lips parted. “Now?”
She could almost have let herself be amused by his appalled expression. “No time like the present. And I’ll bet that Jonathan is home by now since he lives just around the corner.” She plopped the phone on the corner of her desk in front of Eli and pulled out the phone list. “Ready?”
Eli morosely picked up the phone and dialed the number that she recited.
Deciding to give him at least the illusion of some privacy, she rose and moved away from her desk, crossing the room to straighten the art supplies still scattered across the counter. The students had been painting Thanksgiving turkeys that afternoon.
Behind her, she heard Eli deliver his apology. Short. Brief. About what she’d expected.
But at least he’d offered it.
She hadn’t been sure he would, given his mutinous attitude that afternoon.
She tapped the ends of her handful of paintbrushes on the counter, then dropped them into the canning jar where they fanned out like some arty bouquet. She turned around to face Eli and caught him surreptitiously swiping his cheek.
Tension and irritation drained out of her the same way it always did when it came to working with kids.
Evidently, Eli—son of Max Scalise or not—was no exception.
“Remember that tomorrow is a brand-new day,” she said to him. “All fresh. Right?”
He didn’t exactly jump up and down in agreement. But he didn’t roll his eyes, either.
“Come on. I’ll walk you out. Is—is your dad supposed to pick you up?”
He shook his head. “I gotta walk.”
This time she didn’t hold back the urge to smile slightly. He made walking sound like a fate worse than death. “To your grandmother’s house?”
“To the station house.”
“Well, that’s even closer.” She pushed a mammoth amount of papers and books into her oversized book bag and grabbed her own coat off the hook. “Have you met the sheriff yet?”
Eli shook his head.
“He’s not too scary,” Sarah confided. “He’s my uncle.”
At that, the boy looked slightly interested. He hitched his backpack over his shoulder and followed her into the hallway. “You got relatives here?”
“Lots and lots. Can’t swing a cat without hitting a member of the Clay family.”
“Gross. Who’d wanna swing a cat?”
She chuckled. “Well, nobody, I guess.”
“There you are.”
Her chuckle caught in her throat at the sight of Max standing in the middle of the corridor. His dark, slashing brows were drawn together over his eyes. They varied from brown to green, depending on his mood.
Currently, they looked green and far from happy.
She looked down at Eli beside her. “Guess you won’t have to make that walk after all.”
The corner of his lips turned down. “Think I was better off if I’d’a had to,” he muttered.
She curled her fingers around the webbed strap of her book bag to keep from tousling his hair. Terror or not, there was something about the boy that got to her.
Not that most kids didn’t, she hurriedly reminded herself.
“You’re late,” Max said. His voice hadn’t changed. It was still deep. Still slightly abrupt. As if he spoke only because he had to.
“Only about ten minutes. He had some questions we needed to take care of,” Sarah said, answering before Eli could. The boy shot her a surprised look that she ignored.
Max’s eyes narrowed. He still had the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. Long and thick, and as darkly colored as the hair on his head. “What kind of questions?”
She decided to let Eli handle that one.
“About, uh, sports,” he finally said.
Max looked suspicious. “Truck’s in the parking lot,” he said after a moment. “Go wait for me.”
Eli gave that little shrug of his and headed down the hall. “See ya tomorrow, Miz Clay.”
“See you, Eli.” Her hand was strangling the web strap. “Deputy.” She barely looked at Max as she turned on her heel, intending to head out the other way. She could wend her way through the school to a different exit.
“Sarah—”
Every nerve she possessed tightened. She felt it from the prickling in her scalp to the curling in her toes. And though she would have liked to keep walking—no, she would have loved to keep walking—she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.
After all, he was the parent of her newest student. She would have to deal with him on that level no matter what her personal feelings were.
“Yes?”
His lips compressed for a moment. “I…how are you?”
She didn’t know what she might have expected him to say, but it definitely hadn’t been that. “Busy,” she said evenly. “Did you need to discuss something about Eli?”
“I’m sorry he was late this morning. It won’t happen again.”
“Okay.” When it seemed as if he had nothing further to say, she started to turn again.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Which meant she’d never been a hot topic of conversation between him and his mother, since she’d been working with Genna for some time now. “I can say the same thing about you.”
She felt certain that she imagined the flicker in his eyes at that. Wishful thinking on her part that he might feel something, anything, about what had happened all those years ago. He’d made his feelings then perfectly clear, even though he’d never been perfectly clear about anything else.
And darnitall, that fact still stung even though she’d made herself believe that it was all water beneath the bridge.
She shifted the weight of her book bag to her other shoulder. “Coming down a little in the world, aren’t you? From detective to deputy?”
“The job meets my needs for now.”
She didn’t want to know what his needs might be. “Then you have my congratulations.” Her tone said the contrary, however. “Excuse me. I have things I need to do.” She turned again and strode down the corridor, the click of her shoes sounding brisk and hollow.
Max’s
