The bell rang, signaling the end of the last class on Wednesday, and Marsh sighed. It had been a long day, especially since he had wanted to talk to one of these students one-on-one since before school started. Now he reached out and set a hand on the arm of a tall redhead as the boy tried to slip out of the room. “Craig, hold on for a minute, will you? I’d like to speak with you.”
Craig gave Marsh a worried look, then shrugged. “Sure, Coach.”
When the last student left the room, Marsh shut the door and turned back to Craig, the six-foot three-inch senior who had been on his basketball team the past two years. His star player—if he could keep out of trouble long enough to make the team this year. Marsh sat on the edge of his desk and gave Craig a long, appraising look, but didn’t say anything. He waited until Craig glanced away and slouched down, uncomfortable with the silence, before he spoke. “I heard some news today. You want to talk to me about last night?”
Craig turned to the blackboard and picked up the eraser sitting on the ledge below it. He flipped the eraser end-over-end for a minute. “What about last night?”
Playing dumb. Marsh wasn’t going to put up with that. “I heard about you being caught out after curfew last night—with alcohol on your breath.”
Carefully, as if it were fragile, Craig set the eraser back down and turned toward Marsh. “Coach, it wasn’t a big deal. I only had a sip.”
“That’s not what I heard, and even if it were true--” Marsh cut the boy off when he saw Craig open his mouth to protest, “I can’t accept that. Basketball tryouts are next week, and I can’t have you on my team if you aren’t clean. You know that.”
“It’s not like I drink all the time. I haven’t had one in months,” Craig protested. “But Larissa dumped me yesterday and…” he trailed off as if realizing the excuse was lame.
“And you’re still under age by about four years. You know what the district rules are. I can’t have you drinking if you want to play. You aren’t on the team now, so I can’t give you an official warning, but Craig, I don’t want it to happen again. It could jeopardize your whole future if you don’t play this season. You’re good, real good, and a college scout is going to notice you if we get to the playoffs. And we will if you boys can just keep your heads on and focus on the goal. We have a bang-up team this year, with or without you—but we’ll be better with you. Nothing going on with a girl is important enough to throw away your future.” It made Marsh angry to see Craig’s half shrug at that comment, but at least he made eye contact.
“You’re right, Coach. I’ll do better. I won’t drink anymore until the season is over.”
Marsh let out a huff of irritation. He recognized the restlessness in Craig’s shoulders, his dissatisfaction with life. Bo, Hank’s twin brother, had exhibited those same symptoms before joining the Army. At least Bo had channeled those feelings somewhere constructive. “You’d be smarter to let it go completely. Keep your eye on the goal, Craig. If you want out of this town, to have a chance at a better life, don’t let the goal get out of sight.”
“But, you still live here,” Craig said, his forehead crinkling. “If it was so important to get out, why did you come back?”
Marsh couldn’t help but smile at that. “This was home to me. I taught in Denver for a couple of years, but it wasn’t right for me. I needed to be in Juniper Ridge. Maybe when you’ve finished college and know what you want to be, you’ll choose to come back here too. In fact, I hope you do. But you need to give yourself a chance at a future first, give yourself options, so if you do return, it’ll be your choice instead of your only option, and you’ll have the skills to make a decent living doing something you love. Playing basketball could be your ticket to finding that future, but only if you don’t waste your chances before you get out of high school. And I mean cigarettes and drugs too, just stay away from them.”
A smile slid onto Craig’s face. “Yes, sir. I’ll stay clean for the rest of the year. I promise.” He shook Marsh’s hand to seal the deal.
“Good. Now get home and do your homework. You need to keep your grades up.”
Marsh let the door fall closed behind Craig before going to the blackboard and erasing the class notes. He hoped Craig followed through. There was no doubt the kid meant his words, but peer pressure could be strong, and Marsh knew that the kid’s family life wasn’t exactly pretty. It was always a balancing act between being a concerned friend, someone the kids could trust, and being the authority figure they needed.
He knew some of the kids on his team would probably dabble in contraband areas during the season and, more likely than not, wouldn’t get caught. He always hoped the teens would follow the rules because, if they broke them, he believed they should be caught and, if they were caught, he had to follow through with consequences. The previous year one of the girl basketball players had been dropped from the team for drinking. Marsh hoped they could get through the year without anything similar happening.
***
Work at the local sheriff’s dispatch wasn’t much different than at Karissa’s old job, except that she would be the only one working much of the time, so she had to juggle the phones, computers, and radio traffic, rather than only being responsible for one part of it at a time. However, she didn’t expect it would be nearly as busy here as it had been in Pueblo, and she knew she was up to the task.
The shifts were twelve hours each, which would be long, but on the months when she worked graveyard shifts, her son would be asleep through most of it. She hoped that would take some of the stress off of her parents.
On Thursday evening—her first solo shift—Karissa was hurrying around the house, looking for loose shoes and making sure Paul ate some peas with his dinner, adding things to her to-do list, and wishing she had kept better track of time that afternoon. It was slightly after five and she needed to head into work in five minutes.
When the doorbell rang she was partway through brushing her hair and had only one shoe on, but she hurried down to answer it. Her father was deep in farm chores, and her mother was cleaning up after supper. She rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping over her feet three steps from the bottom, then skidded across the polished hardwood floors of the entry, falling on her backside.
She looked up to see Marsh watching her through the door glass, concern on his face. She pulled herself up, pushing the flyaway mess of hair away from her face, straightened her shirt, and took the two steps to open the locked front door. Her tailbone hurt, but she wasn’t about to show her weakness to Marsh.
When she opened the door, she saw he was dressed down in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt; Karissa wanted to curse him for wasting her time and causing her bruised tailbone. “Yes?” She hoped the word sounded pleasant and friendly, but guessed it had probably come out harried and irritated when he lifted an eyebrow, then took in her state of dishabille.
“Hey, Karissa, where’s the fire?” He ambled into the room without an invitation, stopping to move the area rug she’d slid on back into place with the toe of his boot. “You all right? You took quite a tumble.”
Willing herself to stay calm, she took two last furious strokes on her hair with the brush that was still in her hand. “I’m running a little late.” She was afraid her cheeks were red, and she had to fight to keep from puffing breath in and out of her lungs from her hurry. “I’m not the athlete I once was.”
His smile was warm and casual, but the glimmer in his eye made her tense before he even spoke. “You have filled out some.”
Outraged, she turned to stalk up the stairs. “You don’t have to point out the extra pounds. I’m fully aware of them.” She had heard plenty of women refer to the ‘divorce diet’, where they lost weight due to stress, but that hadn’t happened for her. It would have been nearly the only perk of everything she’d gone through.
Marsh placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Hey, that’s not what I meant at all. You were always too skinny.” He turned her to face him. “The extra weight looks good on you, makes you look soft and approachable.”
She snorted. Soft and approachable, is that supposed to be a compliment? “With your skill at flattery, it’s amazing you haven’t caught yourself a wife yet.”
He flicked a finger down her nose, ignoring the vitriol in her voice. “You were taken, and I’ve never met anyone else who can hold a candle to you.”
Even more infuriated by his sarcasm, she pulled away. “What are you doing here?”
“Hank mentioned he would be out of town and that your dad could use some help for the next few nights. I have some time and decided to stop by.”
She waved a hand toward the back of the house, feeling the edge of her temper melt at the fact that he was here to help her family. With everything going on, her parents could use an extra hand. She dealt with the guilt of having caused them more trouble and tempered her tone. “Dad’s out in the yard getting ready. Don’t forget to stop in the kitchen on your way out and say hello to Mom. She’ll never forgive you otherwise.” With a roll of her eyes, Karissa turned and headed up the stairs.
“Have a good night at work, Kar.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She headed for her room, tossed the hair brush on her bed, and slid her second shoe on, praying that Marsh would be gone when she went down for goodbye kisses with her son.
Why was it that he seemed to be everywhere she went? If it wasn’t bad enough that he spent so much time at the farm—something she really tried not to resent too much considering that he was helping her dad—she ran into him in town all the time as well.
The grocery store, drug store, post office, and farm supply—none of them were safe. And he was never happy with passing with a hello and letting her get on with her errands—no, he had to stop and play with her son or give her a hand loading bags of chicken feed. He helped with her groceries and teased her about being her parents’ errand girl.
It was like he had a sixth sense about how and when to harass her.
Though she’d noticed that other than the stupid comment about her weight making her soft and approachable—idiot—he had been oddly nice to her. She just wished she understood what was going through his head.