Rancher's Deadly Risk Page 11

  He held out her chair for her, saying, “You’re a natural.”

  “It’s fun!”

  Fresh soft drinks awaited them, and she drained half of hers in several chugs. He pulled his chair around so that he sat right beside her, rather than across from her.

  “So where’s this rowdiness that had you concerned?” she asked.

  “Later. A different crowd will start showing up, and the beer will flow faster. We’ll leave around then.”

  Just then, without warning or invitation, a heavyset, very large man pulled a chair out and sat at their table. Cassie looked at him in astonishment, wondering if this was another local custom she didn’t yet know. She had the feeling she recognized him, but couldn’t place him.

  “Howdy, Dave,” Linc said. “What’s up?”

  Cassie started to relax as she realized Linc knew him. The relaxation didn’t last long.

  “So this is the teacher who got the Hastings boy in trouble.”

  She sensed Linc stiffening, and her own nervousness resurfaced, her stomach feeling almost as edgy as it had right before she’d stepped onto the dance floor the first time.

  “I think you got that wrong, Dave,” Linc said. To Cassie it sounded as if his voice were edged in steel.

  “So she’s not the teacher? Everyone says she is.”

  “What you got wrong is who got who into trouble. The Hastings boy did that to himself.”

  Dave scowled. “We got a championship to win, Coach. You know that.”

  It was the first time Cassie had heard anyone call Linc “Coach” except for his team, and she wondered if that word had been chosen for a reason. Of course, in other schools the coaches had been called Coach by everyone. Not here, though, which was odd when she thought about it. Maybe Linc didn’t want to be addressed that way?

  But her primary concern was Dave. His face was red, and she wondered if he’d had too much to drink. And how far this was going to go.

  “I know all about the championship,” Linc said. “But the players also know they shouldn’t break school rules if they want to play the game. That hasn’t changed since your day, Dave.”

  Dave’s expression darkened. “Back in my day, we didn’t have no zero tolerance. Kids do things. Kid things.”

  “That’s true. But it’s up to us to teach them better.”

  “Not by blowing the championship. Back in my day, nobody would have risked it.”

  “Then they were wrong.”

  Dave shoved back his chair and wagged his finger at Cassie. “You watch it, woman. This whole damn county is going to hold you responsible if we lose because Hastings can’t play. And some folks ain’t none too sure he bullied that Carney kid or pushed you. Besides, all kids get bullied. I sure as hell did.”

  He turned and stalked away before another word could be spoken.

  Cassie reached for her drink, needing to do something with her hands, only to realize that she was shaking. At once Linc covered her hand with his, and squeezed reassuringly.

  “Take a few breaths,” he said, the music almost drowning him out. “We’ll leave in a few minutes. After we make it clear he’s not driving us out.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Cassie argued, hating the tremor she heard in her voice. “I don’t like people wagging their fingers at me.”

  One corner of Linc’s mouth lifted. “I’m sure you don’t. But Dave is the beginning of the next group of patrons. We wouldn’t be staying much longer anyway.”

  This was the second time in two days that she had been confronted. This thing, she thought, was apt to be like cockroaches. If you saw one, there were probably a quarter million others in the walls. Tip of the iceberg.

  The thought almost nauseated her, especially since she doubted that these people would be so angry if she’d lived here all her life. Maybe there was no way to become a real member of this community. Maybe she’d always be an outsider.

  She quickly corralled her thoughts, realizing she had edged toward an extreme. Yes, she’d been confronted twice by people who believed she had lied about what had happened. But Maude had given her a piece of pie.

  She looked at Linc. “Let’s dance again before we leave.”

  He half smiled. “Sending a message, huh?”

  “You bet.” Her spine stiffened as she decided that regardless of what came out of this, regardless of whether she began to find it impossible to teach here, she wasn’t going to let anyone think she had been cowed. No way.

  The dance floor was getting much more crowded, and she noticed the makeup of the clientele had begun to change. More younger people, fewer older ones. The night was just beginning for some.

  She also noticed something else: she got pushed. Not hard, not obviously, but unmistakably. Linc, who was on her other side, didn’t notice the number of people who suddenly seemed to have developed two left feet, at least when they came near to her. Brushes like the boys had given her last week. Not enough to make her stumble, but they felt like a warning.

  She turned her head toward Linc. “Linc?” She had to practically shout to be heard over the growing volume in the room.

  He heard, though, and bent his head close to hers. “I’m being pushed. Repeatedly.”

  His face settled into a frown. “Hold on just a bit longer.”

  She managed a nod, then realized what he had expected. Almost as if it were a good-night to the early crowd, the music shifted into something slow and sad. The line dancing stopped and couples turned face-to-face, arms around each other.

  Linc pulled her close, an arm around her waist, the other holding her hand up in a traditional dance pose. Slowly he danced her around the floor.

  It would have been wonderful if she hadn’t been so disturbed. She felt a flare of anger toward the people who had tried to ruin this evening for her, and attempted to think about nothing except that Linc was holding her close, his head bent toward hers.

  When she looked into his eyes, she saw blue fire. Regardless of the ugliness, he was thinking about one thing and one thing only. She couldn’t miss the message.

  Her heart lifted, her lips curved up a bit and she gave herself to the moment, wishing it could go on forever. She reminded herself that he was probably just sending a message of his own, but for the next four minutes that didn’t seem to matter.

  This time as they left the dance floor to collect their jackets, he didn’t hold her arm. He held her hand.

  So take that, she thought with weak amusement as she saw a few young women look enviously at her. It wouldn’t solve the problem, though, nor did she have the least idea what would.

  She just knew that while she wanted to get out of here, she also didn’t want to go home.

  Chapter 6

  Outside in the parking lot, she stopped dead in her tracks, ignoring the steady flow of people around her.

  “Is that snow?” she asked, looking toward one of the towering light posts where she was sure she saw a few flakes fluttering down.

  “It is,” he confirmed. “Just a light flurry, hardly anything at all. It won’t stick.”

  “This is so cool!” she said, forgetting her upset. “I wish we’d get a lot.”

  A chuckle escaped him as he unlocked his truck and helped her in. “What’s the rush? We’ll have plenty of winter.”

  “I want to go cross-country skiing,” she said. “I already have the equipment so now all I need is some snow.”

  “It might be a while yet but the weather around here has been growing much less arid. The last few years we’ve had more snow than usual, so you might luck out and not need to go up into the mountains to ski.”

  “Where else would I ski?”

  “My ranch is a great place. If there’s enough snow.”

  “No prepared trails?”

  “Not around here.” He closed the door and walked around to slide in behind the wheel. “Have you ever skied without a prepared trail?” He turned over the ignition and started easing out of the parking lot, avoiding car
s and pedestrians.

  “Of course, but it’s been years.”

  “I’ve never had the time to give it any thought. Maybe after the football season is over. You can practice at my place if we have enough snow.”

  What was going on here? she wondered. After keeping such a distance, he seemed to be closing it awfully fast. Was he just taking pity on her? The question soured her mood, and caused her to reflect on what had happened tonight.

  “Those people were pushing me,” she said. “Like the boys did last week. Maybe a bit harder.”

  “But not hard enough that they couldn’t claim it was a mistake.”

  “Exactly.”

  He wheeled onto the highway and headed back toward town. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t either, but I can’t imagine a thing to do about it. Frankly, Linc, I’m more worried about James Carney. The story of him being bullied shouldn’t have gotten out. The fact that it did means someone linked it directly to my complaint. I can’t imagine the hell that boy might be going through.”

  “I haven’t seen anything at school.”

  “Neither have I. He won’t talk to me on the phone, either. He told me to just stay out of it. So I have, but...” She bit her lip and looked out the window.

  “What can you do, Cassie? We’re doing what we can to try to change student attitudes. We’ll have an assembly next week.”

  “Next week? Les didn’t mention that.”

  “Maybe he thought I’d tell you. Regardless, I don’t see what we can do. We can’t provide protection for James around the clock. We can’t follow him to make sure no one bothers him. All we can try to do is make sure these students get it. All of them.”

  “Do you have any idea how alone he must feel? God, it breaks my heart. His grandmother said he’s been bullied everywhere they lived. How much of that can a youngster take?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The statistics aren’t good. And can you imagine, everywhere you’ve lived your entire life being bullied? You’d have to be convinced that something is wrong with you.”

  “The way you are?”

  She gasped, stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Sometimes I get the feeling you think something’s wrong with you. Were you bullied a lot?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, as painful memories flooded back. Had she been bullied a lot? There were all kinds of bullying, some of it as mild as just being excluded. Between being smart and being plump, she’d certainly been made to feel that she wasn’t like the other kids. But how much of that was simply normal teenage angst about fitting in? “Some,” she said finally. “I don’t know if it was a lot. It’s not like there’s some measuring stick.”

  “I know.”

  “Were you bullied?”

  “A few times in seventh and eighth grade. It’s a rough age for boys. But overall, I’d say not. The fact that you don’t know...well, it makes me wonder. How many scars do you carry, Cassie? Do you even know?”

  Probably not, she thought miserably. How could she know? She’d had a small circle of friends even at that difficult stage of life. That made her luckier than many. On the other hand, she’d been excluded from a lot, too. Boys hadn’t asked her out. Cliquish girls had ignored her. And then there were those who said things about her weight.

  “One time,” she said slowly, “I was riding the bus back from a basketball game. When it came to a hill, it slowed down and groaned. One of the players shouted out, ‘We need to dump some weight from this bus. Make Cassie walk.’”

  “Hell. Did that happen often?”

  “Things like it, once in a while.”

  “But often enough. I’m sorry.”

  She almost said, “But it happens to everyone.” That much was nearly true, but that didn’t make it right. “There were harder things.”

  “Such as?”

  “My best girlfriend. A lot of the guys wanted to date her, but her parents wouldn’t let her date. So they’d ask her on group outings. Her parents wouldn’t let her go unless I was there to chaperone. So that’s how I got to go.”

  “You were chaperoning your friend? Good God. That must have made you feel awful!”

  “Oddly, I hoped they’d get to like me better if I was enough fun. Being fun evidently wasn’t the answer, and I didn’t feel too good about it when I realized it.”

  “You were a lot of fun tonight,” he said after a few seconds. “I had a great time. I don’t know how you looked in high school, obviously, but I can tell you that right now you’re a glorious-looking woman, I was proud to be with you, and you forget those guys who didn’t have eyes to see.”

  Her throat tightened and her eyes grew hot as if tears wanted to flow. She honestly couldn’t remember any man saying such a sweet thing to her. “You didn’t have to say that.”

  “No, I didn’t. That’s the point. I didn’t have to say a damn thing.”

  Now he sounded like he was steaming. She almost said, “You’ll change your mind like every other guy,” but she held the words in. That was a place she didn’t want to go for a bunch of reasons. One night of dancing didn’t mean they had a relationship, and she didn’t want him to misunderstand what she thought. She settled for “Thank you.”

  As he pulled in behind her car in her driveway, a few random snowflakes sparkled in the headlights. They were so beautiful. Then she saw her car.

  * * *

  Linc was already quietly furious, though he’d done his best to conceal it. Dave Banks coming up to them like that, Cassie getting pushed on the dance floor, followed by some very personal revelations from her that at once touched his heart and twisted his gut... Well, he was angry. Very angry. When he saw her car he got so mad he almost saw red.

  “Don’t get out,” he said sharply. Pawing around in his jacket, he found his cell phone and called the sheriff’s office. Four flats on a car with the back window painted LIAR was not something he was going to ignore. No way. As far as he was concerned, the cops around here needed to get off their butts now.

  Cassie murmured something. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to see anguish or fear on her face, not that he would have blamed her for either. He reached out blindly, found her hand and held it tightly.

  “Linc, I’m getting scared. Tonight...” Her voice cracked and she didn’t finish.

  He couldn’t blame her. The implied violence in being pushed, however lightly, and now the vandalism to her car would have made any sensible person afraid. “I told you that you wouldn’t face this alone. I meant it.”

  She didn’t ask what he meant, and right then he didn’t explain. Instead she asked a question that raised every emotional red flag he’d had since Martha.

  “What the hell is wrong with this place? I can see people getting angry. I can see people lying, especially when they’re upset about their kids. I can see students lying to cover their misdeeds. But to keep brushing me on the dance floor? Those were adults, Linc. And now this.”

  She had a valid point. “How many people pushed you?”

  “Four, maybe five. No more than that. It was carefully done. Some others I was almost sure were accidents.”

  “Did you see who they were?”

  “I saw faces, but I don’t know them.”

  “Younger?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned that around in his mind. “Some people never seem to leave high school even after they graduate. Maybe they were friends of those students.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m just saying that I don’t think most people around here would condone that. The vast majority, maybe ninety-nine percent, wouldn’t condone that. I’m sorry as hell you met the others.”

  “Yeah, all in one place.” She sighed and turned her hand over so that she was holding his. “Okay, it’s probably a very small set. Very small. Most of the people I’ve met here have been pleasant. And given how many people were dancing when that started, it really was just
a few. There must have been a hundred people in that place.”

  “At least. It’s a busy roadhouse on weekends.”

  “But clearly people around here are mad at me and worried about the championship. Look at that Dave guy.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But if this keeps up, maybe I should back out of my contract and let the people here deal with it however they want.”

  He felt an astonishingly strong pang. There it was. “Do you want to leave?” he asked levelly.

  “Truthfully, no. But I’m getting scared and I’m wondering what kind of place this really is.”

  He had no answer for that, especially since she’d only been here a couple of months. How could he defend his county, his neighbors, to her when she had so little experience? It was a relief to see the sheriff’s car pull up at the curb.

  The random snowflakes continued to fall, almost like a harbinger of things to come.

  * * *

  It would have been so easy, Cassie thought, to decide to pack up and tell Les on Monday morning that she no longer felt safe here. She was sure he would let her out of her contract for that reason.

  But even as the desire to get away scrambled around in her head, she had other memories rising up, memories of how pleasant most people here had been to her. How welcoming some of them had been. The pie from Maude today was just one of the incidents that had warmed her since her first day here.

  The neighbors who had helped her unload her moving truck, and had been so willing to carry heavy items to exactly where she wanted them. The fellow from two doors down who had mowed her little patch of grass a few times until she found a neighbor boy she could hire. The ladies who had come over with casseroles and other delicacies so she wouldn’t have to cook while moving in.

  She closed her eyes, focusing on those people and on her fellow teachers who had been nice enough. No, whatever was happening, Linc was right, it involved a small few. While many might be wondering what was actually going on, the truth was, it was only a few who were taking it to the extreme.

  But it sure didn’t make her feel safe.