Full Disclosure (Homefront: The Sheridans Book 2) (10 page)

~ KIM ~

I’m feeling like a chicken-shit, pulling
up to the back entrance of the school again this Friday only a minute before
the bells rings, risking Connor being late only because I want to avoid seeing
Ryan’s Jag in the carpool line.

He called me on Sunday to apologize again
and reschedule for this week. And like any good coward, I opted to text him
back my reply rather than talking on the phone.

“Really busy this week with the
fundraiser coming up on Saturday. Sorry,” I had written, adding one of those
smiley face emoticons to make it seem a little more sincere. He is my boss,
after all.

I can’t handle seeing him right now. I
need to let some time pass. Cool down. Then I can go back to feeling like I
might be able to have some kind of a limited friendship with him… a more
appropriate relationship to have with the man whose money pays my bills.

Nothing else is possible.

“Seatbelt off, champ,” I say as Mrs.
Schumacher opens the car door for Connor.

“Hurry in,” she tells him, shooting me a
“You’re late again” look as I nod my thanks for ushering my son out of the car
quickly.

“Bye, honey. I’ll pick you up in
aftercare,” I call after him like I always do, not that he needs reminding.

I always feel my body relax the moment I
pass him off to the dedicated teachers of Orchard Acres. My mornings are such a
rush, racing to get myself ready for work at the same time I get Connor dressed,
make him breakfast and—
Shit!
I forgot to tell him to brush his
teeth this morning.

Oh, well. No one ever died from skipping
that morning ritual once. At least, I don’t think so.

Instead of going to Pop’s for my usual coffee
fix, I had agreed to meet Allie and Cass at the site where Allie’s rescue
shelter just broke ground earlier this week.

Standing next to Cass, Allie waves when
she sees me pull into a gravel-covered makeshift parking lot.

“What do you think?” she shouts, her arms
extended as she stands in the middle of a flattened piece of land.

What
I think
is that they’ll never
get it done in a year. But I really don’t know a thing about construction and
certainly wouldn’t argue with the prowess of JLS Heartland.

“It’s going to be incredible.” My eyes
widen in gratitude when Allie hands me a coffee in a to-go cup. “Hey, thanks.”

“Least I can do for dragging you two out
here this morning. Isn’t it amazing? They just broke ground, but I can already
envision it.”

That makes one of us, I ponder, sharing a
look with Cass.

Allie seems to pick up on our hesitation.
“Come on. This place was just all woods a few weeks ago. “

“It still looks like it’s all woods,”
Cass points out.

Allie rolls her eyes. “They only want to
take down what’s necessary. The trees will shield us from some of the
expressway noise. But this whole area here has already been leveled so they can
start with the foundation.”

“So where will the entrance be?” I ask,
trying hard to visualize Allie’s dream taking shape amid this stark site.

“Right over there,” she says, pointing as
she walks toward an area near to where I had parked. “There’ll be two wings
coming off of it. One side will be cats, and the other dogs. There will be a
small animal room, just behind the lobby.”

“Small animal room?” Cass asks.

“Yeah, for rabbits, gerbils, rats—”

“
Rats
?” I butt in.

 “
Domesticated
rats,” Allie
clarifies. “And other small pets. And there will be a walkway out there and
seven play areas along that side. That way volunteers can come in and give the
dogs some exercise.”

“I think that means us,” I say, darting a
grin at Cass.

“Speak for yourself. I’ll be long gone by
then.”

“Traitor,” Allie says with a laugh. “You’d
rather choose the glamour of a New York City modeling career over all this?”
she asks, widening her arms again.

“You’re calling me a traitor when you’re
running off to the Caribbean tomorrow with Logan?”

Allie angles a look at her. “How is that
a traitor?”

 “Because you’re supposed to be
suffering in squalor like your two besties,” she explains, draping her arm over
my shoulder and giving me a squeeze. “I mean, poor Kim here’s just been
reintroduced to her innate sexual impulses, and you’re going and leaving her.”

I roll my eyes in response. It was a
mistake to tell these two. Even though it will never go past them, I still
regret opening my big mouth.

Allie’s lips sidle up her face into a
half-grin. “Oh, and speaking of Ryan…”

Oh, Lord, here we go…

“He told me you’ve got a hell of a
penchant for fundraising that you never told me about.”

I scoff. “I wouldn’t call it a penchant.”

“How about a talent, then? Or ‘gift’ I
think is the word he used. He went on and on about you to Logan and me the
other night.”

He talked about me to his brother? “He’s
just being generous.”

“I’ve known Ryan for a while now and I
don’t think he’s ever generous with praise, unless it’s about his daughter,
that is. Or you, apparently.”

“Well, it’s really nothing. I just
enjoyed asking for those auction donations for the school, that’s all. It’s not
really the same as fundraising.”

“Sure it is,” Cass chimes in. “You could
probably make a career of it.”

I laugh. Volunteering for the auction
committee is a lot different than a real career in fundraising. But I’m
grateful for their compliments. “I have a career. In human resources, remember?”

“Are you happy in it?” Cass stresses the
word happy like it holds more weight than it should. Being a mom, happiness to
me pretty much revolves around whether Connor is healthy and safe, and whether I
can make the minimum payment on my credit card bill.

“I’m happy with the paycheck,” I answer.

Allie shrugs. “Okay. Well, Ryan was just
talking to Logan and me about how I’ll really need someone on board at the
shelter to help with fundraising. We’ve got construction and the first year of
our operating budget covered through the JLS grant. But after that, we’ll
really need to raise some money.”

I angle my head. “Allie, you know more
about fundraising than I do. You worked for a nonprofit for a few years,
right?”

“Sure, but I hate asking people to part
with money. I could have never gotten all those auction donations you did. Ryan
said that you just barreled into those stores and restaurants like some kind of
a bulldozer. He said they never even had the chance to say no. That’s the kind
of person we really need.”

Ryan certainly did cover a lot of ground.

“Just think about it,” she continues. “I
didn’t want to bring it up earlier this week because I wanted to make sure that
we could match your salary at JLS. But we can. And wouldn’t it be great to work
together—and save all these animals?”

Her question simmers pleasantly a moment
in my brain till I have the sudden recollection that I need to get to work. “Allie,
I’m allergic to cats. I’d never be able to step foot in the cat wing.”

She laughs. “It’s not a job requirement.”

“And there are pills for that,” Cass
offers up.

I glance at my watch. “I’ll think about
it. Really,” I lie, knowing I won’t. Leaving a perfectly good job after just
one month of employment there to do something that
might
be more fulfilling
isn’t something a single mom like me can even consider. “Thanks for thinking of
me,” I toss in for good measure. “But you’d probably be smarter to get someone
with real fundraising experience.”

Allie make a
pfft
noise. “My old
boss Nancy says there are classes you can take that teach you the basics. What
we need is someone who knows the area and all the local businesses. Someone
who’s committed. And a bulldozer, like Ryan said.”

I suppress a laugh, shaking my head.
“I’ll think about it,” I repeat, walking toward my car, even as I hear Cass
mutter to Allie, “She won’t think about it.”

At least I have friends who know me as
well as I know myself.

~ KIM ~

Tiki lights line the walkway of Orchard
Acres Elementary School this Saturday night, marking a dimly lit path toward
the entrance to the gymnasium. There’s music in the air—telling me that
somewhere in the bushes there are hidden speakers pumping out traditional
Hawaiian music.

For all the tyranny we parents are forced
to tolerate from Natalie Brimswall in these weeks leading up to the fall
fundraiser, I have to admit, the place looks pretty fantastic.

Feeling a surge of anxiety, I take one
last long breath of fresh air before I step beneath a pair of inflated coconut
trees and enter the gymnasium. I know Ryan will be here tonight, just like all
the other parents who have been guilted into buying tickets and trying to
wrangle a babysitter for the evening.

Giving a smile in greeting to some of the
parents I recognize, I help myself to a glass of cheap Chardonnay in a red plastic
cup. I’m not a big drinker, but I really need this right now, especially when
my eyes spot Ryan jotting down his name on a sheet of paper in front of an
auction item at the far end of the gym.

Curious as to what’s caught his eye, I
walk over to him on wobbly knees, my heart pounding in my chest. I’ve promised
myself I won’t delay this confrontation. It would only make things more awkward
between us. And I need to push past the sheer mortification of what I did a
week ago, and thank him for saying such nice things about my fundraising
“gift,” as he had put it to Allie. I never really thought of myself as having
any kind of talent, and hearing that he thinks I do, had me up half the night
feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

I soak in the site of him with his
collared shirt loose around his neck. He looks so much more approachable
without his tie.

His hand stills at the paper as I draw
nearer, and somehow I know that he senses I’m here. Setting down the pen, he
straightens himself to his full, imposing height.

“Hi, Ryan,” I say, my voice unintentionally
husky. Clearing my throat, I force a smile. “Did one of the auction items catch
your eye?”

I feel a blush creeping up my décolletage,
until it rests on my cheeks. His eyes seem to follow its path. I wonder if he
feels the air spark between us as much as I do.

“All of them are pretty impressive. Everyone
did a great job,” he answers, then lowers his mouth closer to my ear. “Though I
think you brought in the best ones. No one tops that TV or the weekend at
Bergin’s.”

I grin, grateful to hear in his tone that
he doesn’t seem to be affected by my avoidance of him this past week.

“Although,” he adds, his eyes moving to
the other side of the banquet table where all the auction items are lined up,
“I hear Meredith Briscoe made her sixteen-year-old daughter donate twenty babysitting
hours to the auction. That’s pulling a close second to your TV.”

“Twenty babysitting hours?” My jaw drops
a little. “That’s going to go for a fortune. She’s got her driver’s license and
is Red Cross certified. I’ve never been able to afford her.” I leave out the
fact that I’ve never been able to afford any babysitter, actually. Connor is
staying the night tonight at his grandparents, and the only payment I’m
expected to dole out is a healthy dose of humility and tolerance of my mother’s
criticism.

That’s a cheap price compared to what
Meredith Briscoe’s daughter charges.

“How much does she normally charge?” he
asks.

“Fifteen an hour.”

“Fifteen?” He wavers, jostling his full
Sam Adams slightly so that a bit of beer dribbles onto his hand.

I feel the strong urge to lick it.

“I made three bucks an hour,” he
complains.

I give my head a shake. “Wait a minute. You
babysat?”

“Hell, yes, I did. I was thirteen and
there was a eight-year-old across the street. So babysitting him wasn’t too
different from keeping an eye on Dylan. And I got paid. But I sure as hell didn’t
get any fifteen dollars an hour. That’s highway robbery.”

His eyes rest on mine for a long while,
and I swear I feel like the entire gymnasium is falling away as I ascend into a
different reality, one that is rife with hormone-driven lust.
Here we go
again.

“I never really imagined you working as a
kid.” I practically cough out the words, fighting back this rush of attraction
that is taking control of me. “I thought—”

“You thought I’d be too busy dusting off
my silver spoon collection.”

“Maybe. Kind of.”

He gives his head a firm shake. “My mom
made every one of us get
at least
one minimum wage job as a kid. The
summer before I was interning at JLS, I was flipping burger’s at Bob’s.”

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely. Dylan worked at Pop’s for
two summers and Logan got lucky with a lifeguard job at the public pool in
Jeffers.”

“Why did your mom make you do that?”

He shrugs, as though the answer should be
obvious to me. “Too many people with money think that the low-paying jobs are
easy. But they’re usually the hardest. Mom wanted to make sure that we’d treat
people with the respect they deserved no matter what they do for a living.”

It makes sense suddenly—the
generous pay scale and benefits at JLS even for the lowest rung on the ladder
like me.

“Thanks,” I blurt out, suddenly
remembering why I took that long, perilous walk across the gymnasium to talk to
him in the first place.

“For what?”

“For telling Allie and Logan about how
good I supposedly was at getting auction items the other night, and how I should
work in fundraising at the shelter. It was really nice of you. I’m not used to
people bragging about any skills I have.”

His smile is sincere. Then in a split
second it transforms into sincerely wicked. “You have a lot of skills I’m
betting people don’t know about.”

The blush on my cheeks must be pomegranate
red now with my temperature clicking up ten notches.

He takes a long pull on his beer before
he says, “I was surprised Allie hadn’t figured it out on her own yet. I’m
betting you could raise a lot for her rescue.”

My smile now is meek with a pinch of
skepticism.

He leans casually against the table. “Am
I going to be out one HR person?”

I laugh. “No.”

“So you like HR too much?”

“No,” I say, then catching myself. He is
my boss, after all. “I mean, yeah, I love it. HR is great and I really enjoy
the people in my department.”

“Well, JLS can use you. But you were on
fire the other night, Kim. It was like a game to you. You were practically
predatory. You have a passion for it. And I just thought…”

“It is fun,” I admit. “I love doing it
every year. Fundraising is like a Jedi mind trick… kind of swaying someone into
doing what you want them to do.” Hearing myself, I wince. “Sorry. My inner geek
creeps out sometimes.”

“A Star Wars reference? I thought you
were into Star Trek?”

I shrug. “I go both ways.”

Amid a laugh, he sputters, “I’ll have to
keep that in mind.”

My eyes widen. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.” Grinning, his
finger toys with a drip of condensation on his bottle. “You’d be a huge asset
to Allie if you took her up on her offer—and save a lot of animals.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were
trying to get me off the payroll.”

His shoulders rise a half inch
momentarily. “I am. Like I told Allie, I don’t like to see a talent wasting
away. Think about it.”

Behind me, a thick fog of perfume
approaches and I know even before I see her, it’s Natalie. She boldly hugs
Ryan, and his eyes widen from surprise.

“Thank you so much for all the time you
devoted to making this auction a success,” she says, her slightly slurred words
dripping with false sincerity as she locks her eyes on him.

“No problem,” I reply with a smile, even
though I know the words weren’t intended for me.

Her mouth gaping, she glances my way, and
barely gives me a nod of acknowledgment.

“Glad to do it. Especially with Kim’s
help,” Ryan responds, his voice so different—so much more formal—when
he speaks to her than when he speaks to me.

It doesn’t stop Natalie from monopolizing
the next ten minutes of his life, her tone becoming more overtly flirtatious with
every word—so much so that her husband feels the inclination to step away
from a pulled pork serving station and rescue Ryan from his wife.

I’m thinking that the boxed Chardonnay
that the rest of us are drinking isn’t the same stuff that Natalie’s been
nipping tonight.

But hey, she did work hard to pull this
thing off and so long as she’s got a designated driver, I ponder, giving her
husband a smile and a wave as he escorts his wife to a chair.

When they are finally out of sight, Ryan glances
to both sides of us and lowers his face near to my ear. “Can we talk?” he asks.

I bite my lip, my eyes widening. “Isn’t
that what we’re doing?”

A teasing smile inches up his face. “No.
We’re conversing. I want to talk.” He touches my hand barely a moment, and the
effect on me from that instant heat is nothing short of devastating.

“Come with me,” he tells me, giving my
hand a slight tug toward the hallway that leads to the children’s lockers. Then
he lets my hand fall free from his, knowing that there are about a hundred or
so pairs of eyes potentially watching us. He takes a few long strides toward
the hall and I know I’m supposed to follow him, and I do.

Once in the empty hall, I glance behind
me to see if anyone noticed our departure. Thinking we’re safe, I pick up my
pace to catch up. “Turn the corner,” I suggest, and he obeys, taking the
staircase up to the second floor.

I open the door to one of the preschool
rooms. My heart slams in my chest as I close the door behind us, and my
thoughts are decidedly carnal despite the fact that we are surrounded by fruit
and vegetable construction paper cut-outs made by four-year-olds, including my
son.

 “I had a feeling they’d leave this
room open. There’s not much to steal here,” I say.

He steps toward me and takes my hand. The
feel of his skin encompassing my palm sends tiny torches traveling through my
veins. “Is it my imagination or have you been avoiding me?” he asks.

“Ryan, what happened the other night, I’m—I’m
sorry it happened.” I can see the tension in his muscles, even though his eyes
are full of understanding.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because I’m just not—” I struggle,
trying to figure out what to say. There’s no reason I can come up with that
won’t just lead to more questions. “I just don’t date… much… pretty much ever,
actually, and I’m just not really ready to go down that road. Especially not
with my boss. I have a bad track record with men.”

He laughs suddenly. “You just don’t
strike me as the type to have a bad track record with anyone.”

I press my lips together momentarily till
I reply, “Well, I do. This—you and me—” I gesture my finger through
the space between us, “—it won’t go anywhere.”

His hand touches lightly just above my
wrist, setting the tiny hairs on my arms on their ends from the sensation. “Because
you work at JLS?”

“Yes.” It’s the easier answer to give.

He grins. “All the more reason for you to
take Allie up on her offer and work at the shelter.”

My shoulders sag and he touches them
lightly, causing me to stiffen. “No. It’s not just that, Ryan. I’m kind of… a
hot mess, you see. You’d find that out if we had started dating. It couldn’t go
anywhere. And then I’d have to see you in the office, or in the carpool line,
or in town because it’s such a damn small town, Ryan…” My voice trails feebly
as I feel the gentle pressure of his hands on my arms. The closeness feels so
good, so natural. But I know I can’t have this.

“I don’t want to make you feel
uncomfortable. If you’d rather just stay friends, then that’s fine.”

But I don’t want that
, a voice rips through me, sounding
remarkably like a toddler having a tantrum. I want to scream it, but I don’t. I
want all the same things that all women want. I want closeness. I want to be
able to finally share the secrets that have ached inside of me for years. But I
can’t have that. At least till Connor is an adult. Maybe for forever. I don’t
take risks. I don’t have that luxury.

Confused, I try to back away from him, at
the same time I feel the magnetic pull between us. The battle wages inside of
me between what I want—what I desperately need—and the reality that
I face every day when I send my child out into the world on his own.

Feeling tears behind my eyes threatening
to fall, I turn my head away, glancing at the door that seems to beckon me. Leave
now, it tells me. It’s safest that way.