Miss Liz's Passion

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“He’s clobbered two girls in the last week,” she said bluntly.

Todd was genuinely shocked at that. He found he could no longer cling to the hope that this was all a tempest in a teapot. He’d scattered blame and defenses since the conversation began and Liz had countered every one of them. “I’ll see that he’s punished.”

“I’ve already seen to that. More punishment is not the answer.”

“What then?”

“Testing. Maybe special classes.”

Todd felt his stomach knot. “I will not have my son made out to be different.”

“But he is different,” she said with surprising gentleness. “Denying it won’t help him.”

“Dammit, he’s just a little boy,” he snapped, frustration and anger on Kevin’s behalf making his head pound. So much about this was familiar. Familiar and painful. He closed his eyes against Elizabeth Gentry’s patient, compassionate expression. He rubbed his temples, but the throbbing kept on.

He loved Kevin, just the way he was. Why hadn’t Sarah? Why couldn’t Liz Gentry? He didn’t expect him to scale intellectual mountains. He just wanted him to grow into a man who could take pride in whatever skills he had. His unquestioning love and support should be enough. It was more than he’d ever had. He had no idea how to explain all of that to the woman who was waiting so quietly for him to reach the right decision. Whatever the hell that was.

He studied her, wondering what made her tick, why she fought so hard for one little boy when there were dozens more needing her attention. Far more about her puzzled him. When had a woman so full of feminine promise become so wary around men, so determined to keep the focus of her life on her classroom? Or did he have that wrong, as well? Perhaps he was the only man who seemed to throw her.

“Why are you so uptight around me?” he asked suddenly.

She paled and said staunchly, “I am not uptight.”

“Oh, really? Do you always destroy paper clips that way?”

“What way?” she said, staring at him blankly.

Liz recognized a desperate attempt at distraction when she saw one. Unfortunately, though, Todd Lewis was right. He was pointing toward her desk, smirking in satisfaction, mischief making his eyes sparkle. She glanced down. There was indeed a pile of twisted bits of metal in front of her. She sighed. Okay, so she was uptight. It didn’t mean anything. Admittedly, though, it was usually the parents who got nervous about these conferences.

She took a closer look at Todd Lewis. He did not seem nervous. In fact, he looked every bit as overwhelming and lazily self-confident as he had the previous afternoon on his own turf. He’d obviously gone home to change before the meeting. His jeans were pressed. His shirt was crisply starched and open at the throat to reveal a tantalizing swirl of dark brown hair. His hair was damp and recently combed. He smelled of soap and the faintest trace of after-shave. It all added up to raw masculine appeal. Not even the fact that he was sitting on a scaled-down chair meant for third-graders diminished him. If anything, it simply emphasized his powerful build.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said. “Why do I make you nervous?”

“You don’t make me nervous, Mr. Lewis.” These flat-out lies were getting to be a habit around him. She scratched harder at her hives. “You make me mad.” That, at least, was the truth.

It also made him tense up. “Meaning?”

“You and I seem to agree on one thing, that Kevin is a bright child. His IQ scores are well within the normal range, at the high end of the scale, as a matter of fact. Despite that, he is failing in school. His behavior is deplorable. In the last week he has bitten one classmate and bloodied the lip of another one. Is that the way you’re rearing your son to respect girls?”

His distress seemed genuine. “I wish I had known about this sooner. Why didn’t…”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence. When was I supposed to tell you? When it first started happening? I wrote you a note after the first incident. I wrote you again after the second and third. You know that. You also know that my phone messages were intercepted.”

“Which should tell you that Kevin knew exactly how upset I’d be. I don’t tolerate that kind of behavior.”

“Kevin’s behavior is not the real problem.”

“But you just said…”

“It’s a symptom of his frustration. His self-esteem crumbles more each day that he can’t keep up. From what I’ve observed and what little testing I am competent to do, I would guess that he has a learning disability. I think if you’d agree to testing, we could identify the problem and get Kevin the help he needs. Right now, he needs some positive things to start happening for him. Without the right kind of motivation, he’ll just give up.”

“Look, I love my son. I want him to have the best of everything, but I won’t baby him,” he said with that stubborn jut of his chin that was so often mirrored on Kevin’s face. “He just needs to try harder. I’ll have a talk with him.”

Liz could see she wasn’t getting through to him. “In Kevin’s case, it’s going to take more than talk. Please, let me have him tested.”

“You said he needs the proper motivation. I’ll see that he gets that.”

There was an edge to his voice that told her exactly what Todd would consider proper motivation. Liz’s heart sank.

“Why are you being so ridiculously stubborn about this? Your son’s entire future may be at stake and you’re acting as though it’s a personal insult to suggest he have help.”

“Maybe that’s it,” he retorted unreasonably. “Maybe I don’t see where you get off telling me how to raise my son. You can’t even keep your classroom under control. These fights are happening while he’s under your supervision.”

“I can’t prevent your son’s disruptions unless I put him in a straightjacket,” she reminded him tightly. “I could suspend him. Is that what you’d prefer? That would take care of my problem, but it would do nothing about Kevin’s.”

“I’ve told you I’ll take care of that.”

“How? By punishing him? Pressuring him with expectations he can’t possibly meet? How exactly do you plan to take care of it, Mr. Lewis? Are you capable of teaching him yourself? From what Kevin has told me, you don’t even help him with his homework.”

He stood up. For a moment she had forgotten how tall he was, how impressively built. She felt her heart catch as he towered over her, his expression cold and unyielding.

“And that’s my problem, isn’t it? He’s my son. What’s the old saying about teachers? Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. That’s why you’re in the classroom, isn’t it? You don’t know the first thing about raising a child of your own. You’ve never had to stay up through the night worrying whether a cough would turn into pneumonia or how you could make up for some terrible hurt. I spend every day of my life trying to make up to that boy for the mother he lost, the mother who didn’t want him, didn’t want either of us. I won’t have him thinking that I don’t believe in him.”

Liz felt the sharp sting of tears. For an instant she wasn’t sure if they were for Kevin and Todd Lewis or for herself. How dare he talk to her of loss as if she’d never experienced one of her own! How dare he suggest that she knew nothing of mothering and worrying and loving!

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Lewis,” she said coldly. She tried to tell herself that he was angry, that he was only lashing out because of what he perceived as an attack on his child. Still, the cruel comments hurt.

“I think I do know exactly what I’m talking about. I was wrong about you yesterday when I said you understood kids. You don’t know the first thing about real kids and their needs. You learned it all in some textbook, but when it comes to kids who don’t conform, who fight and get dirty and make mistakes, you can’t handle it.”

A memory, as sweet and clear as it was painful, skittered through her mind. Laura looking angelic in her new Easter dress. Then, moments later, the bow in her golden hair askew, a smile of delight on her face—and chocolate streaked from head to toe.

Todd’s accusation was true. She had yelled at Laura over a silly dress. She had been upset. And it had all been over nothing. Today she would give anything to take back the words. She would barter with the devil himself to hold her child one more time, to feel those plump little arms around her neck, to kiss that chocolate-sticky cheek.

She lifted eyes that shimmered with tears to stare at Todd Lewis. In a voice that shook with fury and anguish, she said, “Don’t patronize me, Mr. Lewis. I know exactly how hard it is to be a parent.”

The words lingered in a moment of stunned silence before he said slowly, “You have a child?”

He sounded as if the very thought of it were mind-boggling. If she hadn’t been hurting so at the flood of memories, she might have smiled at his startled expression. Instead, she simply shook her head.

“But Kevin said—”

“I had a child. She died when she was three. My husband died in the same accident. So don’t tell me about loss, Mr. Lewis. Or guilt. Or worrying. Or loving. I could write the textbook on every one of those emotions myself.”

Chapter 4

If Liz’s quietly spoken words stunned Todd, the stricken expression on her face was almost his undoing. She reminded him of a wounded doe. Her eyes turned bleak as her anger faded. As he watched, shadows of fear and dismay dimmed the sparkling amber to a dull, lifeless brown. He felt her loss as sharply as he’d once felt his own, recalling in vivid detail the emptiness of those painful weeks and months after Sarah had walked out of his life, the awful sense of betrayal, the hurt of rejection.

But he’d had Kevin and, oblivious to his father’s grief and anger, four-year-old Kevin had filled the house with laughter and tears and impatient demands. For the last four years Kevin alone had kept the memory of love alive in Todd’s aching, embittered heart. Kevin had been the one thing left worth fighting for. That much had never changed. He would still fight tenaciously for his son.

Liz had lost both husband and child. Todd couldn’t imagine anything to compare with that.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, wishing he knew more comforting words. For the first time in many years he cursed the inadequacies that had kept his vocabulary unpolished, his manner rough. He knew all the right words to keep a crew of a hundred or more men in line and on schedule. He knew just what to say to difficult suppliers or demanding tenants. He even knew the glib and easy words necessary for a casual seduction. But in the presence of this kind and wounded lady, he knew a fierce longing to be a truly gentle man with a gift for mending.