Heart Stealers Page 5

  It gave him courage.

  “All right, let’s begin,” he said, passing out the papers. At least he’d gotten them all into desks. They’d be easier to control that way.

  It took a long minute for the papers to get to the back; by that time, two kids had started to talk.

  “No talking, please,” he said in his best police officer voice.

  “I was just askin’ him for a pen,” Arga said.

  “I got one,” Som volunteered. She took a ballpoint out of her purse.

  “Don’t throw...” Mitch began just as the instrument sailed across two aisles.

  “All right. Calm down, now. What we’re going to talk about today is violence prevention. How you can keep your world orderly and safe.”

  Snickers rumbled through the group. He saw Battaglia slouch down in the chair, fold his arms over his chest and close his eyes. “Mr. Battaglia. Are you with us?”

  “Nope.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “You can ask.”

  “Why?”

  “I pass.”

  Palms even more clammy, Mitch said, “Straighten up and stay alert.”

  Johnny opened his eyes but didn’t sit up.

  Mitch turned to the rest of the class. “All right. On these five pages, there are several situations or circumstances you might find yourselves in. Then there are choices for you to make at the end of each question. Please do all twenty.”

  That ought to keep them busy for a while. Five students picked up their pens and looked down at the paper. Two made faces at each other. One was staring out into space. Battaglia put his head down.

  Mitch started to walk back to him when Nikki Parelli raised her hand. He went over to the girl. “I don’t understand what this word means, Captain.”

  Mitch explained the meaning of contention, baffled that such an easy word could cause a high schooler problems.

  As he returned to the front of the room, a paper airplane landed on the floor. He bent down and picked it up. It was page five. Everyone was looking at him. He knew he could go through each row, find out who didn’t have page five, but he sensed it was the wrong thing to do. He folded his arms over his chest and told them all to get to work.

  He walked to the back of the room. “Mr. Battaglia?” The boy raised insolent eyes to him. “You’re not doing the assignment. Why?”

  “I’m tired. I worked till midnight last night.”

  “Answer the questions on the sheets.”

  After a long, hard stare at Mitch, Battaglia picked up his pen. He circled an answer for each question without reading them. Then he looked up at Mitch again. “Done.”

  Mitch was about to respond when he heard a student say, “Quit kickin’ me, man.”

  “I ain’t.”

  “You just did.”

  “Shut up, Youngblood.”

  “You tellin’ me to shut up?”

  Mitch hustled to the front of the room. “All right, you guys, knock it off.”

  “He started it,” Arga said.

  “This isn’t a first-grade classroom, gentlemen,” Mitch scolded.

  DeFazio looked around. “It ain’t? You could have fooled me.”

  Everyone laughed, and Mitch knew he was losing control. Rules. They needed rules. “I want everyone to be quiet and finish this assignment.”

  They settled down somewhat. Intermittently, someone would stretch and everyone would turn to look at him. One student burped and they all laughed. Two kids tapped their pens on their desks. Mitch stopped that by standing close to them. In fifteen minutes, half the class was done. The other half, Mitch noted, were in different phases of completion. As he looked at them, he realized he had no idea what to do with those who had finished.

  Someone snapped gum loudly. Mitch’s head jerked up. “Whoever did that, throw the gum out.”

  Twelve angelic faces stared at him wide-eyed. His hand fisted at his side. He glanced at the clock. He couldn’t possibly have sixty more minutes of this chaos to deal with.

  He caught Cassie’s eye. She wasn’t smiling. She looked...sad.

  As he tried to discuss the material, he got more of the same antics from the kids. The remaining hour crawled by. Inch by inch, Mitch lost control. Finally, Cassie announced it was time to leave. The kids rose. There was some conversation as they picked up their gear. They all said goodbye to her. As they walked by him, Nikki smiled at him. “Bye, Captain.” He was grateful for that. When they were gone, he realized they’d left their papers on the desks. Solemnly, he collected them.

  Cassie leaned against the wall and watched him. His body language was a study in frustration. His shoulders were stiff, every muscle taut. Absurdly, she felt sorry for him. When he’d retrieved all the papers and returned to the front of the room, she looked at him somberly. “It didn’t go so well.”

  Placing the pile on a desk, he scrubbed his hands over his face. “No, it didn’t. Is teaching always like this?”

  “It can be.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Most people don’t. They think anybody can be a teacher. You just stand up in front of the kids and deliver the material.”

  “Yeah, but no one listens. Even if they do, they don’t always get it, do they?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and faced her squarely. “I need some help.”

  Cassie knew that cost him. She understood intuitively that Mitch Lansing rarely said those words to anyone. Neither did she.

  “I could help.”

  “I don’t like failure. I don’t want to experience it again.”

  Giving him a quick smile, she said, “I appreciate your honesty.” She perched on the edge of her desk. “You sure you want this?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” She held up her index finger. “Rule number one—kids learn by doing.” A second finger joined it. “Rule number two—they learn if you can make it relevant.”

  Mitch watched her for a minute, then said, “So how do you get content across?”

  She picked up the packet he handed out. “I looked through your material. It’s good stuff but should be used as reinforcement of the ideas, not to teach them.”

  “How do you teach ideas, then?”

  “Tell me what you want them to learn.”

  “Alternatives to violent behavior.”

  “All right, then ask them first for their own input. What alternatives can they come up with? Then maybe ask them for situations where they’ve been involved in violent behavior, and how they could have chosen something different.”

  “But that would take so long. I’d never get through all the material.”

  “No, but they’d be thinking, coming up with their own conclusions. And they’d be with you every minute.”

  “What about the rest of the content?”

  Cassie sighed and stared over his shoulder at the window. Then she looked back at him. “Let me tell you a story. One of my favorite workshop presenters told us this once. There was this guy, Ted, who was supposed to give his friend Bill a ride to the airport. But Bill had to tie up some things before he left. Ted went to pick up Bill and waited in the living room while Bill made phone calls. It was getting later and later. Ted kept prodding Bill, but Bill kept calling people, and he hadn’t started to pack. The plane was leaving at three. At two-thirty, Bill still wasn’t ready. So Ted left for the airport without him.”

  Mitch nodded. “Okay. I see what you’re getting at. A teacher can’t leave the kids home and make the trip to the airport by himself.”

  “Bingo!”

  “So you deliver no content?”

  Cassie’s temper flared; this accusation was a sore spot with her. “No, I deliver content. Sometimes not as much as I’d like, but enough.” She looked down at the packet of papers she held. “From what I can tell, this last page with the alternatives is what you want them to know. You could finish getting all their input, then go to this sheet and see how many o
f these points they covered. For those they missed, you could start a discussion about how they apply and how they might be relevant in different situations. Then you could ask for examples.”

  “Makes sense,” Mitch said. “Even if it does go against my grain.”

  Cassie’s gaze swept over him. She hadn’t expected this open-mindedness. “I wonder, Captain, underneath that suit, what grain really exists.”

  * * *

  Cassie stared out the window of the glassed-in porch of Zoe’s huge condominium on the bay. The water lapped lazily, though the temperature this January afternoon edged around freezing. She pressed her face to the cold glass, hoping the sting would encourage her to go inside and socialize. Behind her, music from the sixties combined with the din of conversation—teachers letting down after a tough week. Usually she loved these gatherings, where she shared her joys and frustrations with her colleagues.

  “Hey, kid, what are you doing out here by yourself?”

  Cassie turned to Zoe, who’d changed into a Japanese-print caftan to play hostess as she often did on a Friday night.

  “Thinking.”

  “About?”

  “What else?”

  “School. Honestly, Cass, you’re a hopeless case. You need a man in your life to distract you.”

  Unbidden, a vision of Mitch Lansing came to mind. She wondered what he’d look like out of that damn suit, in a dark green T-shirt that accentuated his eyes. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” If she was having these thoughts about Lansing, she definitely needed something.

  “Did you see the hottie Susie brought? He’s a vice president down at the electronics plant.”

  “No, I didn’t notice.”

  “You must be dead, girl, not to have noticed.”

  No, she wasn’t dead, Cassie thought. She’d noticed some things—the way Mitch’s face had hardened with determination when the kids were brushing him off, how the cleft in his chin deepened when he was frustrated, how his smile was warm and reassuring to Nikki when the girl couldn’t quite master the language of his worksheet.

  “Zoe, someone’s at the door,” one of the teachers called from the other room.

  Zoe gave Cassie a strange look, then turned to go to meet her new guest. Cassie faced the bay again. She shouldn’t be noticing anything about Mitch Lansing. But she knew why she was. His wit, intelligence and determination were traits that appealed to her. She liked the fact that he enjoyed reading. Thank God he’d blown it with the kids today. She stilled the little voice inside her that reminded her he’d wanted her input after class and had accepted her suggestions. God help her if he got good with them. She was a real sucker for men who worked well with kids.

  Cassie turned when Zoe came back into the room. With her was Mitch Lansing. “Cass, look who’s here.”

  Cassie bit her lip to keep her jaw from dropping. “Captain. What a surprise.”

  “I invited Mitch to our get-together tonight. I’m glad you came, Mitch. What can I get you?” As always, Zoe was a perfect hostess.

  Mitch glanced at his watch. To make sure he was off duty, no doubt. “I’ll have a beer.”

  “Cass?”

  Cassie sipped the bottle of Michelob. “No, thanks. I’m nursing this one.”

  When Zoe left, Mitch faced her. His hair was a little mussed, but his white shirt was as crisp as it had been this morning. A faint growth of beard shadowed his face, and she had a sudden urge to touch him.

  He watched her closely. “I get the impression you’re not glad to see me.”

  “No, no, I’m just surprised.”

  His grin was little-boyish; the switch from cynical cop threw her. “Truthfully, so am I.”

  “Why? That Zoe would ask you, or that you’d come?”

  Green eyes sparkled. “Both, I guess.”

  “Well, Captain, if nothing else, you’re honest.”

  “No, not always.”

  Before Cassie could respond, Zoe returned with a frosted glass of beer for Mitch. She chatted for a minute then left to see to the food.

  Cassie lifted her beer. “Toast, Captain?”

  “To?”

  “To a better lesson next time?”

  He smiled broadly and Cassie’s stomach contracted. “Let’s hope so. Nothing could be worse than today.” He looked down at her. “Thanks for your help.”

  Cassie smiled up at him and clinked his glass.

  He said, “To a successful collaboration.” His husky tone made her shiver. “Are you cold?” he asked.

  Oh, God, had she really shivered?

  “Ah, a little. This porch isn’t heated well enough for January.”

  Before she realized his intent, he set his beer down, removed his suit coat and placed it on her shoulders. His hands lingered there for a minute; they felt solid and firm and made her wonder briefly if his fingertips would be callused. As if he read her thoughts, he removed his hands abruptly and looked away, out to the ocean.

  Released from his touch, she steadied herself— until his scent surrounded her. It was so male, so potent that for a minute she had to stop breathing, had to stop the bombardment of her senses. The jacket was heavy and huge on her.

  Mitch said nothing, just stared at the waves lapping against the shore. Cassie watched his throat as he swallowed a swig of beer. It was an oddly erotic sight, and she turned to look out at the bay, too. Lost in their own thoughts, they were both silent.

  “You don’t like me much, do you,” he finally said.

  She shook her head. “It’s not that. We’re just very different.”

  Still facing away from her, he said, “Yes, we are. Then we had that problem with Johnny.” She just nodded. “And I know you don’t like cops.”

  “How do you know that?”

  His grin was wry. “You’re a pretty easy book to read, Ms. Smith.” She smiled. “Why?”

  Distracted by his sexy stare, she asked, “Why what?”

  “Why don’t you like cops?”

  To Cassie’s surprise, the words just spilled out. “When I was eleven, I got caught by a cop for shoplifting a candy bar from Miller’s Groceries. At thirteen, I was nabbed by one for spray-painting graffiti on the outside of the middle school. A patrolman picked me up drunk on the reservoir once when I was fifteen. And a year later, I was found with marijuana at school in a surprise search conducted by the local officials.”

  He was so still, it was eerie. His eyes studied her face. “That’s not all of it, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All those cops were just doing their jobs. You’re a fair person. Something else happened with the police force, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t anything traumatic. But there are bad cops out there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.” She looked up at him, his chiseled features standing out against the backdrop of the bay. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask.”

  “I get the impression you don’t really want to be working with my class. Why are you?”

  Mitch shifted uneasily. This woman knew how to keep him off balance. It was bad enough that she’d felt good in his hands when he’d given her his jacket, that she looked utterly lovely with her hair peeking out of her braid and her gray-blue eyes shining. Then she’d shared a confidence that she could have kept to herself. Now she was asking him to share his feelings—why he was working with kids. “Because I owe Hal Stonehouse. I was sick of the city, and when he asked me to come out here, I came on a lateral transfer.”

  “You agreed to work in the school?”

  “No, I thought I’d be doing other things. Do you remember when the young police officer got caught in a random drive-by shooting?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was the one assigned to do this job. Hal felt responsible for what happened to Gifford. Then when there was no one to fill this position, I agreed to do it.” He
turned to face her, not sure why he was sharing so much. Maybe because she had. The twilight from outside was filtering into the dim room, softening her features. He didn’t see the angles today. Just the curves. The feminine curves that were too well outlined in that damn red T-shirt and those jeans that made her legs look a mile long.

  “You don’t enjoy working with the kids, though, do you, Captain?”

  He looked down at her. When she’d turned, a lock of hair had fallen on her cheek. He raised his hand to tuck it behind her ear. He said, “My name’s Mitch.”

  “What?” Cassie had gone very still.

  “My name is Mitch,” he repeated. “Say it. Just once.” His voice, usually so controlled and somewhat harsh, sounded like a stranger’s—soft, in-bed coaxing.

  “Mitch.”

  He didn’t take his hand away. Instead, he rested it briefly on her neck. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it Cassandra?”

  Her eyes widened at his use of her full name. This close, he could see a few freckles on the bridge of her nose. It gave her an unexpected vulnerability again. Some primitive male instinct yearned to protect her. Because Mitch knew the raw danger of those instincts, he removed his hand and turned away.

  She said nothing for a minute, then asked again, “The kids, Mitch. Why don’t you like working with them?”

  He thought of Som Choumpa. She reminded him of the Vietnamese civilians he’d encountered. Damn, he didn’t want to remember this. He’d been pretty successful at keeping the war memories at bay. But tonight he recalled too much. Vietnam—a beautiful country. A deadly one. He remembered vividly both sides of it. The earthy smell of the lush jungle, as well as the stench of burning flesh. And—for the first time in his life—he wished he could share his memories with someone. With someone who understood pain and loss and helplessness. He glanced over at Cassie Smith, standing there wrapped up in his jacket, invitation and something else in her sultry eyes. Did she know those grim, lonely feelings that ambushed you when you least expected them?

  “Excuse me,” Zoe said from behind them. She held a cordless phone in her hand. “It’s for you, Mitch. It’s the department.”

  Glad for the reprieve, Mitch took the phone from Zoe. “Lansing.”

  “Mitch, it’s Hal. We’ve got a couple of your kids down here.”