The Fight for Us (5 page)

Joss caught site of Natalie moments later. Her head was down, and she was walking alone toward the front entrance. She studied the girl as she moved. She was cute. She looked a lot like her father. She was a little overweight, but she was tall enough to pull it off and look more athletic than anything. She was certainly far taller than Harper was, hell she was taller than Joss by an inch or two. Her hair was dark brown just like her father’s, and as she glanced up, Joss saw the same hazel green eyes too.

Her glance moved back to the ground as her attention caught on something she obviously preferred not to acknowledge, and when Joss craned her neck to see, her heart pounded. It was Harper, Lena, and Jen. Both Lena and Jen were glaring at Natalie, and Harper was motioning them to follow her into the school, very obviously trying to distract Lena and Jen. But the two other girls were hard to dissuade, and as they continued to glare at poor Natalie, Joss stepped from her car.

There was no denying she was livid at the other two. She was livid they’d been cruel to Harper the year prior, she was livid they were cruel to Natalie now, and she was livid they had any sort of influence on her daughter. Joss leaned back against the hood of her car casually, but her crossed arms and glare were all business. She leveled that glare at Jen and Lena. Neither girl had ever been rude to Joss, but Joss was certainly done playing nice with them. She studied them until they noticed her. The moment they did, their heads bobbled nervously, and they finally followed Harper into the building.

As Joss pushed herself from the hood of her car, Natalie walked by, and Joss threw out a quick “hi” to her. Natalie glanced around, shocked that someone had spoken to her for a moment, but when she caught site of Joss, she stopped.

“Hi.” Her voice was quiet but polite. “You were talking to my dad in the parking lot yesterday. You’re Harper’s mom?”

“Yes. I’m Joss. You’re Natalie. New to Bristol Island this year, huh?”

Natalie nodded, smiling politely.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Bristol’s beautiful, and it’s nice to have new folks in town.”

“Thanks.” She seemed almost leery of Joss. As she turned to leave, she tossed out quickly over her shoulder, “Bye.”

When Joss turned to climb back in her car, her gaze stopped dead on Isaiah three cars away. He was standing at his driver’s door watching her intently. His stare was unreadable, and she had no idea if he was upset with her or not. As she watched, he climbed back in his SUV and drove off, leaving her staring after him completely and utterly confused.

He may or may not have been upset with her on that day, but it took her little more than a week to test his limits again.

Chapter Four

“Sorry, folks. Shouldn’t be more’n an hour, and we’ll be underway.” The man’s hands were held up as he made the announcement to the fifteen or so odd ferry goers.

It was a mistake to wait so late to catch the last ferry back before Isaiah needed to pick Nat up from practice, but he’d be damned if it wasn’t exactly what he’d done.

He’d spent the day on the mainland. He needed stuff. Just stuff. He could have likely gotten said stuff at a few different mom and pop type places on the island, but he’d opted instead to pad the pockets of the corporate tycoons by visiting a massive discount stuff store where he could buy everything under one roof. That’d teach him. What was so impressive about having everything under one roof anyway?

When he dialed Nat to let her know he was going to be running late, it went straight to her voice mail. He hung up with an exasperated sigh. Of course she couldn’t answer. She was in practice. He tried again a few minutes later, and this time when it went to voice mail, he didn’t hang up. “Hey, Nat. I’m likely going to run a bit late getting there to pick you up. I’m stuck on the mainland, and they’re doing some repair to the ferry. Sorry, babe. Maybe hang out in the library and get a jump on your homework? Call me or text me when you get this. See you soon.”

He settled into one of the benches near his SUV to wait. He was unsettled. He didn’t like that Nat was there alone. It sounded stupid when he acknowledged it to himself, but it was true. He didn’t want to see her as helpless, but she was. She’d said the last week had been better. She’d even said Harper seemed to be distracting Lena and Jen whenever Nat was around, but would she tell him the truth?

He often thought she was trying to protect him as much he tried to protect her. She was a smart girl, and she was emotional. She knew damn well the past couple years had been just as hard on him as her. But it didn’t mean he wanted her worry. She was good at worrying. He saw it on her face a lot, and she was too young for it. It was why they’d left their life in Chicago behind and run away to an island in the middle of nowhere. Too bad the worry had followed them.

When his cell phone vibrated against his hip thirty minutes later, he snatched it up. It was a text from Natalie.

Going to dinner with Harper and her mom at the Landing Bar and Grill!

He dialed her instantly, and her phone went straight to voice mail. When he cursed under his breath, a nearby elderly gentleman scowled at him. He dialed again. Nothing. Her phone was off, and he was guessing she’d done it on purpose. She knew he didn’t trust Harper or her mother or that he would appreciate this as a good idea.

He spent the next thirty minutes pacing at the bow of the ferry, staring at Bristol Island in the distance. She was there alone with a girl who’d made her life hell for the past few weeks, and Nat was too vulnerable and trusting to understand the threat. The exclamation point at the end of her text said it clearly enough. When the ferry captain finally announced they were underway and pulled away from the dock, he returned to his car. He sat in the driver’s seat watching Bristol grow in front of him as they got closer and closer.

He tried to reach her again without success. It was a waste of time, as he knew it would be. She was a child after all, and she could be petulant with the best of them. He watched Bristol through his windshield, and when they were finally there, the cars in front of him started to move. He gritted his teeth and pulled forward too. The Landing Bar and Grill wasn’t far, hence the name, and he likely could have walked from the ferry as quickly as it took him to wait for the cars in front of him to move out of his way. Once he was finally on the road, it was only thirty seconds before he was pulling up in front of the dockside restaurant.

He saw the same white Subaru Forester Joss had been in the week before parked outside the restaurant. As he stepped from his larger Toyota Land Cruiser, he slammed the door closed, pausing to take a deep breath before he went inside. He was angry. He couldn’t even say for sure why, or perhaps there were too many whys to isolate it, but he couldn’t seem to rein in the fury as he stalked toward the restaurant.

She had no right. No right to interfere with his daughter’s life. She hadn’t earned the right to involve herself in his daughter’s life. As he pushed through the entrance door, he scanned the small dining room, searching for them. When his eyes lit on Joss, she bit her lower lip and then smiled. It fell quickly from her mouth as she took in his less than friendly expression. He walked deliberately slowly over to them. He stopped at the edge of the table, taking a deep breath. Joss wasn’t even trying to smile at him at that point.

Nat looked sheepishly up to him. “Hey, Dad.” She waited patiently for him to say something. She wasn’t nearly as intimidated as Joss seemed at the moment, but then, Nat knew him well enough to know that though his anger might look horrifying, it didn’t mean it actually was.

“Finish your dinner, and then come out to the car.” He turned his focus on Joss then. “Can I speak to you outside, please?” She nodded but said nothing.

He didn’t wait for her to stand before he turned and walked away. Her chair legs screeched across the old worn wooden floors. When he reached the door, he paused, keeping his eyes forward as he held the door open behind him. The weight of the door shifted as she reached for it, and then he kept walking, still refusing to look back at her.

“Isaiah—”

He rounded on her before she could say anything further. “Who do you think you are interfering in my daughter’s life?”

“Excuse me?” She looked and sounded incredulous. “I was only trying—”

“To be nosy as hell. I know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I was trying to help!”

“Well, don’t! She doesn’t need your help.”

“What?”

“You’re nothing to her. Do you understand me? You’re not her friend. You’re not some concerned parent! Don’t try to be something to her you’re not. She doesn’t need it. It doesn’t help her.” His voice was inappropriately loud, and he instantly crossed his arms as he clamped his mouth shut to stifle his voice.

“I
am
a concerned parent! And what the hell is wrong with that?” Joss simply looked at him in shock.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t shocked at his own behavior too. Why the fuck was he so mad at her? Did he actually think she’d done something wrong? Isaiah raked his hands through his hair in frustration as she stared on, watching him, seemingly powerless to understand where he was coming from.

“Where is Natalie’s mother?”

Whatever regret he’d been feeling for how he was treating her disappeared as he looked at her. “Damn nosy aren’t you?”

He studied her, and she looked right back. She was definitely no longer intimidated. If he was guessing, he’d pushed her hard enough her defenses had snapped into place. She could be defensive with the best of them. He’d seen it in the principal’s office the first time he’d met her. Could he say he was any different?

“Butt the fuck out of our lives. Got it?” As he turned from her to his car, he heard the door open behind him. Natalie told Joss “bye” as they passed one another.

He stared at his steering wheel as Natalie climbed in. The moment he heard her seatbelt click, he put his car in reverse and backed out.

“Dad, they were being nice—even Harper. You didn’t have to be rude.”

He glanced at her for a moment. She wasn’t happy with him. He couldn’t say he was happy with himself either.

“Sorry. I’m just not sure what to think of them.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think.”

He pulled up to a red light, and he cocked his head to the side as he watched her.

“I think your job’s made you paranoid. Mom used to say it all the time.”

He chuckled, but it died quickly in his throat at the painful memories that brought up. “Not paranoid enough, though. I missed a lot of things I should have seen.”

Nat sighed. “I wanna be happy here.”

He watched her for a moment longer. A car behind them honked, making it clear they didn’t appreciate the fact that the light was now green, and he was sitting there unmoving. He let off the brake, continuing on. If she could be happy, hell if she could even
want
to be happy, didn’t he owe it to her to share that optimism?

Chapter Five

“Hey. Got time for a walk-in?” Steph’s voice echoed through the phone receiver from the front desk of Bristol Realty. “Thought you might kill me if I asked Randall first.” Steph laughed for a moment. Joss would definitely kill Steph for such a thing.

“I’ll take it. God knows I need the commission after losing the last one to that asswipe—”

“You’re on speaker.” Little rattled Steph, and her voice was as sing-songy as ever when she mentioned that bit of hindsight Joss should have seen coming.

“Of course I am. Show them on back, Steph.”

“Will do, and it’s a him, not a them.”

Steph hung up on her before Joss could say anything else inappropriate, and moments later, her blonde perky head bobbed around the corner. What she didn’t expect to see was Isaiah following her through the door, and when his attention found her, he looked just as shocked as she felt.

“Joss.” He scowled for a moment before he took a deep breath. “I had no idea you worked here or that you were a realtor for that matter.”

“You two know one another?” Steph’s comment was the biggest
duh
comment of the century, given the way Joss’s and Isaiah’s eyes were locked on one another.

Joss forced herself to look at Steph. “Yeah. Umm… Perhaps Randall should take this one.”

Steph’s focus bounced between Isaiah and her, and it was quite obvious she had no idea what to make of them.

“That’s not necessary, Joss.” His deep voice pulled her gaze back to him. “Wouldn’t want you to lose a commission to the asswipe. Fucking Randall, right?”

“I’m sorry?” She wasn’t apologetic at all—confused as shit really.

“You said that the first day I met you. In the parking lot? In response to a call you’d gotten?”

She was catching on. “Ah… The commission that got away. I had more important things going on that day.”

“Yes, you did.” His tone was far more relaxed and warm on this day than a week prior when he’d verbally kicked her ass in the parking lot at the Landing. Hell, it sounded damn near seductive, though she was guessing he just had one of those deep, soothing voices that tended to trip that trigger in her more than anything. And she was guessing it was tripping so easily on this day because he wasn’t mad at her for once.

“Well, okay then. Steph, I’ll take it from here.”

Steph smirked at her before turning and leaving. When she was gone, Isaiah sat in the chair across the desk from Joss. She turned her computer monitor on its swivel stand, so they could both view the screen. As she jiggled her mouse to wake her sleeping screen up, she looked at him.

“So, tell me what you’re in the market for. We have—”

His throat clearing interrupted her, and she followed his line of sight to her monitor. She was confused for half a second until she caught sight of the Bristol help wanted page of the newspaper up on the screen.

“Shit.” She muttered the word as she quickly and pathetically tried to close the window from her sideways vantage of the screen. Humiliation coursed through her body in waves of panic inducing trills. She finally managed to close the page and sat inhaling and exhaling, waiting for the embarrassment to pass. He touched the top of her hand, the one still clutching the mouse in a death grip.