Authors: Dallas Schulze
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Holly rubbed her fingers surreptitiously along the top of her thigh. The hasty massage did little to ease the aching muscles. She glanced at the clock and gave a sigh. Another half hour and she could go home and sink into a tub of steaming hot water. Then she was going to kill Maryann.
She looked out over the quiet classroom and her wide mouth tilted in a smile. Twenty studious little faces were bent over twenty battered desks, with small fists clenched around thick crayons, intent upon creating self-portraits.
It was impossible for her to feel blase about the world when all around her children were just discovering all its wonders. The only thing she'd rather be doing was raising her own children, but that was going to have to wait until she found a man with whom she wanted to share her life.
She doodled aimlessly on a sheet of paper. Her other hand rubbed unconsciously at her aching muscles. Usually she enjoyed her time in the classroom. She shifted and stifled a grimace of pain as her muscles protested. Yes, she was definitely going to have to kill Maryann.
On the other hand, she couldn't entirely blame her roommate for her current discomfort. Maryann had only suggested that Holly take up running; she hadn't dragged her out of the house and forced her to pant and puff her way around the block. Still, Maryann had caught her at a vulnerable moment. She knew that Holly had been restless lately.
Perhaps she wouldn't actually kill her, just maim her a bit. Maryann insisted that it had been less than a mile but Holly couldn't believe that. It was impossible to become a physical wreck after running less than a mile.
She glanced at the clock again. Twenty more minutes. The days had been getting longer for the past month, ever since that ridiculous trip to Tijuana. Damn! Why couldn't she just put that whole foolish incident out of her mind? It was over a month now and she still thought of it at odd moments. It even haunted her dreams.
Holly felt her cheeks grow warm. He had no business intruding on her sleep like that. And she had no business remembering him as vividly as she did. She was not going to think about it anymore. She made the same promise to herself every day, and one of these days, it was going to come true.
It was over half an hour before she was able to turn the light off. Her small charges had gone home to cookies and milk, and the room had been tidied. She bent to pick up her tote bag and groaned softly as she straightened. Damn. What was wrong with being comfortably out of shape? Where was it written that everyone should have a rock-hard body and the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound? She would settle for being able to get from one place to another at a brisk walk. The idea of dragging her sleepy body through the streets at dawn, all in the name of being fit, was ridiculous and painful,
It was raining—a damp, depressing drizzle. Holly stared across the parking lot at her car. Why hadn't she thought to bring an umbrella? Because if she had, it wouldn't have rained. With a resigned sigh, she left the shelter of the brick school building and picked her way through the puddles in the parking lot.
She was damp and chilled when-she reached the car. Her cold fingers struggled for a moment with the key before the lock yielded and she was able to slide into the car. She murmured a soft plea as she turned the key in the ignition. The ten-year-old Fiat had been a graduation present from her parents and she dearly loved the car, but there was no denying that Baby could be very temperamental, especially when it was cold and wet. Holly had never gathered the necessary courage to actually tackle the intimidating mass of wires and mysterious parts that resided under the hood. Besides, no matter what people told her, she was convinced that the reason Baby balked was simply that she hated the rain.
Today was one of those days. Holly coaxed and pleaded to no avail. The engine turned over with a sullen whine but it refused to catch. She finally gave up and sat staring at the instrument panel in frustration. There was no sense in calling home. Maryann was working the evening shift at the hospital this week. Everyone else Holly could think of was either working or out of town. A glance outside the window told her that it was still raining and the heavy cloud cover was blocking out the sunlight.
She jerked her head around, startled, as someone tapped on her window. She blinked several times to clear her vision, convinced that she was hallucinating. The last time she had seen that man, he had been standing in the hot sun in an alley in Tijuana. He tapped on the window again, gesturing to her to roll it down. She obliged dazedly, still unable to believe her eyes.
He rested one hand on the top of the door, leaning down to meet her astonished eyes. A battered canvas hat was pulled down over his forehead, shielding his face from the worst of the rain. The rakish angle as it tipped down gave him the look of a movie adventurer. Holly was not surprised that she had no trouble envisioning his swinging across jungle chasms and fording snake-infested swamps.
"Hi. Remember me?" His voice was the same soft drawl and the eyes that had burned into hers in fantasy now stared at her in reality.
She swallowed and nodded her head. Yes, she remembered him. Even without the spangled suit, he was unmistakable. Maybe it was the running yesterday that had caused this. She had never heard of anyone hallucinating after attempting to exercise but there was a first time for everything.
His dark mustache tilted up and she caught the gleam of white teeth. "Having car trouble?"
"Yes." She had to clear her throat to get the word out. She resisted the urge to touch his strong jaw and thereby confirm his presence.
His smile deepened and Holly thought she could see a twinkle in his cerulean eyes. "Do you have any idea what's wrong with it?"
"It?"
"Your car," he reminded her softly. "Do you know what's wrong with your car?"
She shook her head, forcing her paralyzed brain to function again. "Baby doesn't like rain. She always refuses to start when it's wet."
He shivered as a cold breeze blew the rain in under the brim of his hat. "I can't say I blame Baby. Listen, I might be able to fix it, but quite frankly, the idea of peering under the hood in the dark and rain doesn't sound too appealing. My car is parked just across the street. I could give you a lift home if you'd like."
Holly hesitated. Common sense told her that this was insane. She knew almost nothing about him and what she did know definitely wouldn't serve to nominate him to the PTA board. Her dark eyes studied his face uncertainly. There was something different about that face, but she couldn't quite place what it was.
His smile deepened appealingly as he sensed her uncertainty. "I can't give you a written recommendation but my mother thinks I'm relatively harmless."
She made up her mind with customary abruptness. "I'd appreciate a ride." She grabbed her purse and tote bag from the passenger seat and swung her slim legs out as he opened the door for her.
"Don't you have a coat or an umbrella?" Holly shook her head and then almost jumped out of her skin when he draped his coat around her shoulders. It was a leather aviator jacket, well worn and smelling of a dark woodsy cologne that made her nose twitch. Before she could form a coherent protest, his arm circled her shoulders and he was hustling her across the parking lot.
His warm, vital presence was almost too much to absorb. She felt surrounded by him—the warm comfort of his jacket draping her body, the heavy weight of his arm around her shoulders, his tall frame sheltering her from the soft rain.
He unlocked the door of a dark sedan and she sank gratefully into the cozy warmth.
She turned to look at him as his long legs slid beneath the steering wheel. He started the car but he didn't immediately put it into gear. Instead, he stretched his arm along the back of the seat, his fingers resting mere inches away from her cheek. He tugged his hat off, dropped it onto the seat between them and ran his fingers through his flattened hair.
Holly's eyes flickered over the blue cotton shirt and faded jeans, noting the scuffed boots that covered his feet before she glanced up into his face again. She wondered if this was haute couture in casual wear for off-duty pimps. If he had been appealing in the gaudy suit, he was devastating—too devastating—in the worn clothing he now wore. Her heart skipped a beat in response to the lazy charm of his smile.
"How did you know where I worked?" She flushed as soon as the words were out. What if it was just an incredible coincidence that he happened to show up outside her school?
His smile deepened. "There aren't all that many women named Holly Reynolds who teach school in L.A."
"I didn't tell you I was a teacher."
"You mentioned your students. It wasn't hard to interpret that to mean that you were a teacher."
Her brows drew together and her forehead wrinkled as she considered this. Her toes curled inside her soft pumps, responding to the warm air from the heater. Her name and the fact that she might be a teacher didn't sound like much of a clue to her, not enough of a clue to track someone down in a city the size of L.A. Her frown deepened. Maybe it would be safer not to inquire about his methods.
Holly cleared her throat and gave him a tentative smile. "It seems as if you always turn up just in time to rescue me,
Mr___umm..." She let the sentence trail off. She didn't know his last name and she wasn't sure she wanted to use his first name. That implied an intimacy her common sense urged her to avoid.
"Donahue. My friends call me Mac, short for Mackenzie."
"I don't know that we're friends," she told him bluntly, wanting to make her feelings clear from the start.
"Maybe not yet, but I hope we will be."
Holly dropped her eyes away from that compelling gaze and studied the pale pink polish on her nails, comparing it to the warm gray of her wool skirt. She might be impulsive, but not even Maryann could accuse her of being completely devoid of sense. The man who sat next to her looked like an all-American boy right now, but ail-American boys did not hang out in sleazy Tijuana bars wearing white spangled suits and getting into brawls. She could overlook the brawl. After all, he had been coming to her rescue, but there was still the question of what he had been doing there in the first place. She was not going to get involved with someone that she strongly suspected of being a pimp.
Holly cleared her throat again. "I don't think we will get to be friends. I mean, I appreciate your help and all that, but I don't think I'd cope too well with your line of work. I'm not making any judgments or anything," she added hastily, "because I think everybody has a right to do whatever makes him happy." She trailed off uncertainly, wondering how anyone could be happy selling someone else's body. She shook the thought away and continued, wishing that she hadn't rolled her car window down, wishing even more that she'd never gone to that stupid bar in the first place.
"The problem is, I'd be uncomfortable and I'd make you uncomfortable, so I think maybe I'll just walk home, but thank you very much for the offer of a lift." She rushed the end of the sentence out, feeling acutely uncomfortable in the face of his continued silence.
She gave a startled gasp as his hand came out to catch her shoulder when she tried to reach for the door handle. The eyes she turned to him were wide, with a hint of fear in their depths.
He gave her an appealing smile. "Look. I think you've got the wrong idea about what I do for a living."
"I don't want to know any details," she assured him hastily.
"You don't understand, Holly." Despite her wariness, hearing her name on his lips sent a shiver of awareness through her. "The way I was dressed down in Tijuana was part of my job."
"I understand," she told him. "Believe me, I understand. I'm not making any judgments but I..."
He interrupted her with a hint of exasperation lacing his deep tones. "I'm a cop, Holly."
"A cop?" she exclaimed, her mouth hanging slightly open until she shut it with a snap.
He nodded. "I was working on a case in Tijuana. I could hardly go into that area wearing a uniform."
"A cop?" Her voice rose to a squeak as she stared at him. She giggled. "A real live honest-to-goodness, you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent cop?" She began to laugh. "I don't believe this. Do you have any idea how guilty I felt every time I thought of you? I couldn't believe I was actually attracted to some sleazy—" She broke off, feeling a burning tide of red surge into her face.
Why didn't she just tell the man that he'd been the main attraction in several dreams that would have been banned in Sweden? When was she going to learn to think before she spoke?
His soft laugh held pleasure but no mockery. This time when his hand slipped to rest lightly on her shoulder, Holly didn't stiffen. Her mouth curled up in reluctant amusement. It was funny, even if the joke was on her. Besides, the fact that he had gone to the trouble of finding her was evidence that the attraction was not only on her side.
"Sleazy?" he murmured teasingly. "I thought I looked rather stylish."
"You didn't look like the kind of a guy that a woman takes home to meet her mother. Are you really a cop?" She was unaware of how much her tone revealed. She wanted to believe he was telling her the truth, wanted an excuse to like him.
"Scout's honor. I'm really a cop."
Holly let herself relax completely, returning his smile with a wide dimpled grin, her brown eyes sparkling with relief.