The Heart Heist (16 page)

"All right, Gary, the fish are done." Kerrin came bursting out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "And you owe me one. Oh, hi, Elaine."

Elaine quickly dropped her gaze. "Hello, Ms. Horton."

Matt saw Gary and Kerrin exchange a look behind Elaine's downturned face. Part of him relaxed. Whatever was going on with Elaine coming over here was apparently no surprise to Kerrin.

She now turned to Matt with a smile. "You ready to go?"

"Sure." Trying to read his sister's face for what might have transpired in the kitchen was an impossibility. For once, that expressive face of hers wasn't giving anything away.

"Uh, Kerrin. Just a minute before you go." Gary turned briefly to Elaine. "Why don't you go on to the back? I'll meet you there in a sec."

Nodding, Elaine started down the hall.

"Hey Matt! Wait a minute," Kerrin called, as Matt began the tricky negotiation of Gary's front porch steps by himself.

"Leave him be," Gary's rasping voice commanded low in Kerrin's ear. "He can handle it."

Kerrin kept her worried gaze fixed on Matt, who was balancing his chair between one wheel and an arm on Gary's rickety banister. Gary pulled her just inside the door.

"That kid is stronger than I am," Gary stated, caging Kerrin against the wall. "Well, almost. Anyway, we didn't finish our discussion."

As Kerrin recalled, their discussion had degenerated to a point where neither one of them had been talking and Gary had been staring at her mouth. Now he wasn't staring at her mouth, thank God, but his gaze was rather intently focused on her face, reading her expressions only too well.

His lips curved upward a fraction of an inch. "I want to make something clear that might have been left a bit fuzzy. The other day in the library, when I told you I wasn't going to kiss you again -- ?" His smile broadened. "Well, I only meant that particular time right then. I didn't mean at any point further in the future."

While Kerrin was still reeling from this announcement, he brushed his lips lightly against hers. The gesture brushed against every nerve ending up and down her back.

She closed her eyes and put a hand to her mouth, but that didn't stop the rippling effect.

"Good-bye, Kerrin," Gary said, a restrained and satisfied amusement in his voice. "See you Monday."

Kerrin made an indistinct sound and scurried out the door. It was not, she understood, the way a sophisticated lady of twenty-seven years of age should act. When it came to men and kissing, however, Kerrin felt about as old and wise as her younger brother.

~~~

From a position just outside Gary Sullivan's bedroom door, Elaine could see her teacher and the school principal framed in the hall opening. She saw the way Gary caged Ms. Horton against the wall; saw, but didn't hear, the whispered, flirtatious exchange, and then that light, butterfly kiss. Elaine put a hand to her lips, just as Kerrin did, almost feeling the kiss herself.

God, how she longed for something like that, something tender and affectionate. A word would be enough, though Elaine had to admit she dreamed of kisses. Not from her teacher, of course. True, Gary was a knight in shining armor, rescuing her from her dad the way he had, but he was way out of her reach and besides, he was totally ga-ga over Kerrin. Everyone knew that.

Elaine stepped through Gary's bedroom door and moved toward the window that looked over the backyard. She pulled aside the curtains. Just as she'd suspected, the windows were filthy with old rainwater. She stayed there, gazing at the view of the old oak tree standing in the overgrown lawn. In her mind's eye, though, in her usual way, she saw something else altogether.

Matt Horton
. Good Lord, she'd nearly had a heart attack there on the porch when he'd opened the door. It was the wholly unpredicted realization of a long-cherished fantasy and, of course, she'd blown the whole thing. He'd looked at her with those beautiful golden eyes of his and she'd barely been able to look back at him, let alone speak a word. Matt was the most fascinating male creature Elaine had ever seen. Bar none. The fact that he was confined to a wheelchair only heightened his allure. Naturally.

And Matt thought Elaine was about as interesting as a knot of wood, which is just how she'd behaved. Like a knot of wood.

Funny how things always turned out so differently when she was just imagining them. Then everything went smoothly and she came out terribly cool and collected, with an aristocratic smile and just the right words.

Something made Elaine turn her head. Gary was standing in the doorway. She straightened abruptly.

"Um, the windows," she said. "They have to be washed."

Gary shifted his gaze toward the paned glass. Elaine sensed indecision.

"The rest of the house will never look quite clean unless the windows are," she explained. She had a sudden, comforting vision of Gary bringing Kerrin into this house, once Elaine had fixed it up all nice for them.

He gave a curt nod. "Okay, you've sold me. So, how much extra is that going to put me back?"

"Oh, nothing extra," Elaine hastened to assure him. He was already paying her an exorbitant price just for housecleaning.

He grinned broadly. "Don't be absurd. Everyone knows cleaning ladies don't do windows."

Cleaning ladies
. Somehow Gary made the profession sound dignified, almost exalted. This was so absurd she actually smiled. "We'll argue terms later. In the meantime I could use a bucket."

"Yes, ma'am. Oh, and Elaine?"

"What is it?"

"Don't get too carried away on the windows. I'm only going to be here till the end of the summer. After that the windows are really Marge Hellman's problem."

As he turned and left the room, Elaine watched her germinating dream of Gary and Kerrin making it a permanent home shatter into sad little pieces. True, most teachers didn't last in the small town, most were on their way somewhere bigger and better. But Elaine frowned at the open doorway and remembered the way she'd seen Gary lower his head over Kerrin's a moment ago. For a man on the move, Gary Sullivan was sure acting settled.

~~~

Kerrin knew there was only one thing to do when she was feeling like this, and it involved Humphrey Bogart. Fortunately, she was not reduced to begging her family's indulgence in letting her watch her DVD of "To Have and Have Not" yet another time. There was a Bogart festival going on at the Bishop Rep Movie House, gasoline in the car, and her usual state of absolutely no plans on a Saturday night.

But Kerrin wished she'd checked the schedule before impulsively setting out on her mission. In red plastic letters, the marquee in Bishop announced that tonight was the gangster classic, "High Sierra."

Great. Just what she needed. A movie about a gangster on the run from the law. Standing in the colorfully paved outer lobby of the theater, Kerrin didn't make a move to buy a ticket. Instead she glared up at the glassed-in poster of Bogart, a pistol in each hand as he faced down the posse that had him holed up in the mountains. Damn, but the man even looked like Gary!

"Kerrin?"

The elegant voice froze her in her spot. Oh no. It wasn't possible. He'd gone away, back to Boston. He wasn't supposed to come back. Slowly Kerrin turned to face the man who'd been her nemesis last winter, the one she'd been so sure was her white knight.

He was back. Nevertheless, she decided to question the evidence of her eyes. "Victor?"

He was smiling. His perfect, golden Greek smile, the one that used to turn her heart over in her chest. Now her heart only gave a chagrined little kick. Victor had made it very clear last January that he thought her little town pathetic and the entire Owens Valley provincial. He was on his way to tenure at Harvard in cultured New England. Somewhat desperately on his way, Kerrin recalled, counting on this documentary of his to pave the road.
What the hell was he doing back here?

"I just got off the phone with your father," Victor now told her in the cultured accent that didn't sound nearly as beguiling as it had last January. "But he didn't mention you were on your way to Bishop." Victor gave a brief glance up at the Bogart poster. "I should have guessed you'd end up here, though. You always did like Bogie, didn't you?"

Victor gave her a conspiratorial smile. Suddenly the fact that Victor Bothmann knew something so personal about her made Kerrin a little ill. Had she actually confessed something so near and dear to her heart -- to Victor, of all people?

"Shall I buy us tickets?" Victor asked, touching her arm. His touch was firm, but didn't send little shivers of electricity up her spine the way that Gary's did. Victor's touch never had sent little shivers of electricity, come to think of it.

Kerrin looked at Victor, feeling more at ease. "To tell you the truth, I think I may have seen this film one too many times."

"Wonderful. Then we can talk. Let me buy you a cup of cappuccino." Victor's gaze was attentive. But now Kerrin had Gary's gaze with which to compare it. There was no comparison. Victor's expression was devoid of the animal sensuality never far beneath Gary's surface.

How could she ever have dreamed that Victor was interested in her?

But as she took a seat across from Victor at Bishop's one, city-style café, she understood her mistake. Before Gary, she hadn't a clue about the true nature of physical desire. She'd confused it with the persistent, even oppressive, diplomacy Victor was now handing out. Ignoring his coffee, he insisted she relate the mundane details of the past six months in Freedom. He drank up her highly edited narrative as though this were the most intriguing recital he'd ever heard.

Kerrin imagined this was exactly how Victor must behave with the university faculty committee. Perhaps he was practicing on her.

Gary, Kerrin thought with respect, wouldn't have bothered pretending. If he thought something was bullshit he'd come right out and say so. He was, in his own way, remarkably honest. He wouldn't say something he didn't mean.

And then the moment Kerrin had been trying to put out of her mind, the one she'd driven seventy-five miles to forget, popped right back into her brain. Gary had told her he was going to kiss her again, and Gary didn't say things he didn't mean. Rivers of hot and cold slid down her insides.

"Kerrin," Victor asked with a slight frown. "Are you all right?"

Kerrin looked up, sensing with rue that color was rising in her cheeks. "I'm fine. Just fine." She cleared her throat. "Ahem. you haven't told me what you're doing back in the Owens Valley." It certainly wasn't because he liked the place.

Victor grimaced wryly. "A miscalculation. I was just about finished editing that documentary when I realized it was missing something. Missing a lot." His expression turned briefly hard. "Not the sort of thing a tenured professor would produce." He shook his head and put back on the golden smile. "I realized the key was Tom. He's by far the most interesting of the four extraterrestrialites I interviewed."

Kerrin sighed. Victor's documentary was not shot from the point of view of a person genuinely interested in the possibility of communications with intelligent life forms from outer space. It was instead from a strictly socio-psychological point of view. What, Victor, asked, made otherwise intelligent and functional members of society believe in UFOs? Her father had known this all along, and yet had allowed Victor to follow him around with his camera. In point of fact, Tom Horton had appeared to be more amused by Victor Bothmann than the other way around.

"You aren't staying at the house again?" Kerrin inquired with undisguised dismay.

Victor gave her an understanding smile. "No, under the circumstances...it wouldn't be convenient." The circumstance being the crush he'd discovered Kerrin had on him last winter. "I was thinking of renting the Wilson house."

"Oh, but you can't."

Victor blinked. "Why not?"

"It's already rented, by Gary Sullivan, the man who's teaching summer school." Kerrin was pleased by how glib she sounded.

Victor frowned. "Summer school?" He looked genuinely confused. "But -- I've read about California public schools and their budget problems. How did you get money for summer school?"

Good question. And yet, beside Matt, Victor was the only person to wonder about her summer session. "Oh, we small town principals have our ways." She coughed, hardly about to explain to Victor that the Department of Water and Power had agreed to front the money in compensation for the risk Freedom was taking in harboring a dangerous felon in its midst. It was an ironic twist of fate that Gary, the dangerous felon, would be taking home the schoolteacher's pay.

It was possibly a more sinister turn of fate that one of the sharpest people she knew was coming to town, curious about the situation. Quickly, Kerrin wondered how to turn the professor's thoughts from her summer school teacher. "How long are you planning to take," she asked, "to shoot more footage of Dad?"

Her effort to distract Victor worked. His preoccupied expression faded. "Oh, not long. Just a day or two."

That wasn't very long. But the thought made Kerrin frown. How much longer was Gary going to be in town? He never mentioned what progress, if any, he was making in discovering the security problems at the aqueduct facility. She was pleased it was taking him so long to find any problems. That ought to convince the DWP that their facility was safe, and they shouldn't build another one outside of town.

It wasn't true, Kerrin assured herself, that she wanted Gary to stay around for any other reason than that -- that and to finish up the summer school session. But she sipped the last of the frothy cappuccino Victor had bought her with a definite sense of impending loss.

CHAPTER TEN

On Monday evening Gary parked his white, FBI-issue car in the generous drive before the Horton home. He got out of the car slowly, ruefully aware that his nerves were in a state of zinging wire tension. He'd been calmer having live ammunition shot in his direction during his escape from Chino.

Gary lifted a paper bag with a bottle of wine from the passenger seat. He could only hope bringing wine was the right thing to do. He seemed to remember hearing or seeing that somewhere. It wasn't as though he had any normal way of knowing the protocol. No respectable person had ever invited him over for dinner. He'd been so busy getting Kerrin to acknowledge she wanted him to come at all that he'd idiotically forgotten his ignorance.