Page 1 of Christmas With the Convict

Chapter 1

WENDY

Volunteering at a state penitentiary can be grim.

I walk through the familiar checkpoints, receive my pat-downs from guards that know my name, clip on my visitor’s badge, and delve through the concrete corridors. My heels strike an echo in time with my heart.

With every step, my heart beats faster.

The closer I get to my little classroom, the more it rattles my ribcage.

And it’s not because I’m working with dangerous convicts. Honestly, they’re relatively pleasant. It’s because ofhim.

Inmate Chase Oliver.

The guard, Officer Stoker, a stout older woman with a relaxed face, opens the door and smiles. She’s been overseeing my sessions since I started six months ago. As always, I hug my big folder like a shield, if only to hide the fact that my chest is flush.

“Nervous?” Stoker asks, as always.

“Not at all,” I lie.

The classroom feels more like a prison than a place of learning. I guess that makes sense. It’s windowless, with one door that’s always locked and guarded, a dirty old chalkboard (I came prepared with a dozen white-board markers on my first day), and my students, the inmates, are cuffed to long metal benches by their ankles.

They’re all waiting for me when I walk in, all morose in their dark blue jumpsuits.

All but one.

I pause with my coat midway down my arms. Chase’s absence is as plain as day. Eight men are staring at me, a few are even stealing glances at my legs trailing out of my pencil skirt, but none of them are looking into my eyes the way Chase does.

The inmates allowed to participate in my weekly writing course are only granted the privilege because of good behavior. That does not, however, mean that I don’t occasionally lose students. This is a prison. Fights happen. Things get stolen. Worse incidents occur in this walled world…

I clear my throat and finally set my coat down on the plastic table at the front of the class. My name is already on the board—Miss Bettencourt—and Officer Stoker has taken up her position by the door.

“Ma’am,” I whisper, keeping my back to the inmates. “I seem to be missing a student today.”

“Inmate Oliver?” She shrugs. “He’s being processed for release. Out early. Good behavior.”

I knew it.

I knew Chase couldn’t have gotten involved in a fight or a riot or anything so horrible. Alright, in the three months that he’s been in my class, I haven’t exactly spoken to him about anything other than writing. And he opted for the personal journal as his project, so I don’t even know what he writes about outside of our exercises. But those honey-hazel eyes said more to me than words ever could. Every priceless, prolonged glance spoke to my soul.

I don’t know him, but I know he’s not a bad man.

And now I’m never going to see him again.

God, I’ve never felt anything so bittersweet. He’s free and can go back to his life, but I can’t fight the selfish desire to have him cuffed to that bench right where I can see him.

I can’t help but feel empty as I greet my class and start my final lesson before Christmas break.

Back out through the maze of metal detectors, steel doors, and windowless rooms. The guards smile and wish me a merry Christmas. I smile back, but my eyes are searching frantically for Chase.

I could wait for him in my car, park out by the front gate. But then what? I’m sure he has someone waiting for him, someone to take him home just in time for the holidays. A man as handsome as him must have a girl waiting for him on the outside.

I only wish that girl could have been me.

Leave it to me to fall for a guy completely out of reach, literally separated by barbed wire and steel bars. Those who know me call me a hopeless romantic, but this is ridiculous.

I feel silly as I drive out of the employee parking zone, up the main drive, and wait for the front gate to crawl open. I’m twenty-three years old, entertaining a love-struck fantasy. That doesn’t stop me from cranking Kelly Clarkson on the way out—it’s sing or cry.

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