Page 31 of Stripping Bare
“Okay,” she said slowly, as if she still didn’t get the whole picture. Which she didn’t, because he didn’t want to give it to her, dammit. “So what’s theemergency?”
The adrenaline that had flooded his body when Dianne called him released again, stiffening Jonah’s muscles, and had him white-knuckling the steering wheel. “One of the spouses found out his family was staying at the shelter. Let’s just say he came to claim what washis.”
“Oh, God. What—” she cut off with a gasp as he took the off-ramp at twice the postedspeed.
Jonah lifted his foot from the gas pedal and pulled air into his lungs. He wouldn’t do the shelter any good this way. He needed to get his shit together and calm down. The last thing those kids needed to see was another out-of-control asshole. “We’re almost there. They need some more counseling support because all the women and kids were thrown into chaos when ithappened.”
“You want me to do crisis counseling? That…that’s not my area of expertise. There’s a reason I chose corporatecoaching.”
He hadn’t completely stopped to consider how Tessa might react to a situation like this. Had just seen what needed to be done and assumed. “If you can’t do this,then—”
“I do have hundreds of clinical practicum hours from my doctoral work. It’s not like I’mincapable.”
“I never saidthat.”
“Tell me more about the situation. I want to beprepared.”
“He took the kids,” he toldher.
“Oh, dearLord.”
Yeah. But they were all going to need more than prayers. “They need all the help you canoffer.”
“I’ll do mybest.”
That was all he could ask of her. “The director will brief you when we get there. I’ll be over in the rec center with some of the older boys. She said they were acting all tough like they weren’t affected, weren’t scared, but they’re posing.” Something he knew plenty about. Acting A-Okay when you were actually bleedinginside.
A few zigs and zags through the streets in the West Asheville neighborhood, and he pulled into the rec center’s parking lot. “I never approach the shelter itself, so you’ll need to cross there,” he told Tessa as they got out of the car and he pointed to a skybridge arching over the street. That structure had been nonnegotiable because he wanted the kids to be safe in every possible way and the street between was just busy enough to make him nervous. “They’re expecting you inside, but I’ll text to let them know we’rehere.”
But Tessa just stood there looking at him as if she could read his every thought, his every emotion, his every failing. So he ducked his head and let his thumbs fly across his phone to give Dianne a heads-up that he’d arrived and brought inreinforcements.
“We’ll be here awhile,” shesaid.
“Yes. As long as it takes.” For as long as it took today, anyway. Some of these kids’ scars would never go away. Just like Tessa’s would be with her for the rest of her life. That was something Jonah could never steal, hack, or fix. And he hated that reality with a passion that had blackened something insidehim.
“This conversation isn’t over,” Tessa said, straightening her jacket and putting on what he thought of as her I-can-fix-you face. “Afterward, I want to know what’s going onhere.”
He scrubbed his knuckles over his scalp hard enough to make him permanently bald. “Yeah, you and meboth.”
