Josie Day Is Coming Home (20 page)

“Bake sale? You’re the one who told me the ‘on’ light
on the new oven meant it needed servicing.”

Clearly undaunted, Josie nudged the toe of her clodhopper.
She shrugged. “I’m telling you, Luke. By the end of the month, I’ll have
this whole town eating out of the palm of my hand. Once everyone gets a load of
the new me, my fab dance school will be as good as launched.”

He frowned, concerned for the first time. “You’ve been
painting without opening a window again, haven’t you? Getting giddy from the
fumes?”

She laughed. “Have a little faith, will you? I can do
it. Although we
do
still have to talk about ordering the ballet barre
and the mirrors and the sound system for the dance studio. I swear you’ve been
dodging me about that.”

He had been. None of those things would belong in Blue Moon
when he auctioned it off.

Luke shook off Josie’s reminder.
I can do it,
she’d
said. Hell. He wasn’t worried she couldn’t. He was worried what it might cost
her when she did. Donovan’s Corner had broken Josie’s spirit once already. He
didn’t want to see that happen again.

“All right. But I’m driving you.”

“Yes, sir.” She saluted, picking up on his
no-arguments demeanor. “Right away, sir.”

Damn, she looked cute. That should have been impossible in
her granny-goes-gallivanting getup, but somehow it wasn’t.

You’re in love with the boss lady!
echoed in his
head.

Steadfastly refusing to meet TJ’s eyes, Luke headed for the
bedroom closet. “I’ll get you a spare helmet.”

“Not one that’ll crush my hair!” she called.

He glanced over his shoulder. As though primping, Josie put
a hand to her hair—and encountered her drab ponytail. A glum expression crossed
her face.

“Never mind,” she said, sounding resigned.
“Nothing less than an Aqua Net shortage could wreck this ‘do.”

Her frown, paradoxically, gave Luke hope. So long as Josie
felt discontent in her new clodhopper shoes, there was still a chance she’d
return to her old rebellious self again—the self he couldn’t seem to get enough
of.

At Donovan’s Corner Elementary, Josie wended her way through
the maze of desks, a box of cookies in one hand and a smile on her face. As far
as she could tell, classrooms hadn’t changed much. The walls and cubbies were
still decorated with colorful pictures. The scents of dry-erase markers,
Elmer’s glue, and Crayolas still hung in the air. And somehow, it still felt as
though adventure waited just around the corner.

Or maybe that was Luke waiting around the corner. He’d
refused to just drop her off and come back later. Instead, he’d commandeered a
tiny chair near the Lego center. With his arms folded across his chest and his
tattoos out in full force, he looked like her tough-guy bodyguard—although what
dangers he expected her to encounter in Hannah’s kindergarten class, she didn’t
know.

“My name’s Josie.” She bent to place a
bunny-shaped cookie on the next child’s desk, trying to ignore the sweep of her
hideous dress against the floor. “What’s yours?”

“Jenascia.”

“Jenascia? That’s a very pretty name.”

The girl giggled.

“So, how’s kindergarten treating you, Jenascia? I used
to like the pretend kitchen—I mean,
home economics
—area. Which is pretty
ironic, since it’s been twenty years now and I haven’t quite learned how to
cook yet. Unless you count Cup O’Noodles.”

Another giggle. Josie’s heart melted. These kids were cute!
Even the grubby-fingered boys and the girl who wore glasses that made her
eyeballs look like ET’s. She smiled.

“Enjoy that cookie,” she told Jenascia, then moved
on.

At the next desk, she set down a cookie. “Knock,
knock.”

The little redheaded boy looked up. “Who’s there?”

“Isabel.”

“Isabel who?” he yelled, delighted.

“Isabel broken? ‘Cause I had to knock.”

It took him a second, but he got it. His nose crinkled. His
mouth opened in a completely unselfconscious laugh, showing tiny Chiclet teeth.
“Hey! That’s a good one!”

They both chortled. One of the mothers hustled over.

“You’re only supposed to hand out the cookies,”
she whispered, flustered. “Here. I’ll do the rest of these.”

“Ummm, okay.”

Her smile fading, Josie let the woman take the cookie box
from her hand. She stepped backward to watch the other mother pass out the
treats, feeling confused. Maybe she’d been too chatty? Too friendly? Too slow
handing out the bunnies?

But kindergarten was a place where a girl didn’t have to
worry about settling down, staying in her seat, or paying too much attention to
things like good behavior…wasn’t it? She looked to Jenna for confirmation.

Her sister gave her a cheery thumbs-up sign.

Hmmm. That was weird. If super-picky Jenna thought she was
doing okay, what was wrong with the other moms?

Josie glanced over the heads of the eighteen or so
kindergartners. Most of the volunteer parents were busy pouring apple juice,
wiping sticky fingers, or settling squabbles. It all looked pretty clear-cut.

Probably she just needed to make friends with the mothers.
Invade their clique. Win them over, just as she had when she’d first joined the
Glamorous Nights Revue. Regrouping with the intention of doing just that, Josie
joined another parent volunteer near the reading station.

“Whew!” she said conversationally. “These
kindergartners have some amazing energy, don’t they? If I had that much
stamina, I could do the flamenco all day
and
all night.”

The startled-looking mother gave her a sidelong glance. Her
eyes widened. “Sorry. I just remembered I’m supposed to be…over
there.”

With a nervous-looking smile, she shelved the book she’d
been holding. She skedaddled to the other side of the room as if Cujo were
snapping at her sensible flats.

“It’s a
dance
,” Josie muttered. “The
flamenco. Heard of it?”

Sheesh. Shunned in kindergarten. This sucked.

Refusing to be held down, Josie approached the teacher.

“Hi, I’m Josie. Jenna’s sister. We met right after the
bell rang.” She offered her most dazzling
I’m responsible
look—the
one that usually ensured a new contract at Enchanté when renewals came due.
“The cookies are passed out now, so I thought maybe I could do something
else to help. Take those worksheets off your hands and give them back to the
kids, maybe?”

The teacher started. She clutched the papers to her chest,
obscuring the Crayoned-in alphabet animals the students had drawn on them.
“Oh, no! That’s all right. It’s perfectly fine. No worries. I can do it.
No. No, thank you.”

Wow. Somebody needed to cut back on their caffeine.

“Okay. In that case, have you had a chance to look at
the flyers I brought?”

Josie had packed along two dozen handwritten information
sheets for her upcoming dance school, hoping to interest the kindergartners—or
their parents—in taking lessons. Josie herself had started taking ballet at the
age of four, followed by tap-dancing and gymnastics at seven. Her mother had
hoped all the activity would give her a “productive outlet” for her
energy.

“Oh, yes, your flyers are all taken care of,” the
teacher told her, looking relieved. “Thomas’s mom said she’d hand them
out.” She pointed to a group of mothers near the classroom sink.
“She’s the blonde in the yellow shirt, right over there.”

“Thanks.” Zeroing in on the blonde, Josie headed
that way.

Although the parents were supposed to be helping with
classroom tasks, as Jenna was doing near the motion discovery station, these
mothers huddled with their heads together. The sound of their voices drifted
toward her. Josie recognized that pose—and that low buzz. She’d experienced both
backstage every day at Enchanté. They were the universal signs of juicy gossip.

No problem. She’d read some interesting stuff about Jennifer
Aniston’s birthday party for Brad Pitt just this morning in
US Weekly
magazine. She’d join in.

Before she could, one of the mothers waved a flyer. “If
she thinks she’s getting my Brianna in on this, she’s crazy!”

“Yeah.” The nearest mother nodded. “She’s not
teaching
my
child indecent stripper moves!”

Josie froze. They were talking about her.

“I can’t believe she has the nerve to even
suggest
such a thing,” Thomas’s mom said. “These are kindergartners!”

“You’re right. You should throw those flyers in the
trash, Justine,” another mother advised. “That woman is a bad
influence. Our children don’t need to learn ‘dancing’”—she added spiteful
“air quotes” to the word—“from someone like
her
.”

Josie was stunned. The nasty comments hit her right where it
hurt…smack in the middle of her hopes for the future.

Well. If those prissy, two-faced, know-it-alls thought they
were going to pass judgment on
her
, they had another think coming. Josie
sucked in a breath. She barreled forward, her burlap-bag dress sailing behind
her like a muddy flag.

“For your information,” she began,
“I’m—”

“Ouch!” bellowed a masculine voice from the corner.
“I think I broke my toe!”

Luke
. Hesitating for a nanosecond, Josie glanced
backward.

He lay curled on the floor, incongruously huge compared with
all the pint-size furniture. Gaping kindergartners surrounded him. Wincing, he
grabbed his booted toe.

“Arrgh. Arrgh!”

Whatever he’d done, it must have been agonizing. There was
no way a burly guy like Luke would practically bawl in front of a bunch of
five-year-olds—not unless something drastic had happened.

The snooty mothers forgotten, she rushed over. Jenna and
Hannah joined her halfway there, looking concerned.

“Luke, what happened?” Josie crouched beside him,
checking for injuries. She touched his biceps, just above the tattoo that
encircled it. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now.” He scowled. “Must have been a
cramp.”

“A toe cramp?”

“Sure. Yeah.” He nodded, looking vaguely
defensive. His gaze shot to the mothers. They were gawking now, too. He bared
his teeth, a menacing expression darkening his features.

What the…? Startled, Josie blinked. But when she glanced
at Luke’s face again, he seemed his usual happy-go-lucky self. She guessed
she’d imagined the whole thing.

“Come on,” she said, hauling him up. “Why
don’t you try walking it off so that toe cramp doesn’t come back?”

“Good idea.” Purposefully, Luke strode toward the
gossiping mothers.

They scattered like sunshine before a storm.

Hmmm. Weird. Josie turned to Jenna, only to find her sister
watching Luke with a speculative expression.

“I was just thinking,” she mused. “Maybe
those tattoos don’t tell the whole story after all.”

Chapter Twelve

Luke watched Josie approach the customer service desk at the
Donovan’s Corner chamber of commerce office, a clipboard in her hand. Despite
the grueling afternoon she’d been through, she smiled at the female employee
sitting there.

“Excuse me. I’m not sure about filling out this form.
Should I put my name here”—she tapped the clipboarded form with her
ballpoint—“or the name of my business?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were
you,” the clerk said. “Most new businesses fail, you know. In a
couple of months, it probably won’t even matter.”

Luke stared. Was it his imagination, or did the clerk seem
just a
little
too gleeful about the prospect of Josie’s dance school
failing? His muscles tightened. Intervening on Josie’s behalf was getting to be
a habit.

She tilted her head—a pose Luke recognized as her version of
patience. “Thanks for the advice. But I’ve been doing the unexpected my
whole life. I figure that ought to work in my favor this time around.”

The woman
hmmphed
. Apparently, she was immune to
Josie’s amazing smile. “Yeah, that’s what everybody thinks,” she said
sourly. “Don’t count on it.”

“I’m counting on talent. And maybe a little luck.”

“Not to mention a G-string,” the clerk muttered,
“and a little baby oil….”

That was it
. Luke rose. “She’s a
dancer
.
In a revue.”

“Yeah?” The clerk rolled her eyes. “Have you
ever seen her ‘dance’? ‘Cause I heard—”

She went on jabbering. But it was her “air quotes”
on the word
dance
that had Luke seeing red. He stepped nearer.

Josie grabbed him. “Luke, don’t. This is silly.”

He didn’t think it was silly. That clerk’s attitude was the
last thing Josie needed today—especially after the abuse those hoity-toity PTSO
mothers had heaped on her. He shot the woman a warning look.

“Really,” Josie insisted. “Stop. You might
get another toe cramp.”

Luke backed down. Reluctantly. He needed Josie to believe in
his stupid toe cramp diversion. Otherwise, she might realize the truth—he’d
invented the whole thing to keep her from goading those PTSO ninnies into
snubbing her altogether. He only wished he’d caught on to what was happening
before Josie had heard them trash talking. Protectively, he stayed where she’d
stopped him.

Keeping one hand flattened against his chest, Josie pulled something
from the depths of her purse. She slapped a business card on the counter—a
handwritten discount voucher for a free dance lesson. She’d been sprinkling
them around town all day. She’d even left several at Hannah’s school for the
teachers and staff. Right about now, Luke figured they were being used as cage
lining for the school’s mascot, Herbert the gerbil.

“If you want to find out what I really can do,”
she told the clerk evenly, “bring that card to my dance school’s grand
opening next month. Who knows? By then, I might actually have figured out how
to fill out these forms.”