“Maybe I do.” He punched my locker again, this time so hard I jumped. Then he put one hand on either side of me, trapping me against the lockers.
My pulse hammered. He’s not going to hurt me, I told myself. Bo isn’t like that. But as I stood there with the locker handle pressing into my back, I wasn’t so sure what he was like anymore.
Bo’s lips twisted into a snarl, and he opened his mouth to speak.
Before he did, someone grabbed hold of his shoulder and pulled him backward, hard.
My first thought was that it was Nick—who else would stand up for me? A wave of dread ran through me. Bo would turn around and flatten him. Then Bo’s friends would make Nick’s life miserable.
When my eyes connected with my rescuer though, it wasn’t Nick.
The hot undercover police guy had pulled Bo away from me. He stood by my locker along with several beefy members of the football team.
“Is there a problem here?” Hot Police Guy asked. His jaw was set.
His brown eyes flashed fiercely.
Bo stepped away. “Get off of me, freak!” His gaze went back and forth between the guy and me. “Is that what you did at the police station, Tansy? You got friendly with the police chief’s son? What sort of interrogation was it?”
The police chief’s son? I stared at the hot guy. I didn’t know whether to be happy he’d shown up here or horrified that I would be running into him at school.
One of the football players stepped toward Bo, clenching his fingers into a fist. “Shove off, Bo.”
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Bo flinched away from me, rolling his shoulders as though to shrug off the entire situation. “You aren’t worth my time,” he said, then turned and sauntered back down the hallway, disappearing into the river of students.
I leaned against my locker and took a couple of shaky breaths.
The football players talked with the hot guy for a few moments.
They did that boy thing where they bumped their knuckles together, and then the football players left.
The police chief’s son stayed, surveying me. His brown eyes were softer now that Bo was gone, his stance more relaxed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I figured Bo might be a pain today.” He looked down the hallway checking to make sure Bo didn’t come back. “Hopefully that’ll take care of it.”
Some of my gratitude for my rescue vanished. Police Chief Junior had known Bo was going to react this way, but he’d still tricked me. He didn’t care what it was going to do to my life or that I was going to be some sort of pariah at school now.
“So you’re the police chief’s son?”
His gaze returned to me. “My name is Hudson Gardner.”
“You go to school here?” I asked.
“I’m a senior.”
A senior—like me. I didn’t have any classes with him, but we were bound to know some of the same people. Rock Canyon High wasn’t that big. “So it wasn’t even your job to wring a confession from me on Friday night; you did that for fun?” He gave me an exasperated look. “When you wouldn’t tell the police your name, my dad called me to ID you. I know everybody at school.”
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“You don’t know me.” I hadn’t seen him before. I would have remembered him. Guys that good-looking stick in your mind. “How did you know who I was?”
“Nick and I are friends. He’s pointed you out.” I should have put my backpack away. I needed to get ready for first period, but I didn’t move. “You’re Nick’s friend and you tricked me? Do you have any idea how traumatic that whole stint at the police station was?”
Hudson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I could tell how traumatized you were by the way you used the two-way mirror to do your hair.” I blushed. He’d seen me do that. Stupid two-way mirrors. “I meant making me betray my boyfriend.”
“Oh, your boyfriend.” Hudson’s gaze went to my locker. It had dents where Bo had hit it. “I hope the school doesn’t make you pay for that.”
I let out a sigh and finished my locker combination. With my luck not only would I have to pay for it, but the door would be stuck shut and I would be late for first period.
Hudson leaned against the locker next to mine. “Speaking of boyfriends, how come you won’t tell the police anything about that Robin guy who held up Walgreens?”
My locker didn’t stick, just creaked in protest as I opened it. “He’s not my boyfriend, and thanks for telling the police I was there when it happened. You can imagine how happy my parents were when a squad car came to my house. I’m now officially grounded until I graduate.” Hudson was unperturbed. “If I hadn’t told them, they would have still seen you on the surveillance tape …” I drew in a sharp breath. I hadn’t thought about the surveillance cameras. Not only would that footage be studied by the police, it might 90/356
be played on the news. Then the world would see me kissing Robin Hood in the middle of an armed robbery.
“… and your voice is on the 911 recording.”
“The 911 recording?” I repeated.
“I called the police. Those calls are always recorded.” Even better. They had soundtrack of the whole thing too. I leaned my head against my locker. Did surveillance tapes ever end up on YouTube?
“You obviously knew those guys. Who are they? Friends from New York out here to visit you in the hick town?” I ignored him, pulled my books out of my backpack, and put them on my locker shelf.
“Why the swords?” he asked. “What are they trying to prove?” I hung my backpack on its hook, then took my history book from the shelf. I went to shut my locker door, but Hudson put his hand on it to force me to look at him. “If you cared about those guys, you would help us stop them before a few get shot. That’s how a lot of armed robberies end up: with the bad guys leaking blood onto the pavement.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I knew.” I pulled my locker door away from him and shut it. “And I was trying to reason with them, trying to get them to stop robbing places. But I can’t do that anymore, thanks to you. My father is keeping me under lock and key from now on.”
Hudson ignored my complaints. “What wouldn’t I believe?”
“I just need a little time to take care of them,” I said. Surely, Chrissy would check in on me today. I still had two wishes left. She had to come back sometime to grant them. “Could you talk to your father and make sure the police don’t shoot anybody before I can get rid of them?”
“What wouldn’t I believe?” Hudson asked again.
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I hesitated, then told him. “It’s Robin Hood and the Merry Men.”
“Robin Hood?” Hudson ran a hand across my locker door, tapping it in annoyance. “Sure he is. But what did I expect from you? You girls all think the guy is dreamy.”
“I wouldn’t exactly describe him as dreamy.” I tucked my book under my arm. “Buff, yes. Handsome, I suppose. Daring …” I thought of the way he’d kissed me. It made me smile. “Okay, he’s dreamy.” Hudson shook his head in disbelief. “Your taste in men is pathetic.”
Only if you believed what the pathetic-o-meter said.
Without saying good-bye, Hudson turned and went down the hallway, weaving between the rest of the students with a purposeful stride. I watched him go and my spirits sank. They shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have cared what he thought—he was the guy who tricked me at the police station.
Hudson was right, really. My taste in men was pathetic.
As I made my way to class, I thought of Hudson’s phrase. You girls all think the guy is dreamy. What did he mean by that? I wondered about it until I sat down in first period and three girls descended on my desk like birds landing for bread crumbs.
A wide-eyed blonde pulled up the chair next to me. “Is it true you were with Jessica Wilson and Hudson Gardner at the Walgreens when it was robbed?”