“Yes, it is.” Now he looked amused
and
interested. “I thought you were a scientist, not a historian.”
“Oh, I learned that from watching Kirk Douglas movies.”
“I’ve seen
The Vikings
. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in there about the world tree. Are you a secret historian, as well as a secret sci-fi expert, in your spare time?”
Grace nodded at Mia, who was trying desperately to listen in without looking like she was listening in. Grace raised her voice. “She’s a history teacher with a Viking fetish. She bores the kids—and me—rigid with tales of raiding Northmen and their horned helmets and blood eagles.”
“The kids like it,” Mia said defensively.
Grace snorted. “Only because they get to misspell King Cnut.”
“Grace!” Mia sent Ash a suitably embarrassed look.
He just threw his head back and laughed out loud, showing even white teeth. His eyes, when he looked back at Grace, crinkled at the edges as he surveyed her with amusement and admiration. She tried not to stare at him. God, he was so sexy she could completely understand why women self-combusted around him. But she was not going to be one of those women. She’d promised herself she was never going to fall for a lunatic again. And a man who gave up a career as a doctor to talk to deceased people quite obviously deserved his own padded cell and straitjacket.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway. Back to Jodi.”
His eyes were still amused. “I’m guessing you’re about to tell me she’s not a natural scientist.”
Grace looked at the exam paper lying on the top of the pile to her left. “Let’s just say she stated the three types of blood vessels were, and I quote: ‘arteries, vanes’—as in weather—‘and caterpillars’.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Ah.”
“Actually, she’s not the worst.” Grace picked up another paper. “This is from a year eleven student—year eleven! ‘A vacuum is a large, empty space where the Pope lives.’”
Ash laughed again. “These must make you wonder why on earth you chose this profession.”
“It does rather make one want to stick one’s head in the oven.” She put down the paper and leaned back with a sigh. “But seriously, it’s not just her science work that concerns me. I’m sure you’re aware that I’m her form teacher as well as her science teacher, and I have to check the reports from all her subjects.” She straightened the register as she thought how to word what she wanted to say. Teachers were supposed to forward any concerns they had about students’ welfare and wellbeing to the Guidance Department. But as a form teacher, she felt she had some responsibility toward the kids in her class, and besides, she’d been wrong about the guy. Obviously he was worried enough about Jodi to come to the parents’ evening. He deserved to know any concerns she had about her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I doubt you’re going to tell me anything I don’t already know.”
She raised her eyes, surprised he’d realised she was troubled. He gave her a little smile. She picked up her pen and turned it in her fingers as she said, “I get the feeling Jodi’s unhappy here. She’s clearly an able student, but she lacks concentration and generally seems distracted and…I don’t know, sad, maybe. She’s year ten, so this is an important age for her. Intelligent kids can so easily go off the rails. It’s imperative they learn a sense of self-discipline and focus in the year leading up to their NCEA exams.”
“You’re perfectly right,” he said, looking down and scratching at a mark on his jeans with his thumb.
“Does she have friends at the school?”
He shrugged. “Some.” He sighed. “We moved to Wellington from Auckland at the beginning of the year, because she’d had trouble in her previous school.”
“Trouble?”
Leaning back in his chair, he linked his fingers and studied her for a moment. She had the feeling he was trying to decipher how she would react to whatever he was about to tell her. For a moment he seemed to look right through her, and she got the feeling he wasn’t actually seeing her at all, almost as if he were listening to something. Or someone. Was he pretending to listen to ghostly voices? She frowned.
He blinked and refocused on her, and said, “She gets teased because of what I do.”
“Ah.”
He waited for a moment, his lips curving. “You’re not going to ask me what my job is?”
“I know what—”
Damn it
. She’d admitted she’d known who he was when she first saw him. How was she going to get out of that one?
Chapter Two
“Sorry,” she said grudgingly. “I’m tired.”
He gave a small laugh and shrugged. “I’m used to all sorts of reactions when people find out what I do.”
“I can imagine,” she said wryly. “And Jodi’s been bullied because of it?”
“Quite severely. The school did what they could, but kids can be cruel.”
“Oh, tell me about it.” She’d seen her fair share of cruelty in the classroom. She’d adopted a zero-tolerance policy on bullying, but it was difficult to enforce once the bell went. “Has she said if the same thing is happening here?”
“Not in so many words.”
“She won’t talk to you about it?”
He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I do my best, but…it’s difficult.”
Grace nodded. She’d seen his despair mirrored many times in parents before, when they couldn’t communicate with their children. “Do you mind me asking…how long ago did your wife die?”
He linked his fingers again, his blue eyes studying her. “Three years. But we’d got divorced two years before that.”
“Does Jodi have a close female to talk to? Does she get on with your partner?”
He said nothing for a moment. Beside her, Mia coughed, and Grace saw his gaze slide across to her, then back. Amusement filled his eyes, and she realised what he thought she was trying to find out.
“Oh for goodness’ sake,” she snapped. “If I’d wanted to know if you were single, I’d have asked you outright.”
He laughed. “You really have a habit of saying what you’re thinking, don’t you?”
“It’s a tic,” said Mia. “It’s a bit like Tourette’s, only without the swearing.”
“Go to the car,” Grace instructed her hotly. “Go on. I’ll be out when I’m finished.”
Mia stuck out her tongue but picked up her laptop. Ash smiled and nodded to her as she walked away, turning his amused gaze back to Grace.
“I really wasn’t asking,” she said, embarrassed now at her outspokenness. “Mia was right—I have this problem where I seem to have no inner vetting device. My mouth says what it wants, and it bypasses my brain completely.”
“It’s okay. I believe you.”
“It’s not that you’re not gorgeous or anything,” she continued hastily, afraid she’d hurt his feelings. “I’m just trying to steer clear of dating anyone who’s vaguely got a screw loose.”
Oh dear Lord.
His face was a picture.
She put her head in her hands and counted to ten.
I’m going to get sacked. He’s going to report me to Professor Michaels and I’ll be court martialled. Just pretend it didn’t happen. Perhaps he’ll think he imagined it.
She lowered her hands. “Anyway…”
“I’m single,” he said. His right hand played with her nameplate, but his gaze was on hers.
“I really didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
His eyes were steady. He was informing her that Jodi didn’t have a woman at home she could talk to. He was just answering her question—that was all. There was no hidden meaning behind it.
Grace pushed her glasses up her nose and cleared her throat. “It’s quite common for teenagers to feel they can’t talk to their parents, Mr. Rutherford. The important thing is that she’s aware there are other avenues available if she needs them. I can ask our Guidance Department to call her in for an introduction. She may not want to talk, but at least the opportunity is there, and they’re completely confidential.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“Please also make it clear to her she can come and talk to me at any time. I always state at the beginning of the year I have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, and my door is always open.”
“She does like you. I think your lessons are her second favourite.” He smiled.
“What’s her favourite subject?”
“Art. She’s an excellent artist. She spends hours in her room drawing and painting.” He sighed. “I’d much rather she be good at something solid like maths or science and get a decent profession behind her, but I’m afraid I didn’t set a very good example where sensible career choices are involved. I can hardly ask her to do what I didn’t—that would be hypocritical.”
Grace studied him curiously. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected from a doctor-turned-medium. She’d thought he’d be melodramatic, artsy-fartsy and arrogant, but he didn’t seem like that at all. He looked more like a doctor, to be perfectly honest—a very tall, sexy, good-looking doctor. No doubt his female patients had queued up at his surgery to get their internals carried out.
“What on earth made you decide to give up your practice for something so…peculiar?” Again, the words were out before she could stop them and he raised an eyebrow. She backtracked. “I mean…it must have been a difficult decision, when you ran a successful surgery, to decide to jack it all in and become a con-artist.” There was a second of silence. “Oh jeez. I’m doing well tonight.”
“I gather from your words that you don’t believe in psychic abilities?”
She laughed. “I’m a scientist, Mr. Rutherford. I don’t see how anyone who has even a semblance of a grasp of the way the forces of nature work could believe in something so…”
He raised an eyebrow and waited for the insult.
“…unusual,” she managed lamely.
He smiled. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
“Shakespeare wasn’t a scientist.”
“No, that’s true.”
She frowned. How could she put this tactfully? “Have you thought about giving it up? The medium thing? And being a doctor again? If it would make Jodi happier?”
He tipped his head. “It wasn’t an easy decision to do what I’ve done. It was something that took years to come to fruition, and I fought it all the way. You don’t think I’d rather be a doctor? Save my daughter all the hassle? Have a nice, normal life? But eventually I felt I had to be true to myself. And
that’s
what I’d like to give to Jodi—the knowledge that even though it may not be easy, you have to follow your heart.”
His deep voice was captivating, his eyes mesmerising. She blinked and tried to shake off the spell. “That sounds very noble. But…” She bit her lip, trying hard to phrase the question before it came out of her mouth.
“Go on,” he prompted, amused again. “You can say it. I guarantee I’ve heard worse.”
“Do you really think you can talk to dead people?” She couldn’t keep the incredulousness out of her voice.
He turned her nameplate around in his hands. “I’d be a pretty crap medium if I didn’t.”
They studied each other for a moment. He seemed calm and not at all worried by her scepticism. Presumably, he was used to it. “I don’t get it,” she admitted. “You seem so normal.”
“As opposed to…”
“You don’t appear delusional.”
He laughed. “Is that what you think mediums are? Delusional con-artists? We’re either kidding ourselves or out to defraud the public?”
“Pretty much. And since you don’t appear delusional…”
“You think I take advantage of the bereaved, the weak-willed and the emotionally needy. You think I’m skilled at noting small details, or that I do research on people I’m going to read, and I use those details to fool them into thinking I’ve found out intimate things about them. You believe I’m manipulative at best, cruel, heartless and conniving at worst.” His eyes glittered. “You don’t have a very good opinion of me, do you, Miss Fox?”
He’d pretty much summarised what had been going through her head. How had he managed to turn it around so it sounded as if she were so mean? “I don’t know you. You seem like a nice man. I’m sure you were a very good doctor. But I don’t believe in an afterlife, and I certainly don’t believe in a person’s ability to talk to people on the ‘other side’. And therefore, in my head, you must either be delusional or a charlatan.”
They studied each other again. He looked a little sad.
Good Lord
. How many times could she insult the man in one night? He’d only come in to talk about his daughter.
She looked down and closed her register. “I’m sorry. As I said, I’m very tired, and you caught me on a bad evening. What you do with your life is obviously no business of mine, and I’m sorry I insulted you. You seem like a very nice man, and you quite clearly love your daughter and want her to be happy. Jodi is my only concern—the only thing I can do anything about. I will keep an eye out for her in class and around the school, and I’ll try to help her a bit more with her classwork.”
He put the nameplate down and sat forward, elbows on knees. “Actually, I have a proposition to put to you.”
She blinked. “Oh?”
“I’m looking for someone to give Jodi extra tuition in the basics—English, maths and science. A few hours a week and I’ll pay well.” He named a figure, which was generous without being ostentatious. Grace’s eyebrows lifted. “I want someone I know will keep her grounded, someone she’ll trust, who’ll try to help keep her on track.” He studied her. “Would you like to help? No pressure. I’ll completely understand if you say no.”