the paper facedown. Finn flipped it over. Then he almost flipped it back.
His gaze shot up to Molly, who happened to shift her gaze toward him just then. She gave him an unreadable look and walked toward the front of the class.
“As you can see we have some work ahead of us, but again, let me emphasize that this is a starting point.”
Finn’s starting point was almost at ground zero.
Okay, he had some problems putting words down, but...this grade smacked more of payback than it did of assessment.
“What did you get?” Debra whispered. Finn automatically shifted his paper, planning to say something along the lines of “not as good as I’d hoped,” but she caught a glimpse of the percentage before he’d managed to hide it. “Oh.”
Yes. Oh. He smiled gamely at the older woman. “It’s been a while since I’ve written anything.”
“That’s what this course is about. Getting comfortable with writing again.” She gave him an encouraging nod, then fixed her attention back on Molly, who explained that they’d start with sentence structure.
The sentence structure made sense as Finn listened. And he knew he was doing exactly what she was talking about, although according to Molly’s comments, he wasn’t. The remainder of the class was spent on simple exercises. Molly circled the room while Finn stared at his paper, a slow burn building into a flame. He didn’t get much done by the time class had ended, and Molly had avoided coming his way. He left the class with everyone else, but lingered in the hall until he was certain the last person, who seemed bent on telling her life story to Molly, had finally left. The hall, and probably the entire building, was empty when he walked back into the room. Molly did not look surprised to see him.
“Finn.” She held her folders to her chest as if they were a shield. “I assume you want to talk about your grade?”
“You assume correctly. What gives?” He set the paper down on the table. “If this had any more red, the white wouldn’t show.” He leveled a long, hard look at her. “Is this because of what happened back when we were kids?” Like an eon ago.
“This is because it’s that bad.”
He stilled for a moment. “That’s hard to believe because this is basic English, pretty much the equivalent of high school English, and I got straight Cs in high school English. I couldn’t have forgotten that much.”
“And I don’t think your grades in high school reflected your abilities.”
His gaze snapped up to hers. “What the hell does that mean?”
Molly let out a sigh. “You were an athlete...? A good one...?”
“You’re saying my grades were fixed?”
“I admit I have no way of knowing that, but this paper—” she pointed at the bloodbath sitting on the empty desk next to her “—is not C work in high school. Or here at EVCC.”
“According to you, it’s not even D work.”
“I have to be honest.”
He stared at her, at an uncharacteristic loss for words, then when nothing brilliant popped into his head, he snatched the essay off the desk and headed for the door.
“We can fix this, Finn.”
Like hell. As soon as he was out of her line of sight, he crumpled the paper, tossed it into the nearest trash can and headed out the door.
* * *
FINN HADN’T DROPPED the class. Molly couldn’t say why that was important to her, but she scanned the class lists on Tuesday and Wednesday, fully expecting to see his name missing. It wasn’t, but he didn’t show up for the Wednesday class, either. As she started the lesson, she saw Debra glance over at his empty chair and give her head a sad shake.
Molly didn’t feel sad. Reality was reality, and Finn couldn’t write. He could tackle the matter and try to improve himself, or he could ignore it. It appeared he’d chosen to ignore it. His choice. There was no reason that the class should feel empty without him.
Empty and a lot more comfortable. The nervous edge Molly had felt during the first two classes was gone and she traveled around the room, answering questions, offering suggestions as her class worked on skill-building exercises, feeling very much at ease. Therefore, she had no reason to look up Finn’s address and drive by on her way home—just to see if he was there. He lived just past the city limits, so it wasn’t as if she could tell herself she was taking a different route to her place. Nope. She went well out of her way to discover that Finn’s house was well lit and there was a truck and a car parked in front of the garage.
Finn was home. He just hadn’t come to class.
Molly drove on by, wondering why she had a sinking feeling. Finn had made the choice to screw up his high school education. Now he was living with the consequences. She’d only told the truth.
Maybe it was remembering the stunned look on his face as she’d told him that truth. The complete shock to discover that she wasn’t indulging in petty payback. She was doing her job. She let out an audible sigh that made her shoulders drop as she looked for a place to turn around so that she could drive back home. Too softhearted. That’s what she was. That was why Blake had been able to play her.
When she drove back by Finn’s house, she kept her gaze straight ahead. Right where it should be. If Finn chose to drop her class, it was none of her concern.
So why did it feel as if it was?
FINN WASN’T A guy who backed away from trouble—if anything, according to his dad, anyway, he ran forward and embraced it—however, academic trouble was foreign territory. And apparently he was traveling that territory with an expired visa. So what was he going to do? Quit school? Tough it out? Risk flunking?
After glancing around to make certain that no customers had wandered into the warehouse, he peeled out of his T-shirt and shook out the grain dust. The stuff made him itch like crazy and he had to wear a paper face mask when moving the bags, which put up dust every time he set down a pallet a little too hard. He was tired of itching.
Mike loved his business, and until he returned from the service, Finn had been perfectly fine working there, too. Now he needed more. When he’d gone overseas, he’d discovered what it felt like to be part of something important. To make a difference. It didn’t help that he was becoming more and more convinced that the store no longer needed him. Before he’d left, he’d essentially been the only employee with the exception of the bookkeeper. The place had been dusty and lonely and he hadn’t cared as long as he could hook up with his friends after work, or go home and work on his cars and trucks.
Those things were no longer enough. He wanted to teach automotives and shop and, as he saw it, he didn’t need stellar English scores to teach hands-on courses, but he did have to pass the class to get a degree. Molly Adamson was standing in his way and he still believed that their past was firmly tied to the score she gave him.
Finn pulled his T-shirt back on, grimacing as he tugged
