Christmas On Nutcracker Court (6 page)

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Authors: Judy Duarte

BOOK: Christmas On Nutcracker Court
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“He
appears
. . . ?” Couldn't he talk? A blast of adrenaline shot through Carly's veins as she tried to read between the lines.
“He has a split lip, a scrape on his chin, and a torn shirt,” Mrs. Evans said, “but when he's quizzed about it, his responses are pretty evasive.”
“Can you please hold on a moment, Mrs. Evans?” Carly set down the pink roller she'd been holding. “I need to find a quiet place to talk.”
After covering the mouthpiece, she apologized again to Ruth-Ann and said, “I'm afraid I have to take this call. If you'll excuse me, I'll just be a minute.” She offered her the latest
People
magazine and a smile of reassurance.
Once inside the break room, Carly returned her full attention to the school principal. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Evans. I don't understand. What's going on?”
“Joshua is sitting outside my office right now. He was more than five minutes late entering class this morning, so his teacher, who was working with another student at the back of the room, sent him to get a tardy slip. When the school admissions clerk noticed his injury and torn shirt, she asked him what happened, but he refused to explain. So she sent him to see me. Unfortunately, he won't tell me, either.”
Why wouldn't Josh speak up? Was he afraid of getting into trouble? Was he trying to protect someone?
And why had he been late to class? He'd ridden the bus to school this morning, hadn't he?
Of course, after breakfast, he'd mentioned that he wanted to walk to school. But she'd insisted that he stay with . . .
Mikey.
Fear clawed at her chest. She tried to keep the panic from her voice as she asked, “Where's Mikey? The boys should have been together. Is he okay?”
“Yes, I've already checked into that. Michael is in class. And from what he told Mrs. Hornkohl, he rode the bus to school, but Joshua didn't.”
Carly's heartbeat thudded in her ears. Josh had argued with her in the past. He'd also done his share of whining and complaining about looking after his brother or accepting responsibility. But up until now he'd always been compliant and had never rebelled or willfully disobeyed her.
Was this the sort of thing she had to look forward to when he became a teenager? Was this only the beginning?
She closed her eyes, trying to conjure an image of that sweet little baby who'd nursed at her breast, the toddler she'd cuddled in her arms—her firstborn son. Yet all she could see was the disappointment on his face when she'd told him he had to ride the bus this morning.
And now he was in some kind of trouble.
“I'll have to shuffle a few of my clients around,” Carly said, “but I can probably be there within twenty minutes.”
She'd ask one of the other stylists to finish rolling Ruth-Ann's hair and to put her under the dryer. Depending upon how long she would need to stay at the school, she'd probably have to ask someone to do the comb-out, too.
But her sons were—and always would be—her first priority.
“You don't need to leave work,” Mrs. Evans said. “I know that you're a single mom and the sole support of the household. But I did want to notify you and let you know that Josh will have detention after school today. We'd like to keep him until four. Will that be a problem?”
“No, that's fine.” Josh certainly deserved to be punished for disobeying and refusing to tell the truth when he was questioned. But what was she going to do with Mikey? He got out of class at two thirty, and her only option, at this point, was to pay the fee for him to stay for the YMCA day-care program.
Once again, there was another financial hit. If she could afford the cost in the first place, she would have registered her sons at the beginning of the school year.
“We'll take care of it from here,” Mrs. Evans said.
But Carly had a second thought. “Can I speak to my son? Maybe he'll tell me what happened.”
“Of course. I'll put him on the telephone.”
As Carly waited to speak to Josh, she scanned the small break room where the stylists hung out when they were between clients. Right now she had it all to herself, which was a relief. She didn't like her coworkers knowing how tough things had been lately.
Moments later, Josh picked up the phone and uttered a sheepish, “Hello.”
“What happened?” Carly asked him. “Why didn't you ride the bus this morning?”
Silence stretched across the line.
“Don't you dare ignore me, young man. I want to know what's going on. And I want to know
right
now.”
“I was going to ride the bus, Mom. I was even waiting in line with Mikey when that man's dog got loose. It was wandering in the canyon. And when it started walking on the side of the road, I was afraid it would get hit by a car or something.”
Carly rolled her eyes. “You left your brother alone to chase after a
dog
?”
“Don't worry. There were a couple of moms at the bus stop, so I knew Mikey would be safe without me.”
“But it sounds as though
you
weren't safe. What happened after that?”
Silence again. The kind that made a mother suspect that a lie was brewing. Or that the truth was going to be a real struggle to tell.
So which was it?
Oh, no,
she thought, as another possibility crossed her mind. Did he have a confrontation with Mr. Tolliver? Had it escalated?
Carly took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, hoping to regroup and tackle the questioning from another angle. “So did you take the dog home?”
“Yeah.”
“Did the dog hurt you?”
“No, Hemingway's cool. He and I are becoming friends.”
Maybe so, since their paths seemed to keep crossing. But Josh certainly wasn't a friend to the dog's owner.
“Did you have a run-in with Mr. Tolliver?” she asked.
“Kind of.”
A cool chill fluttered down her spine. If the dog's owner had touched her son, if he'd hurt him, she'd . . . she'd . . . Well, she had half a notion to march up to his front door and let him have it. But that wouldn't solve anything.
She could, of course, call the police and report the incident.
Again, she wrestled with patience and composure, but she managed to ask, “What did that man do to you, honey?”
“Huh?”
“What happened when you returned the dog to Mr. Tolliver?”
“Nothing. I just put the dog inside the fence. And . . . and then I tripped and fell down and hurt my lip. That's all.”
He was lying. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.
“Did that man threaten you?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Mr. Tolliver.”
Another pause. Then he finally said, “Yeah. He told me to stay away from his yard.”
Or what? “Did he say what he would do if you went back on his property?”
“Not exactly. I guess he'd yell at me. Or he'd tell you, and then I'd be in trouble.”
The boy was already in trouble, and he wasn't making it easy for her to help him.
At times like this, she wished their father was still around to be a role model and to help Carly understand the male point of view. But she had to admit that even when he'd been a part of their lives, he hadn't been much help either way, so she was on her own with this one.
“We're going to talk about this again tonight,” she said. “Now give the telephone to Mrs. Evans.”
When the principal was back on the line, Carly told her what little she'd learned and what she'd gathered by connecting a few dots.
“Josh said that he fell down,” Carly told Mrs. Evans. “But last night, the dog's owner called me to complain about the boys coming onto his property. It's possible that . . . Well, I'd hate to think that a grown man would hurt a child, but it does happen. And that might be why Josh isn't telling us the whole truth. It's possible that he's afraid of the man.”
“Well, his shirt is torn,” the principal added. “And it certainly looks as though someone might have grabbed it at the neckline and given it a hard twist.”
Carly's stomach clenched up tight. “What legal options do I have if that man assaulted him?”
“I'm not sure. You'd have to talk to law enforcement officers, but I'd think that you could charge him with assault if he actually hurt your son.” Mrs. Evans paused. “Do you know where he lives?”
“Yes, I do.”
And on her lunch hour, Carly planned to stop by Mr. Tolliver's house. Then she would ask him the questions her son had refused to answer.
 
 
The doorbell rang, rousing Max from his sleep. He would have rolled over in bed and placed a pillow over his head, but whoever kept ringing that darn bell was annoying the dog, too.
And now, with Hemingway barking and howling up a storm, Max had no other choice but to get up and see who was at the door.
Grumbling, he kicked off the covers, rolled out of bed, and reached for his bathrobe. He slipped his arms into the sleeves without taking time to pull it together and tie the sash. Then he made his way downstairs.
“I'm coming!” he yelled, hoping that the blasted noise would stop—the ringing, the barking, the howling.
Oh, for Pete's sake. He'd been up until dawn again last night, trying to rewrite a scene that just wasn't coming together. Then, an hour after he'd finally turned in, Hemingway had whined and scratched at the door. So he'd put him in the backyard and had returned to bed. But around eight, the dog had put up a real fuss. And when Max had gone to see what was troubling him, he'd had to referee a couple of kids fighting in the street.
And now this . . .
He undoubtedly wore a scowl as he swung open the door, which didn't bother him in the least. But when he caught sight of an attractive brunette standing on the stoop, and he stared into the prettiest green eyes he'd ever seen and caught a whiff of floral perfume, his foul mood dissipated into the lightly scented air.
It was anyone's guess who she was or why she'd come to his house, but it didn't seem to matter one iota.
With her silky brown hair styled picture-perfect, and a slight flush on her cheeks, she was stunning.
And he was speechless.
Of course, if she were smiling instead of frowning, his brains and tongue might have deserted him for good.
She was, he realized, hot in every sense of the word—hot as in gorgeous and clearly hot under the collar.
“Can I help you?” he asked, thinking she'd come to the wrong house and was looking for one of his neighbors instead.
“Mr. Tolliver?”
“Yes.” He pulled his robe together and reached for the sash that dangled along the side. After telling Hemingway to pipe down, he asked, “What seems to be the trouble?”
“I'm Carly Westbrook, Josh's mother.”
Lucky kid,
came to mind.
“And I want to know what happened this morning,” she added.
“Maybe you should ask him.”
She stiffened. “I did. And now I'm asking you.”
“For one thing, your son woke me up.”
“And so you assaulted him?”
“
What
?” Max tensed, and as his movement froze, the sash he'd been trying to tie around his waist slipped out of his fingers. “Are you crazy? Did your son tell you that I hurt him?”
Her demeanor softened a tad, but she continued to stand her ground. “No, he didn't actually say that, but he has a split lip and a torn shirt.”
“Did he tell you anything about what happened?”
“Just that he brought your dog home. He's refusing to talk about his injuries. But I know that you don't want him on your property, and I know that he's afraid of you. So I thought I'd better get to the bottom of it.”
“You're making an unwarranted leap in the wrong direction,” Max said, both irritated at the woman and at himself for feeling even the least bit attracted to her.
“You didn't hurt him?” she asked.
Max crossed his arms over his mostly bare chest. “I may be a lot of things, Mrs. Westbrook, but I don't beat up on kids.”
She didn't appear convinced. Instead, she crossed her own arms over her chest, causing the fabric of her pink blouse to pull taut against the buttonholes.
Forcing his gaze back to hers, Max said, “I can't vouch for the part about my dog getting out, but I saw a big kid beating up on your son this morning. When I came out on the porch to see what was causing the dog to make all the racket, I yelled and the bigger boy ran off.”

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