Miss Liz's Passion

by Sherryl Woods

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” he muttered in disgust, but he knew he’d give in. He had a feeling in the end he’d find it impossible to deny this woman anything. It wasn’t a realization he was crazy about.

  “Just go down and talk to Ann,” she urged, those wide, amber eyes beguiling him. It was like looking into the lure of whiskey and sensing salvation. It was probably twice as dangerous.

  “If you’re not comfortable with her and what she does, then I’m sure she can recommend someone here in Miami. Please.”

  He wasn’t sure if it was the half-whispered plea or the eyes that implored that got to him, but he sighed heavily and surrendered. “Set it up.”

  Liz started calling her friend at six, while the memory of Todd Lewis’s embrace still singed her memory. At first she had been horrified at breaking down the way she had. Then she realized that he hadn’t been embarrassed, that he had reached out to her openly, easily. It told her a lot about his sensitivity and character, characteristics she might never have guessed at after seeing only his hotheaded stubbornness.

  She also confessed to herself that she had liked being held in his arms, that she had wanted far more than she’d dared to admit to him. But it wouldn’t happen again. She would not be caught alone with him again, not when they apparently set off enough sparks between them to rival the Fourth of July fireworks at Bayside.

  It will not happen again, she thought firmly. It will not.

  It will.

  Oh, brother. She really needed to talk to Ann. Now. Tonight. And Kevin Lewis’s problems, she finally admitted to herself, were the least of it.

  She called every fifteen minutes, but kept getting a busy signal. When she finally got through at nine, Ann sounded cheerful but harried. Kids were arguing at the top of their lungs in the background. One seemed to be whimpering directly into Liz’s ear. Probably the two-year-old. Melissa. Or was it Karen? She’d long ago given up trying to keep them straight. Besides, every time she turned around Ann was adding another one. Once in a while one of the foster kids was adopted by another family and Ann just turned right around and filled the empty bed. Her extended family grew and changed so rapidly, Liz wondered how she kept track without a scorecard and photographs posted on the oversized, industrial refrigerator that dominated the always busy kitchen.

  “Pipe down, you guys,” Ann bellowed, almost popping Liz’s eardrum. Immediate silence descended.

  “How do you do that?” Liz inquired with a familiar touch of awe.

  “Don’t give me that. I’ve been in your classroom. You’re perfectly capable of achieving the same effect without even raising your voice.”

  “Some days I think I’d feel better, though, if I could just blast away. Doesn’t it relieve the tension?”

  “No. It only makes you hoarse, at least when you have to do it as often as I do around here. Jeremy, come take Melissa and put her to bed.”

  Melissa let out a wail of protest.

  “Go,” Ann said insistently. “I’ll be in in a few minutes to kiss you goodnight. If you’re not in bed with your face scrubbed and your teeth brushed, you won’t get any ice cream for the next week.”

  The whimpers faded away.

  “There now,” Ann said. “That should give me a few minutes of peace and quiet. What’s up?”

  “A problem, as always.”

  “Hey, they’re my speciality.”

  “I know but I tend to abuse the privilege.”

  “Not a chance. What’s this one about? That pigheaded ex-mother-in-law of yours still giving you problems?”

  “No,” she said and hesitated. When she began again, it wasn’t Todd she talked about. “It’s one of my students.” She detailed Kevin’s behavior. “My guess is that he’s dyslexic and that that’s what’s behind the hyperactivity. I also sense that he’s heading for depression, if he doesn’t see some improvement soon.”

  Ann chuckled. “Who gave you a license to practice all that psychological stuff?”

  “Sorry. Just guesswork.”

  “Informed guesswork, my friend. I was only teasing. If you and Ed hadn’t gotten married, you’d have gotten that Ph.D. and hung out your own shingle. It’s still not too late for you to do it.”

  “Ann…”

  “Never mind, I won’t press. So what do you want me to do about Kevin? Test him? You could have someone in Miami do that. I can give you names.”

  “I know that, but I think this case needs your touch. The father is…” She hesitated.

  “Ohhh, I see,” Ann said at once, her inflection wry. “Just how difficult is he?”

  The intuitive description was apt, but incomplete. “He’s not difficult exactly. He’s just worried.”

  “And resistant and mule-headed. What about the mother?”

  “None on the scene. I’m not sure why.”

  “Does that have anything to do with your special interest in the case? Is this fellow attractive in the bargain?”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Ann bellowed. “Then they might as well bury you now and be done with it.”

  “Okay, he is handsome,” she admitted, knowing full well that the description was like calling the Eiffel Tower a cute little monument.

  “I knew it. Sexy, too?”

  There was the opening she’d been waiting for. Ann would listen. She wouldn’t make judgments. She would give solid, no-nonsense advice. Liz decided that wasn’t what she wanted right now, after all. She wanted to bask in the memories just a little longer, even if they were accompanied by a whole whirlwind of confusing thoughts and rampaging doubts.

  “That is hardly the point,” she said. “It’s Kevin I’m worried about.”

  Ann backed off at once, but probably not for long. “Okay, bring your handsome-but-who-cares man down here and I’ll work my wiles on him.”

  Liz hadn’t counted on having to make the trip herself. “I wasn’t going to come along,” she protested. “I thought I’d just send him.”

  “Coward. Besides, if he’s as unhappy about this whole idea as you say he is, he’ll probably never get below Key Largo. That’s where they usually chicken out. They stop for breakfast and by the time they’re done, they’ve decided the whole trip is a waste of time. It’s a long drive. They figure I really won’t be able to help, anyway. The kid’s complaining. He’d rather be playing baseball. Nope,” she said emphatically. “I think you’d better come along.”

  “Okay,” Liz said, laughing, ecstatic when she knew darn well she ought to be terrified. A whole day with Todd Lewis? She ought to have her head examined. “You’ve made your point. When?”

  “Make it Saturday morning at eleven. I should be able to get this brood under control by then and meet you at my trailer at Dolphin Reach. If I’m not there, go visit Alexis. She’s very pregnant and feeling put out because she doesn’t think we’re giving her enough attention.”

  “You are talking about a dolphin. What makes you think she’s feeling put out?” Liz said.

  “Because the fat rascal knocked me off the dock the other day, then skittered off on her tail fin. I swear she was laughing. I know the kids were.”

  “I’m sorry I missed the show.”

  “Hey, I suppose it was worth it. The man who was here to check out the center for a research grant thought the whole thing was so hilarious he approved the grant on the spot. It’ll keep me in business another six months, anyway.”

  “Dammit, Ann, when are you going to start charging for what you do there?”

  “I do charge,” she said. “When the family can afford to pay.”

  It was an old argument and one Liz knew she had little chance of winning. Ann’s soft heart would always win out over her business sense. “Well, just remember that Todd Lewis can afford it. In fact, if the price tag is high enough, he may actually take it seriously.”

  “You are getting devious, my friend.”

  “I wasn’t until I met Todd Lewis,” she said ruefully.

  “Well, well,”
Ann said softly. “I thought I detected an undercurrent there.”

  Liz didn’t like that knowing tone one bit. “Don’t try to make something out of that,” she warned.

  The threat fell on deaf ears. “Honey, from the sound of it, I’m not the one who’s in trouble here. I can’t wait to meet your Mr. Lewis.”

  “He is not mine!” Liz bellowed.

  She heard a hoot of laughter, then a soft click. She glared at the phone. How had she ever remained such good friends with such a know-it-all psychologist?

  Chapter 5

  Following the unanticipated Friday night arrival of a fast-moving cold front, the whole world had a surreal quality about it on Saturday morning. As Liz and Todd sped south on U.S. 1, the narrow ribbon of pavement seemed to disappear in a soupy morning mist. Cozy in the warmth of Todd’s surprisingly utilitarian SUV, it was as if they were alone on a shadowy planet.

  “Whenever it’s foggy like this, I always think of one of my favorite poems,” she said as she stared dreamily out the window.

  “‘Fog.’ Carl Sandburg,” Todd said at once.

  “Amazing. You know it?” She pulled her gaze from the fog-shrouded scenery to look at the man sitting beside her.

  His lips curved sardonically at her obvious surprise. He recited the brief poem, then added, “They did teach poetry when I was in school.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Besides, I had a mother who thought every day should begin and end with Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson with an occasional diversion from one of the Brownings. Once you got beyond the one about fog, though, Sandburg was a little racy for her taste. ‘Chicago’ gave her palpitations.”

  “Naturally, that made you rush right out to read it.”

  His gaze slid away. “Nope,” he said, concentrating on the highway. “I just took her word for it.”

  Increasingly curious, she prodded, “Then what is your taste in poetry?”

  “Give me Bob Dylan any day.”

  She shot an amused glance at him. “I’ve never thought of Dylan as a poet.”

  “What are songs, if not poetry set to music?” A glint of mischief lit his eyes and her breath automatically caught in her throat. “Take ‘Lay, Lady, Lay.’ Now that is a great song. I’ve had a thing about brass beds ever since I first heard that song.”

  Liz ignored the innuendo and decided Todd Lewis would never know about the antique brass bed that she’d lovingly restored and now slept in. “I’m partial to ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ myself,” she told him. “If pressed, though, I could probably make a case for ‘Rainy Day Woman.’”

  “Well, well, you are filled with surprises.”

  “As are you, Mr. Lewis.”

  “Todd,” he coaxed, his quick glance beguiling. “Just for today, at least.”

  Lord, the man was persistent. She hadn’t forgotten for one minute the whispered demand he’d made in her classroom and her own reluctant yielding. For some reason Todd Lewis was determined to manipulate their relationship into something personal. It had started even before he’d held her in his arms. Once they’d gotten past their initial antagonism over what was best for Kevin, he’d flirted outrageously. She was unaccustomed to such provocative teasing, but she knew enough not to think for one minute that it meant anything. Even without the benefit of Ann’s usually sensible advice, she’d known enough to lecture herself repeatedly on that subject the last couple of days.

  Besides, she’d told herself staunchly, the last thing she wanted was a man disrupting her well-ordered life. After the accident, it had taken her years to reestablish some sense of control over her own fate. She would not relinquish that control easily.

  He was, however, only asking her to use his first name. And, really, what could be the harm? Calling him Todd was hardly tantamount to falling into his arms. She’d already done that and though she still blushed when she thought about it the world in general hadn’t come to a screeching halt. Only her own had tilted on its axis. No members of the Board of Education had called for her resignation. As long as she continued in the future to resist the sexy, come-hither glances that made her knees go weak, she saw no reason not to give in on this one little point.

  Besides, she decided practically, it might help to relax him. Although he’d looked entirely too pleased with himself for being precisely on time when he’d picked her up at eight o’clock, since then he’d grown increasingly tense and withdrawn.

  He looked more like a man driving to his own execution than a father going to get a little help for his son. Maybe if he knew more about what to expect, he’d ease his grip on the steering wheel and his foot off the accelerator. The wispy Australian pines along the edge of the road were zipping past at a dizzying pace.

  “Okay, Todd,” she said, finally. He turned a wicked, thoroughly satisfied smile on her. Her pulse took off faster than a jet trying to make up time. “Would you like me to tell you a little about what to expect at Dolphin Reach?”

  The smile vanished at once, replaced by cool indifference. “Whatever,” he said, his voice flat, his gaze instantly focused straight ahead.

  She tried not to feel disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm. “I think you’re going to like Ann,” she began conversationally. “She has a brilliant mind and she’s wonderful with people. She’s especially good with kids. She should have had half a dozen of her own. Not that she hasn’t made up for it. She’s foster mother to a whole passel of kids, mostly ones who are hard to place for adoption. A couple of them have had problems with the law. I’d be a little afraid to take on a kid like that, but not Ann. They seem to respond to all that love. Not a one has been in trouble again.”

  Her lengthy recitation was met by brooding silence. Still determined to overcome his anxiety, she rattled on, describing Ann’s special kids, her educational background, the house she’d built along a little spit of land that jutted off one of the Keys below Islamorada.

  “It started out as just an ordinary little two-bedroom, one-bath beach house, but then she started finding these kids. The third bedroom was tacked on when she took in Kelly and Michael. The fourth bedroom and the second bath came the following year. I think she’s up to six bedrooms and three baths now and if there were more land, she’d probably add two or three more. She’s a real pushover for a kid with a problem.”

  “Sounds like a generous lady.”

  The complimentary words had an odd, sarcastic edge to them that made her want to spring to Ann’s defense. “She is,” she said curtly instead and fell silent.

  Todd would just have to see for himself. She knew he was uptight about this meeting, but she hoped he wasn’t planning on being rude and difficult with Ann. Then she smiled. Ann would snap the arrogant starch right out of him, if he tried it. Her smile grew wider. She could hardly wait.

  Suddenly he jerked the wheel and turned into a McDonalds. “Coffee,” he said when she glanced at him. From his defensive tone, she had a feeling he expected an argument.

  “Sounds good,” she said cheerfully, recalling Ann’s prediction. The woman was an absolute, mind-reading wizard. Thank goodness, she was fully prepared to counter any argument Todd might mount to avoid finishing the journey to Dolphin Reach. She armed herself for battle.

  When Todd blinked at her easy acceptance of the delay, she had to turn away to keep him from catching her confident grin. When she looked back, though, the defiant glint in his eyes hadn’t quite vanished. He was pulling into a parking space, rather than the drive-through lane. “Let’s go inside.”

  She bit back a reminder that they had another hour’s drive ahead of them. “Fine.”

  The sun was burning away the last of the fog as they walked across the parking lot. The temperature was already climbing. Liz was glad she’d decided on shorts and a T-shirt, despite the early morning chill. Already it was too warm for the sweater she’d tossed over her shoulders at the last minute.

  Inside the restaurant, Todd ordered coffee and a full breakfast for himself, then glanced at he
r.

  “Just coffee.”

  When they were seated, he bit into his egg sandwich, grimaced and pushed it away. He slouched down in the booth, dominating it, his long legs sprawling. Liz had a hard time keeping her gaze off the bare, muscular length of them. Why had she told him to dress informally for this meeting? She should have known that Todd in shorts and a polo shirt would send her pulse into overdrive. She watched the play of muscles in his thick arms as he stirred his coffee, then took another bite of the sandwich. He looked as though he were being tortured. She could identify with the feeling.

  She dragged her gaze away from those strong, blunt fingers that she knew from experience were capable of incredible gentleness. She took a sip of coffee.

  “How’s your breakfast?” she asked innocently.

  “Fine.”

  “Yes. I can see that.”

  Apparently detecting the amusement in her voice, he regarded her warily.

  “Why did you order it?”

  “I was hungry.”

  “Really?”

  He finally shrugged sheepishly. “I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

  “Or were you just stalling?”

  “I thought the woman we’re going to see was the psychologist,” he growled.

  “She is.” She grinned at him. “She’ll also tell you that I frequently practice without a license. As long as I don’t charge, they probably won’t lock me away for it. Even so, I prefer to think of it as offering unsolicited advice. It’s less risky. Now that we’ve analyzed my bad habits, what about yours? Why are you stalling?”

  “I’m not crazy about psychologists,” he admitted, the way some people confessed to a dislike of tarantulas and rats. His adamant tone startled her.

  “Have you had much experience with them?”

  “Enough.”

  The curt response was a dismissal, if ever she’d heard one. “Maybe you’ll tell me about it sometime.”

  “Don’t count on it.”