to your late date. We wouldn’t want you to be tardy.”
She started scrubbing again, harder this time. “Okay, let’s get something straight, Mr. Benning. Just because I work in an all-girls’ school, doesn’t mean I’m desperate for a man to come along and charm me out of my orthopedic shoes. I’m not desperate for anything. I’m not looking for a man, and if I were it wouldn’t be you because you’re not my type.”
“Does that mean there’s no late date?”
“No,” she finally admitted, “there’s no late date. Not only that, I don’t want a date, late or otherwise.”
Tess Stafford was pretty and she knew how to stand up for herself, and she was also angry. A man was the cause, most likely. Wasn’t that always the story? It was like some sad country song. A good-for-nothing fella had broken her heart and stolen her life savings, and run off in the night with her dog and her pickup truck.
Charming her was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined.
“Okay, you don’t want a date, you don’t need a man. How about a friend? Got more of those than you need?”
Tess stopped wiping, but kept her eyes on the table. Had he touched a chord with her? Anger just beneath the surface aside, she seemed to be a nice person. The others who worked here liked her, but she didn’t let anyone get too close. He could see that from here. Hell, he’d seen it at first glance.
“You can start by calling me Flynn,” he said. “I get enough Mr. Benning during the day. Usually like this.” He raised his hand and waggled his fingers, “Mr. Benning, Mr. Benning, Mr. Benning.”
He saw the start of a reluctant smile. It just barely turned up the corners of Tess’s nicely wide mouth. “Kids can be relentless.” She began wiping again, slower this time.
“Tell me about it,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb and watching her work. Relaxed this way, she was very pretty. Very out of place in this stark room. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help you clean, and then over leftover apple pie and some of your fabulous coffee, you can tell me all about the other people who work here. It’s tough being the new guy in town.”
She lifted her head and looked him square in the eye, as if trying to judge his intentions. “Sure,” she finally said. “Why not?”
Tess told herself that if she could figure out why Flynn Benning was so curious, if she could reassure herself that his being here had nothing to do with her, it would be worth spending a little extra time in his company.
Over coffee and apple pie, they started an awkward conversation. She had never been one to make friends easily, and he didn’t strike her as the gregarious type. Confident, yes. Gregarious, never.
She told Flynn what she knew of some of the teachers he’d be working alongside, general information that he could have gotten anywhere, and he listened carefully. Maybe too carefully, for someone who was a sub who wouldn’t be here very long. He was either way too interested in the goings-on at the Frances Teague Academy, or else he was way too interested in her.
“You’ll only be working here until Scott Hill is better, right?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where do you usually teach?”
It was a perfectly natural question to ask a new teacher, but it looked as if he bristled a little. “I used to teach at a military school south of Atlanta.”
Military school. That she could see. The size, the bearing, the way he took charge of a room just by walking through the door. Military. “What happened?” she asked. “Why aren’t you teaching there this year?”
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. His shoulders squared, his spine straightened, and those eyes…the blue was almost electric.
“A new administrator comes in and decides she wants things done her way,” he finally said. “We were supposed to be sensitive and new-agey and it was all crap.”
Tess smiled, she could see it so well. “You told her so in just those words, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” he answered, visibly calmer and almost sheepish. “Now here I am teaching at an all-girls school, which is ironic, I suppose. I look at some of these girls the wrong way, and I swear they’re about to burst into tears. I don’t do tears.”
She laughed out loud, surprising him and herself.
“It’s not funny,” he said, almost seriously.
“It is, actually,” she answered.
“Well, I probably won’t be here more than a couple of weeks. That’s what I was told, anyway. If I can get through this assignment without making any of the little girls cry, I’ll be fine.”
Well, crap. She liked him. The fact that he would stand up to an administrator who wanted to run things in a way he didn’t care for was one thing. But he was actually worried about making little girls cry. There was something unexpected about that, coming from a big man who was undeniably gruff.
Her pie was gone, her coffee cup almost empty. She’d told Flynn everything she could think of, about the faculty and staff he’d be dealing with in his time here. And she wasn’t quite ready to leave. Evenings were the toughest part of the day, for her. Alone in her apartment above stairs, the hours went by too slowly, and her imagination ran wild. She thought about getting caught, about losing everything she’d worked for.
But this was nice. She liked Benning, he apparently liked her, and even though it could never go anywhere it was nice to have someone to talk to. A friend, he said.
“So, Flynn. That’s an unusual name. Is it a family name?”
He grunted slightly and took a big bite of pie. The last bite. She waited patiently while he finished it off with a swig of black coffee. “Not a family name,” he finally said. “As a matter of fact, I was suppose to be named John William Benning III, but my mother had other ideas.”
“So, where does the Flynn come from?”
He pushed his plate and cup aside and leaned onto the table. He’d rolled his sleeves up, displaying utterly masculine forearms. She really, really wanted to touch them, just for a moment, but of course she didn’t.
“That’s enough about me,” he said. “What’s a woman like you doing working in a cafeteria? You’re smart, you’re pretty, you’re energetic and everyone likes you. So, why aren’t you married and raising a half dozen kids, or running a corporation, or teaching home economics or…”
Tess’s smile died. The man was way too curious about her. She grabbed the dirty dishes and stood, keeping her gaze on the last little bit of coffee that was left in the bottom of Flynn’s mug. “It’s getting late,” she said. “And I have to be up early in the morning to make biscuits.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t do anything,” she interrupted. “I just didn’t realize how late it was. The time got away from me.”
A very large, very warm hand shot out and gripped her wrist,
