Before she could overanalyze the situation, she closed the distance and pressed her lips to Keane’s flesh just above where his slight beard started. His skin was hot, feverishly so, and when he shifted to touch his lips to hers, she felt that heat inside of her. His hands came to her hips, and he pulled her against him while pushing her into the porch railing. His body was a long, muscled line against hers, and Holly longed to see all of him. To touch him without clothing in her way.
Keane pulled lightly on her bottom lip, and her hands snaked up to his shoulders. She needed something to hold on to. Something to keep her from flying away on the sensations Keane’s kiss created. Between nightmares, she’d been dreaming every night about his kiss, his touch, and somehow the reality lived up to the fantasy.
Would his lovemaking be as magical?
Holly knew it would. Still kissing, she moved them toward the porch door. When her fingers closed around the doorknob, however, the phone rang inside the house. The noise was so abrupt, so loud, that Keane immediately straightened to his full height and dropped his hands from her waist. She instantly felt lost.
The phone rang again, and she was prepared to not answer it.
“Go ahead,” Keane said. He’d taken several steps back now, his eyes hardening to blue ice.
“The machine can get it.” She made a move to slide her hands up his chest, but he caught her wrists.
“Please get the phone, Holly. We can’t do this.” He set her hands by her sides and walked to the porch swing. He sat, his body facing away slightly.
“Why can’t we? I want you, Keane. Don’t you want me?” Holly didn’t like the begging in her voice.
Keane didn’t say anything as the phone rang inside. When he swiveled around to face her, his eyes were glacial.
“No.” His voice was nothing but a rasp. He cleared his throat. “No, I don’t want you.”
Holly yanked open the door and ran into the house before the tears spilled. Her mother’s voice on the answering machine filled the kitchen. She was saying something about wanting to meet Holly and Keane for dinner.
Dinner. Keane doesn’t eat dinner. He doesn’t eat, drink, or want to make love to me.
That about covered it.
She stopped in her bathroom to brush her teeth and fix her tear-destroyed makeup. She gathered her papers and books from the coffee table where she had been working last night and jammed it all into her school bag. She marched out the front door without so much as a glance to the back porch. He was still out there and as far as she was concerned he could stay out there forever.
In her car, she took a few deep breaths while her fingers strangled the steering wheel. A little kissing and some general groping had totally unraveled her control.
Sweet Mary, you’re desperate.
Holly slapped her cheek as if to wake herself from such stupidity. Poking the ignition with her key, she started her car and backed out of the driveway like a lunatic. Her tires churned up dirt as the car reversed. Throwing the car into drive, she wasn’t sure what she was so mad about. Kissing Keane was foolish. He’d made it clear at the beach that he didn’t want her and now he’d said the words.
Why did his kiss make it seem otherwise?
As soon as his lips had found hers, everything had been…right. As if the pieces of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into place. As if the empty places inside Holly’s soul had been filled to overflowing. Why hadn’t Keane felt the same magic? Why was she the only one?
She pulled onto the main road and drove the ten minutes to her school in total silence. Usually she blared the radio to wake her up on the ride into work, but she didn’t need that today. After having Keane’s lips on hers, she had trouble imagining ever being tired again.
Turning into the parking lot behind the school, she was surprised to find it empty. Most mornings she had to struggle for a spot that wouldn’t block the delivery trucks that used the back door of the school to unload. She glanced to the clock on her dashboard and understood the availability of parking spaces. 7:00 a.m. School didn’t officially start until 8:20 a.m. In her haste to get the hell away from Keane, Holly had left an entire hour earlier than usual.
“Well, you’re here now, moron. May as well make use of the time.”
She hauled her bag out of the passenger seat and, key in hand, approached the side door all the teachers used. As she unlocked the door, a rustling in the woods behind the school caught her attention. She stepped back and peered into the dense trees. A streak of neon yellow whizzed by, a child’s howl following it.
Holly dropped her schoolbag by the door and ran toward the sound. About fifty yards into the woods, she found a little boy, probably about second grade, who was crying and holding his knee.
“What happened?” she kneeled beside the boy.
He snapped his head up and skittered away from her.
“Don’t be afraid. Do you go to this school?” She pointed over her shoulder where the dim outline of the school could still be seen. The boy nodded. “Okay, okay. I’m Miss Brimmer. I teach fifth grade. You’ve seen me before, right?”
The boy squinted his eyes and nodded again.
“What’s your name?”
“Logan Saphy.”
“What happened that made you scream, Logan? Did you hurt yourself?” Holly motioned to his hands still clutching at his knee.
“Someone was chasing me and I fell.” Logan let her pull his hands from his knee. A small gouge, nothing major.
“Who was chasing you? A friend?” She scanned the woods. Something thrashed through the brush in the distance to her right.
Logan shook his head. “No, it was a man.”
Warning bells blared in her skull as an image of the wanted Alan Hendrick flashed in HD clarity in her mind. “Do you live around here?” She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and turned it on.
“Down the street with Gran.”
“Can you walk?”
Logan got to his feet and nodded.
“C’mon. I’ll take you home.”
Holly held out her hand, but Logan just stared at it. “But it’s almost time for school, and Miss Pinni promised I could use the tambourine today in music class.”
She smiled. “Is that why you’re at school so early, Logan?
“Yep. I couldn’t wait to play the tambourine. Gran didn’t even see me leave the house.”
“I see. Well, I’m sure the tambourine will be waiting for you. I think you need to make a quick stop home first and get that knee cleaned up.”
With a glance at the spot of dripping blood on his knee, Logan took Holly’s hand. As they walked, she dialed 911 and reported the description of the man Logan had given her. A description matching the wanted poster of Hendrick.
After delivering Logan to his grandmother and explaining the situation, Holly walked back to school. The parking lot was littered with police cars and as soon as she approached, a uniformed officer walked over to her.
“Are you Miss Holly Brimmer?” he asked, glancing down at the notebook in his hand.
“Yes.” She sent a wary glance to the woods. About ten police officers wearing bulletproof vests trampled through the leaves, and those were just the ones she could see. Judging from the number of cars in the lot, she guessed at least ten more officers were searching deeper in the woods. A full body shudder rippled through her, and the officer put a hand on her arm.
“If Hendrick is still in there, they’ll find him,” he said.
Holly nodded, but had an overwhelming urge to drive home and…drive home and what? Ask Keane to protect her? Ask him to hold her?
Fat chance.
She let out a huff, annoyed for thinking of Keane when she was a bit scared. She couldn’t depend on him. He wanted nothing to do with her. He’d be gone the moment she did something important. He didn’t care what happened to her.
“I’m Officer Jensen McDonahue. Is the boy home now?”
Holly focused on the officer’s face. He was about her age with red hair almost the same color as hers. His blue eyes were surrounded by freckles and though he had an innocent look, Holly was sure he’d seen some action. Something in the set of his mouth told her he’d been hot on the trail of bastards like Hendrick many times before.
“Yes, I took Logan home to his grandmother. She was going to bandage his scraped knee and, on Logan’s insistence, drop him off here so he wouldn’t miss music class.”
Officer McDonahue laughed. “Music class used to be my favorite too. It’s where I fell in love with the piano.” He shrugged and wiggled his notebook. “Can I have a number where I can reach you if we need to ask further questions?”
She gave him her cell phone, school, and home numbers. As he walked away, the principal pulled into the lot. She marched over to Holly.
“Holly, did you see him?” Mrs. Veraca threw a death glare toward the woods. The police should let the principal loose in there. Holly had seen Mrs. Veraca handle students who made poor choices in school. Hendrick wouldn’t stand a chance in her office.
“No, I didn’t see him,” Holly said. “Logan Saphy did.”
“Oh, the poor dear.” Mrs. Veraca rubbed her temples.
Holly laid a hand on the principal’s shoulder. “The important thing is that Hendrick didn’t get his hands on Logan. The boy screamed and ran like the wind. We’ll have to thank Mr. Jarmon for whipping these kids into shape in gym class.”
Mrs. Veraca’s lips turned up for a brief moment, and Holly was happy to have lightened the mood a little. “It’s a good thing you were here. What a disaster this could have been.” The principal tossed one more glance to the woods. “C’mon. It’s too late to cancel school so the superintendent asked for a police guard until Hendrick is caught. I assume many parents are going to have something to say about this.” She rubbed her temples again.
“Remember when all we had to do was teach the children?” Holly said.
“I know. I taught in poor cities where conditions were bad,” Mrs. Veraca said. “I moved here because it seemed like utopia. I guess there is no such thing anymore.” Her shoulders lowered slightly as she walked toward the school.
Holly followed, but a part of her hoped utopia did exist. Maybe not for her, but for someone.
Chapter Fifteen
Keane finally got up from the porch swing and went into the house. Holly’s tires had peeled out of the driveway at least an hour ago, but he hadn’t had the energy to move.
Why am I so tired all of a sudden?
He was never tired. Never had the urge to crawl into bed and sleep, but today he felt like doing exactly that. He never got sick so it couldn’t be that he was coming down with something. He never ate so he wasn’t weak from lack of nutrition.
What the hell is my problem?
Inside the house, the scent of lilacs hit him again, and he stopped in the kitchen. Something was terribly wrong, and yet, at the same time, a wave of hope crashed over him. If he could suddenly smell, if he were actually experiencing some form of fatigue, what other purely human abilities might come back to him? And did he want them to?
Pushing the smell of lilacs—of Holly—out of his mind, he headed for the couch in the living room. Some mindless television watching would keep him from thinking too much.
He settled into the cushions, and the first thing to pop into his mind was Holly. How she had been sleeping in the spot where he now sat. How she’d looked so soft and angelic in her slumber.
“Pull it together, man.” He shook his head and turned on the television. He bolted upright when the very person he was trying to purge himself of appeared on the screen.
“I’m here live with Miss Holly Brimmer, fifth grade teacher at Apple Hill Elementary School,”
a reporter said.
“You rescued a child being pursued by a man fitting the description of Alan Hendrick, known pedophile. Is that right, Miss Brimmer?”
The camera zoomed in on Holly’s beautiful face. Something hot stirred inside him at the sight of her.
“Rescued is a bit strong. I merely heard the child scream in the woods and went to check it out.”
Holly gestured behind her and the camera followed to show the wooded area hugging the back of the school.
“Not everyone would have checked it out,”
the reporter said.
“Anyone who works with children for a living would have,”
Holly replied.
“It’s in our nature to protect the students.”
She offered a humble shrug, and Keane grumbled when he realized he’d slid off the couch and crawled closer to the television, hypnotized by her face.
“Admit it, fool. You want Holly.”
With that realization, a scorching flash of anger zipped through him. Hendrick was no doubt in those woods behind her school this morning terrorizing that child. Holly and Hendrick literally could have stepped on the same leaves, passed by the same trees and boulders, breathed the same air.
Keane rose to his feet and paced in the living room. He didn’t hear the rest of the newscast as his fury built. Holly could have been seriously hurt or worse helping that child. Hendrick was a pedophile, but Keane knew enough about scumbags to make the leap into believing Hendrick would have targeted Holly as quickly as a child. She was a grown woman—Keane’s reaction to her femininity was evidence of that—but she had a child-like wonder in her green eyes all the time. A sick jackass like Hendrick wouldn’t be able to resist.
The more he thought about this, the more his rage grew. He hadn’t been this angry in a while. If something happened to Holly, he was sure he’d lose the control he’d spent centuries perfecting. A control that was necessary for him to do his abra cadavering and keep a low profile.
He wasn’t the least bit sleepy now as thoughts pinballed around in his head. Holly needed protection, but he couldn’t be the one to provide it during the day. The sunlight chased him away into the shadows. He’d have to enlist the help of someone in guarding her while she was out and about with the sunshine.
At night, however, when she mostly stayed at home, Keane could keep a tight watch on her. He’d have to quit the post office job, but he had enough cash stashed in various places to see him through.