Devil Moon (18 page)

"If you can't bother to come to my class prepared, sweetheart, then don't bother to come at all." Phil walked back to his desk, a grizzly bear ready for the next stupid salmon swimming upstream.

Reba sat at her desk, as tears began to well in her eyes. All the other students kept their heads down, but cast surreptitious glances her way. Holding on to a shred of dignity, she slowly rose from her seat and walked to the door.

Phil looked up from his papers. "I didn't give you permission to leave."

Reba shot him a watery gaze, chin quivering while forcing herself to keep composure.

Phil winced at the despair in her eyes and felt like a shit. "Go ahead."

Reba made a quick exit as the tears overflowed their confines. She ran into the bathroom and shut herself into a stall.

Maddie found her there, as she made the usual rounds seeking errant students. The sound of familiar female weeping reverberated in the tiled room. Maddie assumed she'd happened upon another jilted girlfriend, a regular occurrence in her line of work.

Tapping on the stall door, Maddie said, "It's Miss Harris. Who is in there?"

Reba flipped the small metal bar back and released the lock, allowing Maddie to push open the door. Reba's swollen eyes and red nose marred her doll face.

Reaching her hand out, Maddie said, "Come on, you can pull yourself together in my office. The bell is about to ring. You don't want to be caught in here when the throng descends."

Reba's jagged recital of Phil's behavior filled Maddie with guilt-tinged fury. Obviously some sort of transference had transpired. She'd heard of his strong-arm tactics in the earlier gym class. Now he'd turned tyrannical in the history class. This is what came from allowing a personal relationship to develop between people who should keep things on a professional level.

She needed to clear the air, set him straight, show him the Woodbridge-Harris starch. After sending a calmed Reba onto her next class, Maddie dispatched a note to Phil.

"Dear Coach Wilcox,

Please see me in my office after school to discuss your behavior of this morning.

Madeleine Harris"

Phil read the message in the gym as the class monitor waited for his reply. Receiving that note on top of her disappearing act, her failure to return his phone calls, and her ridiculous announcement in the morning meeting, was like waving a red flag before a bull.

He drawled his answer to the courier. "Tell Miss Harris I can hardly
wait
for three o'clock."

* * *

As Randy strolled down the school hallway with the bomber jacket draped over his arm, he congratulated himself on portraying the hetero fiancé with true
joie de vivre
. Maybe this whole baby thing with Maddie would transform his life. Randy's compartmentalized existence had its satisfactions. He loved teaching, directing, producing the shows; watching young talent unfold.

He tried to keep too busy to notice the huge black hole in his personal life. He could easily blame his dependent mother for keeping any real relationships from developing. He made occasional trips to Little Rock and mingled with the gay community. But he kept acquaintances at arm’s length. He'd been stabbed in the heart years ago and didn't want to face that kind of pain again. He saw too much switching of partners, in love one minute and bitching the next. Who needed it? Lately, he'd avoided the trips all together because he'd come really close to caring about one person in particular, and it scared the hell out him.

Better to take this opportunity with Maddie to focus on her and the child. She'd need him; the baby would need him; his mother would forever need him. He'd be too busy to notice who he needed.

At 2:55 Randy peeked his head inside the door of Maddie's office. "Hey, love, do you want me to dash you home before I start tonight's rehearsal?"

He'd picked Maddie up for work this morning so they could plan their happy announcement on the way. He'd found her poised over her toilet bowl, upchucking, and managed to pour her into her assistant principal togs and cover the green of her complexion with his cosmetic expertise.

Looking up from her desk, Maddie said, "Not quite yet. I'm expecting the coach in a few minutes. Why don't you stick around? I could use the moral support."

Randy closed the door behind him, slipped into the bomber jacket, thereby taking on the flyer fiancé character once again. "
If you say three, mister, you'll never hear the man count ten."

Maddie smiled. "John Wayne in
The Quiet Man
."

***

Phil slammed the gym door and headed for the main school building. If background music had accompanied his pounding feet, the insistent syncopation from the theme of
Jaws
would surely have been the score of choice. He felt every bit the angry shark circling before the kill.

Ignoring the friendly greetings of secretaries as he passed them on his way to Her Majesty's inner sanctum, he thrust the door open, firmly shut it and stood, feet planted wide like Conan the Barbarian, ready to do battle.

Maddie and Randy riveted their attention on the scowling figure before them.

Phil crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow. "You summoned me?"

Maddie swallowed and gathered all the chutzpah she could muster, searching desperately within herself for the old Bostonian Iron Maiden. "Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I appreciate your punctuality."

"Believe me, sweetheart, I counted the minutes." He pulled the crumpled note out of his pocket. "What is this crap about my behavior this morning?"

Clasping her hands before her on the desk, she said, "It came to my attention that there were two injured players in a highly competitive basketball game this morning in your gym class. I also found Reba Finn crying in the girl's bathroom after you flunked and humiliated her in front of the history class. I can't help but think that my marriage announcement put you in a foul mood, and I will not tolerate a teacher allowing personal emotion to disrupt the order of the school."

Randy watched the vein in Phil's temple pound and considered clamping a hand over Maddie's mouth before the coach lunged across the desk and strangled her.

Phil stepped to Maddie's desk, put his hands down on the cold surface and leaned in over her. "Well, maybe after you took a powder on Saturday from our cabin, you should have taken my reactions into consideration before walking into the meeting this morning as
The
Princess Bride
." Phil shot Randy a look. "And what kind of guy proposes marriage to a chick who's been shacked up with someone else the day before?"

Maddie shot to her feet. "We were not 'shacked up'!"

"Honey, if I hadn't taken that tumble in the poison ivy, we'd have kept the fire burning in that cabin all weekend and never lit the fireplace. You'd have my love bites all over your lily white body."

Maddie's eyes turned ice blue. "You can be the crudest, most vulgar individual I've ever met."

Phil kept his voice to a low growl. "And you're still an irritating, stuck-up, pain in the ass."

Randy was enjoying the show, but he knew his cue when he heard it. Time to play macho lover man. "Well, I guess we'd better come clean, baby." Randy sidled next to Maddie and wrapped a possessive arm around her. "The truth is the little lady was on the rebound. I'd broken off our relationship when she started talking marriage last summer, told her I wasn't the marrying kind. She only went off with you to make me jealous. It worked, too. When she called me on the phone and described your love nest, I knew I had to get her away from you and put my brand on her, pronto."

Pushing back from the desk, Phil took measure of Maddie's stiff composure, locked in Randy's casual embrace. "I'm not buying any of this bull for a minute, but I do know I don't like being played for a sucker. Whatever your game is, I can tell you no guy likes a tease. At least with a five dollar hooker, a man knows where he stands." His voice cut like a knife. "I thought you were something different—a woman with a heart, mind and soul. God help me, I thought you'd be
loyal
. Christ, I'm an idiot, thinking I'd found gold in you. But you're just like all other women–faithless, lying users. You're just fool's gold. And I was the fool."

Phil turned on his heel and slammed out the door.

Randy released Maddie and heaved a sigh of relief as an actor does when the curtain goes down.

Maddie stood frozen, staring into space trying to put her disjointed thoughts into some logical order, when the door abruptly opened again.

Phil strode across the small room, snagged one arm around Maddie's waist and the other hand gripped the back of her head. "I forgot to kiss the bride."

His lips crushed hers in the urgent need to put
his
brand on her, claim her as his own, throwing logic and common sense to the wind. She'd, by God, remember him no matter whose arms were around her. His tongue swept her mouth and blazed
his
taste,
his
scent into her memory. He wanted to toss her back on the desk and impale her, thrust himself inside her with a powerful rhythm pounding on and on until they both exploded and he thoroughly possessed the proper Miss Harris. He wanted her lost in passion, fighting, scratching, surrendering, then lying limp and spent beneath him. But he settled for the searing kiss. She'd lost all strength by the time he suddenly released her on buckling knees. A parting glimpse of her gave him a glimmer of satisfaction. Randy had caught her from behind to keep her from completely collapsing on the floor.

Holding the door handle, Phil uttered a final shot. "Let's see if you can do
that
to her, flyboy."

Chapter Eleven

Take my wife–-PLEASE…

Rodney Dangerfield

Randy and Maddie drove to Little Rock on Friday afternoon, the last couple to stand before the judge at the courthouse for a quick civil marriage ceremony at 4:45. Two chatty court clerks with deep drawls served as witnesses and offered best wishes. It was a done deal by 5 o'clock. The best friends were now Mr. and Mrs. Randall Bailey.

Standing on the windy old concrete steps before the brick courthouse, they stared at each other, suddenly speechless, each wondering if they'd made a big mistake. Then they laughed. They were still plain ol’ Maddie and Randy, no matter what a piece of paper called them.

Randy put on a jolly face. "Let's have dinner on the river. I know a picturesque spot where we can watch the sun go down as the barges sail by."

Maddie plastered on a smile. "Sounds wonderful."

As an orange disc sank in the western sky, they sat next to a glass wall in the posh restaurant gazing across the wide expanse of the Arkansas River. Forgetting all about their marriage seemed the most natural course and they discussed Randy's upcoming production of
Dames at
Sea
and his decision to cast Reba Finn in the lead role. For some reason, talking about the baby didn't feel right. They didn't know how to approach the subject.

Over entrees of pasta primavera for Maddie and lamb chops for Randy, they worked on ideas for the sets. Randy excitedly sketched on a paper napkin.

The outline of a mock ship took shape as he bent over the table. Neither of them noticed their visitor until a perfectly manicured hand rested on Randy's shoulder. Maddie looked up and inspected a lithe, sandy-haired man in the expensive suit who gazed at Randy with calm familiarity.

"Randall, it's good to see you in town." The man possessed a cultured baritone voice.

Randy's expression of uncomfortable recognition and the stranger's subtle caress where his hand lay told Maddie more than she wanted to know.

Randy pulled back, sloughing off the resting hand. "Hello, Brent."

"It's been a while," Brent said, as he cast a questioning look at Maddie.

Randy made introductions. "Maddie, this is Brent Farnsworth. Brent, this is…my w-wife, Madeleine." Maddie smiled politely as she noticed he'd nearly choked on the "w" word.

Brent blinked at her as if she was a mirage. "Your
wife
? And what does Mother say about that? Or have you kept Madeleine a secret, too?"

Randy stood up, throwing the napkin from his lap down onto the table. "Excuse us, Maddie. Let's go have a chat in the bar, Brent."

Brent shot Randy a steely look. "Yes, let's. It was very nice to have met you,
Mrs. Bailey
."

Maddie watched Randy and Brent walk to the mahogany bar. They carried on an intense, whispered dialog. Randy used a lot of hand gestures in his usual dramatic way. Brent appeared to be the more stoic type. Brent stood straighter and straighter as the conversation continued. He cast Maddie a serious gaze, causing her to quickly look at the river view. She shifted her head back to see Brent turn on his heel and depart the restaurant in rigid anger.