He walked to the door, still wearing his jacket.
He turned in the French doors, his mouth a straight, grim
line, brows drawn down over his eyes. “Bye, Remi.”
When she heard the front door close, a sob tore from her
throat and her knees wobbled. She stumbled to the couch and sat down, tears
scalding her eyes and her cheeks. Then she lay down and sobbed. “It was
supposed to be fun,” she sobbed. “It was supposed to be fun.”
* * * * *
Much as Jason looked forward to working with the kids at
Abraham Lincoln Middle School, he dreaded going there Wednesday afternoon. He
was dying to see Remi, but he was terrified too. He pulled in to the parking
lot in his Jeep and sat there, hands on the wheel.
He wasn’t sure exactly what the hell had happened at her
place Monday night. Women. He damn sure didn’t get them. And why, why had he
made that lame confession about falling in love with her? Once again, he’d
blurted something out without thinking about the consequences of it. He’d spent
his whole life working on controlling his impulses and telling a woman he was
in love with her was one of the craziest impulses he’d ever had, with huge
fucking ramifications. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He’d never told any woman he loved her. Not even Brianne.
Well, okay, his mother, but that didn’t count.
He jumped out of the vehicle and walked toward the school.
As he neared the entrance, he saw Dominic pull into the parking lot. He worked
with a different class…maybe he could offer to trade today?
Nah. Couldn’t do that. He had to see how Ryan was doing this
week with
Tom Sawyer
. The kid reminded him of him at that age. Ryan was
going to face the same struggles he had too. It made him ache for the little
dude, but made him even more determined to try to help.
The kids and Remi were in her classroom. She was sitting at
her desk and she looked up at him when he walked in and she kept her face from
showing an expression, but she looked sad. There was no hiding that.
His heart squeezed. He tightened his mouth.
“Hey, Jase!” The kids all greeted him and crowded around him
and he forced a smile.
They got busy with their reading activities and he signed
all their forms listing all the books they’d read since last week. Some kids
were crazy readers—a list a mile long—others like Ryan had only read one book.
“You finished it?” He looked at Ryan, who nodded, trying not
to look pleased. “Good job, dude!” They bumped fists. “Let’s talk about it.”
Ryan was having a hard time today, Jason could tell. He was
unfocused, fidgety; Jason knew the signs. He tried a few times to draw him back,
but knew it wasn’t going to work today.
Then Remi came over, having noticed his struggles.
“Ryan,” she said. “What’s going on?”
No, no. Jason looked up at her and shook his head. He didn’t
want the kid to get in trouble for something he couldn’t help.
“Nothing.” Ryan shifted in his seat one way, then the other.
“D’you need to go for a drink of water?” she asked him. “I’ll
come with you.”
Jason watched them leave the class. He wanted to follow. He
was worried for Ryan. What was she going to say to him? A memory flashed
through his mind.
“Stupid. You’re just stupid. Would you just sit still and
pay attention.”
He remembered being taunted and teased by other kids,
remembered defending himself with his fists instead of his brains and the
shitloads of trouble he’d gotten into because of that, which hadn’t endeared
him to his teachers at all.
He surged to his feet and strode across the classroom,
leaving the kids on their own for a moment. He had to get to Ryan. He walked
into the hall and stopped. Remi and Ryan stood there and she had her arm around
his shoulders. “Did you take your medication today?” she asked softly.
Ryan said nothing, then shook his head.
“You have to take it,” she said. “Come on, Ryan. You know it’s
important.”
“I hate taking it.”
“We talked about this before. Remember? About how smart you
are and how the Ritalin helps you learn. If you miss out on stuff now, Ryan, it’ll
be so hard to get caught up. That’s what it’s there for.”
Jason stared at them, his heart thudding, his breath choppy.
She’d told the kid he was smart.
His heart expanded ‘til he thought it might burst out of his
chest. Jesus. He wasn’t
falling
in love with that woman. He was
in
love with her. Head over hockey skates in love with her.
Chapter Ten
Remi turned. “C’mon,” she said with a smile. “Let’s not
waste the time that Jason is here…” And then she looked up and saw him standing
in the door of her classroom and the look on his face made her knees fold. She
almost couldn’t walk.
“Hey, Jason.” Ryan went up to him. “I…I’ll try to pay
attention. Let’s talk about
Tom Sawyer
.”
Jason’s dark eyes met hers, catching her gaze and holding
it. An invisible thread tugged between them, drawing her to him. Why was he
looking at her like that? Like she’d sprouted wings out of her back or something.
He kept staring at her even as Ryan went back into the
class.
“What?” she hissed at him.
He said nothing, but followed her back into the class. He
sauntered over to Ryan and they started talking and she went back to the other
kids, but had a hard time dragging her gaze away from him.
Why had he followed her out into the hall? Why did he look
so pole-axed?
He was so patient with Ryan, even though Ryan was having a
bad day. He made the boy laugh at something, and her chest constricted. She
blinked and tried to focus on the other kids. Her throat felt tight and achy
and she just wanted this to be over, much as she loved spending time with her
students. She was going to go throw herself in Jason’s lap in a minute.
She tried to breathe, in and out, until finally the clock on
the wall said the reading program was over.
The kids were in no rush to leave, though, talking to Jason,
taking their time getting their belongings together. “Don’t forget your
homework!” she reminded one.
And Jason seemed in no hurry to leave either.
Finally the classroom was empty and quiet except for the two
of them.
Jason sat on one of the small desks. She hoped it would hold
his weight.
“Thanks,” she choked out. “Again. You were great with them.
Especially with Ryan.”
“He’s a good kid.”
He was still looking at her strangely. She put a hand to her
hair to make sure it wasn’t sticking up or something. “Yes, he is.”
“You told him he’s smart.”
She blinked. “Yes. He is. He’s a very smart kid.”
“He has ADHD.”
“Yes.” Her brow tightened. “How’d you know that?”
“Never mind. Remi.”
“What?”
“Don’t push me away, Remi.”
Her body went soft and hot and her ears buzzed. She
swallowed through a painfully tight throat. And then she was in his arms,
climbing up his body, kissing him, feeling the wetness of her tears on his
face. “Oh, Jase. How can this be?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. It just
is. Just let it happen.”
He held her face in his big hands and kissed her so gently,
so tenderly, she trembled. “Come home with me.”
“Yes.”
* * * * *
Remi could not believe Jason had talked her into this.
It was Saturday morning and she was getting off a plane at
LAX. Jason’s last road game had been last night against the Kings and he didn’t
have to be back in Chicago for a practice until Monday, so he’d convinced her
to fly to Los Angeles for a weekend with him.
Jesus. Who did things like that? Flying to L.A. for the
weekend.
Apparently she did.
She couldn’t even imagine how much the airfare had been. She
tried to put that out of her mind.
She walked out of the gate, pulling her small carryon, which
was all the luggage she’d brought, looking around for where to go. Follow the
crowd seemed the best plan. Everyone was heading for a set of long escalators.
This was all new to her—despite her parents having travelled the world, she
never had. New and scary and exciting because deep down inside she realized she’d
always wanted to travel. She’d never been able to, never had the money, never
been able to leave Kyle and Jasmine. Even when she’d had the opportunity when
they were older, there was always that fear that if something happened to her,
like what had happened to her parents, she’d be leaving them all on their own
and the fear of doing that to them had been paralyzingly powerful.
But here was she was in Los Angeles and her stomach quivered
with excitement. She turned her cell phone back on in case Jason tried to call
her as she rode down the escalator, then searched the crowd at the bottom for
him.
There he was. A smile broke across her face at the sight of
him, taller than everyone else, broader than everyone else, dressed in jeans
and a gray T-shirt. Bare arms in early April. Awesome.
He spotted her too, sending her a big grin, and caught her
at the bottom of the escalator in a big hug.
“Congratulations,” she said to him after he’d kissed the
wits out of her. “You won last night.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. He took her suitcase in one hand and her
hand in the other and started toward the exit. “I got two goals.”
“That’s all?” She lifted a brow at him mockingly, and he
growled.
“Whaddya mean, that’s all?” Then he laughed and lifted her
hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles.
They stepped out into sunshine and warm humidity. “Oh, that
feels nice,” she said.
“Bring a swimsuit?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There’s a nice pool at the hotel.”
He led the way across roads crazy with speeding cars, taxis,
limos and noisy shuttle buses to the parking garage. “I got a rental car for
the weekend,” he told her.
“This?” She stopped in front of the little black
convertible. She looked across the roof of the car at him and smiled.
“Yup. Sweet, huh?”
“Perfect.”
He put the top down and they were soon leaving LAX, the warm
wind tossing Remi’s hair around her head, and she sat there with a feeling of
warm contentment mingled with excited anticipation. As they drove along Century
Boulevard, her cell phone rang in her purse.
With a small frown, she pulled it out. Kyle.
“Hey,” she said into the phone.
“Hi, Remi,” Kyle said. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay.” She grinned at the thought that he had no idea
where she was just then. “What’s up?”
“I’ve got a bit of a problem.”
“What is it?”
“I kinda…missed an exam yesterday.”
She glanced at Jason, who was glancing at her as he drove. “What
do you mean, kind of? You missed it or you didn’t.”
“Okay, I missed it. It was totally an accident. My alarm
didn’t go off and I slept in.” His words picked up pace. “But if you could call
the dean and tell him that I was sick, they might let me rewrite it.”
“But you weren’t sick.”
“But if you say I was, they’ll let me rewrite it.”
She paused and stared at passing palm trees and billboards
and big hotels.
“You want me to lie about it for you?”
“Well…yeah. Please, Remi. If I can’t write the exam, I flunk
the whole course. I’ll have to do it all next year. That’s going to set me
back.”
Shit. It was hard enough paying his tuition without tacking
on an extra year—term? Whatever.
“I don’t know, Kyle.” She nibbled her lip. “Are you sure
that’s all I’d have to do?”
“Yeah. I think so. But you have to do it Monday.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m …uh…actually in Los Angeles.”
“Whaat! What are you doing there?”
She sent another sideways glance at Jason, this time
smiling. “I’m having a little weekend vacation.”
“Huh? Who’re you with? What’re you…”
“I’ll call you back later. Bye, Kyle.”
She snapped her phone shut.
“Your brother?”
“Mmm. He has a little problem he wants me to fix.”
She told him the story and he frowned.
“He does want you to lie for him. How old is he?”
“Eighteen.”
“Shit.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“When I was eighteen, I was earning my own living. I’d been
on my own for a couple of years.”
“Well. He’s in college. I still have to support him while he
goes to school.”
Jason’s mouth twisted. “I suppose. I didn’t go to
university.”
The touch of bitterness in his tone made her shift in her
seat to look at him.
“That’s okay,” she said. “You had other talents.”
He nodded and accelerated fast to merge onto the freeway.
“Didn’t you finish high school?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah, I did. I was playing major junior hockey and I was
living in Brandon. With another family. They made sure I went to school,
although it was kind hard keeping up with it when we were on the road a lot.
But I did finish. I even took a few university courses.”
“That’s good.” It must have been hard to combine school and
a hockey career at that young age. Kids that young weren’t ready to be living
away from home. Yet Jason seemed to have done okay. “Was it hard for your
parents to let you move away when you were so young?”
He glanced at her. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”
He tipped his head to one side. “It was just what we had to do. I guess it
probably was hard for them, but…my parents made a lot of sacrifices for all of
us so we could be successful.”
“That’s what parents do.”
“Yeah.”
She’d bet it had been a lot harder for his parents to let
him go than he even realized. “Where are we staying?” she asked, changing the
subject. Sunshine flashed and glinted off speeding chrome and glass surrounding
them on the freeway.