Hard loving man

by Lorraine Heath

  “Give me a holler when you’re ready to move. I’ll get some guys together, and we can use my pickup to haul your furniture to the new place.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  Even though she was wearing dark glasses, even though he was, too, he could see that she really didn’t want his help. Just like in high school, she had discouraged him from hanging around her. He’d defied her then. Why break old habits now?

  “So, what are you going to do? Hire a moving company? Teachers’ salaries suddenly skyrocket? Besides, I owe you. If not for you, I never would have read Beowulf in high school.”

  She smiled then, a wistful smile that caused everything inside him to tighten.

  “I’m not convinced you did read Beowulf. But I appreciate your generous offer. I’ll give you a call when we’re ready to move.”

  “Good.”

  He opened the door, climbed out, and moved the front seat forward, just as Mike walked around the corner. Madison edged her way out of the back and slid into the front.

  With the door still open, Jack leaned down and looked at the ladies in the car. “Next to the Realtor is the massage parlor I tried to tell you about earlier. Mention to Cindy that I sent you. She’ll give you a discount and a full-body massage that’ll melt your entire body.”

  “Are you telling me it’s a legitimate massage parlor?” Kelley asked with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.” He reached into his hip pocket, pulled out his wallet, retrieved one of his business cards, and extended his card to Kelley. “My cell-phone number. That’s your best chance of getting in touch with me.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  With too many things unsaid, he nodded, shut the door, stepped back onto the curb, and watched Kelley drive off. Then he strode over to Mike, who was grinning like a fool.

  “Hey, she’s got another sister. And that one’s cute,” Mike said.

  “Only one sister. That’s the hellion from last night, all washed up.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s interesting.” If at all possible, his grin broadened. “Really interesting.”

  “She’s jailbait, Mike.”

  Mike’s smile disappeared, and his face turned beet red beneath his tan. “Right, Chief.”

  Mike wore his blond hair cropped short enough that he looked almost bald, which should have made him look older than his twenty-three years. Instead, to his complete mortification, silver-haired ladies tended to pinch his cheeks in public.

  “She cleaned up real nice, though, didn’t she?” Mike added.

  “Yeah, she did.” Jack looked up at the clear blue late-September sky. “Full moon tonight.”

  “I hate a full moon,” Mike grumbled. He fell into step beside Jack as he headed into the police station.

  All cops did. It tended to bring out the crazies.

  The crazies ended up being a domestic disturbance—an excessive amount of yelling between a husband and a wife, the noise level rising to a crescendo that disturbed the neighbors who called it in. Apparently, the wife wanted to take the kids to Disney World over Christmas. The husband wanted to take them to Disney land. After Jack calmed them down, he flipped a coin. Disney World won. He was certain Orlando would never be quite the same after the family’s invasion.

  Then he handled a drunken brawl at the Sit ’n’ Bull. Followed by a guy who got a little too aggressive with a girl at the Broken Wagon, the only honky-tonk in town. The girl was shaken up but not really hurt. Her scream had brought a couple of local guys to her rescue.

  Jack took his time hauling the locals off the out-of-towner. Funny thing was, he hadn’t gotten a good look at the fellas—even though he’d been standing five feet away—so he couldn’t make any arrests, which set the stranger into a cussing spree. Jack advised him to take the closest road out of town. Then he followed him to make sure he did.

  He checked on a possible shoplifter at a convenience store. A harried new father had walked out with a box of diapers. Jack returned to the store and paid for the diapers.

  Then, to top off his night, Gordy took a fatal shot to the chest.

  The owner of the establishment was beside himself with outrage, dangerously close to bringing on a coronary.

  “That’s the third time, Jack!” Gunther yelled, punctuating each word with a jab of his arthritic finger in the air. “Third time. I want these felons apprehended.”

  Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, Gunther, I’m not sure shooting an inflatable doll with a BB gun is actually a felony.”

  Lately, it was more like a rite of passage to the kids around here. The twenty-five-foot-tall inflatable gorilla that stood guard outside the gas station was sprawled in an airless heap not far from the pumps it was supposed to draw attention to.

  “Well, it should be. Arrest them for firing a weapon in town. I think there’s an ordinance against that. If there’s not, there should be.”

  “Yes, sir, you’re right about that. Let me make some inquiries, see what I can uncover. What do you think would be a fair punishment for those who shot Gordy?”

  Gunther moved his mouth around as though his false teeth were attempting to escape. “Need my bathrooms painted. Kids have written all kinds of sexual trash on the wall.”

  “All right, sir.”

  “And thirty days of cleaning them.”

  “Sounds fair enough.”

  By the time he pulled into his driveway at three in the morning, Jack was wound up so tight he couldn’t have slept if he tried.

  He darted a glance at his neighbor’s house. Everything was dark except for the bedroom where her son’s night-light glowed. Serena was usually good for a late-night chat. Her husband, Steve, had been his best friend in the army. Their son had been born six weeks before his.

  When Steve was killed on a covert operation that was still guarded by the Pentagon, Serena had turned to Jack for emotional support. Which he’d gladly given. Steve’s death had devastated him as well. He hadn’t reenlisted when the time had come. He’d wanted out.

  He’d sold Serena on the idea of moving back here with him. Two single parents with each other to lean on. They’d lucked out when a new housing development was started on the edge of town, providing them with the opportunity to live side by side.

  Sometimes, when he stopped to think about it, he found their friendship a little surprising. He’d never simply been friends with a woman. He and Serena had no sexual relationship whatsoever—never had. He doubted they ever would. To him, she was still his best friend’s wife.

  But he’d driven her to the emergency room the night Riker’s fever had spiked and sent him into convulsions. Strep had been the culprit. The kid had never complained of a sore throat.

  She’d held Jason on her lap while Jack sped to the hospital the day Jason fell out of the backyard fort and broke his arm.

  They were always there for each other. Their sons alternated the weekends spending Friday and Saturday nights together. The arrangement gave him and Serena some time for themselves. In his case, he usually worked so he’d be free to spend the next weekend with the boys.

  He owed it to Steve to be there for his son. The bullet that had taken Steve out could have killed Jack just as easily. They’d been standing that close to each other, determined to protect each other’s back. Jack had failed at his mission.

  With a sigh, he climbed out of the truck and headed into the house. It wasn’t fancy, but it was a hell of a lot nicer than the trailer he’d grown up in.

  He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He simply switched on the television, muted the volume, and dropped into his recliner. Anywhere he looked, he could see evidence that it was a male-dominated environment designed to serve the needs of the hunters, not the nesters. No sign at all of much nesting going on.

  No womanly smells. Nothing frilly, pink, or feminine. Pictures on the walls reflected things that Jason liked: race c
ars and F-14s and dolphins and dogs.

  Jack had convinced himself that he preferred the house this way: a reflection of manly tastes. But in his youth, he’d always fantasized about having a house that included the personality of a caring woman. A woman who could make plants grow, furniture shine, hearty meals tasty, and his body ignite with nothing more than a sensual lowering of her eyelids, a slow curving of her lips.

  A caring, sexy woman. A woman like Kelley Spencer.

  He’d been torn between shame and desire the day she showed up at his trailer…

  Jack was stuffing his shirt into his jeans, getting ready for his Saturday-afternoon shift at the auto shop, when he heard the car pull in with a thumping that indicated it needed a little maintenance. Looking through the bedroom window, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Spencer.

  How many times had he dreamed about her coming to him? Only she was supposed to arrive closer to midnight, when no one would see her. That’s the way illicit affairs were handled, and he sure wanted to have an affair with her.

  Rooted to the spot, he watched as she climbed out of her car and slowly looked around. He could well imagine what she was thinking. Trailer trash. At that moment, he hated his mother for leaving him here in this dump.

  Making her way to the trailer, Spencer carefully stepped over who knew what—the weeds made it impossible to figure out what dangers lurked within. He knew he really needed to mow, but it wasn’t as if he actually gave a damn—usually. Right now, he cared more than he thought it was possible to care about anything other than a good romp with a willing woman between the sheets.

  She climbed up the steps and knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Cupped her delicate hands around that beautiful face of hers and peered through the screen and the grimy window of the door beyond. He knew she’d realize soon enough that she wouldn’t be able to see much of anything.

  He considered pretending he wasn’t home, ignoring her summons. The inside of the trailer looked worse than the outside. It stank, too. His mom had been a chain smoker. He couldn’t get the disgusting stench of cigarette smoke out of the furniture.

  “Hello?” Miss Spencer called out in that sweet voice she had. She knocked again.

  What the hell. Maybe she was there for the exact reason he wanted her to be. Maybe she just didn’t have sense enough to come after dark.

  He strode through the trailer, cringing at the dirty dishes he’d left in the sink and the empty pizza box on the table.

  He yanked open the door, and Miss Spencer jerked back, nearly tumbling off the steps, her arms doing this little windmill thing until she caught her balance. She wasn’t that much older than he was—in years, anyway. In experience, he figured he was three or four times older.

  She gave him her shy, nervous smile and began cracking her knuckles. He knew he made her anxious. He was bigger than she was, tougher, unafraid. Her voice had warbled the entire first week of school, while he’d sat there in her classroom and mentally undressed her day after day.

  “Hello, Jack,” she said. “Is your mother home?”

  “Nope.” She hadn’t been home for more than a year. She’d simply packed up one day and driven away without so much as a fond farewell wave. He pushed on the screen door. “But you can come in.”

  With her smile faltering, she looked around, unsure, popping her knuckles more quickly. “I really wanted to talk with your mother.”

  “You can wait inside. I keep thinking she’ll be back any minute.” And he had thought that. For the first month, anyway. Maybe even the second. Then he’d given up all hope of ever setting eyes on her again. Good riddance, the man side of him that had grown up too fast thought angrily, but the little boy inside him still grieved over the loss.

  Miss Spencer gave a quick nod, and he held the screen open. As she edged past him, taking great care not to brush her body against his, he inhaled her scent, holding it deep in his lungs, the way he figured dope fiends did when smoking a joint.

  In spite of his reputation for being a troublemaker, he’d never gotten involved with drugs. In addition to being too expensive, they messed up the mind way too much, and he was having a hard enough time surviving as it was. He needed all his wits about him.

  He closed the door, and she spun around, backing up a step, waving her hand. “Your mother isn’t much of a housekeeper.”

  “She’s not much of a mother, either.”

  He saw pity touch her eyes and knew letting her come inside had been a big mistake. She was so innocent, so naive, that he had to tamp down his anger. She came from a world of butterflies and rainbows. That fact alone made her totally wrong for him. Add to that little detail the fact that she was not only older but his teacher as well, and he didn’t stand a chance in hell of ever being with her the way he dreamed of.

  Still, he couldn’t get her out of his mind, couldn’t stop wondering how it would feel to have her beneath him, couldn’t stop hoping that maybe a little of her would rub off on him.

  “So what’d you want to talk to her about?” he asked.

  She furrowed her brow. “Your grades. You’re close to failing, Jack.”

  “Yeah, but close isn’t failing.” At any given time, he knew exactly what score he needed on an exam or assignment to stay within passing range.

  “I don’t understand why you refuse to allow your grades to reflect your intelligence. I can see how smart you are, I can see it in some of the answers you give, and it just makes me so angry that you don’t apply yourself. I was thinking if your mother would get more involved—”

  His harsh laughter echoed between the thin walls of the trailer. “All my mother was involved in was my birth. After that, I was on my own.”

  The pity in her eyes again. Damn it.

  “You didn’t come out here to see her,” he said in a low rumble. “You came out here to see me.”

  He took a step toward her. She took a step back.

  “Admit it. You like the way I watch you in class.”

  She shook her head frantically and made a move toward the door. “I’d better come back another time. Will you tell your mother I was here?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell her when I see her.”

  He didn’t know what possessed him. Adolescent hormones, probably, but he blocked her way before she reached the door. She pressed her back against the wall, while he effectively moved in to cut off any hope she might have had of escape.

  As close as he was, he wasn’t touching her. Just staring into those big green eyes of hers. Her breath was coming in short little pants, but she didn’t shove him away. If she had, if she’d given any indication at all that she didn’t want him this close, he would have stepped back.

  Instead, he relished her nearness. He found every aspect of her beautiful. Her features were flawless. But it was more than that. It was her excitement when she read Shakespeare. Her joy when she asked a thought-provoking question and a student gave an introspective response. The way she walked quickly down the hallway as though she had someplace that she truly wanted to be. The only place he truly wanted to be was out of this town that had never done him any favors.

  “Why are you really here, Teach?” he asked.

  “Because I truly want to help you, Jack. You’re throwing your life away, and I desperately don’t want you to do that.”

  He angled his head closer to hers. “Do you know what I think about when I’m in your classroom?” he whispered.

  “What I look like naked.”

  A jolt of surprise rushed through him. Not only because she’d known exactly what was on his mind, but because she’d dared to voice it aloud. Maybe she wasn’t the sweet, innocent thing he’d always imagined her to be. Maybe she had a spark of fire within her that could send him up in flames.

  “I take it further than that,” he told her. “I not only think about what you look like without any clothes on, I think about taking you to my bed.”

  She shook her head slowly. “That’s a fantasy that’s no
t going to happen, Jack. You’re my student.”

  “And if I wasn’t your student, would you allow this?” He cupped her cheek with one hand and lowered his mouth to hers.

  She was heaven—pure and simple. He’d been imagining this moment for almost five months, and now that it was here, he wasn’t disappointed. Desire took a firmer hold as she parted her lips for his questing tongue.

  Groaning low, he pressed his body against hers until he could feel her breasts flatten against his chest. She ran her hands through his hair, along his neck, across his shoulders. He wanted that touch with no clothing separating them.

  He drew back. “Come to bed with me.”

  The desperate plea in his voice echoed between them, embarrassed him a little because he sounded so uncool, so not in control. His body was aching with need. He’d never wanted anyone, anything, as much as he wanted her.

  “Do you know what would happen to my career if your mother walked in and found me in bed with her son, who happens to be one of my students?”

  “She’s not going to walk in. She walked out more than a year ago. She’s not coming back.”

  “Are you telling me you live here by yourself?”

  He grinned with cocky self-assurance. Bless his mother for taking off. “That’s right.”

  “I should get a social worker out here.”

  “I’m nineteen. Old enough to be on my own.”

  “But you’re in high school, a student. How do you live?”

  “I’m in the work-study program. Classes in the morning, work in the afternoon.” He didn’t want to get into all that, didn’t want to be distracted from his purpose in explaining his mother’s absence to begin with. He took her hand. “Come on.”

  She tugged free. “No.”

  “There’s nothing stopping us.”

  “Of course there is, Jack. I’m a teacher. There’s a measure of trust between the school board and me, a measure of trust between my students and me, their parents and me. I’m not going to violate that trust.”