Meant To Be - Heaven Hill Series #1

Chapter Thirteen

"Liam, you got a call."

Rolling out from underneath the car he was working on, Liam sat up quickly. His first thought was Denise needed help. Grabbing his cell phone, he saw he hadn't missed any calls from her, but that didn't mean that everything was okay. It surprised him that his hands shook as he picked up the shop phone.

"Yeah," he answered gruffly, fear making him sound more harsh than he had intended to.

"Liam?" the small voice that asked for him sounded thick with tears and heavy with fear.

He wracked his brain trying to figure out who it was. This person knew him well enough to call him at work. "Mandy? Is that you?"

She sniffed, and he could almost see the nod he was sure she gave. "Yeah."

Being in a motorcycle gang, he'd not had much experience with kids at all, much less teenage girls. He waited a beat for her to tell him what she wanted. But when he realized it wasn't coming, he tried to soften his voice as he asked, "Honey, what do you need?"

Tears started in earnest, and she blabbed a mouthful of words – none of which he could make out except for the name Drew. He heard shuffling on the other end and then another female voice.

"Sir? My name is Stacey Young, and I'm the secretary at Warren County Middle School. Sorry to bother you."

"That's alright," he answered, confused as to why they had called him.

"We tried to reach Denise, but her phone went straight to voice mail. When they had a change of address here at the school, you were added to their emergency contact information."

He hadn't been informed of that, but he could understand why she had added him. He also figured she had turned off her cell phone while she was doing the job for the club. "Okay, and what can I help you with?"

"There's been an issue with Andrew today. He and another boy got into a fight, and we need someone to come get him. He's been sent home for the rest of the day and will possibly be expelled," she explained matter-of-factly.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what Mandy had to do with this, but he figured he would save time and just ask questions when he got there. "I work a few miles from there. I'll be there soon."

Cursing, he slammed the phone down and looked at Tyler, who gazed at him, eyebrows raised. "I gotta go, Drew got into a fight at school."

Tyler laughed. "Good luck on this one, Daddy."

Liam felt his breath hitch. That's exactly what this felt like, he was going to pick his son up at school after getting into a fight. He wondered if he should punish the boy, but he felt so inept that he didn't know how he was supposed to handle this situation.

"Yeah, thanks. I think I'm just gonna have to wing it. If Denise calls, can you tell her where I am? They called her, but she didn't answer."

"Will do. I'll cover for you with the old man too."

Tyler was the type of friend that everyone should have. "Thanks man. See ya later."

"So what you're saying is he's in trouble for stickin' up for his sister?"

Liam was getting more pissed by the minute, but he was trying hard not to show it. He'd even left his cut in Tyler's truck, which he'd had to borrow when he realized he'd let Denise take his.

"What I'm saying, Mr. Walker, is that we can't stand for fighting of any kind within the school, and, regardless of how well meaning it was, he will need to be punished. He's being suspended for three days."