Just Like a Man (12 page)

He nodded. "Oh, yeah. Spoiled me rotten, only child that I was. Like Alex. Not that he's spoiled, I mean. Well, not too bad. Is your family close by?" he asked quickly, and somehow she sensed that he was the one trying to change the subject this time.

"Ah, no," she said. "No. My parents, both of them—they're still married," she lied effortlessly, because lying about her parents had always been effortless to her on account of the truth would have been so much harder to tell. "They live in Kansas. Where I grew up."

She said that because Kansas had always been her idea of the perfect place to live, centered as it was at the heart of the nation. Nothing terrible ever happened in Kansas. It was where amber grain waved. It was home to Dorothy, the place she had always insisted there was no place like. Hannah would have loved to have grown up in Kansas and be able to tell people that was where she was from. So that was the lie she'd always chosen to tell other people, too. And now Michael. Because she really didn't see any harm in telling lies like those. Who would be hurt by them? What harm could they do?

"Is that where your great-aunt and cousin are?"

"Uh, Chloe is there, yeah," she said. Because that was the history she had chosen for herself and her favorite cousin. After all, in order to be that close, they would have had to grow up together. "But Auntie lives in Minnesota. I used to spend my summers with her." Which was what Hannah had always pretended when she was a child. And that was what she'd told the kids at school on the last day. That the reason she wouldn't be able to see any of them over the summer was because she'd be visiting her great-aunt in Minnesota. That sounded a lot better than telling them it was because her father would be fleecing their families and then leaving town.

"And Patsy?"

"Oh, Patsy," she said, warming now to the subject, thanks to the tongue-loosening—and truth-loosening—Chianti. And also thanks to the fact that Michael seemed to be falling for her story hook, line, and sinker. And she tried not to think about how that was probably because, in some ways, as hard as she'd tried to escape her legacy, maybe she really was her father's daughter, after all. "Patsy lives in New Mexico now. But she moves around a lot. She's married to a pilot," Hannah said, having invented a dashing aviator husband for Patsy. She figured it was the least she could do for the imaginary best friend who had stood by her for so many years. "They have four kids," she added. "All blond, like Patsy. They all look exactly like her. It's amazing."

"What's amazing is that you're still friends with someone from that long ago."

"Mm," Hannah said, telling herself the response did
not
come out sounding strained, even strangled. "You don't have any friends you've kept since childhood?" she asked, finding it strange that he would be amazed by such a thing. After all, from what she had gathered about him and Alex, they seemed to have had reasonably normal, secure, uneventful lives, both of them.

His mouth, which only moments ago had been curved into such an amiable smile, flattened into a grim line. "No," he said.

"Oh." She wondered why he didn't make some up, then. Oh, well. Different strokes and all that.

"So you don't have any brothers or sisters?" Michael asked.

She shook her head. "No. My mother always told me that she and my dad were just so enamored of me after I was born that they couldn't imagine creating a second one as good."

After that, Michael suddenly seemed to grow agitated. "Look," he said, the word coming out clipped and cool, "I really don't want to intrude. We can talk about Alex some other time. I'll call you at school. Tomorrow. During the day."

"O-okay," Hannah stammered, unprepared for his sudden, but very real this time, withdrawal.

She was even less prepared for the way he abruptly spun on his heel and made his way back to the front door. Almost as an afterthought, he tossed a quick, indifferent '"Bye" over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

Almost as if he'd never been there at all.

Hannah looked at the glass of wine in her hand—her third, granted, but the glass was small, and she'd barely touched it—and set it gingerly on the table. Chianti had never made her hallucinate before, but she had been working harder than usual the past month or so, thanks to it being the beginning of the school year. Yes, of course, that's what Michael Sawyer must have been—a hallucination. Because he'd been so handsome, and so nice, and he'd felt so comfortable here in her home. She must have just conjured him up from thin air. That could be the only explanation.

It had to be. Because as Hannah listened for the sound of a car engine, it never materialized. And how could he have assumed it was her birthday, just because he'd seen a little candlelight flickering in the dining room, a not at all unusual place to find candlelight flickering? If Michael Sawyer had indeed been in her home, he must have traveled there by magic carpet. Yes, that must be it. Magic.

Because magic was the way he'd made her feel.

Out in the van, Michael fired up his laptop and pulled up the files he'd been sent on Hannah Frost. He'd learned a lot in her house that he hadn't known before, in spite of the fact that he had only been making chitchat because he'd wanted to be polite—and, yes, lull her into a false sense of security. Or, rather, just a sense of security. There had been nothing false about it.

What
had
been false were some of the relatives she claimed had sent her gifts. As had been the entire personal history she'd cited for herself.

Because Michael knew, thanks to the handiwork of OPUS, that Hannah's only living relatives were her parents—and they had divorced when she was a small child-—and that she'd lived just about everywhere
but
Kansas. Hell, if he'd paid closer attention, he would have realized in advance that today was her birthday, too. She was thirty-six. So who the hell was she talking about when she mentioned married parents, a great-aunt, a cousin, and a grandmother? Gee, he'd even make the leap and wager she wasn't still friends with Patsy from first grade, either. So if Hannah Frost didn't have any of those people in her life, how could they have sent her gifts?

Unless maybe, just maybe, she wasn't Hannah Frost at all.

At five minutes to six on Monday eve-ning, Selby Hudson strode into the classroom she had been assigned for her adult returning education class, balancing a teetering blend of anticipation and trepidation. But after just one quick, camouflaged study of her students, trepidation won the battle hands down. It was going to be a long six months. A rapid count told her exactly one dozen pupils were present, ranging in age, she guessed, from early twenties to early sixties. And, gee, there were some celebrities among them, she was surprised to note. Because there, front and center before Selby's desk, sat a woman who
had
to be Dame Edna, right down to the pink hair and rhinestone cat's-eye glasses. Not far from Edna sat Norman Bates, complete with narrow, faultlessly ironed Levi's and a worn cardigan sweater just baggy enough to hide a butcher knife. Behind Norman and to the left a bit was Baby Jane—Selby had always wondered whatever happened to her—and beside Jane sat Jojo the dog-faced boy. Near him was… Wow. Gandhi. What an honor. And there, in the very back corner of the room, Selby wasn't positive, but she was pretty sure she had just discovered the missing link. Rounding out the group appeared to be Sammy Davis, Jr., the guy from the Bounty paper towel wrapper, Granny Clampett, Winston Churchill, Whoopi Goldberg, and a nondescript guy in his fifties who looked to be harmless.

Teaching returning ed, Selby decided then, was going to be more than just a job. It was going to be an adventure. She just hoped she could be all that she could be, the few, the proud, an army of one. Because she suddenly felt besieged by geeks.

Immediately, she mentally reprimanded herself. She shouldn't make fun of her students. At least they were people who were striving to better themselves and their situations by returning to their studies in order to earn their diplomas. Selby understood about striving to better oneself. More to the point, she understood being made fun of. And she understood about being a geek, too, since she'd spent the better part of her life being one. Besides, Gandhi, Churchill, Sammy, Whoopi, and the Bounty guy weren't really all that geeky. Each had made the world a better place in some way.

So Selby smiled at the motley group and made her way across the scarred wooden floor to the scarred wooden desk at the front of the scarred wooden room, shrugging out of her black pearl-buttoned sweater to drape it over the scarred wooden chair. Almost primly, she straightened the Peter Pan collar of her white shirt and tucked her plaid pleated skirt beneath her fanny before seating herself. Hannah Frost's admonition the week before about Selby's wardrobe choices were still fresh in Selby's mind, and she'd swung to the other extreme, pulling pieces out of her closet that would in no way offend the school director. And if she currently looked like, oh… a geek… she'd just have to do her best to remember that she really wasn't one. Not anymore.

She removed her books and papers and curriculum from her battered leather satchel and arranged them all on her desk just so. Then she crossed her hands efficiently on the short stack of books, smiled encouragingly at her students, and opened her mouth to introduce herself. But she was halted before uttering a sound when the door to her classroom was thrust open again, hard enough to send it banging against the wall.

Her entire body jerked at the crash of the door, so nervous was she already about the evening ahead. Automatically, she glanced over at the reason for the disturbance, but seeing the newcomer only left her feeling even more disturbed. The good news was that, with one glimpse of him, her nervousness fled. The bad news was that the reason for that was because she needed to make room for the feeling of unmitigated terror that took its place.

Number thirteen, she couldn't help thinking as the man strode through the door. Not just because he was her thirteenth student, but because something about him made Selby think her luck had changed, and
not
for the better. Not that her luck had ever been all that great to begin with. Which made this downturn even more troubling.

Oh, this
really
wasn't good, she thought. Not good at all. So much for her job being an adventure. This guy was going to turn it into an out-and-out feat of derring-do.

Because the man who entered was every bad boy Selby Hudson had ever gone to school with. And that was saying something, since she'd gone to school with a
lot
of bad boys. And a lot of bad girls. And a lot of missing links, now that she thought about it. Having grown up on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks, she had more than a nodding acquaintance with badness. And the man who had just walked into her classroom reeked of it.

Clad in faded, ripped blue jeans and a disreputable black leather motorcycle jacket, his heavy black boots clinking with chains and his inky hair badly in need of a cut, he could have easily passed for an extra on the set of
The Wild One.
Except that, even without having said a word, he radiated an utter and unapologetic command that would have zapped him right to the center of the action, eclipsing even Marlon Brando as Johnny. Although it was October, his complexion was sun-darkened, as if he worked outside. Dark, too, were his eyes, the color of rich espresso coffee, and a few days' growth of beard shaded the lower half of his face. Beneath the battered jacket, he wore a ragged black T-shirt, as if he were composed entirely of shadows.