She didn't want to love him the way that she did. She didn't want to take that kind of emotional risk. And maybe if she could just keep away from him, her feelings wouldn't grow any stronger. Maybe if she didn't see him all the time, her feelings would start to fade.
But it was damned hard to avoid him when he invaded her every thought.
She pulled open the door. As she and Zander stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the school, she tried to banish Pres from her mind.
The school's main office was directly to the right of the entrance. Kim Kavanaugh, the principal, came out as they approached, her sixteen-month-old daughter on her hip.
Mrs. Kavanaugh greeted Zander brightly. "Oh, great, you made it. We're having an assembly this afternoon—a string quartet from Sarasota is going to play for the school. I was afraid you were going to miss it." She turned to Molly. "And I'm glad you're here too. I've spent the past two hours calling the fifth- and sixth-grade parents—Mr. Towne handed in his resignation this morning. As of today, he's gone."
Zander dropped his backpack. "Mr. Towne did what? He's what?"
"Gone," Mrs. Kavanaugh repeated. "He gave his resignation—that means he quit. Just like that. Can you believe it?"
Zander started to laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can believe it. Pres is the bestl" He did a little dance in a circle in the hall. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!"
Molly caught his arm. "Zander, what's going on?"
"Yesterday I told Pres all about how mean Mr. Towne was, and now Mr. Towne is gone!" Quickly, and nearly all in one breath, Zander recounted everything about Mr. Towne that he'd told Pres the evening before.
Kim Kavanaugh was livid. "The nerve of that man!" she exclaimed. "Stanley Towne had no right—no right—to be a teacher. The school board had been trying to get rid of him for years. But he had tenure and we couldn't afford to pay him the amount he was demanding for an early retirement."
Molly was numb. "Zander, why didn't you tell me any of this?" Her son had told Pres, but he hadn't told her.
He gazed at her solemnly from behind his glasses. "I didn't want you to break Mr. Towne's nose."
"I wouldn't have broken his nose! I would have been very, very angry, yes, but . . ." Molly pulled Zander into her arms and gave him a hug. "Please, don't ever not tell me something like this again."
"I won't," he promised. He looked up at her. "Do you think Pres really took his diving spear and went after Mr. Towne?"
"What?"
"He said he oughta—"
"Zander, we don't even know that Pres had anything to do with Mr. Towne leaving." But even as she spoke the words she knew they were ridiculous. Of course Pres had done something. He'd no doubt paid the man off, made it worth Towne's while to leave.
"Who's gonna teach my class?" Zander asked Mrs. Kavanaugh.
The principal shifted her baby to her other hip. "Actually, Mr. Young is going to be your substitute teacher—until we find a permanent replacement." She looked up at Molly. "You know Hayden Young, right? Tall, long blond hair? Of course you do—he's Zander's speech teacher, right?"
"He's so cool," Zander exclaimed. Coolness in Sunrise Key was apparently contagious. "Is he here now?"
Mrs. Kavanaugh nodded.
Zander was poised, quivering, eager to be on his way to his classroom. "Can I—may I go?"
Mrs. Kavanaugh nodded again. "Please don't run, Zander," she called after him. "We'll be looking to hire someone with special-education experience to replace Mr. Towne," she told Molly. "Although I have this secret dream of talking Hayden Young into taking the job on a permanent basis."
"I had no idea," Molly murmured, hardly hearing the other woman. "Zander didn't say a word. But I should have known. It took him so long to get ready for school these past few mornings. I should have guessed that something wasn't right." She glanced at Kim Kavanaugh, lowering her voice. "Did Mr. Towne give you a reason for his leaving? I mean, he broke his contract, right? Surely he gave you some excuse."
"He told me only that he'd suddenly come into a great deal of money, and that he was willing to accept the school board's last offer for early retirement on the condition he would be able to leave immediately. As in today. Do you think . . ,"
"That Preston Seaholm was behind that 'great deal of money'?" Molly nodded grimly. "There's not a doubt in my mind."
She turned to go, but Kim Kavanaugh's soft words stopped her.
"He must love you and Zander very much."
Love. Yeah, right.
Pres didn't know how to share his love. He didn't seem to be able to share anything but his money.
FIFTEEN
Pres had a head-on collision with Molly at the door to Millie's Market. She was going in and he was coming out.
He gazed down at her from behind his dark glasses. She didn't look happy. In fact, she looked downright unhappy. Well, hell, that made two of them.
"I was just on my way over to your place," he said.
"I just came from your place." She was unable to keep from glancing at the pack of cigarettes in his hand. "I want to talk to you. About Stanley Towne?"
He looked around, searching for news cameras and stray photographers. There were none in sight. "Let's walk."
"Did you pay off Zander's teacher so that he'd quit?"
Pres didn't answer right away. He peeled the cellophane wrapper from the pack and threw it into a trash barrel. Seeing Molly again made his craving for cigarettes fade to almost nothing. Instead, he desperately craved her. It was a deeper, stronger, more powerful need, and his entire chest hurt from wanting her. He put a cigarette in his mouth instead. "Mind if I smoke?"
"Yes."
"But we're outside. . . ."
"You asked, and yes, I do mind. I don't want you to smoke, all right?"
She was upset, and she wasn't the only one. Pres broke the cigarette in two, turned back to the trash barrel, and threw it in. He slammed the entire rest of the pack in after it.
Molly was astonished. Cool, imperturbable Preston Seaholm had actually lost his temper. As she watched he gripped the edge of a pay-phone booth, as if trying to cool down. But when he turned back to her, his mouth was still grimly set.
"I can't believe after what we shared last night, you don't want to make even the smallest attempt to make it work between us," he said.
"Did you or did you not give Stanley Towne money?"
Pres yanked off his sunglasses and his eyes looked stormy. "Yes, I did. I went to see him this morning. I paid him off so that he'd leave town. So yes, I'm guilty of using my money to help you and Zander. No, I'm not trying to buy you. No, I didn't think doing this would bring you running back to me, arms open wide. I did it because I wanted to. What's the use in having money if you can't spend it the way you want to?"
"It feels so wrong to me," Molly said hotly. "Every time I turn around, there you are, ready to spend another small fortune on Zander and me. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me start to doubt my own reasons for wanting to be with you—I mean, face it, my life would be so much easier if I took that grant. Or if I became your lover, and just let you pay for everything."
Pres stared at her, trying to understand, wanting to understand so that he could figure out a way to persuade her that she was wrong.
"So how do you know that the reason you think you don't want to be with me isn't because you're afraid of being influenced by my money?" he finally asked.
Molly gazed back at him. She was afraid of many things when it came to Preston Seaholm, but that wasn't one of them. "That's not why I . . . can't be with you."
Pres crossed the sidewalk and sat down on the bench in the shade of the florist's awning. "That's right. I almost forgot. You think I'm too much like what's-his-name."
Molly sat down tiredly next to him. "I can't willingly enter a relationship that seems so much like one that didn't work. You're the same kind of person Chuck was—so careful of your privacy. I don't want to be in a relationship where I have to guess wha
t my lover is thinking."
Pres put his head in his hands. "Well, you'll never guess in a million years what I'm thinking right now." He took a deep breath, glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes. "We need to get married."
"Excuse me?"
He leaned back on the bench, long legs stretched out in front of him as he ran both hands through his hair and then down his face. "Somehow the rumor got started that we're getting married on Saturday. Instead of the camera teams going away, the entertainment news programs are sending more equipment down to Sunrise Key to cover what's promising to be the wedding of the year."
Molly had to laugh, giddy with disbelief. But she knew Pres wasn't kidding—why would he kid about something like that?
"I called a friend of mine who works for a major public-relations firm up in New York City," Pres continued. "I asked him the best way to handle this, and he recommended that we give them what they want. And pray that this time it works."
"Would you care for something from the dessert cart, madam?"
"Mom? Yo. Mom!"
Molly blinked and focused on Zander's face. He pointed behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see a tuxedo-clad waiter standing there, dessert cart at the ready.
"No thanks," she murmured. She glanced to her right, where Preston was sitting quietly. He'd said no more than a few sentences all night. It was her birthday, and it was the night before her so-called wedding. It would have been considered odd if she and Pres hadn't appeared out together. She'd thought it would be less awIkward, bringing Zander along with them to dinner, but now she wasn't so sure it had helped.
It was hard as hell to sit mere inches away from a man she was trying her damnedest not to love. She needed to be farther than six inches from him if she wanted to forget about his smile, his laughter, his incredible, electricity-filled touch.
Instead, she'd spent the past few days in constant contact with Pres. And when she wasn't with him, she was being fitted for a wedding gown.
Tomorrow she was pretending to marry a man whom she would have married for real in a heartbeat, if he only would tell her that he loved her.
"So are you guys going on a honeymoon?" Zander asked, oblivious to the strained silence.
"Zander, it's just a pretend wedding. . . ."
"But you want people to think it's real," he said. "How are you going to make people think it's real if you don't go on a honeymoon?"
Molly glanced up to find Pres watching her. He smiled very slightly, sadly, and her heart felt squeezed.
"Maybe we should take a short trip." He took a sip of his coffee. "We could take Zander with us. Where would you want to go, Z?"
Her son's eyes lit up. "I'd want to go to see your shipwreck." He concentrated hard to pronounce all of the s's. "To that place where your friend's salvage company is digging it back out of the sand."
"St. John," Pres said. He looked at Molly. "That's not a bad idea, actually. I could do some diving, and you and Zander could hang out on the beach, or take a boat over to St. Thomas for shopping." He lowered his voice even further. "You wouldn't have to spend much time with me at all."
Zander was radiating excitement. "Pres showed me pictures of St. John, Mom. It's so pretty. And the water's so clear, you can see all kinds of tropical fish. Hey! Pres can start teaching me to snorkel while we're there! Remember, Pres, you promised you'd teach me to snorkel."
Molly turned to Pres in amazement. "You promised him ... ?"
Pres dug some money out of his pocket. "Hey, Z, do me a favor, and go ask the bandleader to play 'Stardust' for your mom, okay? You need to go over there and wait until they finish playing, all right?" He handed the boy several dollar bills. "Put that in that giant glass on top of die piano. That's their tip."
"What about my tip?"
"Zander!" Molly hissed.
"I was kidding! It was a joke!"
"Go." Both Pres and Molly spoke in unison.
Zander was barely away from the table before they turned to face each other like a pair of wary boxers.
Pres spoke first. "There's nothing dangerous about learning to snorkel."
"But if he learns to snorkel, he'll expect to be able to learn to dive when he's old enough." Molly shook her head. "And that is too dangerous. I'm not going to let him do it."
Pres was silent for a moment. "You don't know why he I wants to learn to dive, do you?"
"He wants to dive because you do, because you're his hero."
"No, that's not why." Pres looked across the room, to where Zander was standing off to the one side, watching the band. "He wants to dive because underwater, he won't be any different from anyone else. Nobody can hear underwater. It's virtually silent down there."
Pres looked back at Molly, watching her emotions play across her face.
"Think about it," he continued. "His hearing loss, his deafness, it won't matter at all when he's underwater. That's why the kid wants to dive. For the first time in his life he wouldn't be at a disadvantage. He has the right to experience that, don't you think?"
Molly was silent, her blue eyes filled with realization and tears.
Pres went on. "And divers communicate through a very basic, very rough form of sign language. Knowing ASL would put Zander at a tremendous advantage."
Across the room, the band had stopped playing. "Excuse me." A small voice spoke into the bandleader's microphone. It was Zander. He was actually up on the stage, looking out at them. "I want to tell my mom happy birthday. She doesn't like cake, and there's no candle for her to blow out, but I hope she gets her wish anyway."
Behind him the band began to play, and Zander began to sing the old familiar birthday song. Pres had never really heard the boy sing before.
"He's amazing," he murmured, glancing at Molly. Zander's voice was pure and clear, a sweet boy soprano that faltered only slightly on the high notes.
Molly covered her mouth with one hand and laughed as Zander signed "I love you" to her then took an exaggerated bow. He turned to talk to the bandleader again.
"He is amazing," she said.
"Let him learn to scuba-dive."
"Oh, Lord, it's so dangerous! How could I let him?"
"How could you not?" Pres covered her hand with his. "You know, some things are worth the risk. For Zander, this is definitely worth it."
Molly leaned toward him. "Did he actually say all this to you?"
"More or less." He smiled. "Less, actually. I mean, the kid's ten, right? All he really knows is that he wants to learn to dive really bad. I figured out the why part from listening to him talk—the things he said, how he said it."
"You're very perceptive, aren't you?"
He gazed at her levelly. "Not all of communicating is talking. Knowing how to listen is important too."
Molly was caught in the ocean depths of his eyes.
"Come on. Let Zander learn to dive," he murmured.
Molly hesitated only briefly before she nodded, turning her hand over so that their fingers were laced together. "Promise you'll be the one to teach him?"
He nodded. "I promise."
"And you'll make sure he's safe?"
Pres nodded. "Molly, you know that I'll take care of your son." He paused, looking down at their hands. "If you can trust me to keep Zander safe, you can trust me enough to know that I'd never intentionally hurt you. I don't want to stay away from you. I want to be your lover."
She tried to pull her hand away. "Pres—"
He leaned forward, refusing to let her go. "Come on, Molly. Take a risk. I know I'm not exactly what you're looking for, but you can spend your entire life looking for perfection, afraid to make a mistake and—"
He broke off, a strange expression on his face, hardly noticing when her hand slipped free. "Afraid to make a mistake." He frowned. "Maybe even afraid to make the same mistake twice ..."
And then Zander came bounding back to the table.
Molly hugged her son and thanked him for his song, aware that Pres was watching h
er, aware of a strange light in his eyes.
She gathered her purse up from the table. "I think it's time to go. We all have to be up early in the morning..."
Pres stood up, still oddly preoccupied. "I'll drive you home."
Molly paced.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and she couldn't sleep.
It was remarkable. She was more nervous about tomorrow's make-believe wedding than she'd been about her real wedding more than ten years ago.
Sunrise Key 3 - Otherwise Engaged Page 16
