A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1) - Darynda Jones Page 0,115

tried to laugh it off. She failed. “I have to get this cleaned up. Be right back.”

“Sheriff,” Deleon said, stopping her with a hand on her arm. “Go home. We’ve got this. You’ve been up for days.”

“It’s okay. I won’t be going back to sleep.”

And she wouldn’t. She’d had that dream before. Maybe not with that particular setting, and the wound and bandages were new, but Levi Ravinder in her bed? His fingers inside her? His mouth on her clit? Oh yeah. She’d dreamed that scenario countless times.

One aspect of this dream was certainly new, though. Despite the fact that she’d been dreaming, she’d climaxed. In her sleep. That had never happened before.

Sun got home just in time to grab a shower and take the wee one to school. “When can I see her?” Auri asked as she stole a huge swig from her coffee. Again.

She was dressed in a cute button-down with a floral tie that matched her hairband.

“Let me check with the St. Aubins. See how Sybil is doing before we throw her a welcome-home kegger.”

“But I already bought the balloons,” she said, whining. “And hired the male revue. How did she look?”

“Scared, sweetheart. Terrified.” There was no reason to lie to her. The real world could be a scary place. “I need to get everything situated with our little Houdini, and then I need to find a child abductor.”

Auri smiled. “You will.”

23

Not all Mondays fall on Monday.

Stop in for a pick-me-up any day of the week!

—SIGN AT CAFFEINE-WAH

Auri sat in the hall while her mom and Principal Jacobs duked it out in his office, mortified she’d decided to go to school today. What had she been thinking? What must these kids think of her after the news broadcast?

She cringed when the yelling coming from the office broke the sound barrier yet again. There was a lot of pointing and gesturing and gnashing of teeth. But some of that could be attributed to the interpreter they’d brought in for the suspension meeting.

Thank God Cruz sat beside her to take her mind off all the ways the day could go south. He was looking over his shoulder and interpreting the events for Auri.

“Your mom is furious. The broadcast news team is getting off scot-free. They aren’t even taking them off the news crew. Their parents are screaming censorship and threatening to go to a real news channel to plead their case as well as sue the school if any action is taken against their children.”

Auri gaped at him. “Are you kidding me? They are doing nothing to those . . . those—”

“You can do it,” he encouraged.

“Those assholes?”

“Not bad. And nope. Not a damn thing.” His voice sounded neutral, but the line of his jaw hardened.

There was still one thing she didn’t understand. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“Hey, shortstop, don’t kill the messenger.”

“Why are you friends with them, Cruz? They treat you like you’re one of them, but you don’t even seem to care.”

“I don’t.”

The dynamics of the school as a whole versus the enigma that was Cruz De los Santos puzzled her to no end. “Then I don’t get it. You’re nice to them. You hang out with them.”

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s more of an understanding. They don’t mess with me. I don’t mess with them.”

That was helpful. “What do you mean?”

He filled his lungs as though he didn’t want to talk about it, but she raised a brow. A single, unrelenting brow, just like her mom taught her. It totally worked.

“Okay,” he said, sitting up a little straighter. “When we were in second grade, there was this kid who was pretty much known as the school bully.”

“Why is there always a bully?” she asked.

“Right? So, he was messing with everyone, picking on different people every day. You get the idea.”

“I do, unfortunately.”

“Then one day, he decided it was my turn.”

She stilled as a sickening feeling washed over her. She tamped it down, not wanting to risk interrupting him. To risk not getting the whole story. “He went after you?”

“He tried to. I guess I didn’t know how to play the game right. He pushed me down and tried to take my backpack.”

The image gave her a stomachache. “Cruz, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just got up, took this girl’s crutch as she walked by, and beat the shit out of him.”

She blinked in astonishment. “Wow. You were only, what, seven?”

“Something like that. Suddenly, everyone wanted to be my friend, and it’s