Free Straddling the Line by Sarah M. Anderson Page A

got a problem with that—” His shoulders dropped and he swung his hands into loose fists.
    “No, no problem.” Ben threw up his hands in surrender. Only an idiot would push Billy.
    “You don’t look like an idiot to me.” Josey’s voice floated around his head as he and Billy went back to their respective bikes. Something else she had said popped into his head. “People expect them to fail.”
    One man had made the difference for Billy—a man who asked for nothing in return, but got unshakable loyalty anyway. Ben thought back to the little girls who’d been scared of him, the young boys who wouldn’t look at him. Those kids—people expected them to fail. Was he one of those people?
    Josey’s face swam before his eyes. Not the polished businesswoman, not the hot chick at the bar, but her face today, with the big paint smear across her forehead and her hair crazy around her. He saw the warm, bright smile she had for those kids. She expected better of them.
    She expected better of him.
    Everyone expected so much from him—to keep Billy working, to keep Bobby in line. Dad expected him to fail, but also expected him to keep the company afloat. Not her. She didn’t act like he had to have all the answers, like he was the one thing between her and complete, total failure. All she expected from him was to be something better. And all he’d done was kiss her.
    He could do better. He could be better.
    “Billy!” He had to shout over the air compressor.
    “What?”
    “You got any tools you don’t use anymore?”
    *
    The dull pain in residence behind Josey’s eyes picked up speed at an irregular clip. What a disastrous day. She could still hear Ben saying, “You have one drum for how many students?” Because one drum was all she was going to get.
    At least she could take comfort in the fact that building the shop class from the ground up counted as real, live shop class. Maybe they’d postpone music class until after winter set in, when they couldn’t do much on the shop anyway. Surely she’d be able to get some instruments in three months.
    She could always try asking Ben—he was a musician, after all—but she’d already made up her mind about that. She didn’t know what, if anything, was going on between her and Ben Bolton. She only knew that asking him for anything else would muddy the waters between pleasure and business.
    Even if that meant no more kissing.
    In this foul mood, Josey rounded the bend and slammed on the brakes. A massive, dual-wheel pickup truck—gray—with a custom trailer attached to it was parked next to the school. That wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that the kids were swarming over both the truck and trailer, unloading box after box.
    Josey did a quick mental check of her calendar. Nope—no planned deliveries today. No more planned deliveries, period. She didn’t recognize the behemoth vehicle. What the heck?
    Livvy came running the moment Josey opened her door. “He came back!”
    “He? He who?”
    “That guy! He brought stuff!” With those helpful words, Livvy turned around and took off for the truck. It was loaded with boxes. Some were brand-new—circular saws, power drills—and some were the kind of boxes a person scrounged up for moving.
    Shop tools? That guy? That was as much as Josey could process before Ben Bolton himself strode back around the building, talking to Don Two Eagles, of all people. Shock stopped her short.
    God, he looked good. Dark jeans that fit like he might as well have been born in them, and a red chambray shirt—cuffed to the elbows. He said something to Don, and the older man nodded before barking out orders in Lakota. Don was taking directions from Ben?
    Power. Josey’s blood began to pound. This was power so real that she could smell it on the wind. Ben Bolton commanded absolute respect, and he got it—even from the likes of Don.
    And Ben had used his power to help her.
    Livvy bounded up to him and pointed to Josey before