Chapter Two –Backup Plan #2
She didn’t respond, just stared at me, and I couldn’t help the irritation that rose.
She’d made assumptions about me. Fine, I could do the same.
She was likely just another fancy-assed woman looking down on people who worked with their hands.
And yet, if that was the case, why the hell would she be working at Harrington Ranch, surrounded by people whose jobs were all sorts of manual labor, from housekeepers to ranch hands?
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. She didn’t matter.
I’d promised myself years ago that I wouldn’t waste my time with people who looked down on me, my hobbies, or my family.
I jogged down her steps and made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder.
The sun shimmered through the red and gold leaves of the large black oak, and the light hit her hair, highlighting the same fiery colors of the leaves.
Damn, she was beautiful. Maybe even more beautiful than I’d thought Eden was the first time I’d met her in person.
These days, all that beauty was a turn-off.
I’d had my fill of it. My kid had had his fill of it.
Experience told me the external shell rarely matched what was inside. In fact, beauty was good at hiding darkness.
I was halfway down her walk when I tossed back, “Give me a call when you get the glass in.”
I didn’t wait for her response. Didn’t wait to see if she’d apologize for jumping to the wrong conclusion about my son and me.
It scalded me that she thought I’d laid a hand on him—the boy I loved with my entire damn soul.
The child I loved so much I’d given up my career and the captain’s role I’d been offered to return to the tiny town I’d been raised in, all in hopes of somehow giving him back his childhood.
Hoping I could free the sweet baby I’d rocked to sleep from the layers of sullen, sneaky teenager he'd cloaked himself in. Luca was my world. My entire reason for breathing most days. I’d cut off a hand to keep him from being hurt ever again.
But what could I do when he was the one hurting himself these days?
I stalked to the sheriff’s SUV I’d driven home, grabbed Luca’s backpack that he’d left at school, and mounted my porch steps.
As I went to open the door, my mind flashed to the moment when Andie had opened hers. Those stormy eyes, the way she’d pounded her finger into my chest. Just knowing she’d been prepared to defend my son, a boy she’d scarcely met and who’d shattered her window, was the exact opposite of a turn-off.
She’d looked like an avenging angel. A fervent defender of the innocent.
But for all I knew, she was a criminal. I’d seen hundreds of people in an interview room wearing similar righteous indignation, only to come up with hard evidence of their guilt.
When I shut our front door with enough force to rattle the windows, Luca startled from his spot on the couch where he’d settled with the TV remote.
“You’re pretty funny if you think you’ll be watching television anytime in the next decade,” I grunted.
He tossed the remote onto the square coffee table, adding another scratch to the already dinged and dented surface. Each scratch told a story of Luca’s childhood—days spent banging on it with a variety of toys. Marks that brought back happy memories.
The modern, angular table didn’t fit in our cottage-like home any better than the rest of the furniture I’d built in my woodshop back in LA. But it would do for now, until I had the time to make something new. Something that fit the elegant woodwork of the Craftsman house.
Luca crossed his arms over his chest. “So what’s the verdict, Jailor? Solitary confinement?”
“For Pete’s sake, Luca.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “You let her think I hit you. After you broke an antique window that’s likely going to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to replace.”
Regret flickered for half a second before defiance took over. “I offered to work it off. And if you’d let me use the money Mom gave me, I could just pay for it.”
A tiny sliver of hope wafted through me. At least he’d tried to make amends, but instead of opening myself up to yet another discussion about the size of my son’s bank account, I headed that off with a reminder of what else he’d done today.
“You skipped class. Again. Why would you renege on our deal?” I asked quietly.
“Fucking P.E. I get a better workout on my board than kicking some damn ball in a circle on the blacktop.”
“We’ve had multiple discussions about your cussing.”
He rolled his eyes. “As if you don’t cuss.”
“And as I’ve said before, I’m an adult. But I also told you I’d stop swearing too. It was part of our agreement.”
“It was a shi—stupid agreement. Just like that class is stupid.”
“What really happened today, Luc? What sent you running? You wanted the half-pipe I agreed to build in the backyard if you could get through one month without skipping.”
When he didn’t answer, I crossed the living room and sat in the armchair facing him. “Principal Garrett said there was an altercation at lunch. Was that why you left?”
Luca let out a noise that was half laugh, half disdain.
We sat there in silence. While I was good at waiting out suspects, staring them down for nearly an hour to make them talk, my son usually beat me at my own game. I broke first.
“Help me understand what’s going on in that thick head of yours. Talk to me.”
Luca stood up, dug in his back pocket, and came out with his phone.
I already had it locked down, no internet, no fun apps.
He had the ability to call or text his grandparents and me, and that was it.
It also had the Find Family app installed, so I could locate him if he kept the damn thing turned on.
He tossed the phone on the coffee table, and I tried not to wince at the sound, hoping it wasn’t as broken as Andie’s window.
“I know the drill. No television. No Xbox. No internet. No anything.” He sulked toward the hall. “You plan on taking my comic books away too? Or can I keep those?”
Part of me wanted to push him. To somehow bust through the wall he’d installed between us. But the other part of me knew I had to let him take it down when he was ready.
“Homework,” I said, pointing to the backpack I’d dropped at the door. “That’s what you need to do right now. And a nice long letter to Principal Garrett and Mr. Schneider, apologizing for ditching class again.”
He muttered something under his breath, but he still picked up the backpack before stalking down the hall.
When his bedroom door slammed shut, I leaned back, resting my head on the cushions, staring at the ceiling. What the hell was I going to do now?