Special Ops Cowboy. Addison Fox

lacking somehow?”

      Reese fought the roiling of her stomach, refusing to let that steady layer of sickness that had accompanied her for six weeks have its way. “And why have they suddenly decided to bring it up now? After I’ve bought supplies for my classroom and set up for the new school year? Why is that, Jake?”

      “Come on, Reese. Your father killed himself. After—” Jake hesitated. “Just after.”

      “After he killed four people, you mean. Tortured them, too.”

      “It’s not a secret.”

      “No, it’s not. Nor is the fact that I was teacher of the year two years ago. Or has that conveniently slipped everyone’s mind?”

      “No, it hasn’t. Nor have I stopped reminding them every chance I get.”

      It was the stalwart support—which she knew she had from Jake—that finally had her standing down. Enough so that she physically sat down, dropping into the rolling chair behind her desk. “You really think they’re going to fire me?”

      “Leave of absence. That’s all. They want the fuss to die down a bit more.”

      “That’s a load of hogwash and you know it. The fuss has died down.”

      “It had until they found that other body.”

      The urge to shift her gaze was strong, but Reese kept her focus level with Jake’s. She would not cower. Nor would she slink away in embarrassment. Her father’s crimes were extensive enough—and repetitive enough—to be considered serial in nature. What she hadn’t expected was that his choices in life would leave him a perpetual suspect each and every time a body bearing even the slightest resemblance to his victims was found.

      Despite his death the prior spring, Russ Grantham had been considered for murders in El Paso, Houston and as far north as Waco. All crimes in which he was exonerated, but all of which had claimed front-page headlines and the lead focus on the nightly news.

      “That wasn’t him.”

      “But it made his crimes front and center once more. That scares people. Makes ’em skittish.”

      “Their small mindedness means I’m somehow at fault?”

      “No, Reese. Not at all.”

      Well aware Jake was only doing his job, she opted to play on his softer side. The PTA members had a voice, but they couldn’t simply oust her from her role. Not without garnering a lot more support from a lot more people.

      With that in mind, she pressed on.

      “I need my job, Jake. My benefits. My salary. What else am I going to do? I have a contract.”

      “Which the district knows. You’re locked in for the year. All I’m saying is take some bereavement leave and let this die down. By the time you come back, you’ll have plenty of time to work your magic the next time contracts are being signed.”

      The urge to rant and rail at the unfairness of it all was strong, but Reese avoided saying anything further. Jake was just the messenger and he clearly hadn’t taken any joy in delivering his missive. More, he was her friend and he was in her corner, two facts she refused to lose sight of. “Please tell me I don’t need to make a decision today.”

      “Of course not. School doesn’t start for nearly a month and the PTA doesn’t have nearly the power it thinks it does. I wouldn’t have taken this job if it did.”

      “Alright then.” She nodded at Jake, surprised when he crossed around her desk and pulled her into a close hug.

      “Take care of you, okay. As long as I’m here, there will be a job for you.”

      “Okay.” She hugged her friend and knew his words for truth. It was only after he’d left her still-unfinished classroom that Reese let her gaze drift to the walls. She’d already begun decorating, her back bulletin board full of pictures of authors who were a mix of the classics, as well as the modern writers her students were reading in droves. She’d worked them all into her curriculum, too, ensuring her students would get as strong a dose of Jane Austen as Suzanne Collins.

      Story was story and words were words, no matter where they got their enjoyment. Some of her best students had become that way because she’d encouraged them to read the things they enjoyed—pop fiction, sports almanacs and fashion magazines—well before they dived into the authors who’d been long dead.

      That mattered, damn it. It mattered a lot. She was a good teacher. Even if...

      Reese tamped down on the direction of her thoughts, resolutely refusing to go there. She was a good teacher—a hardworking, caring teacher—and she’d be damned if she was going to conflate that with her personal life. She wasn’t responsible for her father’s actions. And while she was responsible for her lone night of abandon with Hoyt Reynolds, that wasn’t the town’s business, either.

      Even if she had heard the occasional whisper or two.

      Jake had been too kind to say it, but she wasn’t stupid. The PTA’s inputs had begun in earnest after word had spread around town that she’d spent an interesting evening at The Border Line with Hoyt Reynolds. She’d ignored the implications—and, best she could tell, he’d done nothing to fuel the flames of innuendo and gossip—but it was out there all the same. She could only thank her lucky stars she lived on a quiet street and Hoyt had left early enough that no one had seemed to notice the large work truck that had taken up space in her driveway one summer evening.

      A lone evening that had changed her life.

      Reese stood and crossed to the bulletin board, remembering her excitement as she’d tacked up information about the various authors, their bios and covers of some of their most well-known stories. It was only as she reached Nathaniel Hawthorne that she stopped. She’d used the cover of his most renowned novel, The Scarlet Letter, for her board and Hester Prynne stood there in the illustration, back straight, face somber, staring right through Reese in all her puritanical glory.

      Reese had never particularly enjoyed the original classic on slut shaming and repressed emotion, but had taught it along with the rest of the American canon of literature through the years. Of late, she’d paired it with Pretty Little Liars to identify the differences in cultural approach and storytelling and found her students to be both receptive and engaged in the discussions that came of both. Their ability to connect the injustice of the time with collective attitudes, regardless of the period, always made for lively discussion and Reese loved seeing their young faces light up when they made a connection or looked at the world in a new way. It was her greatest joy as a teacher.

      Only now, someone was trying to take it away. While her choices were neither as dire nor as alienating as Hester’s, Reese couldn’t help it as her gaze flicked back once more to settle on that cover. For the first time in nearly a decade of teaching that book to her students, she’d gained a fresh connection of her own.

      Only unlike Hester Prynne’s literary child—a figment of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s imagination and talent—Reese Grantham’s was 100 percent real.

      * * *

      Hoyt dragged off his heavy work gloves and reached for the towel he’d stuffed in his back pocket earlier, running the thick terry cloth over his face and neck. He hated branding day—knew there was nothing to be done about that, though—and considered what was still left to do.

      They’d branded about half the new calves and would need at least another hour to work through the rest. The work was strenuous and tiring and made for a general sense of unease on the ranch the day they did it. The new calves hated it—and who could blame them?—and their protective mothers fussed over their young’s distress.

      “Earning our keep today.” Tate’s voice was husky from shouting orders over the loud sounds from anxious calves, and Hoyt didn’t miss his brother’s stiff shoulders and general unease as he took his place beside him at the corral fence.

      “That