Her First Vacation (4 page)

By the time they reached the dining room, Claire had her
overactive imagination under control once more. He wasn’t asking her to marry
him, for heaven’s sake. He just wanted some company for breakfast. It made her
feel even more pathetic as she considered her reaction to him. When had she
become this needy? She was the strong one, the responsible one. She managed her
life and the lives of her sister and mother. She could control a room full of
eight-year-olds on a sugar high after lunch. She was a competent, mature woman,
not some silly schoolgirl with a crush on the quarterback of the football team.
Yet every time Colin looked at her, she felt herself begin to tremble. All her
common sense and rationale seemed to vanish, leaving behind a woman who was
embarrassingly desperate to have this man want her. It was humiliating. It had
to stop.

Colin was still trying to figure out how to make sure
Claire understood he was just seeking conversation and nothing more when she
cleared her throat and met his gaze across the table.

“So, are you going ashore again today?”

He stared into her eyes and knew she was making a conscious
effort to be polite and impersonal. Maybe he didn’t need to worry after all.
Maybe she understood things better than he gave her credit for. He shrugged.

“I don’t know, yet. How about you? You haven’t gone ashore
at all, have you?”

Claire shook her head. “No. I just can’t imagine why I
should bother. I don’t really want to spend the day wandering around a strange
place all by myself.”

Colin shot her a small frown, afraid that she might be
fishing for an invitation. As if she had read his mind, he saw her blush as she
dropped her gaze to her plate.

“I’m not looking for an invitation. I’m just stating the
facts.”

Colin blinked, again caught off guard by her penchant for
speaking the kind of truth most people never gave voice to. It took guts to put
such an embarrassing thing into words, and he immediately felt shame for
jumping to the wrong conclusion. Worse, his thoughts had obviously shown on his
face, or she never would have felt the need to openly let him off the hook. He
searched for something to say, but she saved him from having to say anything.

“I guess I’m mostly a loner.” She gave a derisive snort.
“I’m sure it’s quite obvious by now that I don’t exactly crave the spotlight.
I’m perfectly happy to sit on the sidelines, letting the focus of attention go
to others.”

Colin wasn’t sure why he felt like she was trying to
convince herself as much as him.

“Anyway, I’m content to stay on the ship and entertain
myself here. I brought along several books that I’ve been trying to read for
weeks.”

He had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her that if
she’d wanted to read she might as well have stayed home and saved herself the
money she’d spent on the cruise. It wasn’t his business to tell her what to do
with her time. So he just shoved a forkful of French toast into his mouth and
nodded as if he understood completely.

Claire realized she was babbling when she noticed that he’d
eaten half the food on his plate while she’d taken no more than two bites of
her own food. She groaned inwardly. He must think she was insane or at the very
least, imbalanced. And why shouldn’t he think the worst of her? She was acting
like a fool. She clamped her mouth shut and focused intently on her plate. She
didn’t really want any of the food on it any longer. What she wanted was to
jump up and run from the room, to escape the awkwardness her own silliness had
caused. But she wasn’t a coward, and she knew that if she ran now she’d never
be able to look him in the eyes again. So she stayed. She forced herself to eat
the scrambled eggs that had looked so delicious when she’d put them on her
plate, and she kept her eyes anywhere but on Colin.

Colin finally realized that she wasn’t going to say
anything else. Apparently, she was now too embarrassed to even look at him. He
watched her pick at her food for a moment,
then
offered her a way out, a release from the unease that had her looking like she
was ready to crawl under the table to hide.

“Tell me about teaching. I have to admit that the thought
of facing a room full of kids strikes terror in me to my very soul.”

Claire’s eyes went to him once more, in spite of her
determination not to look at him. He was shifting the conversation to a neutral
topic. He was deliberately choosing to ignore the absurdity of her behavior
over the past few minutes. Inexplicably she felt her eyes begin to burn. Don’t
cry! Not here, not in front of him. She swallowed and blinked, then cleared her
throat.

“They’re not so bad, once you establish that you’re the one
in charge.”

“But how do you do that? There’s what, thirty of them? How
in the world to you ever get them still long enough to accomplish anything?”

Claire couldn’t help laughing. “You don’t know much about
children, do you?”

Colin smiled sheepishly, relieved to see her finally
relaxing again. “It’s that obvious, huh? Well, you’re right. I don’t know the
first thing about kids.”

“Surely you were one once.”

He stared at her for a moment,
then
smiled as he realized she was teasing him. “Yeah, but that was a very long time
ago, and I’ve forgotten all the details.”

A very long time ago?
Claire
didn’t know his age, but she would have estimated that he wasn’t any older than
she, and thirty wasn’t exactly ancient. Still, she wasn’t about to quiz him on
his age.

“Well, they’re rambunctious, that’s true. And they can be a
handful, especially when they’re hopped up on cookies and Kool-Aid. But they’re
hardly uncontrollable. First of all, I teach second grade, which means they’ve
already learned how things work. They know what school is and what’s expected
of them. And believe it or not, they want to learn. They’re eager to fill up
their little minds.”

She shook her head. “People think school is basically a
state-funded babysitting service where we just happen to teach their children
how to read and write. But it’s so much more than that. Teachers shape the
future. We hold tomorrow in our hands, and it’s up to us to instill as much
knowledge in our children as we can. Not just reading and writing and
arithmetic, but history because if we don’t learn from the mistakes of our
past, then we will certainly repeat them. Then there are art and music, which
make life beautiful. We must teach our children to learn, teach them to love
learning, to enjoy the expansion of their knowledge so that they will spend the
rest of their lives continuing to learn. Once we stop trying to learn, we cease
to grow. I never want one of my children to think school is just a necessary
evil that they must endure because the truant officers force them to.”

She stopped and blushed once more. “I’m preaching.”

Colin shook his head. “No, you’re just passionate about your
work. I’m glad to know that you don’t just look at the kids in your class as
bodies to hold down the chairs. You’re the kind of teacher that inspires people
for the rest of their lives. You’re the one they’ll think of when they graduate
from college or reach their life goals. You’re the teacher every student knows
they can rely on.”

His words sent a warm sensation through her. He understood.
He saw that she devoted herself so thoroughly to her job because she believed
it was one of the most important jobs in the world. Education was the key to
the future and the impetus of freedom. She believed that with all her heart and
was thankful that this man was able to see the depth of her love for her chosen
career where so many others, including her own family, had not.

“I want to make a difference.”

“I’m sure you do.”

She felt another bout of embarrassment coming on, so she
shifted the focus to him.

“What about you? What made you get into software
development?”

It was the cover he’d been issued and one that wasn’t so
far from the truth that he’d have trouble maintaining it. He shook his head.

“I’m afraid that I didn’t get into it for the same
altruistic reasons that inspired your choice of career. I wanted to make money,
to be sure that my job would always be in demand, and there’s no way computers
are going to stop being necessary. I had a knack for them so I chose to exploit
my natural talents.”

“And have you reached your goal?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Are you rich?”

He might have thought she was digging for info so she’d
know whether or not he was worth chasing after if he hadn’t been certain she
wasn’t capable of being that calculating. So he assumed she was being
facetious.

“Not as rich as I’d like, but I’m getting there. I’m
thinking I’ll be able to retire long before I hit fifty.”

She smiled and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the
table. “What will you do then?”

“Buy a boat and sail around the world.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.
Maybe.
It’s always sounded like something I’d like to try.”

Claire considered the suggestion for a moment, imagining
what it would be like to just pack up everything and go.
To
travel around the world with no schedule, no reason to hurry.
She
nodded.

“It would be liberating to be that free. Each day would no
doubt be a new adventure.” She focused on him once more. “But wouldn’t it be
hard to leave your family?”

Colin answered without thinking. “I don’t have any family.
My parents died when I was nineteen, and I was an only child.”

He realized what he’d said the instant it was out of his
mouth. It was the truth.
The truth of his life, not the cover
story that went along with his false identity.
He felt something akin to
panic rip through him. Never, in all the years that he’d been working
undercover, had he once made this sort of mistake. Dear God, what the hell was
wrong with him?

Claire saw the strain on his face and reacted
instinctively. She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers.
“I’m sorry.”

Colin was so caught up in self-recrimination that he didn’t
understand what she meant at first. Then he realized that she was talking about
his lack of family. He cleared his throat.

“It was a long time ago.”

She pulled her hand away from him, nodding. “Yes, but it
never quite goes away, does it? I was fifteen when my father died and to this
day, I still ache for him.”

The softness of her voice was evidence of the pain she
spoke about. Colin forgot about the colossal blunder he’d just committed as the
urge to comfort her took hold of him.

“You two were close?”

She nodded. “We were very much alike.”

“What about your mother?”

Claire’s face darkened a bit, just enough to warn Colin
that her relationship with her mother wasn’t the best it could be. “She’s alive
and well. I have a sister, too.”

She left it at that and though Colin wanted to pursue the
matter, to search out the cause of the shadow that crossed her face, he knew he
had no right.

“I always wanted a sibling. Brother or sister, I wouldn’t
have cared.”

Her smile was tight and slightly askew. “Spoken like an
only child.”

So she had problems with her sister as well as her mother.
The puzzle that was Claire Abernathy just kept getting more intricate. He
forced himself not to spout out the questions whirling through his mind.

“Is she married?”

Claire’s gaze snapped to his with a sharpness that
surprised him. Then she seemed to relax as she took a breath. “No, Diane isn’t
married.”

“So you don’t have any nieces or nephews to start
teaching.”

Claire held his gaze for a moment, surprised that he was
wise enough to realize that she would have loved to have a niece or nephew to
cherish. At the first instant that he’d asked his question, she’d felt a flash
of fury so unexpected that she was unable to control it. There had been too
many times in the past that a man had approached her and talked to her,
pretending to be interested in her only to eventually start asking about her
sister. It took only a moment for her to remember that he didn’t know Diane.
He’d never seen her. He couldn’t possibly realize how stunningly beautiful she
was. He was just making conversation. Which was why she felt comfortable
revealing some small measure of the truth about her sister.

“Diane would never have children. They would ruin her
figure.”

Colin arched a brow at that, but said nothing. Obviously
Claire and her sister had a less than perfect relationship. Claire certainly
didn’t appear to have a glowing opinion of her sibling. There had definitely
been a hint of disgust in her voice as she spoke.

They spent the next half hour making small talk. Neither of
them talked of family again. Colin was surprised to learn that she not only
claimed to like football, but knew enough about the game and the players and
teams to prove she wasn’t just pretending. Claire was stunned to discover that
he was a fan of classic literature. She was even more shocked to learn that he
liked musical theater. For some reason she’d expected him to be far more
stereotypically masculine. Sports, okay, but things like art and music, other
than rock and roll or country of course, were for sissies. Colin evidently
didn’t like to fit into any molds, though, because she was learning that he had
tastes just as eclectic as hers.

They parted a while later, after lingering over their
coffee until the dining room began to fill up. Claire didn’t want the morning
to end. After spending so much time with him, she didn’t want to spend the rest
of the day alone. But she couldn’t say as much to him. She didn’t dare. Because
even though he was talking to her and was clearly willing to spend time with
her, she still knew that it would never be anything more than mere
conversation. She had no idea why he’d chosen to reach out to her, why he found
her interesting enough to merit his attention. She did know that it meant nothing.
He was still an incredibly gorgeous man, and she was still a plain Jane. That
wasn’t going to change.