The Heart Heist (12 page)

"You suppose, eh." Marty paused. "Er, nobody's gotten ripped off?"

He spoke as though he fully expected the opposite to be the case. Kerrin frowned. "Of course not."

"Of course not." Marty repeated this in a dazed way. "Well, then, what
has
Gary been doing?"

It occurred to Kerrin that the parole officer wasn't joking. He really couldn't envision Gary doing anything other than thieving. No wonder Gary hadn't done well under his supervision. Kerrin gave a different huff, one of disapproval. Any decent teacher knew that a problem student couldn't rise above the expectations held out.

All the same, she hesitated before admitting to Marty just how Gary was now spending his time. "Well," she hedged, "there was something of a mix-up the day he arrived in town."

"A mix-up?"

Kerrin rubbed a spot between her eyebrows. "You see, my brother -- and everybody -- somehow got it into their heads that he was the high school teacher for the summer session."

"Oh, my God."

Kerrin leaned forward over her desk. "Actually, it turned out okay."
I think
. "It made a perfect cover."

After a short silence, Marty cleared his throat. "Are you telling me...I mean, do I understand this right -- ? Gary's teaching high school?"

"It's just one class," Kerrin hastened to assure him. "And not very technical. Health education."

There was a garbled sound over the wires, as though Marty were choking on his own tongue.

"You told me Gary wouldn't hurt a fly," Kerrin reminded him. "And judging from what I can see, the kids do seem to respect him." Yes, every time she passed by his room there wasn't a sound to be heard through the closed door. Like a church it was in there.

"Kerrin, honey, you don't understand. I'm sure the kids are perfectly safe with him." Marty paused, apparently at a loss. "It's just that so far as I know Gary never graduated high school, himself. In fact, I doubt he even
attended
high school very much."

"Oh."
Holy Cow
. No wonder Gary'd been so upset. She should have guessed -- But Gary, despite his slangy expressions, was so articulate that she'd just assumed... So why the hell hadn't he said anything? But no, Gary Sullivan, macho man, had to --

Kerrin's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the pair of feet she'd been waiting for all morning. Feet clad in male loafers, feet that strode with an easy, masculine grace. Feet belonging to a man who'd been avoiding her with far too much casual ease.

Gary, clad in a dress shirt and trousers -- no jacket or tie this morning -- strolled quickly past her door. He was whistling, but stopped as he glanced inside. His eyes hit her with their customary heart-stopping power.

Whatever her eyes did to him, they didn't cause him to break his stride. In a flash he was gone, all that was left of him the dying sound of his tuneless whistle.

"Listen, I've got to go." Kerrin stood with the phone still in her hand. He was getting away and she'd promised herself to corner him today. Now, with Marty's new information, she needed to talk to him more than ever.

"Wait a minute!" Marty sounded panicked. "I need to know about the DWP. What's going on -- ?"

"Sorry, Marty, catch you later." Kerrin put down the receiver and rushed to the door. Gary was no longer visible but he'd been headed out the back way, toward the baseball field. Kerrin closed her office door and then locked it, her fingers shaking. This was just business, she scolded herself, denying that she might be
running after
the man. Only business.

From the end of the arcade, Kerrin could see Gary moving across the empty baseball field. He headed straight across the diamond, in no particular hurry. As she watched, he bent down to scoop a rock off the ground. He stopped and weighed it in his hand, appeared to think a moment, and then climbed the pitcher's mound.

Frowning, Kerrin came to a stop by one of the arcade's thin steel pillars.

At the top of the mound, Gary looked down at the rock in his hand. He then gazed toward home plate with a gleam as keen and determined as any major league pitcher. He bent forward, put both hands together and pulled back, kicking up a leg for the wind-up. In one fluid, powerful movement he lunged forward, tossing the rock right through the strike zone.

Kerrin went absolutely still. The one, graceful gesture spoke a thousand words. It told of someone who was more than number 406651, someone more than a parole officer's nightmare. Once, in his wayward, misbegotten life, this man had been a kid, with any kid's hopes and dreams.

Now he walked off the pitcher's mound and toward the mesh fence. There he bent down and retrieved his pitched rock. With an efficient underhand sling he shot it back out into the field. In the process he saw Kerrin. Straightening, he narrowed his eyes and reached for his cigarettes.

"What are you hiding there for?" His irritated tone carried easily over the baseball field.

"I'm not hiding," Kerrin lied, stepping out from the relative shelter of the arcade. "If anyone's been hiding, it's you."

Gary scowled and stood over home plate. Giving up on his cigarettes, he shoved his hands in his pockets. "What do you want?"

Stifling the cowardly urge to turn tail and retreat, Kerrin picked her way over the grass toward him. With the kids Kerrin had seen Gary smile and converse amiably. She'd seen him flirting with Carolina nearly every morning. Why, she wondered, was she the only person in town he treated as though she had the plague?

"I wanted to talk to you about the class," Kerrin told him. Though his eyes were hard on her, she maintained her resolve. "Surely that's reasonable."

He shrugged. "The class is going fine."

"Oh, fine, just fine," Kerrin muttered. She'd heard that before. "I'm afraid I'd like a little more detail. Are my lesson plans working out -- ?"

"Your lesson plans?" Gary rolled his eyes heavenward. "I'm not using them."

"You're not -- ?" Kerrin stared. "Then what are you doing?"

"You just let me handle it, all right? Everything is going great. Just stay out of it. Stay the hell out of it." He made an angry gesture and strode past her.

Kerrin turned to watch him go, amazed he thought he could get away with that. "Wait just a minute, Mr. Sullivan."

Gary spun to give her a dirty look. "Listen, lady, between holding down my day job and taking care of my night work I'm not getting a hell of a lot of sleep. So forgive me if this doesn't come out as genteel as it should: Leave. Me. Alone."

It was a rejection. Flat and final. Of her as either woman or peer. And it hurt, even though it came from this man. Or maybe it hurt all the more
because
it came from this man. After years of being locked away, he should have been interested in any woman, even Kerrin. She watched him swing back around and continue striding away.

Avoiding her and her questions. Again.

While her heart fluttered sickly a few feet beneath home plate, Kerrin felt a burst of anger. She wasn't going to let him do it. He could reject her on a personal level if he wanted, but he didn't get to evade her legitimate request for information.

She spoke in a low, clear voice. "Please, Mr. Sullivan, tell me why you didn't mention that you never graduated high school."

That stopped him in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around again. The anger in his face was gone, replaced by the cool, impenetrable mask. "You've been talking to Marty."

"I have."

He nodded, then looked at her with distinct challenge. A muted challenge, however, the way she'd seen him look toward Marty at the prison. "So, what does that mean? You going to take away the class?"

Though he tried to hide it, Kerrin could see his fear of loss. Her own anger dissipated like mist. No wonder he'd been avoiding her. Whatever he said, he
wanted
to teach that class.

Despite what she knew about his history, she couldn't help being drawn to him again, and to this further hint of another man beneath the surface. Kerrin crossed her arms over her chest. "Why should I take away the class? You tell me it's going great."

He tilted his head, like some wild animal that knew better than to accept the treat being held forth. "What's the catch?"

"There's no catch. I just -- well, a little communication would be nice, Gary. For a week you've been running the other direction every time I try to talk to you."

His gaze shifted toward the river. "I don't want to talk to you about the class."

"Yes, that's evident."

"I don't want to talk to you about the class. I don't want to talk to you about the Department of Water and Power or the aqueduct facility." His voice lowered and he turned back, glaring at her. "The fact is, I don't want to talk to you about anything."

Kerrin stilled as something heavy shimmered in the afternoon air between them, something that was...definitely not rejection. The red in his eyes was burning. He began to walk toward her, deliberately, with purpose. "
Talking
isn't what I want to do with you, Kerrie Horton. That's why I stay away from you. You get it?"

Did she? Could she? This was too incredible, whatever she was seeing in his eyes. It both fascinated and terrified her. She wanted to escape but couldn't move, not even when he took hold of her. His powerful fingers encaged her upper arms. His gaze, raking her face, settled with a kind of fierce fascination on her mouth.

"God, you're scared," Gary said.

Looking at her, Gary knew this statement was the brutal truth. He could see her terror like a living thing, quivering behind the jewelled color of her eyes. Her tiny little body, so delicate, was trembling under his hands.

"What is it?" he asked roughly. "My record? My permanent residence? Or just the kind of man I am."

She didn't answer, only stared up at him with gigantic eyes.

Gary raised his brows. "So that's it. You think I'm different from any other, normal man." He let his voice get softer, let it speak the seductive message he'd been holding back until now. "I've got news for you, Kerrie, I'm just like any other man. Hey, look. I can prove it."

Sliding one hand down her arm, he caught hold of her hand. It was clenched into a fist. Gary smiled. He worked her fingers open. "Come on, baby, I'm going to show you. You'll see."

Her jaw tightened and he knew she was biting back a moan of fear. He ignored it. Instead, he drew her hand up, gently fighting her resistance. By now he was beyond self-sacrifice, beyond the ideal of treating Kerrin with respect. Dragging her hand all the way up to his face, he placed her palm against his cheek.

"Hey, whattaya know?" Looking into her terrified face, he raised his brows in mock surprise. "Feel that? I got a beard there, just like any other man."

A pair of hazel eyes looked up at him, iced with terror. Then slowly, even as he watched, the ice started to melt.

Gary hadn't planned how far to take this little lesson, but the sheer wonder that bloomed in Kerrin's eyes pushed him beyond what he knew to be safe. She really did look surprised.

He let go of her hand and drew her lightly against his body. "Hey, see that? I've got muscles there, hard ones not like yours -- just like any normal man." He smoothed his hands up and down her slender back. "Now, relax, honey, or you aren't going to be able to make a good comparison here."

The look of complete amazement in her upturned face was pretty much his undoing. Or, maybe it was the way that her little girl body slowly did relax against him. She was so soft and small and unutterably sweet. With the edge of his hand, he tipped up her chin.

"Now how much you wanta bet that when I kiss you it's going to feel just like any other, normal man?" Ignoring the flash of panic in her eyes, he calmly settled his mouth over her rose-petal lips.

God. She was every bit as delectable as he'd imagined. So soft, so soft -- so everything he'd been missing for so long, maybe his whole life. He kept his lips on hers, gently blocking the possibility of retreat. And then, moving his mouth, he fed on all that soft sugar.

She made a small sound and pressed her palms against his chest. Every motion of his hungry mouth she met and answered. Then, somehow, the tables turned. Ravenous as he was, Gary got the disorienting impression that he was the one feeding Kerrin. She was drinking up his slow, serpentine kiss like it was water to a thirsty soul. Both his hands moved to her jaw, lightly holding her in place as he tried his best to satisfy her thirst.

Finally Gary had to put an end to it. He was shaking, dizzy, as he lifted his lips slowly, reluctantly from hers. For a moment he could only stand there, his head still lowered, his mouth a mere fraction of an inch from hers. Then he straightened. For one of the few times in his life he was speechless. Not a single snide, biting comment came to mind as he ventured to look down at her.

She was gazing up at him with a profound and bottomless shock. Her lips parted in a silent 'O' as her half-lidded eyes widened. Then, putting a hand of trembling fingers against those parted lips, she took a step back, away from him.

Gary didn't try to stop her as she turned and fled. He just stood there, watching her run on her toes across the dry, untended grass. She looked like a sprite, some otherworldly fairy, and Gary felt like an ogre.

Apparently he'd been wrong. His kiss hadn't been like any normal man's. It had been like a convict's: utterly unacceptable.

~~~

Gasping for breath, Kerrin wrenched her office door open. She slipped inside and pushed the hydraulic spring closed, then leaned limply against the door.

Oh my God oh my God
. She pressed her cheek against the cool surface of the door, her heart still racing.
Jesus Christ
. Kerrin had no idea what 'any normal man's' kiss might be like, but she sincerely doubted a kiss like the one Gary had just given her came along every day.

With an agonized moan, Kerrin slid down the door to land in a cross-legged heap on the floor. The heels of her hands pressed against her forehead as her fingers tangled in her hair. What an idiot he must think her. She probably hadn't managed to kiss him back even close to properly. Heavens, she couldn't have begun to match the awesome expertise of that man's mouth, of his mere touch. He'd flooded her with a sensation of sunshine and rain, of high, rocky mountains and clear blue skies. All the physical wonders of the world had been present in his kiss. She was trembling, just thinking about it.