“I actually have a great plan,” Joey said with a firm nod, hoping to give credence to whatever lie she was about to come up with.
“And I can’t wait to hear it,” Reed said, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the chair as he waited for her to start talking.
“Well, I haven’t got all the details worked out yet,” Joey mumbled before she shifted, cleared her throat and threw him a hopeful smile that had him pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Then just the basics will do,” he said, gesturing for her to get on with it.
“The basics…” she murmured back.
“So, I’m just going to assume that you don’t have a plan,” he said, sighing heavily as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face.
“You would be assuming correctly,” Joey said, nodding solemnly.
“You can stay here,” he said, already standing up and heading for the door.
“Really?” she couldn’t help but ask as she laid there, trying not to get her hopes up.
“Rent’s due on the first, try to stay out of trouble, and don’t kill the little bastard,” Reed said, and with that, he was gone, leaving her laying there, wondering what had possessed her to agree to this.
Then again, since Reed hadn’t actually bothered to ask her if she wanted to stay, she couldn’t really say that she’d agreed to anything. Not that she was going to refuse this opportunity to spend the next year living with her childhood nemesis, because she wasn’t, not when the alternative meant living in a hotel.
She’d just like it duly noted.
Chapter 14
“This can’t be happening,” Reed thought as he sat there, rubbing his hands down his face and wondering where he went wrong.
“That’s exactly what I said,” the reason that he needed a drink said with a solemn nod as she helped herself to another piece of candy.
For a moment, he could only sit there, running several questions through his head only to ask, “Why?”
Blinking up at him, Jen said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Keeping his glare locked on her, Reed gestured toward the large window to his left that overlooked the front office where Mrs. Stone was currently curled up in the fetal position on a stretcher as it was pushed toward the front doors and the ambulance waiting to take her to the hospital.
“Oh,” Jen said with a thoughtful frown, “that.”
“Yes, that,” he said dryly as he shifted his gaze to the reason that one of his substitute teachers was being rushed to the hospital. When the little bastard saw Reed looking at him, he rolled over onto his side and flicked his tail all while he glared at Reed, daring him to try to move him off his desk.
“Didn’t you go home for the day?” Jen asked with a nervous smile, trying to change the subject as she reached over to scratch the little bastard behind the ear, eliciting a purr as the little gray bastard rubbed his small head against her hand.
“Jen,” he said, sighing her name heavily as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face while he sat there, trying to figure out what he was going to do with her.
“Yes?” she asked, blinking innocently at him.
“Is there a reason why you felt the need to bring a kitten to school?” Reed asked just as the little bastard unleashed his claws and cleaned them one by one, all while staring at Reed.
“I felt that a public education should be available to everyone,” Jen said going for a smile until she saw the glare on his face and then settled for shifting in her chair, clearing her throat and adding, “However, if I had known that Mrs. Stone was allergic to cats I probably would have looked into making other arrangements.”
“Why is there a cat in my school?”
“That’s a really good question,” Jen said, nodding in agreement as she grabbed another piece of candy and popped it in her mouth while he sat there, narrowing his eyes on her.
“What did you do?” he asked, sighing heavily as the little bastard finished cleaning his claws and settled for flicking his tail at him.
“You’re really going to blame me for this?” Jen asked, shaking her head with a long, drawn-out sigh. “This makes me so sad.”
“I’m sure it does,” Reed murmured absently as he sent a text to his brother.
Keep an eye on the little brat.
“How did the cat get in your bag?” Reed asked as he sat there, really wishing that he’d taken the rest of the day off, but that would have meant spending more time with Joey and he honestly wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He also wasn’t going to think about her, he reminded himself. He definitely wasn’t wondering what she was doing right now, he told himself as he shot a glare at his phone, wondering why the little bastard hadn’t texted him back yet.
“I have no idea,” Jen said with a shrug as Reed forced his attention back to the little pain in the ass in front of him.
“She just crawled into your bag?”
“It would seem that way,” Jen said, nodding as she reached over to pet the kitten that was now fast asleep on top of the stack of resumes that he’d already decided to pass on.
“What are we going to do, Jen?” Reed asked even though he already knew what he had to do, but he wasn’t ready to give up on her yet.
“Pretend that this never happened?” she suggested with a hopeful smile that wasn’t going to help.
Not this time.
“And the cat?” Reed asked as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face, wondering when he was going to catch a break.
“Could really use a good home,” she said, nodding solemnly as he glanced down at his phone and saw his brother’s reply.
Happily.
---
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Joey said because really, there was nothing else to say.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she thought as she gave up searching the puddle by the rock that she’d tripped over last night, stood up, stumbled, and headed toward the next puddle, determined to find her keys. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least looking for her keys gave her something to do. It would also give her a way to hunt down a Dr. Pepper, she thought with a wistful sigh as she knelt down by the next puddle, reached over and—
Fell face first in the cold puddle with a groan.
Pushing herself up, she reached up and wiped away the muddy water with a nod, because this was fine. She could handle mud, she told herself as she reached back into the puddle, determined to find her keys and…
Well, she’d figure it out later.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but for right now it was all she had.
With that in mind, she did one last sweep of the puddle before turning her attention to the one that she was almost eighty percent sure that she’d fallen into last night. Pushing back her hair, she focused on searching for those keys. Five more puddles later and she sighed with relief when her hand closed around the old Eeyore keychain that her brother had given her when she was six.
Relieved that something was finally going her way, she grabbed her keys, brushed herself off and headed to her car only to slip and fall on her ass along the way. Trying not to think about how many times she’d fallen on her ass in the past twenty-four hours, she stumbled the rest of the way to her SUV and-
“Umm, what are you doing?” she couldn’t help but ask as she once again found herself thrown over Reed’s shoulder and heading toward the old path.
“Finishing our discussion,” Reed said as she resigned herself to another interrogation even as she had to wonder, “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Yes,” Reed bit out.
“Okay then,” Joey said, not really knowing what else there was to say.
“Where’s Matt?” he asked, shifting her on his shoulder while she hung there, really hoping that he wasn’t going to make a habit of this.
“In the barn looking for a bed,” she said as she reached up and wiped the mud out of her face even as she resigned herself to another shower without her favorite tea tree shampoo.
“Good,” Reed said firmly and before she got a chance to say anything he asked, “What are your degrees in?”