She smiled shyly, then tilted that beautiful face toward his and closed her eyes. The zipper of his pants strained against his erection. He wanted to rip off her clothes, lay her down on the table right here and now, and wrap those long legs around his waist.
He settled for a soft, slow one on the lips, no tongue, to show her he was a gentleman, then blew into her ear and—
Suddenly he was dragged up from his chair by powerful arms. He tried to twist away, but the guy’s grip was too strong. “What the—”
“I can’t believe you’re all over some woman in public. What the hell is wrong with you, Robert?”
At the all-too-familiar voice of his brother, Robert relaxed. “Get the hell off me, Matt,” Robert growled, trying unsuccessfully to shake loose. Despite being four years younger than Robert, Matthew Gray was a good three inches taller and all muscle and managed to drag Robert over by the jukebox.
Robert glanced at Candy. The blonde was stirring her drink as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Now there was someone who knew how to mind her own business. Any other woman would be watching them and probably hoping a fight would break out so she could screw the victor.
“What the hell are you doing, Robert?” Matthew hissed over the blare of a rock and roll song. “You’ve got a wife and baby at home, for God’s sake,” he added, tightening his grip on Robert’s arm. “You’re lucky I don’t tell Laurie that you cheat on her.”
Damn buttinsky. He’d had to put up with Matt’s butting in his entire life, and he was sick of it. “You want to break your sister-in-law’s heart and watch your little nephew grow up with divorced parents, Matthew? Bug off, little brother. Mind your own damned business.”
Matthew stared at Robert, then shook his head and shoved Robert up against the jukebox. “It’s your life, man. Go ahead and wreck it. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve your own wife and child.” Finally, Matthew stormed out.
Jerk. Robert rolled his eyes, straightened his shirt, and headed back to his table. “Sorry about that little scene, darlin’,” he told Candy. “Why don’t I buy us a fresh round of drinks, and we’ll continue what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted by my holier-than-thou brother.”
Candy glanced at her watch, then slipped on her cardigan sweater. “Um, I’d like to, but … I’d better get going,” she said, offering him a tight smile.
No way was this piece of feminine perfection going anywhere before he nailed her. She was so hot she was worth two lays in one. “Look, baby, why don’t we go somewhere more private for a drink where no jealous relatives can bother us.” He smiled and leaned close so he could whisper in her ear. “There’s a little motel a few doors down that has a very nice bar and an intimate little dance floor—”
Candy stood and picked up her purse. “I’d really better get on home. I have an early start tomorrow. Thanks for the cosmopolitan, honey.”
Damn. Damn. Damn! This should have been an easy score. He stood and forced a smile. “I’m here every Saturday night, Candy. Will I see you here next weekend?”
“Um, I’m not really sure,” she said.
“Well, how about your phone number?”
She hesitated for a second, but then smiled and wrote down her name and number on a cocktail napkin before sashaying that heart-shaped butt of hers out the door. He folded the napkin and slipped it into his wallet. At least he could call her one night this week and go over to her house and finish what he’d started tonight.
Robert sat back down at the bar and ordered another scotch. While he drank, he fantasized about what he’d do with Candy when he saw her again. In the middle of a particularly hot visual, he suddenly had the sensation that someone was watching him. Please be a busty babe, he prayed heavenward as he glanced over to his right.
But no one even seemed to be paying him the least bit of attention, not even the average-looking trio of women a few seats down the bar. Considering the three of them could hardly fit their amples asses on the bar stools, they should be all over him.
He angrily gulped the rest of his scotch. What a waste of a Saturday night. Between his two lost scores and his jerk of a brother, he wasn’t in any mood to try his luck with anyone else, even for a super-easy score like one of these bimbos promised to be with a free drink or two in her system.
He slapped a few bills on the bar and stood, wobbling a bit. Shouldn’t have had that last scotch, he thought as he headed outside, the muggy June air hitting him full in the face. “Heyyyy, pe-peeeople,” he called over his shoulder to the door, “bring your drinksies outshide.” “No von out here at all and all this room to d-d … dance and fu—” He tripped over his own feet, straightened, then stopped still, looking around at the lot packed full with parked cars. Which one mine? he thought, zigzagging a few feet. Ah, there it is.
He staggered toward his car, figuring he’d sleep off the worst of his drunk in the air-conditioning before getting on the road. Tomorrow was his son’s second birthday, and he didn’t need Laurie yelling up a storm about his coming home drunk or with a totaled car.
He felt eyes on him again, that same creepy feeling that someone was watching him. He turned around. No one there. He must be drunker than he thought.
Footstcheps, he thought, the word slurring even in his mind. I definitely hear footstcheps.
And as he neared his car and fumbled for the keys in his pocket, he felt the plunge of a knife in his back.
Then another. And another.
Robert dropped to his knees and put his hands out to break his fall, warm, sticky blood spurting out of his mouth and dribbling down his chin onto his fifty-dollar shirt. Damn, damn, damn—blood didn’t wash out easily. Laurie was going to have a cow over this.
He heard the soft tap of shoes on the pavement and thought of calling for help, but he couldn’t find his voice. And anyway, wasn’t the sound coming from right behind him?
He strained to listen. Yes, someone was right behind him. Whispering something now. Chanting, almost. He tried, but he couldn’t make out the words.
He tried to turn his head to see who it was, but the knife plunged into his back again, low, and then high, and then lower still.
His face hit the hot pavement. And then he felt a hand reach into his pocket, fish around for something. His wallet?
No. His wedding ring.
Damn. Don’t take the ring, you asshole, he thought. Laurie will have a cow when I come home without it. She’ll withhold sex for a month over this one.
Robert closed his eyes. He was suddenly tired. Very tired. He felt the way he did before he was falling asleep, before he was about to slip into a wonderful dream about Pamela Anderson or Nicole Kidman naked.
And then he felt his wedding ring being slipped onto his ring finger. Good, he thought. And thanks, since Laurie always bitches like crazy when I come home with it in my pocket. His excuse that beer made his fingers swell didn’t always appease her.
The warmth was spreading through his entire body. He felt lighter and lighter. And as another and another plunge of the knife split open his back, he finally could make out what the person behind him was whispering: “Cheaters never prosper.”
Chapter One
One week later
Please don’t ask me out on a date, Mia Anderson prayed as she spied Norman Newman, belly jiggling, plodding toward her classroom with a wilted bouquet of lilacs. Please, please, please have gotten the hint after all these months!
Mia ducked back inside the room, staring longingly at the water fountain just across the hall. It was unseasonably hot for late June—eighty-six degrees and equal humidity—and of course, the air conditioner in her classroom had broken that morning. But a cool drink of water meant a hallway of students and faculty saying their goodbyes to each other, and another school year would witness Norman’s final attempt at asking her out.
And what was he doing here, anyway? It was three-fifteen on a Friday, the final day of school, so perhaps he’d come back t
o say his goodbyes, too. Norman had been given special permission to cram all his unused vacation time into the past two weeks in order to care for his mother, who’d had a terrible stroke and was all alone, save Norman. The staff had banded together and taken care of his finals, grading, and all the administrative duties that had to be performed in the final days of school.
The smell of the fragrant purple flowers was getting closer. Why had she ever told that traitorous bunch of students that lilacs were her favorite flowers! The entire school knew that Mr. Newman—voted Most Absent-Minded Teacher per the unofficial school poll (quickly confiscated by the vice principal during lunch period)—had a long-time crush on Ms. Anderson, who’d been voted Favorite Teacher and, to Mia’s embarrassment, Prettiest.
Prettiest. Mia shook her head. If everyone, including Norman, had seen what Mia had looked like before she began teaching at Baywater five years ago, they would have voted her Most in Need of a Makeover. Most Mousiest Brown Hair. Most Blah Brown Eyes. Most Blah Schoolmarm clothes. Most Blah.
After all, she’d been awarded that title by her own husband before she’d changed to please him. Before she’d turned into someone else. Before she’d become someone who could win “prettiest teacher” four years in a row.
Yes, she thought, catching her reflection in the pane of glass on the classroom door. The long blond hair. The pale brown doe eyes enhanced by a light dusting of makeup. The fitted dress and stylish sandals. The hoop earrings and large sterling silver ring. It all adds up to pretty.
A pretty lie.
But tonight, after the makeup came off for good and the Miss Clairol Ash Blonde hair dye was rinsed clean from her hair, Mia would once again be a fresh-scrubbed pony-tailed brunette. Add the clothes she preferred—long, comfortable cotton skirts and pretty blouses, the pearls she’d inherited from her mother her only adornment—and she’d once again be the Mia she used to be. The Mia she was before David Anderson had come into her life.
You don’t see your sister wearing pearls, do you, Mia? her ex-husband had asked every time Mia even looked at her pearls. They’re a little matronly, don’t you think?
Five years ago, she hadn’t had the self-esteem to tell David that no, she most certainly didn’t think pearls were matronly, that in fact the pearls were her most precious possession, that they were all she had left of her mother besides wonderful memories. She’d simply stopped wearing them. She also hadn’t had the self-esteem to tell David that if wanted her to dress like her twin sister, Margot, maybe he should have married Margot.
Five years ago—heck, one year ago—she hadn’t had the confidence to tell David Anderson to go to hell, and it had cost her dearly.
“Afternoon, Mia! Hot enough for you out there?”
Norman Newman. He was hovering in the doorway of her classroom, the wilted lilacs in one hand, a sweating can of iced tea in the other.
At least he was a respite from her thoughts. The last thing she wanted on her mind was her ex-husband.
Problem was, Mia didn’t want Norman on her mind, either. She wished she could feel more kindly about Norman, but the man wasn’t a sweet, “absent-minded” chemistry and physics teacher. Mia hated to think it, to say it, but Norman Newman was a real pain in the butt. Six months ago, when word had spread that Mia’s divorce was final, Norman had begun asking her out immediately—and upon being turned down had continued to ask her out every Monday morning for the following Saturday night. She’d nicely told him she was flattered, but that is would take her a long while to get over her divorce and that she had no interest in dating, now or in the near future, which was every bit the truth. So Norman had asked about the distant future. She’d let him know that, too, was out. And yet every Monday morning, in the faculty dining room, in the office, in the hallway, at the water fountain, in the parking lot, anywhere, Norman Newman would ask her if she would like to have dinner and perhaps see a movie that upcoming Saturday night.
Norman had begun to make her feel the way her ex-husband had. As though her wishes, her thoughts, her words, had absolutely no bearing, no impact. And instead of finding his “crush” sweet, she began to find it unbearable. What a relief his absence had been these past two weeks.
Norman smiled, revealing a mouthful of clear braces. “I was hoping to speak with you alone about—”
“Sorry we’re late, Ms. Anderson! We had so many kids to say goodbye to.”
Relief. The Farley twins, Amy and Anne, came barreling into the classroom behind Norman and rushed for seats in the front row. Only the Farley twins would manage to get detention on the last day of school.
Mia glanced at her watch. “Afternoon, girls—I’ll be with you in a moment.” She turned her attention back to Norman. “Afternoon, Mr. Newman. Yes, it certainly is warm out there. Well, I’d better get these two students’ detention started,” she told him. “I don’t want to stay later on the last day of school, especially in this heat wave, than I have to.” She tidied a stack of very tidy papers on her desk. “How’s your mother?” she added out of politeness.
Norman frowned. He glanced uncomfortably at the girls, then slid his beady-eyed gaze back to Mia. “Mother is recuperating slowly but surely, thank you.” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “I was hoping you might want to go out for a cup of coffee to celebrate the last day. There was something I wanted to ask you.”
Mia had no doubt what he wanted to ask her: out for Saturday night!
“Well, thanks, Mr. Newman, but I’ve got my hands full for the next hour, and then I’ve got quite a busy few weeks ahead, so …”
Norman’s face fell. “In that case, I’d better ask part of what I intended now.”
Amy Farley was stifling a giggle.
“I was wondering,” Norman began, clearing his throat again, “if, uh, you were free this Saturday night, if you’d like to have dinner. There really is something I’d like to discuss with you—off school property.”
Amy burst into laughter. Mia gave the girl a sharp glance, then turned to Norman, whose cheeks were tinged with pink.
Mia hated to reject him in front of the girls, but he’d given her no choice. He had put himself in this position. “Mr. Newman, I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid the answer is no I have a very busy summer ahead of me and doubt I’ll have any free time.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, his expression darkening for just a moment. “Very well, Ms. Anderson,” he said, running a hand through his wiry brown hair. “Perhaps I’ll call you over the summer. I’m not coming back to Baywater in the fall. Mother needs me.” He awkwardly handed her the lilacs and plodded back out the door with the can of iced tea.
He wasn’t coming back in the fall! Mia tried to suppress her joy, given his terrible circumstances, but she couldn’t help the hallelujah! that echoed through her mind.
Amy opened her mouth to speak, but Mia beat her to it. “Not a word, Miss Farley. Your detention began five minutes ago. Am I making myself clear?”
Amy smiled and made a show of clamping her mouth shut. Anne darted a glance at Mia, then stared back down at her folded hands.
Mia let out a deep breath. “Okay, girls. Your detention assignment is to write a five page essay on the importance of paying attention in class—even on the last day.”
Amy groaned; Anne immediately opened her loose-leaf binder and began writing.
The angelic-faced, white-blond twins reminded her so much of herself and Margot, her own identical twin. Amy Farley was mischievous, an instigator, and so charming that she often got herself out of trouble. Anne Farley was cautious and unable to tell a lie, which meant she got herself into the trouble Amy started. Mia’s heart went out to Anne, who sat straight up in her seat, diligently writing her essay, pink tongue sticking out in concentration. And there was Amy, staring at the basketball players. She was probably writing her essay on the importance of paying attention to which boys were the cutest.
When Mia was twelve, she’d been too shy to sneak peeks at the boys who d
id funny things to her stomach. And despite the fact that she and Margot looked exactly alike, well, save for their use of cosmetics, their hairstyles, and clothes, Mia hadn’t been a hit with the boys the way Margot had been her entire life.
I just don’t get Mia, she’d heard girls say all during her school years, while she was behind bathroom stalls or just around the corner from or a table away in the cafeteria. Why would she choose to look like that when she could look like her identical twin? All she had to do is buy the clothes Margot buys and style her hair like Margot’s and put on some makeup, and she’d be one of the most popular girls in school. Why would Mia purposely want to look so plain and dowdy?
Mia’s ex-husband had the same question for Mia when he’d met Margot for the first time.
“Hel-lo, Miss Anderson. Earth to Miss Anderson.”
Mia blinked and suddenly realized that two sets of bright blue eyes were staring at her. “Yes, Amy?”
“How do you spell gorgeous?” Amy asked, staring out the window at the boys, a dreamy expression on her face.
Mia sighed. “Amy. Amy, face forward, please.” The girl dragged her attention to Mia. “What are students supposed to do when they want to know how to spell a word?”
“Um, look it up?” Amy responded, her gaze once again out the window.
“Exactly. You know where the class dictionary is—if you can stop looking at the boys long enough to actually get up and get it.”
Mia wondered if Amy and Anne would soon start to look different, so different that their classmates would forget they were twins, the way Mia and Margot’s classmates had forgotten. If when puberty set in with all its demands, Amy would dress like the teen pop stars on MTV the way Margot had and Anne would hide her personality behind baggy jeans and baggy sweaters and ponytails the way Mia had. If the boys would notice Amy and ignore Anne. If the girls would envy Amy and be disdainful of Anne for giving up what she could so easily have, the very thing they all wanted.
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