The Moment She Came Back - Preview

CHAPTER ONE

Brody Duke hauled in a deep breath and released it through his teeth.

Calm down. She’s a good kid.

Walking up the path to the administration offices of Lyntacky Elementary, he nodded to the man coming the other way. He was wearing a suit, which told Brody he might have been some kind of US Department of Education representative, checking on things. Brody could count on one hand how many people in Lyntacky wore suits.

“Morning.” The man gave him a curt nod by way of a reply. Clearly his day was going as well as Brody’s.

Wrenching open the glass door, he stormed inside, suit-wearing man forgotten. Brody collided with someone hard, and they both went down, with him landing on top. Stunned, Brody took a second to realize he’d flattened a woman.

“Shit, sorry.” Recognition hit him hard as he looked down into the wide deep blue eyes. “Phoebe?”

“C-can’t breathe,” she wheezed.

He rolled to the side and regained his feet. He then lifted her to hers.

“Are you all right?” Brody released her, and she took two steps back away from him.

“I think so.” She moved her neck and shook out her hands. “Yes.”

The top of her head reached his eyes, but even at a glance, he could tell that was the only thing that hadn’t changed about Phoebe Stanway since he’d last seen her years ago.

“What are you doing here, Phoebe?”

Brody couldn’t take his eyes off her. Tall, but he still had a few inches on her. Willowy, with gentle curves and a pretty face. Phoebe Stanway had once been his girl and, he’d thought, the woman he’d spend the rest of his life with.

Her dirty-blond hair was shorter and no longer in that long tail he’d loved to wrap around his fist, but a messy cut that hung to just above her shoulders. Phoebe wasn’t just older; she was nothing like the girl he’d loved. At least to look at, he amended silently. He had no idea how her personality had changed.

“I work here,” she said, her voice cool. Clearly she wasn’t as shocked as he over their first meeting.

Her loose caramel trousers were teamed with a black silky top that showed off her body and toned arms. She looked elegant and sexy as hell.

“I thought you lived in New York?”

“I came home.” She lifted her chin as if daring him to challenge her right to relocate back to her hometown. “Nice to see you again, Brody.”

“How’s being back here working out for you?” Brody said. There was something soft in the air, and he guessed it was her scent.

“Good.” One clipped word.

Brody’s eyes caught the clock on the wall behind her.

“Shit, I need to go. But—”

“Goodbye, Brody.” Phoebe turned and walked away from him and through a door to his right, which he knew had once been the photocopy room. Did they still photocopy?

He walked to the left, still reeling from seeing Phoebe and how cold she’d been with him. But then what had he expected?

Things had ended badly for them. Brody angry and hurt she’d chosen to leave him to study, and Phoebe trying to please him and prepare for her future at the same time. It had been his family that had told him he was behaving like a small-minded dickhead, but by the time he’d realized they were right, Phoebe had gone. He’d tried to call her, but she’d not picked up or called back. He hadn’t tried again, instead sending a single text with one word: “Sorry.” That was the last contact they’d had until today.

Shaking his head at the memory of who he’d been, Brody strode to the double doors and through. He knew exactly where the principal’s office was. Most Dukes did. Ally, it seemed, was a chip off the old block. He reached it and knocked. A voice told him to enter.

“Morning, Brody.”

“Mrs. Bailey,” he said to the woman who had been the right hand of Lyntacky’s principal for years. Students had to get through her before they got to the boss of the school. She was also his mom’s friend, which meant she’d often given Brody and his siblings a disappointed look and a headshake when they’d arrived at her desk.

“Go on in, Brody. Principal Tanner is expecting you.”

“That takes me back.”

Mrs. Bailey smiled. “I’ve never met a Duke who likes rules.”

“Harsh but true,” he said, heading for the door. Knocking once, he entered.

His daughter, Ally, a ten-year-old with too much attitude, sat beside a boy who looked like he’d face-planted into a vat of blue dye. Her eyes were defiant as they found Brody’s.

Small for her age, skinny with knobby knees and long, straight dark hair, she was Brody’s world. Ally had challenged him to be the best version of himself since the day he’d first held her in his arms. Her squinty eyes had looked up at him, and he’d fallen in love for the second time in his life. He’d vowed to protect and love her from that day on.

She was smart, sassy, and hilarious, and she had a dress sense he just rolled with because nothing ever matched. His girl was headstrong and said exactly what she thought, which often got her into trouble… like now, apparently.

“Take a seat, Mr. Duke. Jack, you go outside and wait for your parents. I will speak to you next.”

The boy shot Ally a smug look, and she poked out her tongue.

“That will do, Ally,” Principal Tanner said.

The man had been in the job for five years, and the locals said he was starting to fit right in but still had a little way to go. It was always going to be tough following a man who had been Lyntacky Elementary’s principal for thirty years.

“I’m sorry to call you away from your work, Mr. Duke, but we have an issue that needs urgent attention,” Principal Tanner continued after the boy had left.

“He started it,” Ally said.

“How about you let Principal Tanner tell me what happened, Ally,” Brody said, taking the seat beside her. She clamped her lips into a hard, disapproving line that reminded him of his sister when something pissed her off.

A knock from behind them had Brody looking to the door.

“Come in, Ms. Stanway,” Principal Tanner said.

“Don’t tell me she’s your teacher?” Brody whispered to Ally as Phoebe walked in.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“You could say that,” Brody muttered.

His daughter rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I hate being a Duke. Everyone knows you—and not in a good way.”

“Hey, we did plenty of good stuff,” Brody protested. “You’d have to work hard to be as cool as us at school.” She snuffled at that.

The principal cleared his throat. “Please, everyone, sit.”

How had he not known that Phoebe was back in Lyntacky and teaching his kid? Brody had been busy but believed he’d kept his finger on the pulse with Ally. He’d known about the accident her previous teacher, Mr. Haddleback had, but not that his ex-girlfriend had filled the sudden vacancy.

“Ms. Stanway was on duty this morning as the children arrived to start their school day, and she came across Jack.” Principal Tanner waved to the door the boy had left through. “Apparently someone”—his eyes went to Ally, which told Brody she was the someone in question—“put a booby trap in Jack’s locker, so when he opened it, blue dye shot out and covered him.”

“Tell me this isn’t true?” Brody said even as he knew it was. His kid was smart, and if she wanted to get revenge on someone, she’d be sneaky about it, just like he’d been, which, in his defense, he’d had to be with four siblings.

“Jack was extremely unhappy with being covered in blue dye,” Principal Tanner continued, “and he decided Ally was responsible for his current state and confronted her, which is when Ms. Stanway arrived. You can take it from here.” He nodded to Phoebe.

Brody could focus on her now that she was talking. What had once drawn him to Phoebe was her enthusiasm for life. She looked far from that Phoebe now. Her empty expression told him nothing of what she was thinking or feeling.

“Jack was angry and had grabbed Ally when I arrived,” Phoebe said in the same tone she’d used on him earlier.

“I beg your pardon?” Brody’s anger that anyone would touch Ally had him rising out of his seat. “No one lays their hands on my kid.”

“Sit, please, Mr. Duke,” Principal Tanner said sternly. “Continue, Ms. Stanway.”

Reluctantly, Brody sat, feeling like the disruptive Duke he’d once been in this very office. Probably even this same chair, he thought, looking at the worn upholstery.

“I was about to tell Jack to release your daughter, Mr. Duke, when Ally raised her knee into his groin and then followed it up with a punch to his midsection when he’d released her,” Phoebe said.

He was Mr. Duke to her now?

“Good girl,” Brody said to his daughter.

“Jack was bullying Bobby again, Dad,” Ally said.

“Again?” Before Ally could answer his question, Phoebe spoke.

“I hardly think condoning that kind of behavior is a suitable reaction, Mr. Duke.” Her tone came out with chips of ice, it was so cold.

“If my daughter needs to defend herself, Ms. Stanway,” Brody said, putting the emphasis on her surname, “then I have ensured she knows how, and I’m proud of her for doing so, especially if she was under threat.”

Phoebe was looking at him like he was a stranger, when once they’d been closer than two people could be.

“I agree. It is very important for your daughter to defend herself,” she said. “No one should be defenseless. In fact, I think all girls should learn self-defense—”

“That’s not the point here, Ms. Stanway,” Principal Tanner cut her off.

“Right, sorry,” Phoebe added.

Brody watched as her left hand reached for the ring on her middle finger. She then turned it slowly for a few rotations before speaking again.

“I think, in this situation, rather than dealing with things herself, Ally should have come to me instead of doing what she did. Your daughter’s actions destroyed all Jack’s books and everything else in his locker, Mr. Duke. The blue dye was permanent and will take some time for Jack to remove from his face,” Phoebe said.

“He looks like a Smurf,” Ally whispered.

“Not helping,” Brody whispered back.

“Not to mention it could have done irreparable damage to Jack’s eyes, but luckily that was not the case,” Phoebe continued.

He’d never seen her so controlled. The woman he’d known had been unable to hide what she was thinking from him. It had all played out on her face, but not now. Clearly more than just her appearance had changed.

Dragging his eyes from her again, Brody looked at Ally. “Ms. Stanway is right, Ally. What you did was wrong. Why did you do it?”

“He’s a bully!” The words exploded out of his daughter. “He is horrible to other kids, so I taught him a lesson, seeing as the last one didn’t work.”

“Last one?” Brody pinched the bridge of his nose. The day had started so well. His coffee had been hot, and his brother Ryder had baked something called a cronut that had tasted like ambrosia, and then that phone call had changed everything. Now he’d literally run into the only woman he’d ever loved, and his daughter, who had been such a sweet, evenish-tempered child until six months ago, was showing her Duke roots.