Of course it would be weird. It felt weird even before she knew Luke was part of the deal. “There’s no other work in this town,” Grace said dully.
“Oh, come on, I’m sure someone would hire you. One of your dad’s old friends? You know, as a favor to him?”
Grace winced inwardly. “I’d sooner die than shame Daddy by taking charity from one of his friends. They’d feel obligated, I’d feel pathetic…it would be the same as asking for a handout.”
Jenna shook her head. “You’re just as stubborn as you’ve always been.”
“I’m not stubborn, I’m mature.” She laughed. “Besides, if I worked for the school, I could negotiate tuition for Jimmy into the deal, and we’d keep exactly the same hours.”
“That makes sense. And it is a good school,” Jenna acknowledged with a sympathetic smile. “Jimmy’d like the horses.”
“That’s what I thought. But it’s not like I have the option of taking the job.”
“Well, there are minuses to it too. This is probably for the best.”
“Unemployment, in this case, is not for the best.”
“Surely there’s something else you can do that would fit the bill. Somewhere.”
Across the room, Luke had stopped and was talking to a petite blonde with a heart-shaped butt and a waist the size of Grace’s thigh. Drawing her attention away from the two, Grace pulled the bowl of peanuts over and took some. To hell with fat grams. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find something else,” she said, still watching Luke with a growing constriction in her chest. Nerves. But the anxiety she was trying to escape continued to escalate. Her breath stopped when she noticed Luke glance in her direction, but he didn’t seem to see her.
Jenna followed her gaze and asked, “So why did he turn you down?”
“I’m not sure.” She’d remembered he was great-looking, of course, but she hadn’t remembered just how great-looking he was. The jerk. “I believe he thinks I’m not clever enough to pass the test and then drive the big, bad bus,” Grace said, taking a last sip of beer. Part of her was actually reluctant to leave, but she didn’t trust herself to be entirely civil to Luke if he should see her. “And if I screwed up after he’d hired me, he’d look really bad in front of the board.”
Suddenly, Luke turned and walked purposefully in her direction. It felt as though all the noise and music and people receded into the background. Grace was as acutely aware of him as she would have been if he were following her down a dark alley with a ski mask on.
Before she could turn away and pretend she hadn’t seen him, he raised a hand in greeting, and she had no choice but to do the same.
“The usual,” he called.
“Sorry?” Grace said, at the same time hearing a voice behind her say, “You got it, Luke,” over the din of the band and the crowd around them.
Oh, God, he wasn’t even talking to her. He’d been waving at someone behind her, and she’d waved right on back at him, like a fool. Would this day never end?
He walked right past her without acknowledgment. Then he stopped and stood behind her at the bar, apparently oblivious to her presence. He wasn’t more than two feet away from her back. She could feel the heat of him, penetrating the thin fabric of her shirt.
She slipped some money out of her purse and whispered to Jenna, “Pay the bill and meet me outside.” She had to get away before he did notice her.
“Grace?” Too late. It was Luke’s voice. He’d spotted her.
She turned with as much cool as she could muster. “Oh. Hey, Luke. Did you hire someone for that job from the hundreds of people I saw lined up by the garage when I was leaving?”
He didn’t play along. “I left a message on your answering machine.” His voice was clipped. The bartender handed him a bottle of beer with no glass. He took a gulp of it, then let out a short breath. “You get it?”
“A message?” Grace was mystified.
His eyes, which had seemed such a warm shade of brown earlier, were hard. “You got the job.” His mouth turned up in the smallest ironic smile. “Surprise.”
Grace caught her breath. She was employed? Really? This was too good to be true—or was it? “I don’t understand. The other day you told me I didn’t.”
He took another draw off his drink and set it down, hard, on the bar. Foam bubbled out of the top and ran over onto the gleaming wood bar. “I’ve been outvoted.”
Her excitement turned to apprehension. He was angry about something. Had Mr. Bailey said something to him after all? “What do you mean you’ve been outvoted?” she asked cautiously.
He lowered his chin fractionally and gave her a look that could, under the right circumstances, have been extremely sexy, but which was, instead, downright accusatory.
Something cold slithered down her spine.
“I mean,” he said, with too much patience, “that starting in three short weeks, it’ll be your job to sit on a seat covered with chewed gum, in a vehicle equipped with a Bodily Fluid Clean-up Kit, surrounded by screaming kids. Just like you wanted.” One side of his mouth cocked into a smile. “This must be a dream come true for you.”
His iciness left little doubt that Fred Bailey had indeed leaned on him.
“I applied for that job without help from anyone,” she said defensively.
“And I turned you down without help from anyone.” He drank, then leveled his eyes on Grace. “If it had stopped there, we’d have no problem.”
“What happened?”
“Fred Bailey happened,” he said, confirming her fears. “He strongly ‘suggested’ that I reconsider you for the position, no matter how unqualified you are. What did you do, call him from your cell phone as soon as you got outside?”
“No!” Grace was hurt by the accusation. “I saw him in the parking lot when I left, and he asked what I was doing there. When I told him what happened, he offered to talk to you, but I declined. I had no idea he’d done it anyway, and I’m sorry he did.”
“This is the way things have always worked for you, Grace.” Luke shook his head and took an angry slug of his beer, hammering it back down on the countertop.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“That means it’s always been easy for you. You’ve always known just what you wanted and gotten it.” He lowered his voice slightly and added, “No matter what the cost.”
She railed in anger. “That’s not true. Number one, if you think this is my dream job and I went after it pulling all the powerful strings I could because I wanted it so badly, you’re crazy. And number two, I would hardly say my life is easy. You have a lot of nerve making presumptions of any sort about me.” She caught her breath. “And what do you mean ‘no matter what the cost’?”
He looked as though he was about to fire back at her, then stopped. “That’s none of my business. It’s between you and whoever you make your deals with. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“That’s right, you shouldn’t. You have no right to judge me, Luke Stewart. No right at all.”
“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself from now on.”
“Right,” she said. “Like you always have, huh? Like you even can. You may not say anything, but you have a way of getting your disapproval across.”
“I don’t think you want to have that conversation,” Luke said, in a voice that assured her that she did not.
“I don’t want to have any