“Well, you don’t look that different than when you left. Oh, there’s a line or two around your mouth that I don’t recall.” Her fingers feathered lightly along his face. She saw a line tighten in his jaw, and pretended not to, though its emergence bothered her. “Undoubtedly those are laugh lines,” she said teasingly. “And you look a little more gaunt than you did when you finally galloped off to thumb your nose at the immediate world, but on the whole, I have to say that you look pretty much the same.”
She resumed walking and led the way up a flight of stairs. Her heels clicked on the metal steps. “You’re as good-looking as ever, and you know it.” She tossed the words over her shoulder flippantly.
She turned and pushed the exit door that opened on to the second floor.
“That’s what I came back to hear.” Kirk laid his arm across her shoulders as they walked down the hall. “Flattery.”
“I would have been a lot more flattering if you had written.”
He had the good grace to wince. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promised.
Rachel looked up at Kirk. A full five inches separated them. “You’ll write me a long letter from your next port of call?”
“No.”
“A short note?”
He shook his head.
She pretended to sigh. Kirk would always be Kirk. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks.”
“No, the old dog isn’t going to any more ports of call, at least not for now.” He smiled, but she noted that his eyes didn’t join in. “I’m staying put for a while.”
“Oh?” His statement would have pleased her a great deal more if he had looked happier about it. “Then how do you propose to make it up to me?”
The sound of her voice, of her banter, warmed him. It always had. A bud of hope began to evolve, pushing its way up, just like the shoots on the lawn. Maybe returning home had been the right thing after all.
“By taking you out to dinner.”
“Dinner?” She lifted a brow, then tapped him on the chest to emphasize her words. “I don’t get bought off that easily, Callaghan.”
I’ve missed you, Funny Face. “C’mon, have dinner with me tonight. It’ll be a start,” Kirk urged.
She paused, pretending to think it over. In reality, there wasn’t anything she’d like better. “Okay,” she agreed. “Scanlon’s.”
The name brought memories ricocheting through his mind, like pinballs bouncing from buffer to buffer. He’d gotten her a fake ID to get in one night, and then sat back and vicariously enjoyed her enthusiasm for the place.
“Is it still here?”
“Sure. Hardly anything in Bedford goes away—except for you.” The troubled look in his eyes worried her. “Your sudden appearance out of nowhere caught me off guard. I didn’t get a chance to ask you—what are you doing back in Bedford, anyway?”
Kirk lifted a broad shoulder and let it drop carelessly. He avoided her eyes when he answered. “Nothing much. Just looking up old friends.”
He wasn’t telling her the truth. She could sense it. She stifled the urge to prod him. He’d tell her the real reason he had returned when he was ready. He had always been honest with her before. It was what she had treasured about their relationship, what she had missed when Kirk was gone.
“Smile when you say ‘old,’ partner.”
He looked back at her, still trying to reconcile the changes he saw with the image of Rachel that existed in his mind. “At twenty-seven, I wouldn’t exactly say you’re over the hill.”
“Ah—” she held up a finger “—you remembered my age.” Her eyes narrowed. “So how come you couldn’t remember my address?”
He laughed, relieved at the switch in subject. “You’re going to make me pay for not writing, aren’t you?”
She cocked her head, a smile playing on her lips. “What do you think?”
“I think that I’m going to have dinner with a lovely woman.”
“Flattery is not going to get you out of it this time, Callaghan.” She glanced down at her watch. “I’ve really got to get in there and set things up. Give me my books, quick.” He piled them into her open arms. She spun on her heel. “Talk to you about dinner later. See you.”
She slipped into the classroom and closed the door behind her. Kirk stared through the thick glass window in the door and watched Rachel put her things down on the front desk. Hurriedly she began writing notes on the long green chalkboard.
He let out a heavy sigh and leaned his shoulder against the wall.
All right, he was back. But was it too late?
Chapter 2
The sound of the door opening startled her. A piece of chalk broke against the board and went flying over her right shoulder. When she turned to look, Kirk was slipping into the classroom like a truant student. He gave her a quick smile tinged with that old spark of mystery she remembered so well.
She might have known he wouldn’t stay out.
It took her a moment to regroup and put some distance between herself and the girl she had once been. As Kirk slipped into the first available seat in the back row, Rachel willed her palms dry.
This was silly. He wasn’t observing, he was just killing time. And she was a good teacher. No reason to feel nervous. No reason to want his approval the way she once had.
Her students were looking at her expectantly. Rachel squared her shoulders. With the toe of her shoe, she nudged the chalk that had fallen on the floor. It rolled under her desk. “It seems that we’re being observed, class. Let’s be worth observing.”
“You already are,” a masculine voice murmured from the back of the room.
Kirk was mildly surprised to see that the comment had generated a flash of annoyance. It momentarily creased her brow before fading away again.
Rachel zeroed in on the budding Romeo. Because she looked no older than some of the students, she knew there were a few who thought that they could get away by being charming, and trade compliments for grades. They had a surprise coming their way.
“Appearances, Mr. Hughes, are deceiving. I thought we had already covered that lesson. What you see isn’t always what’s there.” She noted an ironic smile lifting the corners of Kirk’s mouth, and wondered if something she’d said struck him as funny. “A good criminologist learns to look beneath the surface, beneath the trappings.” The words rang with a little more passion than she had intended as she scanned the classroom. Maybe she was coming on a little too strong.
Rachel took a slight cleansing breath, then smiled. “All right, so much for review. Let’s get on with today’s lesson.”
* * *
Two dozen pairs of feet had shuffled over the threshold before Kirk rose. Rachel laid aside her notes and waited for him to reach her desk, slightly nervous in spite of herself. Kirk’s opinion had always mattered. It seemed that some things didn’t change with time.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Her voice echoed in the empty room.
“I’m impressed.” One look in his eyes told her that he was being honest. Kirk folded his arms across his chest. “You’re a hell of a teacher.”
She placed her notes in her open attaché case, then looked up. Pride, as well as pleasure, shone in her eyes. “You bet I am.”
He rested his hip against the corner of her desk. “Well, that hasn’t changed any.”
She stopped piling books in the attaché case and stared at him, confused. “What hasn’t changed any?”
“Your cocky attitude.”
She raised her chin, reminding him of the pugnacious little girl who had always tagged along behind him and Cameron when they were children. The faithful shadow who lingered in the corners of his mind. “That’s not cocky, Callaghan, that’s positive. It’s a tough world these days, and a girl’s gotta survive.”
There had been a time when she didn’t think she would. But she managed. She had had to. Because of Ethan. Ethan was what had grounded her until she got her bearings. Ethan, who was now slipping away from her.
His eyes washed over her again, slowly. It was still somewhat of a shock to see her like this. “You’re not a girl, Funny Face.” His smile grew serious. “From where I sit, you’re all woman.”
Unsettlingly so. He didn’t like the fact that it disturbed him—not emotionally, but as a man. On a very basic level. A level he wasn’t equipped to cope with now. Not when it came to Rachel.
She laughed lightly, though she wondered at the sadness that embroidered his words. “And don’t you forget it.”
He was at loose ends, and they felt as if they were close to unraveling. He didn’t want to be alone just yet. That was what had prompted him to enter her classroom, rather than simply leave.
“Look, dinner tonight seems so far away, and I’ve got nothing pressing at the moment. Why don’t we have lunch together, as well?” Her desk was cleared of extraneous matter. Kirk casually pushed down the lid on the attaché case.
There was a note in his voice that she couldn’t quite place. Desperation? Despair? It didn’t seem possible, not in Kirk. “Now?”
He shrugged, a little too carelessly. “Why not?”
She shook her head. “I’d love to, Kirk, really, but I’m afraid I can’t right now. I’ve got another class to teach in an hour, and—”
“Got a cafeteria around here?” He snapped one lock closed.
Rachel laughed. “We’re not exactly backward, Kirk, no matter what you might think. We’ve done a lot of growing since you left. It’s not that small a town anymore.” She saw him eyeing her, waiting. “Yes, we have a cafeteria around here.”
He snapped the other lock shut. “Food any good?”
“No one’s died recently.”
“Good enough for me.” He picked up her attaché case. With his other hand, he hooked his arm through hers, striking a carefree pose, though he didn’t feel that way. “You talked me into it, Funny Face.”
As if anyone could ever talk him into anything, she mused as she led the way out the door.
“Kirk, I’m a teacher here,” she reminded him. “I don’t really think you should keep calling me ‘Funny Face’ where someone could hear you.”
“Okay.” He shrugged casually. They made their way down the corridor and to the front exit. “Professor Funny Face, then.”
Rachel laughed. She remembered the first time he had called her that. She had been six years old, a couple of years younger than Ethan was now, and given to holding her breath whenever Kirk and Cameron conspired to leave her behind. Kirk had christened her Funny Face, and it had stuck. Rachel didn’t mind him calling her that, though she had pretended to when they were younger. It was a nickname only he used, a symbol of their special friendship. She thought of it with affection.
“All right, to you I’m Professor Funny Face.”
He stopped walking as they were crossing the campus lawn. Disregarding the people around them, he touched her face in an oddly tender gesture that completely mystified her.
“Yes, you are.”
There it was again, she thought. That flash of pain in his eyes. What was it that was bothering him? She struggled to keep a tight rein on her impatience. Why couldn’t he just come out and tell her what was wrong?
Because he was Kirk, and he didn’t do things like that easily, she reminded herself.
“C’mon, all this talking is making me hungry.” She pulled him toward the school cafeteria.
Humanity and its accompanying din engulfed them as soon as Kirk and Rachel stepped inside the cafeteria. It was almost as if they had hit a physical wall of noise and shuffling bodies. Kirk found it oppressively overwhelming. A flash of a scene snared him. For a moment, he was back in Bosnia, lost in the shuffle of fleeing bodies as they ran toward the Red Cross food distribution trucks. He shuddered and blinked twice, erasing the image from his mind. But not from his soul.
He caught hold of Rachel’s hand to prevent being separated from her. Kirk raised his voice. “Is it always this bad?”
“Always.” She felt the pressure of his fingers, hard, clutching, on hers. Something telegraphed itself to her, stirring her concern further. But when she looked at him, his face was a blank mask. She was letting her imagination run away with her, she thought, upbraiding herself. It came from years of romanticizing Kirk and his life. “But then, I’ve only seen it at lunchtime.”
Kirk shook his head. “And to think I came here to get away from it all.”
There was an odd note in his voice that she couldn’t quite fathom. Rachel glanced over her shoulder to see whether or not he was kidding. It had never been easy reading between the lines with Kirk.
The cafeteria was divided in two, meeting at the rest room and pay phone area. A good many of the students were congregating there, waiting for their next class.
“This way.” Rachel motioned Kirk toward the larger of the two dining areas. “We’ll probably be able to find a couple of seats here, once we get lunch. This place is like a large parking lot. The farther away you get from the hub of activity, the greater the probability of finding some empty spaces.”
Kirk looked doubtful. “It all looks like the hub of activity.” He gestured to her to move forward. “Okay, lead the way.” As she did, Kirk tightened his hold on her hand and raised his voice again. “Not too fast. I don’t want to be sucked up by the crowd.”
She shouldered her way into the dining room on the right. “Don’t worry, they’re a harmless lot, for the most part.”
“They look more like a mob to me,” he quipped as he followed her to the self-service area.
Rachel got in line behind a student with sun-whitened hair and tattered jeans. “That’s just because they’re hungry. That’s when the beast tends to come out. I get pretty grouchy myself on an empty stomach.”
She smiled to herself as she thought of the enthusiasm of some of her students. She had been that way herself not all that long ago, before Don had tried to rob her of that zest for life.
Rachel inclined her head toward Kirk so that he could hear. “They’re so full of their own missions in life. They plan to set the world straight, to undo all the mistakes of the last generation.” It was a hopeless, eternal dream that kept being rediscovered by each graduating class. And redefined by every middle-aged adult. “They’re going to do all those wonderful altruistic things that filled our hearts and minds, oh, about nine or ten years ago.”
Rachel handed Kirk a dingy gray tray still damp from its spin through the dishwasher and then took one herself. She rested hers on top of her attaché case, which was perched unevenly on the iron railing that ran the length of the steam table.
“I remember.”
Or did he? Kirk wondered. He searched, trying to recall what it was like to hope, to dream. Nothing materialized. It was as if he were looking at the pages of someone else’s past. There was no recognition whatsoever on his part. It felt as if he hadn’t even existed.
And if he had, it was too long ago for him to clearly remember.
It wasn’t her imagination, Rachel thought, his voice did sound wistful. There was almost an ache in it. But what did he have to be wistful about? she wondered. She had kept track of his career. Kirk had done everything he had set out to do. He had seen the world and made a name for himself. All the things he had talked to her and Cameron about during those long, lazy summer evenings when they lived next door to one another—he had accomplished them.
Had the dream somehow gone sour for him?
The girl in front of Rachel was taking an inordinate amount of time trying to decide between the different salads perched drunkenly on a bed of melting ice. If she was going to get something to eat and get back to class in time, Rachel thought, she was going to have to hurry this process along.
Rachel reached around the girl to pick up a puny offering of chef’s salad, and placed it on her slightly warped tray. The dish immediately slid to the edge. Shreds of lettuce rained down around the perimeter of the plate. With a sigh, Rachel took her tray off her attaché case. Holding
it in one hand, she picked up the case with the other.
Kirk looked down skeptically at the half-filled dish. “That’s lunch?”
“That’s lunch.”
He eyed the serving and shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t take much strength to teach criminology.”
She laughed. “You’d be surprised.”
Rachel thought of the student who had been in her tiny cubbyhole of an office yesterday afternoon, asking her question after endless question. There had been a point when she despaired of the session ever being over, but finally, the student had left, albeit reluctantly. Rachel had had the distinct feeling that the student was more interested in her than in the actual lesson. It all came with the territory, she supposed.
Rachel picked up a large paper cup and pressed the soda machine spigot. Clear liquid gurgled as it spurted out. “I need all the strength I can get. They all think of themselves as budding Sherlock Holmeses—or, more modernly, budding Columbos.”
Kirk’s tray remained empty except for a straw. He took a worn stoneware cup and filled it with coffee. He hoped the coffee was better than the rest of the offerings here. “And Columbettes?”
Rachel smiled, amused. “That’s a sexist remark, you know. There’s not supposed to be a difference in gender anymore, or hadn’t that information reached you where you were?”
Kirk wasn’t hungry, but for form’s sake he knew he should go through the motions of getting something to eat. He indicated to the bored-looking student behind the steam table that he wanted the ham steak. With slow, halfhearted movements, the tall, gangly youth shoveled the serving onto a hot plate and listlessly dropped it on the glass counter between them.
“Oh, I’ve heard, all right.” Kirk gingerly picked up the hot plate. The kid had to have asbestos fingers, he thought, feeling his own sting. “But I’ve always liked the fact that there’s a difference in genders myself.”
“Chauvinist.” Rachel grinned and glanced around. “That kind of talk might get you lynched in a place of higher learning.” She motioned toward the shortest checkout line.
Kirk watched a vacant looking girl in tricolored hair drift by. They were children, he thought, just children. He felt decades older than the age on his driver’s license. “I find it rather difficult to associate the term ‘higher learning’ with people who wear lime-green hair. No, let me get it.” He pulled out his wallet just as the amiable older woman behind the register rung up Rachel’s tab.
Callaghan's Way Page 2
