“Solana Romero?”

Wincing at the horrendous Americanization of her name, Solana plastered a phony smile on her face and turned to greet the owner of such an abusive tongue.

“So-lah-na…yes. Nice to meet you, Nick.” She offered her hand and a seat across from her desk.

“Oh, sorry. Did I get the last name right though?”

“Eh, close…but I’m picky.”

“Well, tell me what’s right.” No one had the audacity to warn him at the stunning beauty he’d have to be working with for this stupid community service mentorship. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. A little Carter charm, a little disinterested flirtation and all would be perfect.

“We’ll save that lesson for next time; see if you remember what you learned today, huh?”

A smart ass. Nice. He leaned back in the chair, spreading his legs out and folding his arms on his stomach, narrowing his eyes to try to figure her out in but a few seconds. Thick accent, dark eyes, dark hair and from the looks of things, a spit fire personality. This could be fun. “Whatever. So what am I supposed to learn here today? Besides your name, of course.”

She tossed a paper stuffed manila folder across the desk and invited him to pick it up with her glance. “You’re to learn about Benjamin Casey. Seems you two have quite a bit in common.”

Picking up the stack, Nick tentatively opened the file almost feeling like he was invading someone’s privacy. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“A bit of trouble with the law, nothing life threatening, but both just aching to either get thrown in jail permanently or have someone rescue you. Whichever comes first.”

Nick’s eyes shot up to the Latino beauty, incensed at her dead on description of him. He couldn’t be that damned transparent…even to a stranger. Covering his shock with a glare and hard edged tone, “You don’t know me.”

“I can read, Mr. Carter. I don’t need to know your life story to see that you’re in a bit of a mess right now.”

“Then don’t try and compare me to this kid. You have no idea.”

“Mmm…we’ll see about that. Go to that second page there. Gives his family history a bit, just so you know what you’re dealing with.”

Nick decided to let her cocky attitude go and cooperate. This was a court ordered activity after all. No sense making it worse for himself. Looking back to the information before him, Nick sighed feeling like his every move was being studied by this woman. He didn’t like it.

Ben’s rap sheet wasn’t too horrible looking. Twelve years old, single parent home, 4 sibs, truancy, vandalism, petty theft. He could take it. Take the kid to a few ball games, help him with his homework and he’d be able to eke out of this without too much involvement. “Okay, doesn’t look too bad. When do I meet him?”

“Just hold on. There are some ground rules you need to know first.”

“Okay, hit me.”

“You’ve got money coming out of your ass. You can’t toss it to him. Don’t be buying him stuff just for the hell of it. In fact, don’t buy him anything for awhile.”

“Okay, but what about getting him into games and stuff? Fun things?”

“That’s okay, but I mean…Nick, do you know this part of Ruskin?”

“Yeah, I grew up here.”

Now she was the one with shock on her face. She just figured he was some rich kid whose Mommy paid his way onto the stage. “In Ruskin?”

“Yep. I don’t know this address though...I mean, we still had a nice house.”

“Ah, well, you’ll know it eventually. You’ll never forget it.”

Wonderful. “I’ve got to go to his house?”

“At some point, yes. Nick, this community service, this whole program they set up for you is so you’ll become an integral part of Benjamin’s life for at least a year. I’m not sure why the hell they think it’s gonna make any difference to you, or how it’s supposed to help Ben, but that’s what’s expected. It’s my job to hold up that end of the bargain.”

“No disrespect, but, I don’t have time to be an integral part of some deliquent’s life.”

“Well, you’d better make time, because Ben is my first concern. You shit on him, you shit on me.”

Nick’s eyebrows raised and he shifted in his seat. Okay, maybe beauty wasn’t a factor anymore. This woman was going to be a pain in his ass. His cockiness was subsiding and it was his planned card for this thing. He’d need a new plan. He just didn’t know what it was going to be.

“And if you shit on me, Nick…”

“Yes?” Neeck…he loved the way she said his name. Stop it, Neeck…she’s a vampire.

“I shit on you. You’ll be back in front of that judge before you can say ‘NSync sucks dick’.”

He had to laugh out loud at that one. Tension? Humor? Whatever, it struck him funny. But, coming down from the joke, he saw she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t even mildly snickered at her own comment. Damn, she wasn’t a vampire, she was a frickin’ cement wall. Mustering his decorum, he sat up and got serious.

“Okay, so I can’t buy him anything, what else?”

“For your own protection, I wouldn’t take him to your house. At least…well, get it approved through me first. Um, no overnights and no taking him out of the Tampa area for awhile. Eventually a trip to Orlando would be approved I’m sure.”

“What are my time requirements? I do have a job that takes me away for long periods of time.”

“While you’re in town, 3-5 hours every week. You can do it all at once or over two visits. You’ll need to get a schedule to me for when you travel and we’ll work around it. Basically if we see you’re trying to hold up your end of the bargain, we’ll work with you. You get inflexible and difficult, which I hear you’re really good at, then we run into a problem.”

She was too much. And he was losing his patience. “Since when are you a probationary officer?”

“You think I’m happy about this, Mr. Carter?”

“I have no idea how you feel Miss Romero.” Pronouncing her name properly suddenly wasn’t a concern...to either of them. He said it with such venom, it didn’t matter. “And at the moment, I don’t care. This is ridiculous.”

“I’ll agree with you there. But Ben can’t know how much you’re against this. He won’t get that from me and I’ll expect the same behavior from you. You want to do this as far as he’s concerned, you got it?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m great at dazzling people with bullshit.”

“Good. Then get your Backstreet ass back in here after you meet with him and go dazzle that boy. You sure as shit haven’t dazzled me at all.”

“Maybe that’s because I wasn’t trying.”

“Maybe that’s because you don’t have anything dazzling to show.”