Heart Stealers Page 3

  “No passing today?” he asked.

  “You can always pass, but it’s not a good example to set for the students.”

  His chagrin made her bite her lip to hold back the mirth. She wasn’t here to rile him, even though she really wanted to. His uptight attire, his proclivity for rules, his staid manner just begged to be taunted.

  Which was why she’d chosen the quote for the day. “Rules were not made to be broken. But they need to be examined carefully.”

  Lansing reached into his pocket, drew out a pair of glasses and settled them on his nose. He looked nice in them—scholarly. He had a honed body, big and powerful, and she imagined he used his strength and muscle skillfully.

  She sat down on the floor next to Brenda to write. Yesterday, all the girls had been abuzz over Captain Lansing’s physical attributes. “Hunk...stud...totally rad…”

  Reluctantly, Cassie admitted that his perfectly cut dark hair, sprinkled with gray, the cleft in his chin and those chiseled features were appealing—in a Jim Caviezel kind of way.

  Forcing herself to stop thinking about him, she began to write, analyzing why she balked so much at rules. Why she felt such a need to buck the system. Wondering how, at thirty-five, she could still be such a misfit. As usual, putting things in words clarified and released her feelings. Ten minutes passed, then the door opened.

  Johnny Battaglia sauntered in. If Cassie didn’t know the kid so well, she’d be tempted to take him down a peg or two. If she didn’t care so much, she’d scold him for being late. But she was lucky he was here at all, and she knew it. At seventeen, he’d already dropped out once.

  And she was going to save him if it was her last act on this earth.

  Johnny closed the door quietly and headed straight for her. Cassie smiled at him, though it was hard. The boy’s face was drawn, lines of fatigue marring his youthful brow, bracketing his sulking mouth. His shoulders sloped with weariness. When he met her eyes, he gave her a weak grin. And she knew in her gut that the last few days had been hell for him.

  According to procedure, he put the late pass in the envelope on the wall behind her, signed in, then settled onto the floor. She handed him his journal. As he opened it, he glanced around.

  And spotted Mitch Lansing.

  Johnny’s entire body tensed. Reaching out, Cassie touched his arm and squeezed it. He looked over at her, the sudden flare of anger in his eyes making her heart stutter. She watched him warily.

  She could see him struggling with himself.

  So she stood, inclined her head to a little alcove designed for private consultations, and drew him over to it while the others kept writing.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Johnny asked in a whisper.

  She cocked her head at his language. All the teachers insisted on no cursing or obscenities in front of them, or in class.

  “Sorry,” Johnny said.

  “If you’d been here yesterday, you’d have heard the entire explanation. I’ll give you a shortened version.”

  When she was done, his dark brown eyes were even more tumultuous. “You gotta be kidding me.” His voice rose, and everyone looked over. Cassie moved in between the other students and Johnny.

  “I’m not working with any cops. Especially not him.” He looked around the room, his eyes bleak. “Especially not here.” Then he focused on her. “Why, Ms. S? Why here? This is the only place I feel…” He stopped, but Cassie knew what he was going to say. This was the only place he felt accepted, comfortable, different from being on the street. It was, really, his only chance to go straight. Cassie knew personally, and from having read the statistics, that success outside of the home—and it usually meant doing well and fitting in at school— was one of the most important factors in at-risk kids graduating from high school and becoming productive members of the community.

  “Johnny, we don’t have any say. The school board decided to implement this program. He’ll only be in language arts class for the next ten weeks.”

  “Then I won’t be.”

  “What?” Cassie gripped his arm.

  Roughly, Johnny shrugged it off. “You heard me. I won’t be.” He stepped out from behind her and faced the now avidly attentive group. His cold stare zeroed in on Mitch Lansing. “If he stays, I’m gone.”

  With that, Johnny Battaglia strode out of the room.

  Chapter Two

  Johnny chalked the pool cue and bent over the battered table. His eyes were gritty, and he had a pain between his shoulder blades that wouldn’t quit. “My break,” he said without inflection. He had long ago perfected the art of not letting anybody know what he was really thinking.

  Except Cassie. Damn her. He’d let her in, and she’d gone and blown it. Well, no more.

  Sure. Who are you kidding, Battaglia? He’d tried a thousand times to get the woman out of his life and nothing had worked. Now that he’d had time to cool off, he didn’t really expect that one lousy pig would affect his and Cassie’s friendship.

  As he broke the stack and took the shots, he thought about Cassie.

  He only called her that in private. In public, it was Ms. Smith, Ms. S., or affectionately, “Teach.” At one time, his feelings for her had been all mixed up with male-female stuff. But that had stopped once he started dating girls his own age. Plus, despite her warmth, Cassie had always played the grown-up; that had helped keep things clear in his mind. Now he saw her as his friend first, teacher second, and sometimes, dangerously, his savior.

  Damn, why had she done this? As he banked a shot off the side, he let his mind form vile obscenities, just because she wouldn’t allow them around her or in school. Why had she done this?

  We don’t have any choice, Johnny. The school board insisted.

  Yeah, well, people always had a choice. Hadn’t that been what she’d drilled into their dumb-ass little heads since ninth grade? You choose whether you win or lose in life, you decide how addicted you get to the bad stuff, you pick how you handle the lemons fate throws your way.

  Eventually, he’d begun to believe her. It took him a whole year, but he’d learned to trust her.

  Except when he’d dropped out for six months.

  Johnny shivered just thinking about it. That had been the worst time in his life. So he pushed it— and Cassie Smith—out of his mind.

  “Six ball in the far left corner,” he called, and proceeded to demolish his opponent, a scruffy little man who worked the night shift at the electronics plant down the road. Johnny bested him for ten bucks, and the guy wasn’t too happy.

  So, join the club, buddy.

  “Battaglia, phone call for you.” Pepper stood by the wall phone, holding out the receiver to him. The guy was the oldest man Johnny knew, with more wrinkles on his face than in his clothes.

  Johnny tried to quell the spurt of hope that it might be Cassie on the line. “A chick?” he asked casually.

  “Nope, it’s your pal, Zorro. He asked for Tonto.” Pepper gave him a dirty look. Cassie had gotten to Pepper, too. They were all watching out for him, trying to keep him from hooking up with the Blisters again, now that he’d moved out here from the city with his mother on the advice of some starry-eyed social workers. Probably that’s what this Lansing guy was supposed to do, too. Make sure Johnny didn’t get into any trouble. He smiled. Cassie hadn’t seemed too pleased that the cop had been in their class, either. Johnny could tell by the way her shoulders got real stiff and her mouth got those lines around it like it did when she was mad about something.

  Reluctantly, he walked to the phone. “Yeah?” he said simply.

  “Tonto, my man. How’s it goin’?”

  “Just peachy, Zorro. What you want?”

  “How come you ain’t in school?”

  “How come you call here if you think I was?” Johnny fell back into street talk whenever he was with these guys. Sometimes he hated it, but it comforted him today.

  “Got a line on Fish,” Zorro said, all serious.

  “Yeah. How?�
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  “I got my sources. We gonna go lookin’ for him tonight. Wanna come?”

  “I gotta work from three to eleven.”

  “Thought you lost that crummy job at the hospital.”

  Johnny tensed. It still hurt. “I got a new one at the garage.” Changing oil and pumping gas instead of learning how to save lives. Shit.

  “After eleven, then.”

  Soft gray eyes appeared before Johnny. Please, don’t do this, she’d said the last time he’d gone to his old neighborhood in the pit of the city to hunt with the gang.

  Then he remembered the freakin’ cop, sitting stiffly in a chair, looking at the students as if they were cockroaches, butting in on the only thing that was good in Johnny’s life.

  “I’ll think about it,” he told Zorro.

  * * *

  “How did it go with the cop?” Zoe Caufield asked from the doorway. Cassie looked up from the student portfolios she was reading. Zoe was her coworker and best friend, but they couldn’t be any more different. At thirty-eight, Zoe was short, petite, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and bought her clothes at Lord & Taylor. She’d grown up with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth and had married a rich doctor. Divorced, she now lived in a pricey condo on the bay. The only thing she’d ever done out of sync was to become a science teacher—and work with the At-Risk kids.

  “It went as well as can be expected,” Cassie answered.

  “He’s a doll.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “Not you, too. The girls are driving me nuts. They actually like those suits he wears and that noose around his neck.”

  “Mmm. Me, too.”

  “You would.”

  “So how are the kids taking to him?”

  Cassie sighed. “I got them to keep an open mind—mostly through bribery and some threats. I agreed to shorten their research project by four pages if they’d give him a break.”

  Zoe came into the room and perched on the edge of her desk. “What happened with Johnny?”

  Taking in a deep breath, Cassie tried to quell her fear. “Johnny walked out.”

  “What?”

  “You know he wasn’t in school yesterday.” Zoe nodded. “Well, he missed the prep I gave the other kids. It would have been a push, anyway, getting him to accept Lansing. He doesn’t relate well to men in general, he hates cops and he already had that run-in with the good captain Friday night. But I was hoping he’d cooperate. He wouldn’t.”

  “If anyone could have gotten Johnny to work with Lansing, it would have been you. He worships you.”

  “We’re kindred spirits.”

  Zoe smiled. “I know. So what happened?”

  Briefly, Cassie described Johnny’s reaction. “I’m going to find him after school, if I can.”

  “Too bad he lost his job at Bayview General.”

  “Yeah. He loved it.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you flirted shamelessly with the director to get him in there.”

  Cassie shrugged. “Whatever works.”

  “Hey, maybe you could use your charms on Captain Lansing. Get him to give up his stint here.”

  “Are you kidding? That guy’s got ice in his veins. I pity the woman who tries to thaw him.”

  Zoe’s exotic eyes took on a dreamy quality. “I wouldn’t mind trying. Take a good look next time, Smith. He’s definitely hot.”

  After Zoe left, Cassie sat back, thinking about Mitch Lansing. Hot?

  Well, maybe. He did have a great body. And she’d bet those green eyes could melt a girl just as quickly as they could freeze her out. For a minute, Cassie wondered what it would be like to have him touch her. It had been a long time since she’d fantasized about a man. Though she dated, she hadn’t had a serious relationship since her marriage broke up six years ago.

  I can’t compete with them, Cass. You’re too absorbed in your job. Those damn kids are more important than me.

  Paul just hadn’t understood. No one outside of education really did. No one felt the compelling need, the driving force to make a difference in kids’ lives like Seth Taylor had made in hers.

  You’ve got a savior complex, Paul had told her. I want a real woman in my life.

  She’d been hurt, and disappointed in herself that she couldn’t give him more. Her self-confidence as a woman had been shaken. But she’d let Paul leave, and experienced some measure of relief that she didn’t have to defend her actions anymore.

  But she missed the closeness, and the sex.

  A picture of Mitch Lansing came to her again, and before she could think about him in a sexual way, she banished the image. Luckily, the kids were coming back from lunch, so she didn’t have to analyze her reaction.

  Two hours later, she swung open the battered front door of Pepper’s. The owner of the pool hall-turned-diner was at the counter, wiping up after the last of the regular lunch crowd. “Ah, my favorite teacher.”

  “Hi, Pepper.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “He’s in the back,” the old man told her. “Been here since eleven.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cassie found Johnny slouched in the corner, pool cue in his hand, feet stretched out, eyes closed. The picture he created tugged at her heart. He looked so alone. She crossed the room to him. “What are you doing sleeping in a pool hall like some bum?” she asked lightly.

  He opened one eye. “I am a bum.”

  Serious now, she said, “No, Johnny, you’re not.”

  “Better watch it, Teach, the school district ain’t gonna like you in here with us riffraff.”

  She plunked down beside him. “I got tenure.”

  He snorted.

  “You been winning?”

  “Some.”

  Silence. She watched the game in progress, scrambling to find some way to reach the boy. Finally, she called to the players, “I’ve got winners.”

  Johnny straightened abruptly. “Cassie...this isn’t a good idea. You shouldn’t be rubbing elbows with these guys.”

  “I want to play,” she said implacably.

  His brown eyes lit on her. “All right, spit it out.”

  “Play me. If I win, you come back to school and try to accept Lansing. If I lose, I’ll leave you alone.”

  Pure panic flitted across the boy’s face. Cassie recognized the emotion. As a kid, she’d relentlessly pushed everyone to give up on her, and when she thought they might, she panicked.

  “You’re on,” Johnny finally said. “But don’t blame me if Taylor hauls your...rear in for being down here again.”

  Cassie stood and picked up a cue. Someday, she’d tell Johnny a few things about Seth Taylor’s unorthodox methods all those years ago. But right now, it was better to let him worry about her. As she’d told Zoe, she’d do anything to help these kids. Especially this one.

  * * *

  Hal Stonehouse watched Mitch wolf down his roast beef sandwich at Pepper’s that afternoon. “How come you eat like a pig and never gain an ounce?”

  Mitch smiled, a genuine response, if a rare one. “Just luck, I guess. And I work out every day.” His eyes scanned his friend. “You should too, Hal. After what Kurt told you.”

  “Your brother’s a good doctor, but I can’t change overnight.”

  “You’re walking daily, aren’t you?”

  “You know I am. You watch me like a hawk.”

  “Well, you’re the one who lured me to Bayview Heights.”

  The old man smiled. “Yup, I am.”

  “Then threw me into the lion’s den.”

  Stonehouse scratched his chin. “Sorry about that. I needed a juvie officer after Gifford died.”

  Mitch winced at his friend’s tone. “Hal, that wasn’t your fault.”

  “He was inexperienced. I should’ve done something different.”

  “It’s in the past. Let it go.”

  But even as he said the words, Mitch knew all too well that the past could be a living, breathing enti
ty that wouldn’t allow you to escape no matter how hard you tried.

  Hal looked at him. “Least I don’t have to worry about you.”

  Which is the only reason I agreed to this purgatory. To ease the pressure on you. Though Hal Stonehouse had mentored him from the age of twenty, the old man still didn’t know why Mitch avoided working with kids. No one did, except Kurt, who knew only sketchy details. When Mitch had come back from Vietnam, he’d refused to talk about his experiences to anybody. All Hal knew was that Mitch had been in Southeast Asia at the very end of the war and had come back with the scars and baggage that many vets had brought home.

  “So, how’s Smith?” Stonehouse asked. “She’s a tough one. Didn’t know you’d get assigned to her.”

  “Oh, she’s tough, all right. And sassy. And manipulative. And a regular mother hen with her little chicks.”

  Hal’s white eyebrows rose. “Must’ve hit a nerve with you. I never heard you go on about anybody that way.”

  Mitch concentrated on his sandwich. “Don’t start, Hal.”

  “Okay, okay.” His moustache twitched when he said, “But you gotta admit, she’s a looker.”

  “She’s okay. A little tall for my taste. Lots of angles. I like my women soft.”

  “Not me. Haddie was as tough as they come. Only kind of woman that could be married to a cop.”

  Mitch snorted. “Marriage isn’t an institution I’m fond of, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” He glanced around and his eyes focused on the doorway to the back room, which functioned as a pool hall. He saw a flash of red the same color as the dress Cassie Smith had been wearing today. Mitch started to rise. “Hold on a second, will you, Hal? I’ll be right back.”

  “Naw, I gotta go, anyway. I’ll see you at the station.”

  After Hal left, Mitch stood and checked the clock. Two-thirty. He and Hal were having a late lunch. Could school be out already?

  Straightening his suit coat and buttoning the front for good measure, he walked to the back room.

  And couldn’t believe his eyes. Bent over the pool table, with her back to him, was the illustrious Ms. Cassie Smith. Her dress—which he’d thought too short for school, anyway—was creeping up her thighs. He had to tear his eyes away from the generous length of leg exposed by her position. Across the table, Bad News Battaglia, as the department had dubbed him, was grinning at her. Neither spotted Mitch, so he eased back into the doorway to remain undetected.