling a little bit panicked. Parents were supposed to be their constants, and things absolutely happened, but a kid taking parental mistakes and problems in stride all too often indicated that their home life was not as happy as it might have looked on the surface.
Grace was an exceptionally pretty child; she had light brown skin with a reddish undertone, spattered dark freckles over her nose and cheeks, and deep brown hair that fell down to her shoulders in bouncy corkscrew curls. Her mother had much darker skin than her daughter, but the same freckles and curls. Lola was all too aware of the tendency of social and educational workers to stereotype African American families as less likely to be well supported and successful, but she also knew that getting a dark-skinned child, especially a dark-skinned girl, screened for any kind of developmental disability, would be difficult to impossible.
Lola took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. One late pickup, even without a call, was not a reason to get worried. God knew there were other parents within the center who were much less considerate. Her priority right now was to make sure Grace was okay.
She was about to suggest that they go outside to play for a little bit — the October weather in New England was crisp, but not cold, and it was still light out. There was something depressing about being in a school after everyone had started to go home, and creepy, but before she got the words out, she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. A big engine, too, from the sound of it. She walked over and glanced out — Laurel drove a small hybrid, but this sounded much older and rumbled more. She glanced out and saw a car from her dreams. A 1968 Gran Sport 400 with a convertible top, painted in coal black. When she was a kid, her dad had been super into collecting muscle cars, and she’d sat on a stack of tires and watched him work on engines and transmissions. He’d never put his hands on a Gran Sport, though; he’d played mostly with old Chevys and Fords.
There was a fantasy in the back of her mind about being eaten out in a Gran Sport, her feet up on the dashboard, which absolutely did not go with her teacher-uniform of leggings, mid length skirt, and boxy pullover sweater, but she was soaking wet just fantasizing about it.
And then the driver side door opened, and her fantasy got even more explicit. A tall man got out of the car. His features were notably handsome, with black hair that was undercut on the bottom and shaggy long on top. He wore jeans that were caked with dust, and a black T-shirt with the logo of a local garage emblazoned on the chest. He moved with a loose-limbed grace that made her think of a dancer, and he looked like a walking bad-boy daydream. If he were walking into a bar, Lola would’ve thrown herself at him; though, she had to admit that him walking towards her school made her want to lock herself and Grace into the closet.
But Grace was standing up on her chair, clear excitement on her face. “Uncle Gunn!” she shouted, waving frantically. The windows were open just a bit, and the man must have heard Grace’s call; his attention focused on their window, and his expression relaxed just a little bit. Lola felt the butterflies in her own stomach relax as well.
“You know him?” she asked Grace, just for protocol’s sake. The girl nodded eagerly. Lola turned to meet him at the door.
“Hi,” he said as soon as she appeared. He didn’t try to step forward or inside; she liked that he seemed to know what was up. “I’m here to pick up Grace. My sister-in-law said I was on the emergency list?”
“Yes,” Lola replied. She’d checked the list twenty minutes earlier when she was still trying to decide what to do; there definitely was a Gunner Grisham listed. “I just have to ask for ID.” She tried not to stare at the way his T-shirt stretched across his clearly well-defined pecs. And biceps. And the impressive definition in his forearms. That would be rude. Of course, maybe it was rude not to look? When someone was this gorgeous, wasn’t it a crime to remain neutral? Down, girl.
“Oh, absolutely,” he said, reaching around to his back pocket. She noticed that he wasn’t exactly being sparing with the up-and-down glances, either. Which was a shame, really. If he’d seen her at a club, she might have appeared interesting — worn out jeans or a leather mini, a metal T-shirt she’d inherited from her dad and cut down to fit her, winged eyeliner and lipstick to match. It would have been a lot more tempting. Right now, she probably looked as cute as his mother. His grandmother.
“I’m really sorry Laurel was running late,” he said, pulling his wallet out of a back pocket and opening it to show her a driver’s license. She looked it over quickly, then passed it back.
“Come on in,” she said, pulling the door wide. He gave her a wide smile, but there was something off about it. Something tense. Grace was still in the classroom, gathering her things, and Lola took a moment to step in just a little closer. He didn’t exactly flinch, but his entire body came into total awareness. That was interesting. It didn’t seem like a sexual reaction, but it wasn’t really guarded, either. She made herself focus. Not on the thin layer of hair she could see at the neck of his T-shirt, or the subtle interplay of muscles in his neck. Those were clubbing thoughts, not working thoughts.
“Is Laurel all right? Do you need me to prep Grace for anything?”
His eyes were wary, but not unkind. “I’ll take care of it.” He’d said the words in a firm tone that brooked no argument. Lola resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. She’d grown up with a million aunts in the kitchen who wielded spoons like swords; he might be able to cow other women with that kind of alpha male attitude, but he’d have to level up if he wanted to put Lola in her place. Of course, again, he was probably thinking of her as a kind of quirky school teacher, not a woman who was working her ass off to put herself through school and try to make a difference in her community. She tried to see herself from his point of view, and it was all too easy. She looked like a Spanish girl – pale brown skin, dark amber eyes, curly hair that was too wild to contain in the ponytail she’d used to pull it back this morning – trying desperately to pass for white in her gonna-fit-in-I’m-not-scary clothes. She looked like a damn clone, and she knew it. And he stood out like a sore thumb, and he did it on purpose.
She forced herself to back down. Verbal sparring was her favorite form of foreplay, but that wasn’t how things were going to end today. She was at work, and she was a professional. God knew there were plenty of part-time teachers at different centers around the city who were eager to make the leap from after school care to nanny, and from nanny to trophy wife, or at least kept mistress, but that had never been Lola’s game. Not that she cared, if that was how other people made their way through the world; they weren’t hurting her, and she wasn’t hurting them. But now that she’d let the thought in, she couldn’t shake the idea of this whipcord strong man pressing her up against a wall, pulling up her skirt and pushing down her leggings, plundering her body and finding out just how wet she already was.
“See something you like?” he asked, his voice lower and more dangerous.
“It’s all right,” she replied, and his mouth widened into a grin. He lost that gonna-hurt-you appearance when he grinned. He looked her age all of a sudden - mid-twenties - and interested. But he shut down the expression as fast as he let it out.
“Another time,” he said. “But right now, I gotta take care of the girl.”
“Of course,” Lola said, stepping back. She could feel heat flooding her skin, and wondered if he’d notice her blush. She was way out of line, and if he complained to Laurel, it could mean her job. She needed to be more careful. “This way.” She stepped back into the classroom, and then her heart absolutely stopped. The room was empty.
***
Gunner forced himself to breathe as the pretty teacher turned away from him, her hips swaying gently as she walked. He didn’t know who she thought she was fooling, dressing all neat and prim, but he could sense the wild girl underneath the layers. She was at home here, that much was clear, and he admired her for that, but she would have been just as at home dancing on a table, slinging booze behind a bar, or bent over a table riding his hand while he slapped the shit out of her round, plump ass. God, she was a looker, and she kept looking at him.
It wasn’t that he lacked female company when he wanted it. But having your high school sweetheart die on you, especially in a gory and tragic fashion, just kind of sucked the will away. Especially because of Grace. She was his top priority, his number one secret, and there was no way he could have a serious relationship with a woman and fail to tell her about Grace. There would be too many giveaways; too many little things. He couldn’t even figure out what all of them would be.
He’d sworn to Sam that he’d give up riding when the baby was born, and he’d gone out for one last ride with Horse, just after Sam was supposed to get home from the hospital. And she’d gone out for a gallon of milk, and a car had jumped the curb while she was walking in, and crashed into her. She’d hemorrhaged, badly. She’d already bled pretty bad after the baby, and the way the EMTs explained it, they just couldn’t get her to stop, because it was all internal, and happening too fast. She’d bled out at the scene.
He couldn’t give up riding after that, but he could keep the baby safe. The car hadn’t stopped after it had hit her, and no one had ever been fingered for it. Her story was tragic, but ultimately, it was easier for the cops to just shrug their shoulders at another dead black girl than it was to really investigate and find out what had happened to her. So, Laurel moved to town, and Grace became hers. The kid called Laurel, Mommy, and called him, Uncle Gunn, and he was okay with it. He wouldn’t be any good in her life as her father. He couldn’t keep her safe that way. But he still wanted to be close to her, and how could he ever expect a woman to measure up to that when he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell her what was going on?
So, he fucked a few women here and there, always keeping things safe, and he used his hands more often than not. No risk of causing himself more problems that way. But this girl in front of him, she caught his attention in a way that no one else had in recent memory. Maybe it was because she was close to Grace? Or maybe he was just on high alert, worried about what might have happened to Laurel. Both were very possible.
And then the teacher froze, and every nerve in his body fired at once. He didn’t even have to hear her speak to know that something was incredibly wrong.
“Grace?” she called, and there was something very wrong in her voice. He stepped up close, almost expecting to see a man with a gun to the little girl’s head, but the room was empty. Somehow, that was much, much worse.
The teacher moved into the room, and he followed her.
“Grace?” he called. “It’s Uncle Gunn. Where you hiding, baby?” But then he stood, helpless. He didn’t know this room, the exits or entrances, and his desire to start tearing things apart wasn’t going to help them figure out what was going on. Maybe the child was playing hide and seek? Maybe she’d needed to pee? There was a backpack on a table, and he recognized it from Laurel’s house.
“Grace!” the teacher called out again, and her voice was firm now, instead of nervous. “Where are you hiding?” The teacher opened doors to small bathrooms in the back of the classroom, then opened another door to what looked like a bank of offices. “Where did you go, sweetheart? Your uncle is here for you.”
Gunner stood still, his hands clenching and unclenching at his thighs as the pretty young teacher turned back to him, panic in her eyes.
“She’s gone,” the woman said, and he was already reaching for his phone. “I have no idea—”
He held up his hand for silence as he tapped Horse’s contact number; he was surprised that it worked. He watched as she went to the small backpack and started to sort through it. Looking for anything out of the ordinary, maybe? He wouldn’t know what should and shouldn’t be there, and holy shit that twisted him up more than he expected, so much that when Horse came on the line with his typical “Yap?” Gunner choked for a moment before he could speak.
“Colton,” he said, knowing that using the man’s given name would get his attention in a way that nothing else really would. “Shit just got worse.”