Taryn wasn’t sure if she meant mother or nice, but either way, she was willing to comply. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I should kill Larissa. This is all her fault.”
“It is and she’s apologized to Angel more than once. She’s learned her lesson. Leave her alone.”
Consuelo studied her. “Defending one of your own?”
“Yes.” It was one thing for Taryn to snap at Larissa, but very different for someone outside the family.
“Fine.” Consuelo stood. “You know I hate this, right?”
Taryn wasn’t sure if she meant the invasion by the town, the “niceness” of it all or the expectations she wasn’t sure she could handle. Regardless, she nodded.
“I do know. And you’re going to get through it.”
“I hope so. Because if I don’t, I’m not going down alone.”
Taryn laughed. “That’s the spirit.”
* * *
A WEEK AFTER the snakebite, Angel was feeling back to normal. Larissa had apologized so many times he was officially avoiding her—which was tough. Fool’s Gold was a small town.
Now, as he crossed the street to head to a meeting, he looked both ways. Not for cars, but for a specific blonde who still blamed herself for the snakebite.
He managed to make it to the building he wanted without an encounter. Something he considered a win. He went inside and gave the receptionist his name. A couple of minutes later, he was shown back to Raoul Moreno’s office.
Raoul had moved to Fool’s Gold a few years before. He was a former football player who now spent much of his life helping disadvantaged inner-city kids with his summer camp—End Zone for Kids—along with scholarships. Most of the latter were funded through his Pro-Am golf tournaments.
When Raoul had scheduled the meeting, he’d refused to say what it was about. Angel had read up on him. His training had taught him that a thorough background investigation could make the difference in any situation. But he hadn’t found anything that would indicate why Raoul wanted a meeting. His company was too small to benefit from a corporate bonding experience at CDS. Even if that was his point, he would have contacted Ford, who was in charge of sales. If he was looking to connect with more of his kind, Angel thought with a grin, he should have gone to Score.
He walked into the building and found Raoul sitting alone in an open space. There were plenty of desks but no private offices. He could see a glassed-in conference area in the back.
Raoul rose from his desk and walked toward Angel. The other man was tall, with dark hair and eyes. He had the easy walk of a man comfortable with himself. Raoul was in decent shape and could probably handle himself on the streets, but in a real fight, he’d go down like the civilian he was.
“Thanks for coming,” Raoul said.
“You made it sound important.”
“It is.”
The two men shook hands. Raoul led the way to the conference room and motioned for Angel to take a seat. Raoul did the same and turned on a small laptop. A permanent screen was on the opposite wall.
Raoul leaned toward him, his forearms resting on the desk. “You know about my program? End Zone for Kids?”
Angel nodded. “Inner-city kids come here for a couple of weeks in the summer. They get to be away from the stress at home and live in nature. Kids from Fool’s Gold go to a day camp. They get to know each other, see life from others’ perspectives. They all sing ‘Kumbaya’ at the end.”
Raoul grinned. “Something like that. Without the singing. This is our fourth year. We’re expanding the program all the time. I had the idea that eventually we’d turn it into a year-round school. Maybe offer science classes or something. That plan was derailed when one of the local elementary schools burned down.”
Angel thought about his encounters with Mayor Marsha. “Let me guess. They took over the facility until the new school was rebuilt.”
“Yeah. So we focused on the summer camp. Now there’s a new school and I have my camp back. I’m still not sure what to do with it in the winter months. Kids today face a lot of problems we never did.”
Angel nodded. “Sure. When we went home, we could escape. With social media, that’s not possible. There’s constant contact. Nothing gets forgotten.”
“Bullying doesn’t end at three.” Raoul studied him. “That’s what I want to focus on first. An antibullying campaign. There are a lot of studies that talk about why kids become bullies. If we could break the cycle, even at one school, it would be a start.”
“Interesting idea.” Not that Angel knew what it had to do with him.
“I thought so.” Raoul leaned back. “I have a trained psychologist on my staff. Dakota has been studying this for nearly two years. She has some theories I want to put to the test. If we find a method that works, we can come up with a program. After we test that, we can take it out to schools around the country.”
“Ambitious.”