“That’s the most encouraging news I’ve had all day.” He rested a palm on her knee, his fingers teasing along the hem of her dress.
“But since I’m not sixteen anymore, I can’t just go homeand be content with daydreaming about you.” She disentangled her arms from his neck before she started peeling off her own clothes. Or his. “And since you told me you weren’t in the market for anything fun and simple...”
What were they really doing here?
His cell phone buzzed in the silence hanging between them.
She knew he’d have to check it. So, sliding her legs off his, she reached back to satisfy her physical cravings with apple muffins instead of a sexy cop.
“Damn.” He scrolled through the screen and shoved the device back in his pocket. “I’ve got to get down to the high school before all hell breaks loose.”
Chapter Eight
“YOU CAN’T DROP me off at home?”
Back in his truck, Amy sounded worried as he peeled out of the gravel road that led away from the creek. Away from the site of a kiss that had him seriously questioning his sanity.
He had wanted to coax secrets from her, not just breathy sighs and hungry touches. Ah hell. He wanted all that and more. But he needed the truth about whatever it was she was hiding, damn it.
“Not enough time.” He cursed himself for not having J. D. Covington followed sooner. But the police department was stretched thin to the point of breaking. And who would have thought the kid would go right back to school his first day out of juvie? Shouldn’t a family-court advocate have been making sure he stayed out of trouble? “Zach’s place is on the way to the school. If you think your sister is there, I could drop you off at the Chance house.”
“No.” The adamant refusal was followed by Amy tucking herself against the passenger-side door.
Retreating.
Had she argued with her sister to inspire that strong of a reaction? Amy was prickly as they came.
Except when he kissed her.
Damn, but he wished they hadn’t been interrupted. That there had been more time to explore the attraction. Things had been intense with her during their teenage years. But nothing like this.
Shit. He needed to get his head back to the task at hand. The safety of the town came first.
“I’ll try to wrap things up quickly at the school, but I should at least check in.” Turning out onto the main road again, he pressed hard on the accelerator but didn’t bother to slap a flashing light on the roof. Heartache was quiet this time of day—the calm before the storm when classes let out at Crestwood and student drivers took to the roads with more speed than sense.
“Something’s going on in the parking lot.” She pointed to the teachers’ parking area near the football field.
“Fender bender, maybe?” He noticed one car was pulled up tight to another. Even from a distance he could read the body language of angry people leaning in toward one another. They were adults out there, not kids.
He really didn’t want to get involved in a faculty dispute when he’d heard J.D. was causing trouble. Apparently the principal had tried to handle the uproar the kid’s return to school had caused, but by noontime, the superintendent had gotten involved and phoned the local police.
“Shit. That’s Kate Covington. She teaches social studies at the school.” He could see her now as he pulled off the road and into the lot. “And the woman she’s arguing with was behind bars up until a few hours ago. Tiffany McCord had an affair with her husband.”
Who damn well still better be in jail tonight. The courtsystem was hemorrhaging Sam’s arrests, it seemed. But there was enough evidence against Jeremy Covington that the guy couldn’t have possibly been given bail.
But Tiffany McCord... Sam had been surprised she’d remained locked up for as long as she had.
Belatedly wishing he’d put the flashing light on the hood, he navigated the truck through rubbernecking teachers and students who’d somehow filtered out of the school to witness the drama fast bordering on a reality-show shit storm gone rogue. When he’d pulled up as close as he could without running anyone over, he slammed the gearshift into Park.
“Wait here. Keep the doors locked,” he told Amy before jumping down to the pavement.
“You cheating slut!” Kate Covington screamed, her face a mottled red headed toward purple. Tall and thin, the woman was normally soft-spoken and a well-liked member of the teaching staff. “How dare you show your face here?”
Tiffany McCord, a former pillar of the community with her position on the town board and a prominent area business owner, appeared to be unfazed by the other woman’s fury. Virtually every other time Sam had seen her, she’d been slathered in makeup and sporting coordinated, expensive-looking clothes as if her life depended on her appearance. She wasn’t so made up today, though, with a clean face and blond hair in a ponytail. She looked more like her daughter, Bailey.
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not the only one who cheated. And if you would stop protecting him, you could put his ass in jail?—”
“Ladies.” Sam stepped between the women before Kate could wring Tiffany’s neck. “Everyone should take a step back right now before this escalates any further. I think wecan all agree the school parking lot is not the place for this discussion.”
