The Heart Heist (25 page)

Now what the hell was he supposed to do next?

~~~

Kerrin was still on the telephone. Gary noted this fact with a scowl as he walked past her open office door for the second time in the half hour since his summer school class had ended. She'd also been on the telephone before class started. He hadn't been able to say hello, hadn't been able to assess her 'morning after' mood.

Gary told himself not to be surprised if Kerrin's attitude toward him had changed drastically overnight. It wouldn't be surprising if a nice, decent girl had second thoughts about letting a scruffy reprobate like himself take a few liberties with her. In fact, the way she was hanging on that telephone looked like a tactic to avoid him.

After returning to his own classroom, Gary sat behind his desk and gave a grim glare toward the pile of quizzes he had to grade. He reminded himself of what he'd told Kerrin last night. Their time was limited. It would be best if she did put a firm stop to what he'd so foolishly started. They ought to set a platonic boundary to this relationship.

Gary pulled a paper off the pile and forced himself to look down at it. He picked up a red pencil.

It wasn't as though he'd been planning on any heavy-duty thing between the two of them. He'd just wanted to help her over whatever trauma had made her so frightened of men. She needed someone gentle right now, someone patient and who didn't have a long-range agenda. Gary was in no position to have a long-range agenda.

You are the dearest, sweetest, most wonderful man
. No matter what he did, Gary kept hearing those words. He couldn't believe Kerrin had said that. It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. And yet he knew he was going to remember every one of those words, exactly, until the day he died.

With a low growl, Gary threw the quiz to the side and rose from his chair. She had to be off the phone by now. He strode down the arcade.

From her open office door, he could hear what appeared to be the end of a conversation.

"Yes, I will," Kerrin told the person on the other end of the line. Her voice was soft, sweet, extremely obliging. "Thank you. Thank you very much. I can't tell you how I appreciate this. Very good. Absolutely. Thank you."

She hung up. Unbelievable. She was finally off the telephone. Rubbing her ear with one hand, she looked up and saw him standing in her doorway. Immediately, her face lit up. "Gary! How long have you been waiting there?" She stood, still absently rubbing her ear. "Come in, come in."

So, no morning-after regrets after all. Gary stepped inside the door as Kerrin hurried up to him. The light in her expression lit something warm in his chest.

She pulled him all the way inside and closed the door. "I have some news for you. Good news, I think. Sit down."

News, but no kiss. Gary took a seat on her serviceable sofa, watching as Kerrin took a position leaning against the front of her desk.

She crossed her arms over her chest. Today she was wearing what Gary privately termed one of her cowboy outfits; a longish denim skirt, denim blouse rolled up to the elbows, and cowboy boots.

"I've got a doctor for your friend," she announced.

"What?"

"Dr. Ramirez," Kerrin expanded. "He's a cardiologist from UCLA. He's going to drive over to Chino tomorrow to examine Willie."

Gary's chest felt as though it had just sustained a solid blow. "I -- That's impossible."

"Not impossible." Kerrin smiled smugly. "It just took some dedicated bureaucratic footwork."

Gary could only gape at her. "How on earth did you do it?" God knew, he'd been trying to get Willie a doctor for years, with absolutely no result.

"It wasn't easy." Kerrin's smugness expanded. "But you're looking at a real pro when it comes to untangling red tape. A few years work in the Mono County School District will do that to you. I've learned that if you're stubborn enough, you can generally get what you want. It all boils down to an endurance test, and I've got a lot of stamina."

"You've been on the phone," Gary now realized, "over
four hours
trying to deal with this?"

Kerrin grinned and pushed off her desk. "Like I said. Stamina. And I got what I wanted, didn't I?"

His hands and feet felt like they were tied to the floor. Gary couldn't believe it. Kerrin had done this -- for
him
. "I don't know how to thank you."

She made a face as she sat down next to him on the sofa. "Don't. Truth be told, I'm not sure how selfless my motives were."

"What? How's that?"

Lowering her eyes, she picked at the material of her skirt. "What you said last night, about us not having much time? Well, I guess I don't want you to have a need to rush back to Chino."

Gary was finally able to move his invisibly tied hands. He closed them around hers. "Well, whatever your motives, sweetheart, thanks." His head was filled with a falling snow of emotions.

Kerrin lifted a pair of sheepish eyes. "And besides, the longer it takes you to break into the DWP facility, the better for the town. The department won't have an excuse to rebuild elsewhere if you find the place impregnable."

"Mmph." A stab of guilt went through Gary, who couldn't tell her how very wrong her calculation was. The longer it took him to find a way into the DWP, the way Mr. Holiday was going to take, the more danger the whole damn town was in. "Tell you what, sweetheart. Gimme a kiss and I'll buy you lunch."

Absolutely no morning-after regrets. Her kiss was generously, nay, enthusiastically given, and so warmly promising Gary nearly melted into the sofa. He stood up quickly, before parts of his body other than his brain started dictating the script.

They walked into the coffee shop together. A few people sitting at the counter looked up. Gary knew everybody in the place. Just like him, they could be counted on to be found in the Lone Trail at certain hours of the day. There was a smile on the face of every single person who looked up and saw them.

"Hi Gary. Kerrin," Carolina called from the kitchen pass-through. "Why don't you guys take a booth?" She was smiling, too.

Seating himself across from Kerrin at one of the well-padded plastic booths, Gary leaned forward. "What's gotten into everyone?"

With a wry half-smile, Kerrin picked up the plastic menu. "Welcome to small town life."

"Huh?"

"You'll see. They also know Victor Bothmann left town last night, though he muttered something about having to come back again, a matter of aboriginal people and a second chapter to his film, if what he's got so far doesn't wow the department. Oh, I'm told he may foreclose on his house if he can't make tenure this year."

Gary leaned back in his seat. "They know all that, about his professional and personal problems?"

"Uh huh." Kerrin's smile grew. "And he's just a visitor."

"Sheesh." Gary shook his head, aware of a definite pleasure in Bothmann's departure, even while he marveled at the town's grapevine. Imagine what would happen if they got hold of his own true life story.

"Oh, yeah," Gary said, shaking the thought away. "Before I forget, I wanted to ask you something, for the class."

Kerrin looked up from the menu. "Yes?"

"This sex education unit..." Gary's voice trailed off as it suddenly occurred to him he'd better pick his words carefully. No telling how much of the curriculum had been designed by Kerrin herself. He turned the dewy water glass in a circle on the laminate table top. "Uh, well, I think it's missing something."

Sure enough, a light of artistic pride rose in her eyes. "Missing something?"

"Yeah," he bluntly returned. "Real life."

Her eyes widened. "Oh."

"This is what I want to do." Gary leaned over the table again, eager. "Extracurricular. Separate discussion groups for the guys and the girls. Makes it more frank that way, less embarrassment, if you see what I mean."

Her words were cautious. "I think so."

"Obviously, I can lead the guy's group, but I need someone else -- someone female -- to take over the girls' group."

Kerrin just stared at him.

Gary raised an eyebrow. "So?"

"So, what?"

He let out an impatient breath. "So, you take over the girls' group."

Kerrin continued to stare at him, her expression extraordinarily blank. Then her gaze suddenly dropped, she reached blindly for her water, took a sip and promptly started to cough. Making a grab for her paper napkin, she stuffed it up by her mouth and continued coughing until tears came to her eyes.

Concerned, Gary reached across the table and thumped her gently between her shoulder blades. "Hey, are you all right?"

Nodding her head, Kerrin finally settled down. She looked at Gary over her crumpled napkin. "I can't."

"What?"

"I can't do it."

A horrible fear laced Gary's insides. He'd suspected Kerrin had had a negative sexual encounter in her past, something that made her skittish about repeating the experience. But he'd placated his concern by assuming it had been nothing more than an inconsiderate or clumsy lover. He hadn't wanted to consider the possibility it had been something truly traumatic, possibly violent.

It took all the courage he owned to frame his next words. "Why not?"

A delicate flush spread over her face. "Because, Gary." She swallowed and, after glancing from side to side, leaned over the table. "Because all I know about sex -- " She paused, closed her eyes, and went on in a hushed rush. "That is, the limit of my experience with the subject is what you taught me in the back seat of your car last night."

Kerrin leaned back in the upholstered booth with a relieved huff. Crossing her arms across her chest, she trained her eyes to the side, away from him.

Gary couldn't move. A weight of guilt and dread lowered through him. He'd felt the same thing at the sentencing phase of his last court trial, as though a last thread of hope, something he'd no right to in the first place, had been justly cut.

The damn woman was a virgin!

Gary stared at Kerrin, who kept her gaze on the kitchen grill, her teeth worrying her lower lip. He should have known, he should have guessed. That he hadn't was more evidence of his evil intentions. He hadn't wanted to see.

A keen disappointment seeped through him. He couldn't sleep with this woman. There was no way on earth he could justify doing that. If Kerrin hadn't gone to bed with a man by this time it was because she was saving herself for the right one, the one she'd give everything to for the rest of her life.

Gary was not that man.

Rage rose within him. A rage like he'd never known. It was all he could do to keep his voice within normal limits. "You should have told me about that, before."

Her head swung toward him, her eyes wide, innocent, surprised. "I should have? Why?"

"Because." He spoke through clenched teeth. How dare she act naive! "You almost let me
steal
that from you."

Her rose-petal lips parted as her surprise expanded. To Gary's amazement, she looked on the verge of anger herself. "
What?!
"

He slid out of the booth. With a smooth movement, he extracted a bill of an appropriate denomination and threw it on the table. "Thanks for taking care of Willie." The words choked in his throat. How
could
she have done this to him? How could she have been so
cruel
? Even now, furiously angry with her, he was buffeted by awful waves of temptation.

He knew how to take what he wanted. He knew how to steal it right away. He knew every deft trick and stroke. It could be his any time he wanted it. Any time at all.

Gary strode out of the Lone Trail, dimly aware that Kerrin was scurrying after him. A blast of hot desert air met him as he pushed open the glass door. It burned his frustrated fury higher.

"Dammit, Gary. You want to have this argument out in the middle of Main Street, then that's just fine!" In the street, she grabbed onto his arm, making it awkward to continue walking. Gary shook her off. She grabbed onto him again.

"You, you bastard!" Kerrin hissed. "Stand still and face me."

Gary was so shocked by her language that he stopped and turned around. In the brilliant sun of midday, they were actually more alone on the street than they'd been inside the coffee shop. Kerrin grasped the top of his shirt with one hand and poked the finger of her other hand into his chest. Her eyes were blazing.

"The problem with you, Mr. Sullivan," she pronounced indignantly, "is that you don't know the difference between
taking
something that isn't yours and
receiving
something that's being given you." She jabbed her finger into his chest again. Although the lady wasn't very strong, it hurt. "Now, I'm willing to make allowances," Kerrin told him, "considering you've probably never been given anything in your whole life. So when you're ready to
receive
, Mr. Sullivan, you come let me know."

Before he could stop her, she'd shoved the bill he'd thrown on the table back into his shirt pocket. Her little cowboy boots rang on the asphalt as she stalked across the street. His eyes followed the way her skirt swayed around her slender hips, the way the sun made a bright halo around the curls of her head.

She was wrong
. Every operating brain cell he owned knew that.

But Kerrin wasn't through yet. Once she'd reached the opposite curb, she spun around on her heel. "And another thing, Gary," she shouted across the street. "Did it ever strike that fine mind of yours that
I
might need
you
?"

That did it. The woman was out of her gourd. Way out there. Because if there was one thing Gary knew for damn sure it was that Mayor Kerrin Horton, virgin and model citizen, hadn't the slightest need in her life, no matter how temporarily, for Gary Sullivan, inmate number 406651.

~~~

The stars were burning tiny holes in the sky above the copper array. Over in Tom Horton's work shed, the intercom from the house chirped. Tom, from his position on a ladder over the center coil of the array, cursed mildly.

"I'll get it," Kerrin offered, setting down the tools she'd been handing him. She turned quickly, before her father could see her unwanted spark of excitement. There was only one person she knew who ever called past midnight, and it was now almost half past.