Taking a Shot by Catherine Gayle Read Free Book Online Page A

with us. I draped them both over my arm to carry them for Katie, and she picked up a small, white evening bag. I reached for her hand, but Webs cut between us and put a hand at the small of Katie’s back.
    He lifted a brow at me in challenge.
    I turned tail and headed for the door. The sooner I could get her away from his prying eyes, the better. Part of me wondered if Webs had gotten them to install video cameras at the school gym so he could spy on us from home. I wouldn’t put it past him.
    “Wait!” Laura practically shouted behind us. “Pictures. I need to have pictures.”
    “They’re already late enough,” Webs said, but he turned around. “They’ll have a photographer at the prom, won’t they?”
    “Have you seen the kinds of pictures those photographers take?” Laura countered.
    “It’ll be fine, Mom,” Katie said. “You’ve got the pictures from last year anyway. And we’ll make sure they take good ones. Won’t we?” She looked at me when she asked that last bit.
    I nodded. “Absolutely.” Not that I had a clue how I could make sure of something like that, but I had seen Laura Weber staging photo shoots before at team events—ordering people around like a drill sergeant. If I let her stop us now, we’d be here for another hour. Maybe longer.
    She scowled, but she let us go.
    When we got to my car, I opened the passenger door for Katie. Webs helped her in and shut the door before spinning around on me.
    I had my free hand up in self-defense without thinking. “I swear I’m not going to—”
    “Shut up, Babs,” he interrupted.
    I dropped my hand to my side, readjusting my grip on Katie’s sweater and scarf. “Sorry.”
    “I just wanted to thank you. For this.” Webs waved his hand haphazardly, encompassing everything around us. “And to say I’m sorry I’ve been an ass. I just don’t know—” He cut himself off just as suddenly as he’d cut me off, and he blinked hard a couple of times. “I just needed someone to blame. Someone to take it out on. And I used you for that, even though it wasn’t fair.”
    “You don’t need to apologize.” It might suck for me, but it made me really glad Katie had a dad who cared enough to be like that. That’s how families are supposed to be.
    “I do,” Webs said. “And I really do appreciate what you’re doing for my little girl, but if she isn’t inside my house by midnight, all my previous threats are back in play.”
    I bit down on my tongue to keep myself from laughing. Moments like this, I was never sure if he was joking around with me or being serious. I figured it was somewhere in the middle. “Yes, sir. I’ll have her back.”
    “You’d better. And if you fucking call me sir again…” Webs headed back toward the house without finishing his thought. “Take my little girl to her prom, Babs. Get out of here before I change my mind.”
    I headed around to the driver’s side and got in with an uncontrollable smile on my face. I set her scarf and sweater down on the center console.
    Katie put her hand on my forearm as I put the key in the ignition. “Was he horrible? Please tell me he wasn’t awful to you.”
    I turned the key, and the engine purred. I might have been purring, too, because she was touching me. Shit, I was a mess. “He wasn’t awful. He just loves you,” I said finally. I almost said something crazy like Just like I love you , but I stopped myself. I didn’t even know if I loved her. I knew I liked her a lot—more than I should, considering she was Webs’s daughter. But tonight wasn’t about me spilling my guts and making her feel like she needed to reciprocate. Tonight was about giving Katie a night where she could be a princess. “But we’d better not be late getting you home. I don’t want him to turn my car into a pumpkin.” Or me, for that matter.

 
     

    I’D NEVER IMAGINED I would think the school gym looked pretty, but that was exactly the right word to describe it.
    The prom committee