“Okay, sorry. Then that can mean only that you’re thinking about the loser kid who ruined your life.” She closed the magazine and set it aside. “Want to talk about it?”
“I’m sick of talking about it, Teg. I’ve lived it for too long already. Weeks of investigations, interviews, endless questions, defending myself against something I didn’t do. I didn’t just lose my career. I also lost the Girl Power group I ran, and you know how I loved that.” Girl Power was a confidence- and self-esteem-building group for girls, which she’d run a chapter of for several years. She missed the girls terribly. Thankfully, her friend Patty, who had helped her run the group, had taken it over. Leesa wished she could forget the last few weeks of her life, but how could she when she’d worked hard to become a teacher and then one false accusation from a twelve-year-old boy had stolen it—and her almost two-year relationship with Chris Megraw—away. She felt sick even thinking about being accused of fondling a student.
“Yes, you did, but you won. The charges were dropped,” Tegan reminded her.
“I’m not sure there’s any winning or losing in that situation. In the eyes of everyone in Towson—the town where I grew up, for God’s sake—I’m forever tainted.” Leesa had built a great reputation as a seventh-grade English teacher, had a strong support system of friends and peers, and she’d thought she had a boyfriend who loved her. What a farce that was. She’d been put on administrative leave and endured an invasive investigation. By the time the investigators declared the accusations unfounded and the charges were dropped, enough seeds of doubt had been planted that she saw questions in the eyes of even her strongest supporters—or she thought she did. She was smart enough to know that what she’d gone through could have just screwed up her perception. But really, she wouldn’t blame anyone for wondering. It was the boy’s word against hers.
Tegan took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “That’s why you’re here. To start over.”
“I don’t know if I’m actually starting over here. I still have the offer for the position in Baltimore to decide on, but I’m hoping a few weeks of being here will give me some answers. I just need time to breathe. To process it all and put some space between me and what happened.”
“You’re starting over,” Tegan insisted. “I know they offered you another teaching position in Baltimore, but, Anna—Leesa—you don’t know anyone in Baltimore. Here you’ve got me.” She batted her eyelashes, and Leesa’s heart tugged at how much Tegan’s belief in her innocence meant to her. “Besides, no one here knows about any of that, and they won’t care, because you weren’t guilty. That little prick tried to ruin you, but he didn’t. You’re here, you’re whole, and you’re starting over.”
She cringed at the words little prick. Andy Darren, the twelve-year-old boy who had accused her of inappropriately touching him, had never admitted he’d lied, but Leesa still didn’t harbor ill feelings toward him.
“It’s not Andy’s fault. He’s a kid. He had no idea about the impact his lies would have on my life.”
She was angry at the situation, but Andy had opened up his young heart to her and admitted that he’d had a crush on her, and she’d turned him away. She’d done it in a professional, kind manner, but still, it had probably stung. Maybe if she could have hard feelings toward the boy, it would be easier for her to move past what happened, but she simply couldn’t muster them. She’d begun tutoring him after a car hit him and left him with two broken legs, broken ribs, a fractured hip, and a fractured hand. He had a long recovery time ahead of him. He was going through a treacherous time, set apart from all his friends, unsure about regaining his ability to walk and the full use of his hand, while trying to maintain his grades. He was angry and depressed, and Leesa had been so focused on their private tutoring sessions, helping him remain on grade level so he wouldn’t fall behind his friends in school, that she hadn’t thought he was serious when he’d told her that she’d pay for turning him away. She’d thought he was just upset and would get over it by their next session.
Now she worried that the guilt from lying would eventually take a heavy toll on him. This wasn’t a tiny lie, like eating the last cookie and blaming it on the dog. This was a lie that had the force of a tsunami, and it had wiped away her life. She couldn’t imagine that a lie like that would sit well inside anyone with a conscience, and she knew Andy had a good conscience. Even after his accident he had worried about the people in the car that had hit him as much as he’d worried about himself. She carried the worry over how the lie would affect Andy with her on a daily basis. No one else would worry about that, would they? Even his parents wouldn’t know to look for signs of guilt eating away at him. After all, she and Andy were the only ones who were there that afternoon, and they both knew the truth, despite what he’d said to the investigators.
She tried to push away thoughts of Andy and focus on the part of her life that she hadn’t expected to lose in the aftermath. “And I lost Chris.”
She and Chris had been dating for almost two years. When she’d first told him about the accusation, he’d been livid with Andy, but Chris taught at the same middle school, and as the investigation became public, he’d quickly begun worrying more about what his association with Leesa would do to his own career and less about what she was going through. Within a week, he’d ended their relationship, shattering not only her heart, but her belief in trust, loyalty, and love—all the things she’d relied upon her whole life. And to top it all off, two years earlier she’d lost her father, who was the one person who had always been there for her. He’d been her rock, the epitome of a man she could trust, whose love and loyalty were ever-present. But she’d lost him to a brain aneurysm that had led to a stroke.
“Another little prick,” Tegan said with anger in her blue eyes. She must have seen the hurt in Leesa’s expression, because she added, “Chris never deserved you in the first place. What kind of man puts himself above the woman he loves? I’m sorry, but that’s not true love, and you know it.”
A nurse entered the lobby from a hallway beside the registration desk and called Tegan’s name.
“Come on.” Tegan rose from the chair. “Check out the hottie doctor who put my cast on. I promise you, he will delete Chris’s face from your memory forever.”
They followed the petite nurse into an exam room, where Tegan promptly sat on the exam table, the paper beneath her crinkling loudly.
Leesa paced, still thinking about all she’d lost. She’d been in Peaceful Harbor for the past two weeks, and she’d already found a waitressing job at Mr. B’s, a microbrewery down by the marina, which Tegan wasn’t thrilled about. She thought Leesa should jump right back into something that had to do with teaching, but Leesa wasn’t ready to be anywhere near children. She’d waitressed throughout college, and she enjoyed the contact with people and the less rigid hours. Besides, surely as a waitress she couldn’t be accused of doing anything inappropriate. She was right out in the open where everyone could see her at all times, and she really liked the people she was working for. She cringed inside at the reality that she even had to think about being seen as inappropriate.
Maybe she’d been stupid to tutor Andy in his home, but she’d loved teaching, and she’d loved all of her students, and she knew with the right guidance Andy could keep up with the class. She also knew that the thought of having to repeat the year was devastating to him and certainly to his overbearing father. His mother was quiet as a mouse, and Leesa never knew what to think of her.
“Sit down. You’re making me nervous.” Tegan patted the paper covering the exam table. “Want to sit next to me?”
She laughed. “No. I’m not ten years old, thank you very much. I just wish we hadn’t talked about all that stuff. I need to put it behind me.”
Tegan’s eyes skipped to the door as it pushed open and the tall, broad-shouldered, impossibly handsome man who had given Leesa his coffee and muffin earlier that morning walked in, sucking all the air from the room.
His dark eyes lifted from the chart he was reading. “Tegan, nice to see you again.” His gaze shifted to Leesa, and a slow, sexy smile curved his full lips and sent her stomach into a tizzy. “Well, I’ll be…Leesa with two e’s, how are you?”
It took her a second to realize he’d said her new name, and she could have sworn she heard a hint of desire in the way it slid off his tongue. She silently chastised herself, knowing that was not only nuts, but also something she should not be thinking about. Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Chris? Cole didn’t need a woman with a past like hers in his life—and if he ever found out, he’d probably tell her that himself.
“So, Leesa. Are you stalking me? Because lunch isn’t for a few hours yet, but if you’re hungry and need a few bucks…” He reached for his wallet and smiled with the tease.