Beth Harbison - Head Over Heels

As if testing her resolve on that cue, the band started playing “Stand By Your Man.”

Jenna clucked her tongue against her teeth. “They’ve got to be joking.”

“No, God is.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth, than the glass door to Harley’s opened and Luke Stewart strolled in. “Uh-oh. Time to leave.” She set her bottle down and hopped off the barstool.

“What?” Jenna asked, looking in the area of the door. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s wrong.” Grace said in a low voice, pointing to Luke.

“Oh, my God, it’s Luke Stewart, ” Jenna gasped. “You haven’t talked to him since high school, have you?”

“As a matter of fact, I talked to him a few days ago. I had to beg him for a job driving a bus at Connor School, and he turned me down.”

Jenna looked at her, surprised. “You had to ask Luke? Why? Is he in charge of the buses?”

“He’s in charge of everything,” Grace said, popping an olive into her mouth. “Headmaster.”

“Oh, my. That must have been hard. How come you didn’t tell me earlier?”

Grace chewed and kept narrowed eyes on Luke. The sight of him brought a warm flush to her cheeks. Residual humiliation and anger, no doubt. “If you’d been turned down as a bus driver, you probably wouldn’t be talking about it much either.”

“Wow. I guess he’s still mad about you picking Michael over him.”

“I didn’t pick Michael over him. I stayed with Michael rather than throw the relationship away over a small, brief, untested crush on someone else.”

“On Luke, you mean.” Jenna pulled the bowl of peanuts across the bar and took a handful.

Grace kept her eyes on Luke. “It doesn’t matter who it was, it would have been stupid for me to throw away a secure relationship because of some silly infatuation.”

“I don’t know. It might have spared you a lot of trouble.”

“And bought me a whole new brand of trouble.”

Jenna nodded her agreement. “Probably so. And you wouldn’t have Jimmy.”

“That’s right. He’s worth it all.” Grace sighed. “Too bad he’s going to have to live on bread and water because his mother can’t get a job, even as a bus driver.”

“Well, why would you want to drive a bus anyway? And why there? Wouldn’t it be weird to go back to your alma mater that way?”

Of course it would be weird. It felt weird even before she knew Luke was part of the deal. “There’s no other work in this town,” Grace said dully.

“Oh, come on, I’m sure someone would hire you. One of your dad’s old friends? You know, as a favor to him?”

Grace winced inwardly. “I’d sooner die than shame Daddy by taking charity from one of his friends. They’d feel obligated, I’d feel pathetic…it would be the same as asking for a handout.”

Jenna shook her head. “You’re just as stubborn as you’ve always been.”

“I’m not stubborn, I’m mature. ” She laughed. “Besides, if I worked for the school, I could negotiate tuition for Jimmy into the deal, and we’d keep exactly the same hours.”

“That makes sense. And it is a good school,” Jenna acknowledged with a sympathetic smile. “Jimmy’d like the horses.”

“That’s what I thought. But it’s not like I have the option of taking the job.”

“Well, there are minuses to it too. This is probably for the best.”

“Unemployment, in this case, is not for the best.”

“Surely there’s something else you can do that would fit the bill. Some where.”

Across the room, Luke had stopped and was talking to a petite blonde with a heart-shaped butt and a waist the size of Grace’s thigh. Drawing her attention away from the two, Grace pulled the bowl of peanuts over and took some. To hell with fat grams. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find something else,” she said, still watching Luke with a growing constriction in her chest. Nerves. But the anxiety she was trying to escape continued to escalate. Her breath stopped when she noticed Luke glance in her direction, but he didn’t seem to see her.

Jenna followed her gaze and asked, “So why did he turn you down?”

“I’m not sure.” She’d remembered he was great-looking, of course, but she hadn’t remembered just how great-looking he was. The jerk. “I believe he thinks I’m not clever enough to pass the test and then drive the big, bad bus,” Grace said, taking a last sip of beer. Part of her was actually reluctant to leave, but she didn’t trust herself to be entirely civil to Luke if he should see her. “And if I screwed up after he’d hired me, he’d look really bad in front of the board.”

Suddenly, Luke turned and walked purposefully in her direction. It felt as though all the noise and music and people receded into the background. Grace was as acutely aware of him as she would have been if he were following her down a dark alley with a ski mask on.

Before she could turn away and pretend she hadn’t seen him, he raised a hand in greeting, and she had no choice but to do the same.

“The usual,” he called.

“Sorry?” Grace said, at the same time hearing a voice behind her say, “You got it, Luke,” over the din of the band and the crowd around them.

Oh, God, he wasn’t even talking to her. He’d been waving at someone behind her, and she’d waved right on back at him, like a fool. Would this day never end?

He walked right past her without acknowledgment. Then he stopped and stood behind her at the bar, apparently oblivious to her presence. He wasn’t more than two feet away from her back. She could feel the heat of him, penetrating the thin fabric of her shirt.

She slipped some money out of her purse and whispered to Jenna, “Pay the bill and meet me outside.” She had to get away before he did notice her.

“Grace?” Too late. It was Luke’s voice. He’d spotted her.

She turned with as much cool as she could muster. “Oh. Hey, Luke. Did you hire someone for that job from the hundreds of people I saw lined up by the garage when I was leaving?”

He didn’t play along. “I left a message on your answering machine.” His voice was clipped. The bartender handed him a bottle of beer with no glass. He took a gulp of it, then let out a short breath. “You get it?”

“A message?” Grace was mystified.

His eyes, which had seemed such a warm shade of brown earlier, were hard. “You got the job.” His mouth turned up in the smallest ironic smile. “Surprise.”

Grace caught her breath. She was employed? Really? This was too good to be true—or was it? “I don’t understand. The other day you told me I didn’t.”

He took another draw off his drink and set it down, hard, on the bar. Foam bubbled out of the top and ran over onto the gleaming wood bar. “I’ve been outvoted.”

Her excitement turned to apprehension. He was angry about something. Had Mr. Bailey said something to him after all? “What do you mean you’ve been outvoted?” she asked cautiously.

He lowered his chin fractionally and gave her a look that could, under the right circumstances, have been extremely sexy, but which was, instead, downright accusatory.

Something cold slithered down her spine.

“I mean,” he said, with too much patience, “that starting in three short weeks, it’ll be your job to sit on a seat covered with chewed gum, in a vehicle equipped with a Bodily Fluid Clean-up Kit, surrounded by screaming kids. Just like you wanted.” One side of his mouth cocked into a smile. “This must be a dream come true for you.”

His iciness left little doubt that Fred Bailey had indeed leaned on him.

“I applied for that job without help from anyone,” she said defensively.