Page 72 of Love Me Gently

I pocketed my keys and phone and stood from my desk chair. “I’ll be back by four. Stay out of trouble until then.”

Eddy picked up a pen and spun it in his fingers. “I make no promises, partner.”

That didn’t surprise me. He was as likely to end up neck-deep in a barrel of trouble as he was to be the one pulling people out of it.

I jogged out of the small station and since this was a personal mission, I jogged past our SUV and went to my truck. Five minutes later, I was pulling up to the new high school, and our SRO was opening the door for me. “Something wrong?”

“No, Bill, I’m good.” Since the middle and high schools were right next door, Bill Thomas spent his day moving between both schools. We’d tried to petition the county for more resources, due to school safety, but so far that hadn’t happened. “I’m here for personal reasons. Need to talk to Ashley.”

“Get a visitor sticker and check in at the front desk. Mable will help you out with that. You know where her room is?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

I’d been in this school dozens of times, for both minor offenses and scares and athletic events. I checked in with Mable, a woman who went to church with my parents and Trina’s, and after a brief, socially polite conversation, headed toward Ashley’s room.

Mable had checked her schedule, and she wasn’t in a planning time, but this didn’t matter. I had to drop this news to her, and there was no way a phone call would suffice. I could have gone straight to Robbie, but this was news Ash needed to hear from me.

Mostly because Trina wasn’t entirely wrong. Ashleywaspissed at her, had been for a lot of years, and while I never knew if Robbie told her about Trina’s abortion, the fact that Trina took off and ghosted us all was still painful for Ashley.

I knocked on her door, and a few seconds later, a student opened it, eyes turning large and round as she saw my badge. “No one’s in trouble,” I murmured, the first thing Ialwaysfound myself saying to people and ducked my head in the door. Ashley was sitting at her desk, laptop in front of her, and all the kids’ heads were bent to their own on their desks.

As soon as I entered, she glanced my way, and her face paled. “Robbie?—”

“He’s fine. It’s all good. Everyone’s all good.” I smiled at the entire classroom. “Need to talk to you for a few minutes, okay? But swear, it’s all good.”

Ashely shook her head, blinked a couple of times, and then scanned her classroom as she pushed her rolling chair away from her desk. “Keep working on the test. No cheating. I’ll be right outside, but don’t forget that I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.”

I chuckled. Spoken like any mom, and I didn’t doubt her. Ashley kneweverything.

She met me outside her classroom but kept her foot lodged in the door. School safety protocol said all doors had to be locked, and while I knew she had a key on her somewhere to get back inside, this was to ensure the kids did, in fact, not cheat like she’d said.

“What’s up?”

“I only have a minute to tell you this, and you’re going to have to process everything really quick, so I’m sorry to do it here, but I couldn’t wait. You with me so far?”

“Yeah, Cole. Sure. What is it?”

“Trina’s here.”

“What?” she shrieked. “Why?Herehere? Likehome?”

“Calm down.” I chuckled. “And yeah. She’s at my house. Has been for a couple weeks now.”

“Weeks!?”

I glanced through the glass part of her door and saw several kid’s head whip back to their laptops. “It’s a long story, but yes. She’shereat my home, and you have to know the reason she is because some friends of hers down in Georgia helped get her out of a real bad situation.”

“How bad?” Ashley’s face, like I predicted, turned from shocked to worried and then scared. “How bad, Cole?”

“Real bad. Let’s just say if my gun happened to accidentally discharge around her husband, soon-to-be-ex, hopefully, I should get a medal and not a citation bad.”

Her chin wobbled, and her pale blue eyes darkened. “Stop. That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding. It’sbad, Ash. But she’s getting better, too.”

“She’s here? Home?”

Tears fell down her cheeks, and her chin trembled. Damn. Maybe I should have had Robbie tell her. “She’s been through a lot. More than I can even imagine, but I think she’s been hurting and lost for a long time, and I need you to know that because I think she’s getting better. Or trying to, and I think, well, I don’t know if she’s going to stay here, but I think she’s definitely not going back.”

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