Read Online Have You Seen Her? by Karen Rose - Free Book Online Page B

next to where she stood, got out, and stood inside the open driver’s door with his arms folded across the roof of his car.
    “Do you have any enemies?” he demanded with a scowl. Jenna’s heart sank. Adam’s XK 150. Then her temper surged. “Only about nine hundred,” she answered from behind clenched teeth. Word of Rudy’s suspension was out and now she was on the hit list of roughly nine hundred hormonally whacked teenagers. She sighed. “How bad is it?”
    “Your tires are slashed, all four of them.”
    Jenna limped a few steps to lean against his passenger door. “Reparable?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t think so. These aren’t just punctures, they’re slashes. The tires are ribbons. But that didn’t worry me as much as this.” He held a sheet of paper across the car’s roof. “Don’t touch it, except for the corner,” he cautioned.
    Jenna scanned the page and her heart stilled. “ ‘Put him back on the team or you’ll roo the day you were born, you bitch,’” she read in an unsteady voice, then cleared her throat and looked up at Mr. Thatcher. “They misspelled ‘rue,’” she said, simply because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    Mr. Thatcher smiled grimly. “I don’t think they were too worried about the school spelling bee. Who’d you flunk off the team?”
    Jenna stared back down at the paper in her hand. No one had ever threatened her before. Her anger fizzled, numb fear taking its place. “Rudy Lutz,” she murmured.
    “The QB?” She looked up in time to see him wince. “You’re not from around here are you?”
    Jenna’s temper simmered. First her car was vandalized, then this
person
intimated it was all her fault. Any lingering admiration of his soft brown eyes and trim hips went right out the window. “I’ve lived in North Carolina for more than ten years.”
    “Then you should know the risks of interfering with high school football in the South.”
    Jenna saw red. “What I
know
is that he failed my class and I’m not only within my rights, but my
responsibility
as a teacher to—to—” She stuttered to a stop when Thatcher held up his hand.
    “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t have failed him.” He considered her thoughtfully. “In fact, I’d say you have some real guts to do what no other teacher’s probably ever done before.”
    “Well, thank you,” Jenna began, calming again. Thatcher raised his hand again. “However, you should know that your actions are not without risk. Your car needs all new tires and you’ve been threatened. You shouldn’t park at the far end of the parking lot anymore. And ask someone to walk out with you after school—especially if it’s dark outside.” He looked around at all the cars in the lot. “I’d better take you home. I don’t like the idea of you being here all alone when that crowd breaks at halftime. It could get ugly.”
    Jenna looked down at the threatening note she still held gingerly by two fingers at the upper corner, as instructed. “It already has.” She looked up and her heart skipped a beat at the sincerely caring expression in his brown eyes.
Good God, Jenna,
she thought,
when your hormones wake up, they really wake up.
Her throat was suddenly as dry as soda crackers. “I, uh, I hate to keep you from your family.”
    “My aunt is probably feeding them dinner as we speak and they’re used to my odd hours. I’ll be home before bath and bedtime for sure.”
    Jenna drew a breath just as an angry roar came from the direction of the football field. “That didn’t sound too cheerful, did it?”
    He shook his head. “No.” He came around the car and opened the door, taking her briefcase in one hand. He feigned a stagger and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “What are you carrying in here? Bricks?” He put her briefcase in the back-seat and pretended to stretch his back.
    Jenna smirked as she got in the car. “Yes. I alone have discovered the secret for turning metal into gold bricks.