ClarenceBN Read Free Page A

so early. Sometimes, a parent had a job off the rez and they had to leave early in the morning. So she got to the Clinic by 6:30 for the early drop-offs. It only made sense that she got the coffee going. As a bonus, her super-early mornings with Mikey meant that the boy went to bed about seven, leaving Tammy with some quiet time in the evening.
    Plus, Tara was the receptionist at the Clinic and Tammy knew that without her morning coffee, Tara could be a real bitch. So it was a matter of self-preservation, really.  
    But Clarence usually got in before Tara did.  
    She’d gotten used to seeing him first thing in the morning. He was a very tall man, the kind that was so big most people did a double-take when he walked into a room. He had a good foot on her, at least, and probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more. She’d seen him lift people twice her size out of cars because they couldn’t walk and he hadn’t even broken a sweat.
    He was attractive. Maybe not movie-star hot—but then again, she was no starlet herself. Clarence was strong and dependable and kind to the patients. He was kind to kids.
    He was kind to her. And that? That was attractive.  
    And the way he’d touched her this morning?
    That blew past ‘attractive’ and went right over into ‘hot.’  
    She thought about Ezra. Once, he’d made her feel hot, too. Of course, Tammy had been a different woman then. Prettier, shyer, more innocent. More willing to believe what a man said and not what he did.
    Once, she’d been in love.
    It hadn’t lasted.
    That wasn’t what this was, was it? This wasn’t love. This wasn’t even an infatuation. Okay, after the way he touched her this morning? Maybe it was.
    Did that make it a bad thing?
    She wasn’t the same shy girl she’d once been. She knew better now. Actions spoke louder than words, after all.  
    The hot dogs boiled over. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she shut the heat off. This was not good. It’d been bad enough this morning when she hadn’t been watching and Mikey had taken out the bookshelf. But now?
    Clarence was distracting her.
    She focused on her task at hand. Lunch could be crazy and they had a nearly full house today. If she got lost in rehashing what Clarence had said— how he’d said it— she was worth the good stuff ?
    Somehow, she made it through lunch without total disaster. Then Melinda had the kids get the cots out and everyone lay down. Tammy did the dishes while Melinda read them a story.
    When she was done, most of the kids were asleep. They’d been doing this long enough that Mikey had trained himself to stay awake. She’d put him down when she got home. Right now, he was laying on his cot, driving his new, awesome car up and down in front of his face.  
    She loved her son with everything she had. She wouldn’t change anything, really. But there were days . . .
    Would Clarence be here super early again tomorrow? The coffee had already been made by the time she’d gotten here, which meant he must have gotten to the Clinic around six or so. That was at least an hour before his normal time. That couldn’t have been an accident.  
    Tara popped her head in, which left Tammy feeling disappointed. Sometimes, Clarence stuck his head in. He’d look around, catch her eye and give her a quick smile. Tara, on the other hand, wanted to talk.  
    Tammy left Mikey on his cot. She thought she and Tara might be able to talk alone in the kitchen area, but Melinda followed them back. Wonderful. To hide her nervousness, Tammy picked up the rag and wiped the counter down again. “Yeah?”
    “What the hell kind of coffee did you make this morning?” Tara huffed in disgust. “It tasted like a vanilla jelly bean died in there or something.”
    Embarrassment flooded Tammy’s cheeks. Was there any way to do this that didn’t involve mentioning Clarence? “Um . . . actually, I didn’t make the coffee today.”
    Tara gaped at her. She was always being dramatic like this. “If