by Mindy Neff
“You’ve got a way with these kids,” he said. “They respect and admire you.”
She shrugged. “They know I care.”
The clang of a metal door made her jump. She glanced down the hallway and back to Adam. “Now what?”
“Sounded like it came from the auto shop. Would they be closing the roll-up door at this time of day?”
“It shouldn’t be open in the first place. Mike Warner doesn’t have a sixth period. Maybe we better go have a look.”
He took off at a fast clip. “I don’t suppose the concept of not getting involved has ever occurred to you?” he asked over his shoulder.
Molly’s shorter steps were no match for his longer stride. She had to practically run to keep up. “I might ask you the same thing, seeing as you’re leading by a neck.”
“More than a neck.”
“Oh, I see. We’re feeling competitive. You comment on my height again, though, and you’ve had it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, princess.” They rounded the corner, Adam still in the lead. “However, with your determination to wade in where you don’t belong, you might think about exchanging those heels for tennis shoes.”
“Don’t start that where-I-don’t-belong stuff again.” The sound of a car engine firing to life turned their fast clip into a full-blown race. Without missing more than two steps, Molly snatched her heels off, gaining a burst of speed in her stocking feet.
She heard Adam swear and ignored him.
The first thing she saw when they reached the auto shop was Eddie Martinez, jumping into the passenger seat of the driver-education Nissan. The school no longer had funding for behind-the-wheel training, but the Nissan had become a project Mike Warner used for the auto-shop students.
It appeared Eddie was trying to talk Sebastian out of stealing the car. Had Eddie set off the false alarm as a distraction for a getaway or a plea for help?
There wasn’t time for answers to either of those questions right now. Adam was standing dead center in front of the revving car, his hand on the hood. Sebastian, looking paranoid, sweat pouring down his dark temples, gripped the steering wheel, shouting for Adam to move.
The kid looked higher than a kite. He wasn’t thinking straight. She saw his determination to escape, saw his fear.
Make the right choice, kid, she prayed silently. Murder carries a steeper rap than auto theft.
The car rocked forward.
Molly’s heart nearly stopped. “Adam! Get out of the way! Just let him have the damned car!”
Adam never took his eyes off the scared kid. And still, he stood dead center in front of the car.
Molly automatically took a step toward them.
“Stay back.” His voice was low and savage, rasping against her nerve endings like an emery board against aluminum, grating and chilling. It was a voice that spelled danger, inspired fear.
Even over the revving engine, the command reached the boys, their eyes growing round.
“Martinez,” Adam said, “get out of the car.”
Eddie hesitated and glanced at his messed-up friend. “Come on, Sebastian, man. Kill the engine. It’s cool. These wheels are a piece of junk anyway. You don’t want ‘em.”
It was obvious by now that Eddie was an unwilling party to the theft. He was the type of kid who figured he could talk anybody out of just about anything.
This time, though, his negotiating skills weren’t doing the job. Molly’s hand flew to her mouth as Sebastian slammed the transmission into gear.
She saw the toes of Adam’s sneakers grip the concrete, saw the metal hood of the Nissan dent under his palm—a palm that appeared to arc for a split instant. Tires spun, billowing smoke from the wheel wells, filling the auto shop with the acrid smell of burning rubber.
Molly’s eyes stung. Eddie and Sebastian gaped. Adam stood stock-still, and the car didn’t budge.
It didn’t shoot forward to run him down as she’d feared—taking him away from her when she was certain she’d just found him again. Her whole body trembled with horror and confusion. Damn it, there was no way in hell he could explain away this episode.
“Might as well shut her down,” he said conversationally, but Molly could hear the thread of pain in his voice. Did it hurt when this happened to him? And what exactly was it that happened to him?
The tires abruptly stopped their revolutions, and the engine died. Eddie leapt out of the car, coughing and waving at the smoke.
“How’d you do that, man?” He was looking at Adam as if he were a hero.
A superhero.
Adam just shrugged and took his hand off the hood, leaning a hip against it where the dent had made spidery cracks in the paint.
“Obviously the transmission’s slipping. Probably burned up, by the looks of that smoke.”
Both boys glanced at the grayish white cloud and back to Adam, apparently accepting the explanation.
“I expected more from you, Eddie,” Adam said. He glanced at Sebastian, who hovered at the back of the car, his gaze darting around as if he expected ghosts to appear and wage an attack. “That kid going to be okay? Do we need to haul him to the hospital?”
“No, man. I’ve seen him this way before. He’ll ride it out.”
“You’re not his keeper, Eddie. Don’t let kids like that bring you down.”
Eddie shrugged, uncomfortable. “He ain’t got nobody else.” That seemed to explain it all as far as Eddie was concerned. “So what are you gonna do about this?” He nodded toward the car, toward Sebastian, then tossed an apologetic look at Molly.
“I suppose since there was no school property removed, we’ll pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I knew you was good people.”
“Yeah, well, don’t push it, okay?”
“Sure, Mr. Walsh. Catch ya later.” Eddie gave a tug to the bill of his backward baseball cap and urged Sebastian out the door.
“That’s the second time you’ve given a kid a reprieve,” Molly said.
Third, Adam wanted to say, but he hadn’t told her about his discussion with Lamar about keeping a gun in his locker. He didn’t intend to. She’d be out to find Lamar like a shot. But he’d made sure Lamar wouldn’t get in over his head.
He backed away when she reached for him. Because if she touched him now, he’d want to respond. And he didn’t dare do that right now. Not when adrenaline was still surging through his veins. He felt the hum of tension, like electrical currents charging his blood, zapping his muscles, knotting them into ropes of steel. He figured after this bout of exertion, he’d be pumped up for a while. Just as well, as he didn’t want her to see the debilitating weakness that would follow. He planned to be well away from her before it bit.
He gritted his teeth against the disgust of Molly witnessing—again—the uncontrollable phenomenon that branded him a freak.
It was an agonizing reminder that he could never have her. Never again call her his own. He had no business letting her touch him or wanting to return that touch.
She stood in her stocking feet, holding her brown pumps in delicate hands that still showed a fine tremor from the events she’d just seen.
But she wasn’t looking at him as if he’d turned into a monster before her eyes. There was awe in her cinnamon eyes, a hint of residual fear—fear for him for standing in front of a car that would have flattened a lesser man.
And there was an emotion that looked like love in her eyes. It fired his memories, replayed his past. His past with this woman. And it hurt. God Almighty, it hurt.
He longed to tell her who he was, tell her the truth, open himself for all that powerful love to rain over him. But he wasn’t the same man she’d loved a year ago. He was an oddity. A freak. Yet he couldn’t stay away, couldn’t stop himself from coming back for more, more of her sunshine, even though it caused him a sweet misery.
And it was torture, to want someone so desperately, knowing he could never allow himself to have her.
Darkness filled his secret heart. He felt
as though he were trapped under a sheet of ice in a frozen pond, an experiment gone wrong sentencing him to a lifetime of loneliness.
Yet instead of leaving town as he should have, he’d stayed, selfish enough to want to take what he could get, a breath, a scent, a moment in her presence.
Steady, he cautioned himself, knowing his emotions were dangerously close to the surface, knowing it would hurt like hell when he had to let her go.
And he would have to let her go. She needed more, so much more than he could give. The clock was ticking on his life, the wear and tear of these strange powers reminding him he was living on borrowed time.
She was watching him, and for once he couldn’t read her thoughts. Was she blocking him? Or was the leftover adrenaline causing an interference?
He didn’t dare hope that this weird phenomenon was losing its strength, that somehow he’d wake up in the morning and, poof, he’d be normal.
“You’ve had a busy day,” she commented.
“Yeah,” he said dryly, feeling disgust. “Plenty of opportunities for superheroes.”
She did touch him then, sneaked right past his self-pity, right past his defenses, sending his blood pressure right back up.
Her palm cupped his cheek, her soft gaze boring into his. The scent of vanilla curled around him, blocking out the smell of burned rubber.
“You’re so hot,” she whispered.
He tried to step back. She followed.
Her thoughts flashed right across his brain, amplified in bold, erotic color. Flowered sheets, whispers over heated skin, soft touches mapping naked bodies, worshiping…loving.
Her fantasies became his—were his. Heat exploded in his body, threatening his control, his unshakable vow.
His eyes narrowed as he reached up and snagged her wrist. “You need a social life, Miss Kincade.”
“Are you offering, Mr. Walsh?” Her tongue made a sensual sweep over her pouty lips.
Adam ground his teeth, letting go of her hand. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Again he tried to step away. And again she countered the move, as if they were doing an intricate tango.
Adam’s fists clenched to keep from pulling her to him. “Better run, little girl. You’re playing with fire. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”
“And what if I do?”
“Then I’d tell you that you weren’t very smart.”
“I’ve got a college degree that states otherwise.”
“I wasn’t talking academically.”
“No. I didn’t suspect you were. Can you honestly tell me you don’t feel the magic when we touch?”
God, no. “You can’t recapture your memories with me.”
“Memories,” she mused. “I do have plenty of those. I loved a man once. He told me he was in law enforcement. I never saw him at his job, never asked him to tell me about it. But I guess that’s the thing about love.”
Her eyes locked on to his, holding him in place. He couldn’t have moved if his life—sorry as it was—depended on it.
“I learned something so powerful from that man,” she continued softly. “I learned that love doesn’t ask why, and it never explains…it doesn’t think twice. It just surrounds you and speaks from the heart like a whisper from a distance.” She placed her hand over her own heart, then touched the symbolic necklace, making the ache in Adam’s gut grow.
“It’s so complicated, and so very simple at the same time, and it doesn’t always make sense.” Her gentle gaze suggested there was an underlying meaning to her words, that to her, everything didn’t have to make sense, that she wasn’t a woman who looked at life in black and white.
That she was a woman who could—and would—accept a man with odd, unexplainable powers.
And Adam decided he was deluding himself. Big time.
“When our hearts make a choice, it’s out of our hands,” Molly said. “This man and I didn’t have a lot of time together. He was on vacation and so was I. It was summer, so short, but so sweet…a magical summer.”
Adam didn’t know how much longer he could stand here and take her bittersweet account of her memories, her theories on love.
His jaw tightened. “Why are you telling me this?”
She shrugged. “I rarely talk about that part of my life. Maybe if I do, it’ll put it to rest. Maybe I’ll accidentally say the right word you’re looking for, the word that’ll convince you I just might be ready for someone else in my life.” She gave him a shrewd glance. “That is what you said, wasn’t it, Adam? One word and you’d take me up on what I was offering?”
“Cut it out, Molly. You’re out of your league here.”
“True. I’ve never put myself on the line like this, set myself up so blatantly for rejection.”
“Damn it, I don’t want to reject you.”
“Then don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Why? For my own good? What makes you think you know what’s best for me?”
“I just do. Can’t you leave it at that?”
“Oh dear, Adam,” she said with mock concern. “I am making you uncomfortable. You’re perspiring. Are you too warm in your sweatshirt?”
A burst of surprised laughter escaped him. “Damn it, woman. You’re going to regret this conversation in the morning.” Not only were her words making him sweat, but also he could feel the hum in his veins beginning to subside, feel the fluttering edge of weakness begin to invade. He fought it like mad.
“Well, no, I don’t think so. I mean I wasn’t exactly suggesting we strip here in the auto shop and go at it.”
“So that’s your angle. You’re looking for someone to go to bed with?”
“Not somebody, Adam. That sounds crude. I’m looking for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel something. Something stronger than me. And I think you feel it, too.”
“I’m attracted to you,” he admitted slowly, reluctantly, feeling that much of a confession was safe.
“But you’re afraid of me.”
“I’m afraid of hurting you, yes. I’m afraid of you pinning your hopes on me being him. I’m not, Molly. I’m just not. And you’re making it hard for me to be noble.”
“Then don’t.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“You’re probably going to hear a lot more,” she mumbled.
“Why?”
Her head snapped up, and she grinned. “Because I’ve decided it’s unnerving the way you can read my mind. I figure if I just say what’s there, it’ll put us on more of an even ground.”
“Forget it. I’ll just make more of an effort to block you.”
“Hasn’t worked so far. What makes you think you can start now?”
“Because I can’t let you go around blurting out improper suggestions.”
“If it doesn’t embarrass me, why should it embarrass you?”
“I didn’t say it embarrassed me.”
“Oh, then it must make you hot.”
“Damn it!” he exploded.
And Molly burst out laughing. “Poor Adam. Let’s change the subject.”
“Gladly.”
“Will you have dinner with me?”
Aw, hell. “Don’t you have papers to grade or something?”
“Actually I do. I thought maybe I could get you to help.”
“What do I know about grading papers? I’m just a guidance counselor.”
“True. You know, you never did tell me what you did before you came to Clemons.”
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “I didn’t.”
She grinned. “Good thing I’m not one of those nosy types, huh? A really good example of that is the fact that I never pressed Jason to tell me about his work—or much about his past, for that matter.”
“We were talking about grading papers,” Adam reminded. He felt the approaching weakness,
circling like a nebulous specter, waiting to pounce.
“Were we?”
“Yes.”
“The essays I assigned, the one that Eddie did the show-and-tell on,” she clarified, “turned out to be more lengthy than I’d anticipated. I thought since you were there that day, since you heard the passion in the students’ voices over the state of the school system, you’d be a good judge of the papers.”
When he didn’t comment, she added, “As a counselor, it’d give you additional insights into their personalities. It’s a great way to get your feet wet, Adam.”
“My feet are feeling pretty soaked right now.”
“Then might as well jump in all the way.” Her eyes turned beseeching. “I really could use the help, Adam. I’m swamped. The kids were so enthusiastic about the project, it wouldn’t be fair to make them wait for validation.”
He’d never been able to hold out against Molly. He sighed, knowing when he was outmatched. He told himself he was strong, that he could head off this crazy idea of seduction she seemed to have in mind. And right now foremost in his mind was ending this conversation before he ended up in a heap at her feet. “All right.”
“Thanks, Adam.” She edged toward the door. “I’ll meet you at your place, say, six-thirty? I’ll spring for dinner.”
She didn’t wait for him to accept or reject. She just zipped out the door. Damn it. The woman operated at two speeds—full speed and warp speed.
But what the hell. If she was searching for clues to his life, she would find none at the mansion. Most of the stuff there belonged to somebody else.
Right down to the pictures on the wall.
The only reminder of their past together rested in his hip pocket, in a special fold of his wallet.
Chapter Eight
The neighborhood was so upscale, Molly expected to see movie stars cruising the streets in Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce cars. She almost felt embarrassed driving her old, faded blue Honda down the palmlined street.
She checked the numbers once more and pulled into the gated driveway of a sprawling house that had to have been built back in the 1800s. It could use a bit of a face lift, but it had character. Beautiful, exciting character.
She’d had to snoop in his personnel files to find the address. His application was downright sketchy, containing little more than a street address and a phone number.