“No guns,” Grif said.

“Why? Soldiers use guns.”

“They also use their brains.”

Profound silence met this. Then, from Mikey, “Well, that’s no fun.”

“Guns are no fun, kid,” Grif said. “Trust me.”

“You been shot at? Blown up?”

“Both,” Grif said.

“Wow,” the kids all said in unison.

“Cool.”

“Awesome.”

Grif shook his head. “Not cool. Not awesome.” He pulled off his baseball cap and shoved his hair from his forehead, showing them the long, jagged scar. “Another half an inch to the left and I’d have lost an eye,” he said matter-of-factly. “Half an inch to the right and I’ve had lost my head. Can’t live without a head.”

The kids were mesmerized.

Griffin then proceeded to get the students to help him create a maze with the desks, after which he had them all tie their shoelaces together so they were hooked in one long line. “Now you learn how to get through the maze together,” he said.

“Why together?” Dustin asked. “That’s stupid.”

“You’re on a baseball team,” Griffin said. “You should know the benefit of being able to work as a team. What would you do if you got lost?”

“Send the best guy ahead,” Dustin said.

Griffin shook his head. “The best guy protects the unit. You need to be able to count on each another.” His gaze met Kate’s across the room.

She knew he was thinking of when he’d been hurt, down with a migraine, and she’d taken him home, stayed with him.

She’d known what he gave her. He made her feel smart, sexy, worthy. But she hadn’t known what she gave him. Who would have thought she gave him anything? But she’d had his back, and at the thought she felt such a surge of pride that she beamed at him.

He didn’t quite return the smile, but the very corners of his mouth quirked.

He was actually getting into this a little, she thought, maybe even enjoying himself.

“What if you don’t like the person you’re tied to?” Nina asked, looking at Dustin at her side with distaste.

“You don’t have to like him,” Griffin said. “You do have to trust him.”

Nina gave Dustin a long look of extreme doubt.

“You don’t have to be best friends or even alike,” Griffin said, and paused to let that sink in. “In fact it’s better if your unit is made up of very different people. That way everyone brings a skill set to the table. Now get ready, we’re timing this.” He pulled out his phone and brought up a stopwatch. “Go,” he said.

Pandemonium.

He whistled, and when he had all of their attention again, he shook his head. “Epic fail. You can’t just run around like crazy ants; you have to work together. Try again.” He reset his watch, counted down, and said, “Go!”

He let them go wild for a minute longer than he had the first time before stopping them again. “Better,” he said. “Now pretend someone’s injured.” He pointed to one of the kids, Jessica, who was just about as fierce as they came.

She immediately pouted. “I don’t want to be injured. I want to be on the rescue unit.”

Griffin looked around him for another victim. The first person he laid eyes on was Meggie. Also fierce.

“Why does it have to be a girl?” she demanded, hands on hips. “And anyway, my mom says girls are better than boys at everything.”

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Grif murmured, and he pointed to the first boy.

Tommy.

Tommy grinned, and Kate’s heart squeezed as Grif put a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Tommy has a broken ankle, and you can’t just shove him along with you,” he said.

“If the best guy went ahead,” Dustin said. “He could get help.”

Progress, Kate thought. He was actually starting to think of others.

“No man left behind,” Grif reminded him. “Ever.” He set his timer again. “Go.”

* * *

The recess bell rang, and the kids whooped and filed out of the classroom. Tommy stopped to give Grif a fist bump and a gap-toothed grin.

Grif hadn’t been sure he’d have a damn thing to offer when Tommy had first asked him to do this. But he couldn’t turn the kid down. So he’d made sure that Tommy had done well at the drills, and he had. The kid might be different but he was good different.

Grif hadn’t been at all like Tommy when he’d been young. Grif had always been at the top of the food chain, but something about Kate’s brother had grabbed at him from the first. Maybe because deep down he felt a little like Tommy now, trying to fit into an alien world.

Grif held back as the last of the parents left. He thought the morning had gone well, but what did he know? When he’d been a student here, a good day at school meant he had not been sent to the principal’s office.

Kate went to the back closet for her coat. “I’m not on recess duty today, but I like to be out there with the kids—”

He nudged her into the closet and out of view of anyone who happened to be walking by the classroom.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

Pressing her against the coats, he looked down into her face. “You gave me a look earlier.”

“What look?”

“You know what look,” he said. “The one that said you wanted to eat me for lunch.”

“Oh, you mean this one?” And then she gave him a repeat of the look.

Pushing her farther into the closet, he shut the door behind him.

“Oh no,” she said on a laugh. “Don’t give me dirty thoughts right now. We can’t—”

He kissed her. God, he loved kissing her. And doing it in the dark on the fly was even better.

“Going to miss this,” she whispered, pressing close.

Still cupping her face, he pulled back slightly, but he couldn’t see her face now.

“When you leave,” she clarified.

He traced a thumb over her jawline. “I don’t think I’m the one going.”

He felt her go still. “What?”

“I’m getting comfortable here,” he said much more casually than he felt. He lifted a shoulder, happy now for the dark, not willing to show her, much less admit, how much her thoughts on this mattered to him. “I might stick around.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “I did not see that coming.”

This threw him because it was a nonreaction. He’d expected something else. Something more. “And . . . ?”

“And now I’m really having dirty thoughts,” she whispered, her voice holding an emotion that he couldn’t decipher without a translator. But some words didn’t need translating.

“I love your dirty thoughts,” he said, understanding she wasn’t ready to discuss his possibly staying in Sunshine. That was okay, neither was he. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing we can discuss in school,” she said primly, even as she pressed her body close.

Okay, now they were talking.

“It involves some dirty words.”

“Ah, now you’re just teasing me,” he said, and bent to her. “Tell me one.”

“No.”

“Come on. Just one.”

“All right.” Going up on tiptoe, she pressed her body to his from chest to thigh and everything glorious in between, and put her mouth to his ear and whispered one word softly.

His favorite word of all. He tightened his grip on her. “Ms. Evans, I believe we need to discuss this in more detail.”

“We do,” she agreed.

“Tonight.”

Kate’s heart had skipped a beat. Hell, it had skipped a whole bunch of beats. He was thinking of staying? He was asking her out again? She was dizzy with it all. “Can’t,” she said. “It’s Friday.”

“What, no being down and dirty on Fridays?” he teased. “It’s what Fridays were meant for.”

“It’s the night I cook for my dad. I make up a bunch of casseroles for him to use during the week.”

“I’ll buy him cooking lessons,” Grif said without missing a beat, and slid his hands up her blouse.

He was thinking of staying . . . “He’s a terrible cook,” she murmured, locking her knees when the pads of his fingers slid over her nipples.

“Hence the lessons,” he said in his sex voice, making her go all trembly.

“I also have to help Ashley with college stuff,” she said. “We’re planning a road trip to tour some colleges in the fall.”

“You’ll be dissecting calves and frogs in the fall,” he reminded her. “You should make it a summer tour instead.”

For some reason, the thought brought panic, and she pulled back. “It’s not that simple.”

He went still for a beat and then backed from her. “Nope,” he agreed. “You just have to want it bad enough.”

“Want what?”

He opened the closet door and met her gaze. “You’re afraid to go.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.” She laughed, but it sounded hollow and fake even to her own ears. “I’m not afraid. I can’t just leave, Griffin, not without making sure everything’s going to be okay.”

“You’re afraid,” he repeated.

Yes. Okay, yes, she was afraid. Hell, she was terrified. She’d never even been out of Idaho for God’s sake, and here she was planning to go to California on her own for a year. But instead of admitting that, she crossed her arms and got defensive. “Says the guy who doesn’t even know me.”

He merely arched a brow. “Is that how you want to play this, Kate? That we’re still just a chemistry problem, nothing more?”

“We are just a chemistry problem.”

He shoved his fingers through his hair and then met her gaze. “You put on a good show, Kate, of making it about everyone else. Your family, your work . . . chemistry. But it is a show. Behind the curtains, it’s all you and your fears.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

But he was gone.

Twenty-three

Still shaken, Kate shuffled into her dad’s house, arms full. She had casseroles for the next week, a big, fat book of the best colleges in the country, and the Flash costume Tommy had ordered from her Amazon account.

Channing Tatum immediately wound himself around her ankles, and she stepped on his paw, nearly killing them both.

“You stole my damn chips again,” her dad said from where he was sitting on the couch with his laptop.

She’d found them in his mailbox. The postal carrier had a huge crush on him and was an enabler. “Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all.

He sighed. “Heard you had quite the lineup at career day.”

“Yes, we had a doctor and a banker.”

“And a real life warrior,” her dad said, getting up to help her. “Tommy stole Ashley’s makeup when he got home and used it for camouflage.”

“Not makeup, dad,” came Tommy’s muffled voice. “War paint.”

Kate turned around. What appeared to be every sheet and towel from the house had been used to make an impressive fort behind the couch.

“He’s working on setting up an army base,” her dad said.

“Outpost,” Tommy corrected, again muffled.

That’s when Kate realized she smelled something burning.

“You’re just in time,” her dad said. “I’ve got something in the oven.”

He looked pretty darn proud of himself, and Kate bit back her sigh. “Is it the something that’s burning?”

“What?” Her dad sniffed the air. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Tommy repeated from the depths of his fort.

“No swearing!” Kate said.

“Dad!” came Ashley’s shriek from upstairs. “You’re burning something! Again!”

Eddie and Kate were already rushing into the kitchen. Smoke was billowing out of the oven. Her dad ripped open the oven door and reached in.

“Dad! Oven mitts!” Kate yelled, then nudged him out of the way, grabbed the mitts, and pulled out . . . a ruined lasagna.

Her dad looked down at the charred mess and scratched the top of his head. “Huh. I have no idea why that keeps happening.”

“It’s called a timer,” Kate said, and set the dish on the stovetop, next to the pot with the morning’s oatmeal still stuck in the bottom like cement.

He shook his head. “Guess it’s takeout tonight. I’m getting good at that.” He flashed her a small smile and opened the junk drawer, stuffed to the gills with so much crap it took him a moment to get it open. Then he began to fish through the mess for the take-out menus. “I was watching a special on the travel channel,” he said. “Did you know San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the states? It’s the country’s premiere beach destination.” He glanced at her. “You send in your acceptance yet?”

He knew she hadn’t. “No.”

“How many days left?”

“Four.”

Her dad tossed a Chinese, an Italian, and a Mexican menu onto the counter. “Don’t you think you’ve wasted enough of your life raising me? Come on, Kate, it’s your turn to fly.”

“Dad, we both know I can’t go anywhere. Not until you can be the parent again.”

He turned off the oven and waved the oven mitts around to dissipate the smoke. “I am being the parent, Kate.”