Straddling the Line Read Free Page A

strategy. She found herself hoping he had some kind of fun, but she doubted it occurred within the walls of this steel box.
    Finally, he broke the silence. “What do you want.”
    It wasn’t a question—oh, no. A question would be getting off easy. This was an order, plain and simple.
    That meant the answer to all of her previous questions was yes. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time on setting up the pitch. If she didn’t get on with it, he might take it upon himself to throw her out personally.
    “Are you aware that the state of South Dakota has recently been forced to cut all funding to schools across the board?”
    A look of disbelief stole over his face. “What?”
    Right. He hadn’t known she was coming; obviously, his brother hadn’t told him about her. She pressed on. “As I told your brother Robert—”
    “You mean Bobby.”
    She forced a smile at the interruption. Hot and intimidating sounded like a good combo, but the hotness just made the intimidating more intense. She prayed she wasn’t about to start blushing. “Of course. As I told him, I’m seeking donations for the Pine Ridge Charter School.” The look of disbelief got closer to incredulous, but Josey didn’t give him a chance to interrupt her again. “Fewer than twenty percent of Lakota Sioux students graduate from high school—less than thirty percent go past the eighth grade.” No, he didn’t believe that, either, but then, few people did. The numbers were too unbelievable.
    “Currently,” she went on like a warrior out to count coup, “there is no school located within a two-hour drive from some parts of the reservation. Many students must be bussed two hours each way. If they’re lucky, they get one of the good schools. If they’re not, though, they get textbooks that are twenty years old, no computers, teachers who don’t give a darn if their students live or die.” The near-curse word got her something that might have been a quarter of a grin.
    Maybe Ben liked things a little gritty. Well, Josey could do gritty. “Between the butt-numbing trip on buses that break down all the time, the crappy education and the unrelenting bullying for being American Indians, most choose to drop out. People expect them to fail. Unemployment on the reservation is also near eighty percent. Any idiot can see that figure mirrors the dropout rate almost precisely.” She batted her eyes again. “You don’t look like an idiot to me.”
    The pinging started back up. The only thing he was missing was a cymbal. “What do you want?” His words were more cautious this time.
    He was listening. Suddenly, Josey had a good feeling about this. Ben Bolton was a numbers guy—he liked his facts hard and fast. But he was a biker, too—so he could appreciate things that were rougher, tougher and just a little bit dirty.
    Her face—and other parts—flushed hot. So much for not blushing.
    His eyes widened, the blue getting bluer as he noticed her unprofessional redness. The corner of his mouth crooked up again as he leaned a few inches toward her. A small movement, to be sure—but she felt the heat arc between them. Desire kicked the temperature up several notches.
    Wow. One slightly unprofessional thought, and she was on the verge of melting in the middle of a pitch. This wasn’t like her. She prided herself on keeping business and pleasure separate. Some people thought they could buy her with the right donations, but Josey never even allowed that kind of quid pro quo to enter the conversation.
    With everything she had, Josey pushed on. She had a job to do. Pleasure came later—if it came at all. She needed to get the school ready more than she needed what would no doubt be a short-lived fling. She didn’t have time for flings, especially with a white man.
    She handed Ben the three-color brochure she’d designed herself. “The Pine Ridge Charter School is designed to give our Lakota children a solid foundation, not only for their education,