by Alyssa Kress
He'd read everybody's number to a tee. He'd also put Cheryl Bloch, along with a bunch of four-eyed types, in Matt's group.
"All right, everybody up. We're going down the street to the library." In the resulting chaos, the teacher's eyes met Matt's. "Hold up," Sullivan told Matt as everyone else shuffled from the room. "You and I have to have a little chat."
Gary waited, leaning his hips against the front of his desk as the kid rolled his wheelchair warily up the outside aisle. He was a good-looking kid, square-cut features, light red hair, his eyes pure gold with some definite intelligence in there. Just like his sister ‑‑ too much intelligence. Hell, who'd have thought that brother who'd already made so much trouble for him by getting him into this teacher role was going to pose even more trouble by being a damn student in his class.
"Yeah?" Matt Horton asked, cocking his head. The room had gotten quiet and the sound of the class retreating down the arcade was already fading. They were safely alone.
Gary crossed his arms over his chest. These kids were like cons. He'd realized that the moment he'd stood up in front of the class. From there on it had been easy. All he had to do was act like a screw. Well, perhaps a more sympathetic, benevolent type of screw than those Gary had encountered in his day, but the principle was the same.
And like a screw, he could read these cons at a glance, distinguishing the shy, scared ones from the bullies, and the ones with a spark of brains from the no gos. Keeping that in mind, he figured how to play this with Kerrin's little brother.
He nodded down at him. "You lift weights?"
Just as he'd planned, the kid got thrown off guard. Some of the bristly defensiveness went out of him. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
Gary nodded again. "Thought so. Can't tell really, without your shirt off, but you look like you're doing a good job at it, keeping your balance."
"I don't have a coach, but I've read some books." The kid flushed lightly. He was Kerrin's brother and Gary had seen Kerrin's library. If there were any family resemblance, it was a cinch the kid would read books. Now Matt ran his eye with shy speculation down Gary's front. "I guess you've been lifting weights a long time, yourself."
Gary shifted his position against the desk. In prison there wasn't much else of a constructive nature to do. "Yeah, but not for the past several days," he told Matt. "Unfortunately, I didn't see a gym in town."
"There isn't," Matt confirmed. "But listen, anytime you want you can come over and use my set. It's in our garage."
The kid's offer signalled the end of hostilities, an end Gary had been consciously orchestrating. But it did something more, touching a nerve deep inside him, a nerve that Gary normally kept crusted over with a protective coating of cynicism.
"Well, thanks." Gary frowned at the jarring of that nerve. "That's awful nice of you. And it brings up a point I think you and I ought to discuss."
Matt looked up expectantly.
Gary chose his words with care. "The way I see it, you and I have ourselves a mutual problem here. I mean, your sister."
Matt raised an eyebrow. "My sister? A problem?"
Gary hooded his eyes. The hint of humor in the kid's tone said he knew his sister was damn near always a problem. "This is the way I see it," Gary went on. "She's your sister, you're my student, and she's my boss." He paused. "Gives the lady way too much...influence, if you catch my drift."
By the way Matt was grinning, Gary was pretty sure he did, indeed, catch his drift. "Meaning she can check up on you, through me ‑‑ and me, through you."
"We're seeing eye to eye."
"So." Matt looked completely cooperative. "What do you suggest?"
Gary laced his fingers across his middle. "What I suggest is a coordinated...stonewalling, if you will. If she were to ask me about your progress in the class I would give her a stock response, like 'Oh, fine. Just fine.' If she asked you about me, you'd say the same thing."
Matt was grinning again, evidently pleased. "You got a deal." He wheeled backward a few feet, ready to leave.
"One more thing." Gary stopped him. "What do you know about Elaine ‑‑ " He glanced back at the roll sheet on top of the desk. "Elaine Gerard?"
"Elaine?" Matt looked mildly baffled. "I don't know much about her. She lives a few miles outside of town with her dad, and a bunch of brothers and sisters. Why?"
Gary shook his head. "It's not important." And please God, it wouldn't be and he was wrong. But it was hard to be wrong about something so close to home, hard not to recognize a part of oneself.
She'd let her lanky black hair fall to cover her face, as though she didn't want to be seen. Every time Gary had looked over at her he'd got a better impression of a whipped puppy. There were no discernible bruises or cuts but that didn't mean she wasn't hurting. In fact, as though she'd known what Gary was up to, the girl had lowered her face under her fall of hair, making it harder for him to see. It was a gesture that looked far too well practiced.
So, she lived outside of town with her father and a bunch of brothers and sisters. Gary might have to knuckle under and pay a teacherly call on the family. Just one more item on his list of things to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Umm, so how's everything going?" The parole officer's voice sounded wary over the phone, as though he expected Kerrin to light into him.
Which she well should. Marty had been the one to insist on regular phone calls. But here it was more than a week after Gary had hit town and this was the first time Marty'd managed to return any of Kerrin's numerous messages.
"It's going fine," Kerrin replied huffily. "I suppose." She was sitting in her school office with the door wide open. Hot desert air slammed into the room that way but she didn't care. She wasn't letting her new teacher get away this time.
Ever since school had started Gary had been avoiding her. She'd yet to get a single scrap of information from him about how the class was going; not a one. And if she tried asking her brother, who spent all morning sitting inside that exact classroom, the answer was always the same. A big, broad smile and a drawled, "Oh it's going fine, sis. Just fine."
"You suppose, eh." Marty paused. "Er, nobody's gotten ripped off?"
He spoke as though he fully expected the opposite to be the case. Kerrin frowned. "Of course not."
"Of course not." Marty repeated this in a dazed way. "Well, then, what has Gary been doing?"
It occurred to Kerrin that the parole officer wasn't joking. He really couldn't envision Gary doing anything other than thieving. No wonder Gary hadn't done well under his supervision. Kerrin gave a different huff, one of disapproval. Any decent teacher knew that a problem student couldn't rise above the expectations held out.
All the same, she hesitated before admitting to Marty just how Gary was now spending his time. "Well," she hedged, "there was something of a mix-up the day he arrived in town."
"A mix-up?"
Kerrin rubbed a spot between her eyebrows. "You see, my brother ‑‑ and everybody ‑‑ somehow got it into their heads that he was the high school teacher for the summer session."
"Oh, my God."
Kerrin leaned forward over her desk. "Actually, it turned out okay." I think. "It made a perfect cover."
After a short silence, Marty cleared his throat. "Are you telling me...I mean, do I understand this right ‑‑ ? Gary's teaching high school?"
"It's just one class," Kerrin hastened to assure him. "And not very technical. Health education."
There was a garbled sound over the wires, as though Marty were choking on his own tongue.
"You told me Gary wouldn't hurt a fly," Kerrin reminded him. "And judging from what I can see, the kids do seem to respect him." Yes, every time she passed by his room there wasn't a sound to be heard through the closed door. Like a church it was in there.
"Kerrin, honey, you don't understand. I'm sure the kids are perfectly safe with him." Marty paused, apparently at a loss. "It's just that so far as I know Gary never graduated high school, himself. In fa
ct, I doubt he even attended high school very much."
"Oh." Holy Cow. No wonder Gary'd been so upset. She should have guessed ‑‑ But Gary, despite his slangy expressions, was so articulate that she'd just assumed... So why the hell hadn't he said anything? But no, Gary Sullivan, macho man, had to ‑‑
Kerrin's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the pair of feet she'd been waiting for all morning. Feet clad in male loafers, feet that strode with an easy, masculine grace. Feet belonging to a man who'd been avoiding her with far too much casual ease.
Gary, clad in a dress shirt and trousers ‑‑ no jacket or tie this morning ‑‑ strolled quickly past her door. He was whistling, but stopped as he glanced inside. His eyes hit her with their customary heart-stopping power.
Whatever her eyes did to him, they didn't cause him to break his stride. In a flash he was gone, all that was left of him the dying sound of his tuneless whistle.
"Listen, I've got to go." Kerrin stood with the phone still in her hand. He was getting away and she'd promised herself to corner him today. Now, with Marty's new information, she needed to talk to him more than ever.
"Wait a minute!" Marty sounded panicked. "I need to know about the DWP. What's going on ‑‑ ?"
"Sorry, Marty, catch you later." Kerrin put down the receiver and rushed to the door. Gary was no longer visible but he'd been headed out the back way, toward the baseball field. Kerrin closed her office door and then locked it, her fingers shaking. This was just business, she scolded herself, denying that she might be running after the man. Only business.
From the end of the arcade, Kerrin could see Gary moving across the empty baseball field. He headed straight across the diamond, in no particular hurry. As she watched, he bent down to scoop a rock off the ground. He stopped and weighed it in his hand, appeared to think a moment, and then climbed the pitcher's mound.
Frowning, Kerrin came to a stop by one of the arcade's thin steel pillars.
At the top of the mound, Gary looked down at the rock in his hand. He then gazed toward home plate with a gleam as keen and determined as any major league pitcher. He bent forward, put both hands together and pulled back, kicking up a leg for the wind-up. In one fluid, powerful movement he lunged forward, tossing the rock right through the strike zone.
Kerrin went absolutely still. The one, graceful gesture spoke a thousand words. It told of someone who was more than number 406651, someone more than a parole officer's nightmare. Once, in his wayward, misbegotten life, this man had been a kid, with any kid's hopes and dreams.
Now he walked off the pitcher's mound and toward the mesh fence. There he bent down and retrieved his pitched rock. With an efficient underhand sling he shot it back out into the field. In the process he saw Kerrin. Straightening, he narrowed his eyes and reached for his cigarettes.
"What are you hiding there for?" His irritated tone carried easily over the baseball field.
"I'm not hiding," Kerrin lied, stepping out from the relative shelter of the arcade. "If anyone's been hiding, it's you."
Gary scowled and stood over home plate. Giving up on his cigarettes, he shoved his hands in his pockets. "What do you want?"
Stifling the cowardly urge to turn tail and retreat, Kerrin picked her way over the grass toward him. With the kids Kerrin had seen Gary smile and converse amiably. She'd seen him flirting with Carolina nearly every morning. Why, she wondered, was she the only person in town he treated as though she had the plague?
"I wanted to talk to you about the class," Kerrin told him. Though his eyes were hard on her, she maintained her resolve. "Surely that's reasonable."
He shrugged. "The class is going fine."
"Oh, fine, just fine," Kerrin muttered. She'd heard that before. "I'm afraid I'd like a little more detail. Are my lesson plans working out ‑‑ ?"
"Your lesson plans?" Gary rolled his eyes heavenward. "I'm not using them."
"You're not ‑‑ ?" Kerrin stared. "Then what are you doing?"
"You just let me handle it, all right? Everything is going great. Just stay out of it. Stay the hell out of it." He made an angry gesture and strode past her.
Kerrin turned to watch him go, amazed he thought he could get away with that. "Wait just a minute, Mr. Sullivan."
Gary spun to give her a dirty look. "Listen, lady, between holding down my day job and taking care of my night work I'm not getting a hell of a lot of sleep. So forgive me if this doesn't come out as genteel as it should: Leave. Me. Alone."
It was a rejection. Flat and final. Of her as either woman or peer. And it hurt, even though it came from this man. Or maybe it hurt all the more because it came from this man. After years of being locked away, he should have been interested in any woman, even Kerrin. She watched him swing back around and continue striding away.
Avoiding her and her questions. Again.
While her heart fluttered sickly a few feet beneath home plate, Kerrin felt a burst of anger. She wasn't going to let him do it. He could reject her on a personal level if he wanted, but he didn't get to evade her legitimate request for information.
She spoke in a low, clear voice. "Please, Mr. Sullivan, tell me why you didn't mention that you never graduated high school."
That stopped him in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around again. The anger in his face was gone, replaced by the cool, impenetrable mask. "You've been talking to Marty."
"I have."
He nodded, then looked at her with distinct challenge. A muted challenge, however, the way she'd seen him look toward Marty at the prison. "So, what does that mean? You going to take away the class?"
Though he tried to hide it, Kerrin could see his fear of loss. Her own anger dissipated like mist. No wonder he'd been avoiding her. Whatever he said, he wanted to teach that class.
Despite what she knew about his history, she couldn't help being drawn to him again, and to this further hint of another man beneath the surface. Kerrin crossed her arms over her chest. "Why should I take away the class? You tell me it's going great."
He tilted his head, like some wild animal that knew better than to accept the treat being held forth. "What's the catch?"
"There's no catch. I just ‑‑ well, a little communication would be nice, Gary. For a week you've been running the other direction every time I try to talk to you."
His gaze shifted toward the river. "I don't want to talk to you about the class."
"Yes, that's evident."
"I don't want to talk to you about the class. I don't want to talk to you about the Department of Water and Power or the aqueduct facility." His voice lowered and he turned back, glaring at her. "The fact is, I don't want to talk to you about anything."
Kerrin stilled as something heavy shimmered in the afternoon air between them, something that was...definitely not rejection. The red in his eyes was burning. He began to walk toward her, deliberately, with purpose. "Talking isn't what I want to do with you, Kerrie Horton. That's why I stay away from you. You get it?"
Did she? Could she? This was too incredible, whatever she was seeing in his eyes. It both fascinated and terrified her. She wanted to escape but couldn't move, not even when he took hold of her. His powerful fingers encaged her upper arms. His gaze, raking her face, settled with a kind of fierce fascination on her mouth.
"God, you're scared," Gary said.
Looking at her, Gary knew this statement was the brutal truth. He could see her terror like a living thing, quivering behind the jewelled color of her eyes. Her tiny little body, so delicate, was trembling under his hands.
"What is it?" he asked roughly. "My record? My permanent residence? Or just the kind of man I am."
She didn't answer, only stared up at him with gigantic eyes.
Gary raised his brows. "So that's it. You think I'm different from any other, normal man." He let his voice get softer, let it speak the seductive message he'd been holding back until now. "I've got news for you, Kerrie, I'm just like any other man. Hey, look. I can prove it."
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br /> Sliding one hand down her arm, he caught hold of her hand. It was clenched into a fist. Gary smiled. He worked her fingers open. "Come on, baby, I'm going to show you. You'll see."
Her jaw tightened and he knew she was biting back a moan of fear. He ignored it. Instead, he drew her hand up, gently fighting her resistance. By now he was beyond self-sacrifice, beyond the ideal of treating Kerrin with respect. Dragging her hand all the way up to his face, he placed her palm against his cheek.
"Hey, whattaya know?" Looking into her terrified face, he raised his brows in mock surprise. "Feel that? I got a beard there, just like any other man."
A pair of hazel eyes looked up at him, iced with terror. Then slowly, even as he watched, the ice started to melt.
Gary hadn't planned how far to take this little lesson, but the sheer wonder that bloomed in Kerrin's eyes pushed him beyond what he knew to be safe. She really did look surprised.
He let go of her hand and drew her lightly against his body. "Hey, see that? I've got muscles there, hard ones not like yours ‑‑ just like any normal man." He smoothed his hands up and down her slender back. "Now, relax, honey, or you aren't going to be able to make a good comparison here."
The look of complete amazement in her upturned face was pretty much his undoing. Or, maybe it was the way that her little girl body slowly did relax against him. She was so soft and small and unutterably sweet. With the edge of his hand, he tipped up her chin.
"Now how much you wanta bet that when I kiss you it's going to feel just like any other, normal man?" Ignoring the flash of panic in her eyes, he calmly settled his mouth over her rose-petal lips.
God. She was every bit as delectable as he'd imagined. So soft, so soft ‑‑ so everything he'd been missing for so long, maybe his whole life. He kept his lips on hers, gently blocking the possibility of retreat. And then, moving his mouth, he fed on all that soft sugar.
She made a small sound and pressed her palms against his chest. Every motion of his hungry mouth she met and answered. Then, somehow, the tables turned. Ravenous as he was, Gary got the disorienting impression that he was the one feeding Kerrin. She was drinking up his slow, serpentine kiss like it was water to a thirsty soul. Both his hands moved to her jaw, lightly holding her in place as he tried his best to satisfy her thirst.
