by Mindy Neff
He shrugged, a reluctant grin creasing his baby-face features. “I still think it’s dumb to read the stuff.”
Before she could comment, the classroom door opened.
Lamar Castillo walked in. The dark circles under his eyes were a dead giveaway that he’d worked late. But Molly would save that issue and lecture for another time.
She was just so darned thrilled that he’d made it to class. Even if it was ten minutes late.
“Do you have a pass?”
Lamar shook his head, waiting to see if she’d send him to the office for the required pink slip.
Molly’s heart did a funny tumble when she noticed Adam standing in the doorway, just behind Lamar.
“Want to see my pass?”
The students erupted in laughter, advice and encouragement.
Molly ignored the chaos, her eyes riveted on Adam. His jeans hugged his strong thighs, fueling fantasies that needed very little prompting where this man was concerned. She didn’t want to see his pass. She wanted him to make one. At her.
She had an idea he’d gone to Lamar’s house to get the absent student. For her. Everything within her softened. It had been a long time since somebody had cared enough to notice what was important to her. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
He shrugged and gave a half nod as if it was no big deal.
Her heart gave an erratic thump. It was a big deal to her. “Lamar, take your seat, please.”
“Mind if I stay and observe?” Adam asked.
Eddie groaned.
Molly grinned. “Be my guest. By the way, how is Shawn?”
“Just fine, now.” Adam closed the door behind him and walked to the back of the room, rapping his knuckles lightly on Eddie’s desk as he passed.
The kid gave him a you’re-okay nod. Adam knew most of Eddie’s bluster was all for show. He was one of those kids who was everybody’s buddy, a kid who seemed to have his thumb on the throbbing pulse of the school. Oh, he liked to give the impression that he was a loner, but there was compassion and neediness in Eddie Martinez, a combination you just couldn’t help but respond to.
“So,” Molly said, gaining the class’s attention. She got Adam’s attention, too. Completely. “Eddie here thinks poetry is dumb. How do the rest of you feel?”
Nobody said anything.
Adam glanced around, wondering how she’d handle the silence, wondering if these kids would open up to her.
The fashion police would have a field day in this room, he thought. There was every conceivable mode of dress—young girls in short, tight skirts, their hair ratted, their mouths full of bubble gum, coal-black eyeliner streaking clear out to their temples; boys with sagging jeans and too-large T shirts. The range went from the grunge look to high-fashion Marilyn Monroe—or Madonna, depending on which generation was doing the looking.
And then there was Molly, with her feminine, floaty dress, managing to look sedate and sexy all at once. Her auburn hair fell in soft waves past her shoulders, the ends flirting with the tips of her full breasts.
“Give me a break,” Molly said. “You guys are never quiet. If it’s because Mr. Walsh is here, rest easy. The same rules apply as always. Nothing you say will leave this room.” Her cinnamon eyes met his. “Right, Mr. Walsh?”
“Word of honor,” he said, unable to contain an appreciative smile. She was some woman. A half-pint dynamo with more determination and innate integrity than was sometimes good for her.
“Okay. Eddie, enlighten us as to your grievances.”
“Man, Miss Kincade. Nothin’ like puttin’ me on the spot.”
“You started it.”
“It’s not just the poetry. This whole school’s dumb.”
“You’re not into learning?”
He shrugged. “Who cares anyway?”
“I care,” Molly said. “Knowledge is the most powerful weapon you can possess. It gives you power and strength. Choose a goal, Eddie. All of you,”you,” she said, her impassioned gaze sweeping the room, touching each individual present.
“Reach for a dream. Then absorb as much knowledge as you can and make that dream come true.”
“Oh, sure. How are we supposed to care about doing that when all the other teachers around here make everything so tough?”
Half the students in the class were nodding their heads in agreement with Eddie.
“He’s right, Miss Kincade,” Serita Montessa said.
Adam knew Serita. She’d been sent to him because she was in danger of flunking Mr. VanArk’s reading class. Adam had done some research into VanArk’s scoring system. Damned near every student was in danger of flunking. There was something wrong with that picture.
“Most of the other teachers don’t care like you do,” Lamar said.
All the kids started talking at once, nodding in agreement. Adam was pleased to note that Lamar was still awake. He’d had to get the kid out of bed this morning. Lamar was probably operating on about two hours’ sleep.
Molly held up her hand for silence. “Are you sure we’re not just dealing with personality conflicts here?”
“No way,” Eddie said.
“Fine, then,” Molly shot back. “What would you do to change it?”
Eddie’s shoulders lifted beneath his jacket. Most of the students looked to him, as if he were their leader, their spokesperson.
“Come on, Eddie. Put up or shut up. You’ve got to have some ideas.”
“Maybe I do.”
Molly walked around her desk, opened the top drawer and dropped the volume of Shakespeare into the compartment. It hit the metal bottom like the shot of a cap gun. Several of the students jumped. Automatic instinct had Adam reaching for a weapon before he recalled where he was—and that he no longer wore a weapon.
Hell, he’d watched her drop the book. Perhaps it just hadn’t registered what she was doing. He’d been caught up in her lips, the way they moved, the way they stretched and formed around each word she uttered. Molly’s lips were an obsession with him, had been since the day he’d met her. An erotic, gripping obsession.
“Eddie has just changed our lesson plan,” she said. “Instead of Shakespeare, we’re going to do an essay.”
Paper wads and groans were aimed at Eddie.
“Quiet down. Your assignment is to show me exactly what you think is wrong with this school and how you’d go about changing it. You can use any format. Oral, written…whatever strikes your fancy.”
“Any format?” Eddie asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.
Uh-oh, Adam thought. That spark in Eddie’s eyes didn’t bode well for school rules and regulations.
“Any format,” Molly repeated. “You can pair up or do the assignment on your own.”
“How do we know we won’t get in trouble?”
This time she hesitated. Then she squared her shoulders. “I’ll guarantee it. No reprisals.”
Several students started choosing teammates and making plans. Adam shook his head, wondering just where this assignment would lead.
He had to hand it to Molly. When she took on something, she didn’t do it in half measures. He’d known she’d be a hell of a teacher, even though he’d never seen her in action. Their time together had been spent during the summer. Eighty-seven days of incredible pleasure, of whispers on hot, sultry nights, moonlight swims in the Pacific Ocean, picnics under the stars. Eighty-seven short days of a love so incendiary, so sweet, it made him ache to remember.
From this distance at the back of the room, he couldn’t make out the charm attached to her gold necklace. But he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. His memories were vivid. They’d been at the mall, holding hands. When they’d passed the jewelry store, Molly had paused, dragging him inside. Not to look at rings as most women did…
“Oh, Jason, look.” Her gaze fell on the two halves of a gold heart. He loved the way her eyes softened, the way her pouty bottom lip glistened as she ran her tongue along it.
“You expect me to wear a nec
klace?” he teased.
She laughed, the sound surrounding him, making his heart swell. “Heaven forbid that we should offend your macho image.”
He could read her like a book, knew she was dying for a closer look at the jewelry. “What’s written on the back?”
She flipped the charm over. “It’s a prayer of sortsforever watch over thee and me and keep us safe when we are apart one from the other.”
Adam blinked, trying to shake away the image, the memories of how he’d felt that day. Molly had known he was in law enforcement; he’d just never told her what branch. She knew the dangers, though, knew he’d recently recovered from a pipe-bomb explosion that had resulted in crushed bones in his shoulder, necessitating surgery and steel pins to repair the damage. And she’d known he’d be leaving soon. Although he’d already made his decision to take early retirement, he’d told her he just needed to tie up some loose ends, that he’d be back, that he’d explain all about his job then…that they’d make plans.
And Molly, in her gentle, no-questions-asked style, had been content to wait.
So he’d bought her that charm because the inscription had touched her so, because it had been so apt.
Now the other half of Molly’s symbolic heart rested in a hidden pocket of his wallet. Although he couldn’t wear it around his neck, he was never without it.
His gut twisted with an ache so sharp it was a wonder he didn’t double over. And that’s when he realized that the ache wasn’t just from painful memories; it was physical.
His fingers tightened on the metal desk. The writing table bent forward. Teeth ground together, he jerked it back in place and stood.
He needed to get out of here. Sweat pooled beneath his arms and down the center of his back. Memories he ached to revisit but couldn’t caused his adrenaline to surge. Hell, wouldn’t that be just hunky-dory. Forget himself for two seconds and show the whole damned class what a freak he was.
Thank God nobody had noticed. The desk was a little worse for wear, but it’d pass.
Molly glanced up from where she was having a private powwow with Lamar. She frowned, but he simply waved and let himself out the door.
He stumbled, looked right and left, realized the hallways were empty and sagged against the wall. His blood pounded in his ears, roaring, making him sick.
The ebbing process of this hated phenomenon was getting worse.
THE BLACK-AND-WHITE marble squares in the foyer blurred as he stared at them. Adam didn’t think he had enough energy to make it up the sweeping staircase to his bed. Damn, what the hell was happening to him?
Before he could change his mind, he snatched up the phone from the hall table and punched in a familiar set of numbers. He’d sworn he wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t beg for hope, told himself it was best to leave well enough alone. But that was before he’d stumbled back into Molly Kincade’s life.
The line connected. “Put me through to Kitoczynski.”
“Your code, please?” a disembodied voice requested.
“Four-two-five.”
A series of clicks and beeps sounded. National security. Adam snorted. What the hell was so secret? Half the stuff they worked on in the lab had no definite conclusions.
“Dr. Kit here.” Malcolm used the abbreviated portion of his name since few people could pronounce the long version.
“Adam Walsh. How’s the research going?”
“Man, am I glad you called. It’s going slow. Not good. Damned mice are dropping off right and left. Their bodies are wearing out at an alarming rate under the constant surge of adrenaline.”
Adam felt as if his heart had become a lead weight in his chest. Trust Malcolm to leave the kid gloves at home. Damned good thing the doctor worked in a lab. His bedside manner was the pits.
“Sorry,” Malcolm said. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. There seems to be a higher rate of mortality when alloy is involved. Gave me some false hope in the beginning—especially since we’ve already removed those pins from your shoulder. But the other subjects—the ones without the steel as a conductor—have since expired.”
Expired.
“I wish you’d agree to come back, Jason.”
Adam’s grip tightened around the receiver. “No. I’ll answer your questions, but I’m not coming back.” Unless you can guarantee me a cure, he thought. “And the name’s Adam Walsh.” As much as he wanted to be Jason North—Molly’s Jason North—he wasn’t. Never would be again.
“Sorry. I forgot,” Malcolm said. “Can you give me anything more to go on here? New symptoms developing? Anything?”
Adam sank down in a chair by the phone, raking impatient fingers through his hair. “Same stuff as before. Feels like I’ve walked into an electromagnetic field. Pain’s getting a little worse. Sometimes I feel as if I can see the internal shift. It’s not outwardly visible, though. Skin gets hot, burns me, seems to become electrically charged.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, afterward I get weak as a kitten, drained, knees turn to jelly. Feels like I could sleep for a week.”
“How soon afterward?” Malcolm asked, his voice sharpening.
“No set pattern. Sometimes immediately, sometimes half an hour, sometimes longer.” Damn it, even he knew that information was worthless. And he wasn’t a highbrow lab technician.
“Hmm. I’ll run some more configurations in the computer.”
Adam could tell Malcolm was itching to get back to his research, already visualizing another answer to a puzzle that appeared to have no solution. He heard the thoughts as clearly as if Dr. Kit had spoken them.
“Anything else?” Malcolm questioned. “Small or large, I need to know.”
“Not really. The telepathy’s getting stronger.” Mostly with Molly, but he kept that to himself.
“That’s the least of your worries. Mind reading won’t kill you. Hell, I wish I could do that myself sometimes.”
Kill you. The stark words were said innocently. Adam’s teeth ground so hard his jaw ached. Damn it, he didn’t want to die. Not now. “Any advice?” he asked tightly, holding on to his emotions by a thread.
“Nothing new. Same as before. Try to avoid stress, emotions that cause panic or fear.”
Yeah, right, Adam thought.
“Adam?” A hint of concern and of the previously lacking bedside manner crept into Malcolm’s voice. “I wish I could give you better news. At this point, all I can do is reiterate what I said when you left the lab. Get your affairs in order.”
Chapter Five
Adam found himself at loose ends when school let out. Molly didn’t need a ride home—he’d seen to that by fixing her car. Lamar was back in class, so there wasn’t an immediate worry that she’d be charging headlong into East L.A.
At the moment, he didn’t have a single good reason to watch over her. Still, he confounded himself by following her.
She sat at an outside table of a quaint cappuccino bar, reading a book.
Alone.
Why hadn’t she gotten on with her life? It’d been a year.
He stood a short distance away, watching her. He could tell she wasn’t really reading the book she held in her slender hands. He could hear her thoughts. The sadness. It worried him that she’d built such strong walls around her heart, that she’d chosen to linger in the silence of her memories, caring for troubled teens, with little thought for her own personal needs.
Absently he rubbed his shoulder where the doctors had removed the steel pins a year ago and replaced them with a less volatile material. Things might have been different if they hadn’t put metal in his body to begin with.
He was so mixed up. He wanted her to find happiness, he really did, yet he was jealous at the mere thought of another man touching her, soaking up her essence, her laughter and stubbornness and sunshine.
Like now. He saw a blond, good-looking surfer guy giving her the once-over. Any minute now the man would make his move.
Knowing he shouldn’t, un
able to stop himself, Adam approached her table.
Molly’s head jerked up when his shadow fell over the pages of her book. Her breath sucked in, and her heart gave several deep thuds that sent blood rushing to her head, making her dizzy.
“Adam.” She touched the gold charm at her chest, a habit she hadn’t realized she had until just now. For an instant, with the glare of the setting sun casting his features in shadows, he’d reminded her of Jason. Perhaps it was his stance, the way he held himself, or maybe his eyes, eyes so like another set she longed to see again. Or maybe it was just leftover, impossible wishes, a projection of her thoughts.
“Am I interrupting?”
“No.” She set aside her book. “I wasn’t really reading. Do you want to sit down?”
He drew out a chair and sent a glance over his shoulder at the gentleman with blond hair wearing a Hang Ten T-shirt. Molly arched a brow. She’d known the man had been eyeing her. If he’d approached, she’d have been friendly but firm in her disinterest.
There was really no call for Adam’s dog-with-a-bone glare.
“So, what brings you here?” she asked, drawing his attention back before the two men decided to threaten one another with pistols at dawn.
“You mean why do I keep showing up like a bad penny?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call you a bad penny.” A dark, familiar shadow perhaps, but not a penny.
“I was on my way home and saw you.”
“Where’s home?”
“About two blocks south of yours.”
“Hmm. Two blocks south of mine is a pretty affluent neighborhood.”
Adam shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re the man who takes expensive material possessions for granted.”
“I didn’t say I took them for granted. Just that there weren’t any I’d consider my pride and joy.”
That was so hard for Molly to relate to. She’d barely scraped by for most of her life. “I’m fairly certain I don’t share your sentiments. If I had money, I’d use it…and I’d cherish every belonging, big or small.”
A fly buzzed the rim of her coffee. Adam waved it away, the gold watch on his wrist catching the glare of the late-afternoon sun. It was an expensive piece of jewelry, Molly guessed, elegant yet functional with its many dials and gadgets. She almost giggled at the James Bond image that popped in her mind.