Bluegrass Undercover (22 page)

“
Okay, come on, big boy.” She headed down the stairs and into the living room. Justin ran behind her, his feet slipping on the hardwood floor as he took a corner. He regained his footing, sped past her and ran headfirst into the sliding glass door.

“
Oh my God, are you okay?” Justin just ducked his head embarrassingly and wagged his tail. She opened the door and he bounded out onto the patio.

She headed into the kitchen in search of coffee. She needed stimulation to be able to contemplate what Cade had said last night. He couldn’t possibly mean it, could he? She had never been loved before. The vulnerability of it and his potential to hurt her was downright scary.

“
Good morning.” Annie looked up from pouring her coffee to see Cade leaning against the doorjamb. His bare feet poked out from his jeans, and his arms were folded across his chest as he smiled at her.

“
Good morning, I hope I didn’t wake you up.” She suddenly felt a little shy. Should she bring up what he had said last night? Or, what if he didn’t mean it? Or, if he didn’t even say it, and she had imagined the whole thing?

“
No, you didn’t. It was the mighty ram there.” He nodded his chin to where Justin was staring into the room, pink tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth and matching pink bow falling out.

“
I had been meaning to tell you that Trey came by my office. He seemed close to telling me more details on S2 but wanted to confront the users himself. I assume he did so. He hasn’t been back to see me since.”

“
That’s right. He took the team over and got them to come together better than I ever could. I know one of the boys was Austin, but as you have probably noticed, he’s clean now. I haven’t figured out who the others were, but maybe Trey will tell you now that they’re clean?”

“
I’ll try on Monday. Well, I better get dressed and get home. I have some paperwork I need to get to my boss.”

Cade stared after Annie’s quickly retreating form as she scuttled out the door and to her car. Maybe it was the wrong move to break out the L word last night, although, it wasn’t as if he could have prevented it. Those words had come tumbling out of their own volition as soon as he had seen her.

He had also seen disbelief and a little fear streak across her beautiful face before he kissed it away. Maybe he should have talked about it with her before she left, but she had seemed so skittish that he didn’t think it would be a good idea. He was hopeful his plan of giving it time to sink in wouldn’t result in her running for the hills, or else he’d be left chasing after her.

Cade pulled the curtain away from the window in his office and looked out. He smiled at the cloud of dust her vehicle was leaving behind. It would be a fun chase though.

Chapter Eighteen

Cade felt the smile spread across his face as his last student left the room. He had a free period until his senior anatomy class started. He needed to go see Annie and invite her for dinner at his parents for tomorrow night.

He had gone to his parents’ house for the weekly family dinner and been cornered by both his mother and Paige. He was ordered to bring Annie to dinner or else all homemade food would be cut off. Not that he couldn’t cook, but his mother made a peanut butter fudge pie that was to die for. On top of that, the only person she had shared the recipe with was Paige, and they were sticking together on this.

“
Hiya. How is our winning coach doing today?”

“
Hi, Steph. How are you?” Cade looked up and saw Stephanie in her usual black pencil skirt and matching sweater set. Her hair was pulled back into a little bun at the base of her neck. She was holding a covered plate and Cade wanted to groan.

One of the reasons he had asked her out was because she had been so kind. She had brought him homemade treats and had talked with him about his students. But, after that first date, it became weird. She was sweet, but she was always there. Now she was standing in front of him with a plate of home cooked food and a smile on her face.

“
Really good. I made brownies yesterday and had these left over. I thought you would like some.” She placed the plate on his desk and he tried to smile sincerely.

“
These smell great. Thanks, Stephanie. I’m just getting ready to go see Annie. My mother has pronounced that it was time she meet the whole family properly in the form of a dinner.”

“
Really? It’s that serious?” she said, just a little too seriously. “I mean, that’s great. I just didn’t think you’d ever get serious about someone.”

“
Kinda took me by surprise, too. Well, thanks for the brownies. I’m sure they’re as delicious as always. I better give Annie the bad news!” Cade stood and walked out into the hallway with Stephanie.

“
Good luck at the dinner. I better get back to making up the pop quiz my junior chemistry class is going to get this afternoon.” Stephanie walked back into the classroom and shut her door. God, he hoped he had misread those signals. He liked Stephanie. She was sweet but not right for him.

Annie smiled at Samantha and reached out for her hand as she led her toward her office door. “Sam, I promise, you’ll do great on your SAT’s. You have been studying for a year with a tutor. You’re a 4.0 student. Just relax and have confidence in yourself.”

“
Thanks, Miss H. I’ll let you know how I do on my next practice test. Oh, hello, Coach Davies. Do you have the test scores back from our genetics test?”

“
Yes, you’ll get them in class today. But, Sam, Miss Hill is right. You need to have some faith in yourself. You put in the time to do your homework and study and as a result you did very well.”

“
How….”

“
You’ll see in class.”

“
Oh, okay. Bye, Miss H, Coach Davies.” Annie watched as the young girl hefted her backpack on her small frame and headed off towards her next class.

“
Good afternoon. How was your weekend?” Cade asked her.

“
It was good. Got my reports done and even was able to meet with Romero on Sunday. How about you?” Annie went back to her desk. She needed some distance from him or she might just beg him to love her.

“
Well, that’s why I’m here. I am here to deliver a royal proclamation from my mother. You are invited to family dinner at the farm tomorrow at six.”

“
Me?”

“
Who else but the woman I have been spending all my time with?”

She watched as Cade walked around the desk. She dug her nails into the arms of her chair. She just didn’t know what to do with all these emotions. Emotions were something fairly new to her. “Tomorrow?”

“
Yes, and if you know my mother, she won’t take no for an answer. We’ll talk about it more tonight when I come over with dinner. Sound good to you?” He smiled and she felt herself melting. Little devil, he knew what he was doing.

“
Okay, tell your mom I will be there. How about some meatloaf from the Blossom Café? I had never had meatloaf before, but I find myself quite addicted.” She smiled up at him. No woman could say no to him when he looked at her like that.

“
Looking forward to it. I missed you this weekend.”

Annie’s mind was whirling at that proclamation. She wanted to ask him more about it, but he turned around, winked and sauntered out of the office. Oh that man was waging war on her. Surely that meant he loved her!

That knowledge put an extra bounce in her step for the rest of the day. Nothing, not even a faculty conference this afternoon, would ruin her mood!

* * *

Annie shook her head and tried to focus on the papers in front of her. She was trying to figure out which players had used S2 and which she could flip. Austin was at the top of her list, but he wasn’t talking. She had called him into the office today just to talk. He was polite and talked about the stress of leading the team and about the worry of college scouts, but nothing about S2 and bad influences.

Annie would get there though. She’d build a good relationship with him and then slowly extract the truth. She glanced at the clock and gasped. She was due at Cade’s parents in less than an hour. Annie scooped up her files and tossed them into her shoulder bag. She had to hurry if she wanted to have time to get home and change for the meeting of the parents.

It terrified her more than any meth user waving a gun around. Parents. She had never had any and was scared of the unknown. She reached for the doorknob and turned it. Nothing. It didn’t turn. She must have been so nervous that she had accidentally locked it. Annie looked at the lock and grew confused. The door appeared to be unlocked. She tried again to pull the door open but nothing. The blinds rattled against the small glass window as she yanked on the door.

“
Hello? Is anyone there?” Silence met her. She pulled up the blinds and looked out the window but saw nothing except an empty hall. What was going on?

Annie was reaching for the desk phone when she was plunged into darkness. She tripped over one of the chairs and landed against her desk. Now what? With no outdoor window, her office was pitch-black. She reached out with her hands and felt around her desk for the phone. She grasped it and brought it to her ear. Silence. The electricity outage must have disconnected the phones as well.

Something nagged her though. The power outage could explain the phone but nothing could explain the locked door. She lifted the leather flap of her bag and rummaged around for her cell phone. Finding it, she activated the screen and the brightness lit up the room enough for her to see. She looked down at her phone and cursed. No signal. Impossible.

Someone in the S2 ring must have figured out who she was. But, if they figured out who she was, why were they just locking her in? Shouldn’t they be trying to kill her? None of this made any sense. What did make sense though was that she was going to have to break her door’s window to unlock the door.

She touched her cell phone screen again to light up the room. She looked around and grabbed the blue plastic chair resting against the well with its metal legs. Annie hated breaking glass. It was always such a mess. She gripped the chair on each side and rammed it into the window. The impact reverberated up her arms and into her chest as she watched the window splinter and crack. With a couple pokes of the chair’s legs, the glass shattered and fell to the floor in the hallway.

Now, if she could just unlock the door. She carefully slid her head through the window and looked down to a sight she was not prepared to see. There, in the door lock was a thin piece of metal broken off. There was no way she’d be able to unlock the door. She was going to have to climb through the window. What took her back more however, was the small black rectangular object that sat a couple of feet from the door: a cell phone jammer. What the Hell was going on and who was responsible for it?

Annie took off her jacket and laid it over the broken glass. She tossed her bag through the window and placed the chair against the door. She stepped up onto it and looked at the broken window. Oh, this was going to hurt. She hiked her dark green skirt up around her waist and stuck her left leg through the window. She had to grip the side of the window to keep balance, the broken glass puncturing the palm of her hands, as she grasped the sides. She hissed but kept a tight hold until she was precariously perched half in and half out of the window.

The glass poked at her bottom as she sat on her jacket but didn’t cut her through her jacket. Blood started to trickle down her forearm as she ducked her head and bent far enough over to squeeze her upper body through the window. Shards of glass tore into the back of her neck, ripping out her hair as she popped free. She slowly started to adjust her weight to her bottom half as she inched herself further out the window. She moved her right leg through the window as well and twisted towards her left until she was perched on the window facing the hall. She pushed off the window and leapt to the ground, rubbing her bottom as she stood up. That had hurt.

Annie shoved her skirt into place as she listened for her assailant. Nothing. Not a sound. She slowly walked down the hall to where the switches were. She flipped them but nothing happened. The circuit breaker must have been thrown. She went rigid when the slightest noise reached her ears.

Someone was here. She placed her right hand on the wall and started to turn when she heard a footfall directly behind her. Before she could turn around, something was brought down on the back of her head. She staggered forward and fell head first into the lockers before everything went dark.

Annie heard the muffled sound of someone running away and forced herself to open her eyes. The hall appeared blurry, but she could make out a dark figure running for the exit. She pushed herself up and tried to chase after the figure, but the world spun. She focused on the end of the hallway until it came into focus. Annie ran down the hall, each pounding footfall like a hammer against her head.

She slowed when she reached the door to the parking lot. Her hand closed around the metal rod as she carefully opened the door. Annie peered out into the parking lot. Not seeing anything, she stepped out and looked around. No footsteps, no dark figure, just her car in an otherwise empty parking lot.