Page 8 of Jeremiah

The sun had long since come up, and the two of them having about as much fun as a couple of teenagers out on a date night. He needed to do more of this. Get out of his head and office to be able to have fun with his mate. Jeremiah wondered if that was how his brothers had balanced out their families so well. Getting together with their mates and just chilling out. Right then, he decided that they were going to have to do more things like this. Have a date night, and end up making love outside. Of course, they couldn’t do it much longer, not with the colder months coming along. But Jeremiah knew that they could make their own kind of fun indoors.

Having some free time on his hands, he went to his office and pulled out his laptop. He’d not used it for some time, using his cell and his tablet for the things that he was doing in the classroom. That was another thing that had advanced so much since he’d been a teacher. The mode in which homework was finished up, and assignments passed out.

As he was going through the order that he’d thought about sending off, he realized that all the things in his cart were outdated and no longer in keeping with the things that kids needed nowadays to learn. It had been quite an eye-opener when he saw all the things in the store while shopping with Lexy and her dad.

By the time he realized that he’d missed lunch, he’d put together an entirely new order and had bought multiple things so that he could take them to the school when they arrived. As he was putting in his credit card information, Larry joined him. He didn’t look very happy at the moment.

“I’ve run into a snag.” Jeremiah asked him if there was something that he could do for him. “I don’t know where else to turn. It’s something that I’ve never…what do you know about the Prichard family?”

“Mark and Beth Prichard?” Larry told him that was who he was talking about. “Mark is a good man. He works a little too hard, but he seems to have time to spend with his children. He’s the one that usually comes to the parent/teacher conferences. His children, of course, I know better. Beth? Well, I’ve avoided her as much as I can. She has this terrible habit of touching you when you are too close to her. It’s more than likely the way that she is, just liking to have contact with another person, but as a teacher, I didn’t want to have any trouble with her. Why do you ask?”

“She’s been hanging around the classroom doors. I don’t know how she gets in, either. When I check with the front office, they’ll send someone back to escort her out. But that doesn’t seem to stop her from standing by my car when I get off work. I’ve taken to driving when she cornered me one day when I just wanted to walk home. Now I bring Lexy with me. Or anyone else that I can be with when I walk out. She’s making me uncomfortable.” He asked if her husband was around. “Sort of. He comes in when I need to talk to him. It’s him who picks up the youngest. The other three kids they usually avoid their little brother as much as they can while here. I remember those days.”

“Have you spoken to her? Either of them?” He said that he’d told her several times that he was not interested in dating anyone. “Are the Pritchards divorced?”

“Not that I’m aware of. She wears that big diamond ring all the time. I know that doesn’t mean all that much, but it’s wearing me out trying to figure out how to get home in one piece and still not end up in prison for sexual harassment.” When Larry laughed, he could tell the man really was stressed. “I just don’t know what to do. Today, when I went to my classroom to do some work in the room, she was right there. Like she knew that I’d be coming around. I don’t know, but I think someone on our staff is telling her that—I don’t want to read too much into this. But she is making me uncomfortable.”

He was just about to volunteer that he’d talk to her when there stood Hanna in his office, too. Hanna and his brother Loren were the king and queen of all the shifters in the world. Their magic, which was very powerful, meant that they could take out all the shifters in the world with a snap of their fingers. They’d assured him that they’d not do that, but it was a scary thought to know that they had that much going for them.

“I’m sorry to pop in like this, but I felt Larry’s distress.” She turned and smiled at the other man. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Larry. I would never harm you. I just felt you being distressed. You’re more so now.”

“You scare the bejebbes out of me. It’s hard to relax, young lady, when you go popping into rooms like that.” He laughed with Hanna, but Larry’s face turned a bright red in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt that out. But I’m on edge here and terrified that I might say the wrong thing. Then there is this woman. She touched me today. Inappropriately.” Again, his face turned red.

“Mark and Beth Prichard is who you’re talking about, correct?” He said that was her. He’d not had any trouble with the man as yet. “Ah, but you will. Soon, as a matter of fact. She’s gone to her husband and told him that you’re flirting with her and that she’s kind of afraid of you and what you might want from her. His oldest, Mary Beth, has spoken to her father on your behalf, but Beth said that you’d told her to say that. That’s why I’m here.”

The front doorbell rang, and he simply sat there until someone from their staff answered the door. Hanna told them to not move and to be calm. Jeremiah didn’t know what that was going to do for them, but they both said that they would. Hanna sat down in the room’s other chair and looked at him. Whatever was going on, Mark was shouting for Larry to come to him.

“There you are.” No one moved when Mark entered the room. “I have a bone to pick with you, Larry. I want you to—”

“Yes, you’re right. Ms. Prichard needs to leave me alone, like you said.” That stopped Mark in mid-sentence when Larry spoke. He was sure that Hanna was promoting him to do that, so he didn’t move for fear of bringing attention to himself. “I’ve gone to the front office several times this week about the way she’s always around. I don’t know how she’s getting in the offices, but I’m ready to move on if this keeps up.” Larry looked at Mark and smiled. “You’ve no idea how much I appreciate you coming here and talking to me about this. I love teaching your children, and the oldest two have been really helpful in me having their younger brother in my class.”

“I see. She tried to tell me that it was you coming on to her.” Larry said that he was widowed. “I’m not sure what that has to do with things, but she didn’t tell me that. I was getting an entirely—she said that you gave her a key that allows her to come into the back of the building so that you can have your tryst. I’m not sure how that would be coming about with you having twenty-something children around all the time.”

Larry laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? I can barely go to the bathroom once a day without one of the little ones chasing after me. It’s been different, I have to admit, to be a teacher again. Not that I’m not enjoying it, but…well, Mark, your wife has cornered me—I have video proof if you need to see it. I made sure that the camera was on the both of us when she came into the teachers’ lounge, too. I like teaching too much to let something like this…well, it is getting in the way. Again, I appreciate you coming here and talking to me, giving me a chance to clear my name before you accused me of whatever your wife is telling you.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Mark looked at him and smiled. “I was having the same trouble with Mr. Tate here when my kids started going to this school. I just couldn’t equate Mr. Tate doing the things that she said he’d done to her. Finally, I told her that we would move away, she hates to move and start fresh if things didn’t calm down. I should have dug deeper into what she was telling me, I suppose. Then you’d not be having the same issues as the last school we were at.”

“She’s done this before?” Mark nodded at him and said that the reason that they’d moved to this area was because there had been trouble with her at the other district they’d been in. “We’re going to have to do something about her, Mark. If not, someone could get hurt or killed. I’ve heard of this sort of thing happening before. No, we’ll have to do something about it, and soon.”

“I’ll press charges if that’s what it takes.” Mark asked if it could be done in a quiet way. He didn’t want his children to be caught up in their mother’s troubles. “I don’t know, to be honest. I mean, it’s already escalated to you having to hunt me down to get answers. What if you’d not been able to find me? Would you have… I don’t know, Mark. This makes me very uncomfortable. She’ll have to be barred from entering school grounds. I know that will cause you all kinds of trouble.”

“I can talk to her again. But to be honest with you guys, I’m not sure that anything that I can say to her will make her stop. As you’ve figured out, this isn’t the first time that she’s done this. At least here, I’ve been able to keep on top of things, until today. She told me that you tried to press her into one of the desks in the classroom. The only thing that I could think of when she said that was how low to the ground those things are. You’d have to be bent in half.”

For whatever reason, that made Jeremiah laugh. When Hanna stood up and began talking, all three of them watched as she seemed to float across the floor while tossing out one idea to the next on what needed to be done.

“This is a sickness, I believe. She needs for someone, one of the children’s teachers, to be enumerate of her, I believe. Perhaps it has something to do with her age? Boredom? I don’t know. But I have a feeling that this is going to keep escalating until—like you said, someone is hurt badly. And I believe it will be the children.” Mark said he’d not thought about how it would affect his children. “She’ll begin to see them as…well, I hate to use this term, but someone who is aging her might be the next thing she tries if she can’t get a teacher to help her with her illness. I’ve seen how she dresses and comes to the school. Do you realize, Mark, that your wife is wearing things that are well inappropriate for her age? She’s trying to relive her teenage years. And what is she? Thirty-five? Forty? Not that I’m judging her—well, I suppose I am, but I am thinking of her older children now. How it must feel to them to have their mother dressing that way.”

“Forty-nine. Beth is set to be fifty in about three weeks. I’d…I’d not realized that it was coming up so soon. However, now that you mention it, I have noticed her clothing. The other day, I came home, and she was sitting on the couch with Mary Beth’s friends, all teenagers about thirteen and down, dressed just like them. I mean, she had on the same outfit and colors as our daughter did. Neon colors that frankly made me ill. And I could tell that Mary Beth was embarrassed to have her mom acting like…acting like them. She wants to hang out with them, too. Have me drop them off at the mall together. I had to put my foot down the other day when Beth asked to borrow my car because it was big enough for her and her BFF’s could ride in. I had to look it up. Best friends forever? Really? was all I could say to her.”

Jeremiah had a feeling that Mark was dealing with a great many things concerning his wife instead of just her clothing. If she was dressing like her daughter, it occurred to him that she may well be acting out like teenagers are want to do. He thought of the things that Lynn, Sauls and Chalina’s daughter was up to when she’d been acting out.

Of course, it had been a tumor that had been pressing against her skull, making her act out, but she’d been like every other teenager that he’d been around—and he’d been around plenty of them when they were trying to be cool at school. He did wonder if Beth had started rolling her eyes and popping her gum but didn’t ask. Mark was stressed enough.

Hannah was going to handle the situation that would keep Beth from the school in a nonthreatening way. Once all the locks were changed on the door, that would end her being able to come in when she wanted to. Jeremiah was going to have a talk with his staff and fire anyone who was telling Beth the schedule that Larry was on. There were other things too that he could do, and he made himself a list to make sure he got them all done on time, too.

Larry did end up pressing charges. He had to do that in order for there to be a trail for the police to follow through with and to get Beth off the streets. Once that was done, Larry had been told not to leave the house for a few days until Mark could talk to his wife. But he was going to have to speak to his children first as they were already fed up with their mom.

As if it had been scripted, not only did Beth show up at his home, but she also had pressed charges or had tried to press charges against Larry for sexual harassment. Mark had tried to reason with his wife, but she was adamant about it being all on Larry. Whatever came of that, he didn’t know, but he was nervous about being out and about, too. Thankfully, with the faeries helping them keep an eye on the other woman, they were never caught unawares for the next several days. Who knew what tomorrow and being a school day would bring? But he was hopeful that nothing happened that would test their immortality. At least he wasn’t the target, he told himself then felt terrible thinking that. Poor Larry was a nervous wreck.

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