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“Robert,” he corrected.
“Right. Robert, I was just telling Crystal that I think she’s very bright, and I’m worried about her.”
Robert glanced at Crystal, then back to Marissa, and she saw his concern in the darkness of those uptilted eyes. “She is smart,” he said. “But she doesn’t seem to like school very much.”
“Exactly. Maybe if we talk, we can get to the bottom of that. Make it better.”
“All right,” Robert said.
Marissa shifted slightly. “Crystal, can I ask you some questions?”
“I guess.”
“Have you made some friends here yet?”
A shrug, a dull glance outside the window. “Yeah.”
It was a lie and Marissa knew it, but she wouldn’t push. With a flash of inspiration, she dropped her usual spiel about the missing homework assignments and asked instead, “Tell me, is there anything you’re crazy about? I mean totally nuts. Like cats or horses or a book you’ve read?”
A small alteration in body language. Crystal’s gaze slid toward her uncle. “No,” she said.
Robert grinned. “You can tell her.”
Long lashes swept down. “No.”
Marissa glanced at Robert. He met her eyes, then reached out and put a hand on Crystal’s shoulder. “She’s not gonna use it against you, babe.”
Crystal shifted away. “Everyone makes fun of me. Like I have a sickness or something.”
“I won’t laugh. I promise,” Marissa said, crossing her heart and lifting a hand.
With a dark glare at her uncle, one that dared him to say a word, Crystal said distinctly, “No.”
“It’s all right,” Marissa said. “You don’t trust me, and you don’t really have any reason to.” She shrugged. “If you ever feel like telling me, I’ll be glad to listen—and maybe I can figure out ways to connect school, which you seem to hate, to whatever it is that you love.”
Crystal raised her eyes, and Marissa glimpsed something like surprise.
“Of course, that means we have to talk about the other things now.” Marissa folded her hands. It was always hard to know how a parent would respond to the kind of news she was about to deliver. Some reacted defensively. Some turned their embarrassment into anger at the child.
“The reason I wanted to talk to both of you together,” she said, “is because Crystal is doing very well on tests, but she’s not turning in homework. In math, since she’s obviously getting the concepts, I’d be willing to overlook the lack of homework, but I’m hearing about the same problem from other teachers, and they aren’t going to be as willing to overlook that work.”
Robert frowned, an expression of bewilderment more than anger. “She does her homework. I check it every night.” He turned to her. “Aren’t you turning it in?”
“I forget.”
Marissa carefully did not smile. Crystal wasn’t forgetting. Or if she was, it was a passive-aggressive kind of forgetting, a way to get what she thought she wanted. She’d discuss some ideas with Robert once Crystal left the room, but for now she let it go. “Crystal, I’d really like to help you get some good patterns going, so school is more fun for you. It would be criminal for you to waste that great mind.” She paused. “Do you have any suggestions?”
A sudden wash of tears filled the dark eyes, and she looked away sullenly. One hostile shoulder lifted and fell.
“How about if you come here for an hour after school, and I can help you with your work—not just math, but whatever you’re having trouble with?”
“I’m not having any trouble.”
“Well, maybe it would just be a case of you turning the homework in to me, then, so I can see that it gets to the right places.” She looked at the uncle, resisting that little zing of awareness he gave her. “Would that be okay with you?”
“What d’you say, Crystal? Maybe try it for a week or two, see how it goes, eh? It’s only an hour. What the heck?”
Heartfelt shrug, both shoulders. “I guess.”
Marissa smiled. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, here, then. And since you’ve been tortured long enough, how about giving me a few minutes with your uncle? You can get a soda or something, maybe?”
“Somebody here won’t let me drink pop.”
Robert chuckled, and reached into the pocket of his jeans. “I saw the Sno-Kone man out there. Get some ice cream. It’s good for you.”
“How come it’s good and pop is bad?”
“Because ice cream is made from milk, silly girl.” He winked at her. “Get me a couple of ice-cream sandwiches, will ya? I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Crystal took the money and gravely shook her head. “Someday, Uncle, you’re going to be as fat as a house. Or my uncle Gary.”
He laughed. “Probably.” He patted her shoulder and inclined his head. “Go on.”
Crystal shuffled out, and Robert turned back to Marissa, his face wiped free of amusement. “She’s not doing real well here, is she?”
“No.” Marissa, acting on a hunch, stood up and closed the door, then returned to her seat. “She’s been here…what? Four or five weeks? And I’ve never seen her even talk to another student. Other kids try, you know, to include her, and she’s not having it.”
He sighed, and then, as if he couldn’t think while sitting, stood up and paced to the window. “I’m not too good at this father thing,” he said, turning. His arms were crossed. “I’ve never had a kid—but I gotta try. Her mom is useless, and there’s nobody else. I’ve been trying to make her stick to regular hours and eat normal food—just, you know, normal.” He gestured, shook his head. “Why am I telling you this?”
“Maybe because it’s hard to go it alone,” Marissa said. “It sounds like you’re doing all the right things, and it’s obviously a rough time for her.” She frowned. “Is she doing any kind of parenting class, Lamaze, anything with other kids who are also pregnant?”
“She starts the end of the week. You think that’ll help, maybe? Maybe she feels kind of isolated.”
“Yeah.” Marissa thought, fleetingly, of herself at fourteen—feeling like a hippopotamus in her flowing dress while all the other girls wore their skinny jeans.
“Trust me when I say this is a rough age for all the kids, but if there’s anything to set you the tiniest bit apart, it’s that much harder. She’s pregnant, she’s new and she’s Native American, which sort of makes her exotic around here.” She smiled. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not exactly a wildly integrated community.”
Humor flickered over his eyes—eyes that crinkled upward at the corners just as she remembered. In detail. With a little ripple of despair, she decided he was just sinfully delectable.
“I noticed,” he said. “I don’t want to live in a city. Red Creek might have some flaws, but at least I don’t have to worry about her getting on the wrong side of some gang.”
“Do you mind if I make a suggestion?”
“No—please. I’m open to anything.”
“I’ll have her come in every afternoon and see if I can get her on track with school, maybe let her know there’s someone else in her corner. We can start a check-off system to help her get her homework in. And it’s probably going to help a lot to get her into her pregnancy class.” She straightened. “But it also occurs to me that there’s someone in town who would be more than delighted to help you mother this lost child.”
He looked puzzled. “Mother?”
She chuckled. “Yeah. Louise Forrest—er, Chacon, I guess it is now. Jake’s mother.”
“You know Jake and his mother?”
He didn’t recognize her at all. With a grin she said, “We have met, Robert. I’m good friends with Lance.”
His body went soft with surprise, and she saw the knowledge and recognition dawn on his face. “Oh my God! I know who you are now. Marissa.” His gaze moved with frank astonishment over her body. “My God! You’ve lost…you’re so much—” He stopped, clamped his mouth shut, took a breath.
Marissa laughed.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was really rude.”
“Not at all. It’s very common lately.”
“You’ve lost a lot of weight.”
“Almost a hundred pounds.” She gestured like the Duchess of York. “And trust me, I love it when people are amazed.”
His eyes made the journey over her figure once more, this time frankly appreciative. “You look terrific.”
“Thanks. Now, about Louise…”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, Louise is a great idea.”
“Day to day, it’s just getting through. Sometimes just minute to minute.” She smiled. “I teach them all day, remember. But when you run into something troubling, Louise might have good advice.”
He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and held out his hand. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the interest you’ve taken.”
Marissa stood and clasped the long brown hand in her own, allowing herself at last to experience the slightly heady sensation of standing close to him, holding his hand and smiling up at him. “My pleasure,” she said, and made to draw away.
But he held on, tightening his fingers slightly. “You were always beautiful, you know.”
Marissa, stricken to the core, was afraid he’d see too much if she let him hang on a second longer, and she pulled away, hiding her emotions under a well-mannered smile. “Thank you. And thank you for coming.”
At the door he paused. “Do you want to know what she loves?”
“I’ll wait until she’s ready to tell me.”
He nodded. “All right. Thanks again.”
He closed the door behind him and Marissa sank against the desk, swallowing the weird rush of emotion his simple, clear words had given her. You were always beautiful. Not exactly the words she would ever have expected to come from the lips of a jaded, brooding man who only crooked his finger and had women from thirteen to seventy flocking to his side.
Then she realized with a wry little smile that it was exactly what she should have expected. The great power of a ladies’ man lay in his understanding of a woman’s most private, most revered hungers.
Reaching for her purse, she chuckled. He’d certainly zeroed in on Marissa’s.
There was a card from her sister in the mailbox when she got home, and Marissa laughed when she opened it. The front showed a beachy guy in worn white cutoffs, smiling hunkily, and the inside said, “Just wanted to send you something fun to break up your day.”
Marissa had mailed out the exact card, for no particular reason, to her twin sister, Victoria, only three days before. They were identical twins, the only children of their obscenely wealthy and overly protective parents. What nature began in the womb, the isolation their parents had imposed had completed; the pair had an almost uncanny bond, as if they were one mind in two bodies.
When she walked in, still smiling, the phone rang.
“I just got it,” she said into the phone, knowing by a twin’s intuition exactly who was on the other end. “I should have known.”
Victoria laughed. “I don’t even know why we bother. Next time, just buy the card and keep it and so will I, and we’ll both save the postage.”
“Ah, what fun would that be?”
Victoria changed gears. “Enough of that. Who is he?”
It startled Marissa. “Who?”
“Some man. Don’t lie. I felt it, right in the solar plexus.”
Marissa chuckled. “Well, he’s really no one. A cute parent, that’s all. Sweet talker.”
“Mmm. He must be hot, that’s all I have to say. I’m going to come see for myself. Can I come visit? Maybe stay for a week. Or a month?”
“Really?” Marissa cried. She had not seen her sister in more than two years, largely due to Victoria’s hectic and worldly schedule. “That would be so fantastic!” She smiled to herself. “I have quite a surprise for you.”
“And I have one for you.” She laughed softly. “I can’t imagine that we’ll duplicate each other this time.”
Marissa thought of her sister’s ultraskinny frame. “Nope. Not this time.”
“All right, then. I’ll see you in a week or two.”
They hung up.
Chapter 2
One of the best parts of Marissa’s job was that her planning period fell just before lunch, so on those days that she was not required to be in the cafeteria or walking the grounds, she had a good long break in the middle of the day. She often went to a small café nearby to have a salad freshly made from a long list of menu items. Today she chose butter and radicchio and romaine lettuces, sunflower seeds, broccoli, tomatoes and shredded carrots and a bare sprinkling of pumpernickel croutons. They didn’t even have to ask anymore if she wanted the dressing on the side.
Carrying her overflowing plate to a table near the window, she relished the salad slowly, along with a whole-grain roll and a thin spread of butter and the unsweetened raspberry tea they served, made with fresh lemons and raspberries. Outrageously good.
Gazing peacefully at the bright blue Colorado day, she felt sinfully satisfied. In her old life, she had rarely taken the time to enjoy food—eating had been a guilt-laden activity, something evil one was required to indulge, and she often hurried through it, almost inhaling a meal before others had made it halfway through.
It was a miracle to her now to really taste the butter on the bread, savor the small wheat berries in the soft dough. She dipped her fork in dressing and speared a pale green leaf of butter lettuce—it was one of her favorites at home because of the way the leaves felt in her hand, soft as suede—and took time to experience the combination of flavors. Before she had finished half the salad, she was satisfied—no, closer to stuffed.
Replete, and feeling virtuous from all the nutrients she’d managed to pack into a single lunch, she paid and headed back to campus, two blocks north. The walk was a particularly pleasant one, following a path through a park that ran through the middle of town like a long finger. The day was not yet hot, and a breeze lifted her hair.
A breeze that smelled of cigarettes. She glanced over, ready to smile; the few teachers who still smoked often slipped away to the park during lunch, and it was her habit to shake her finger at them cheerfully. But no one was sitting on the favored bench beneath a copse of aspens—instead, blue smoke wafted around the edge of a cinderblock building that housed rest rooms. Marissa spied a combat boot with a spot of pink paint at the toe peeking around the base of the wall.
With a sigh, she crossed the grass, shaking her head, and came around the building.
Crystal Avila hunched there, guiltily, and started so violently when she saw Marissa that she dropped the cigarette on the ground.
Marissa quickly stepped on it, grinding it beneath the toe of her shoe. “Bad idea, kiddo. And not just for you.”
The girl ducked her head, pulled her coat more tightly around her belly. A fall of hair, taking up a thick reddish hue in the dappled sunlight, slid over her shoulders.
