At Close Range

“Last year at this time, it was nearly a hundred degrees in the shade.”

He made some noise he hoped she’d take for assent, though he wouldn’t have known about the weather; he’d still been locked up in a hospital at this time the year before.

“What made you go into teaching?” she asked.

He grimaced. “It sure wasn’t the opportunity to mold young minds.”

“No?”

“I was one of those problem kids, you know the type, the cutup, the class clown, the kid who would never sit still or shut up.”

The look she gave him let him know how remotely he resembled that person now. He was surprised to find that notion troubled him. Until the incident that changed so many lives, including his own, he’d been secretly proud of the fact that one principal hid in his office to avoid his protests over how some of the children were treated. Stuffy teachers wrote copious memos about Mack’s out-of-the-box disciplinary tactics. Mack had been vaguely pleased to be called a rebel, proving the old adage that some kids never grow up.

But, despite her overt disbelief in his ever having been anything resembling a class clown, she understood where he was going with his story. “So you chose to change the system from within?”

“Something like that. I was a seventies kid, so the schools were stuffed full of half-baked ideas from the sixties, trendy notions from the seventies and economically based concepts predicted for the eighties.”

She smiled. “I was there. I know what you mean. Happy faces and dollar signs.”

He nodded with a half smile. “That’s it. The kids become guinea pigs for the latest educational theory. And when the program doesn’t work, it’s dropped—thank God—but the kids still lose. Big business was helping pick up the tab, so bottom lines became the focus—”

“—and the bottom line in school terms is standardized tests.”

“You’ve got it.”

“And you wanted to change this?”

“Let’s say, modify it. I’m a firm believer in the individual.”

“Why not go into administration?”

He gave a mock shudder. “I’m inherently anti-paperwork.”

“And rebels with a cause don’t rise to the top in administrations.”

He found himself liking her, despite his desire to steer clear of personal involvements. He’d admired her from the privacy of his hospital room, listening only to her voice. He’d liked her clarity, her compassion and her attention to detail. Now, standing beside her on Rancho Milagro’s broad veranda, he found himself warming to her in a way he’d thought lost to him forever.

“I imagine you were a rebel, also,” he said.

She gave an abrupt gurgle of rueful laughter and shook her head swiftly. “Anything but,” she said. “I was the good little girl who always did precisely what she was told.”

He had trouble accepting that notion. She’d traveled the world, been in some of the most dangerous places, come back with heart-wrenching stories of pain and hope. A good little girl would avoid such situations like the plague. “How about later?” he asked.

“Exactly the same—always a follower, never a leader. A true coward, in essence.”

He shook his head, not necessarily disagreeing with her but unable to reconcile his preconceptions of her with what she stated was the reality. The Public Broadcasting System’s motto for her ran through his mind. “When Corrie Stratton says it’s true, it’s a fact.”

“I’d better get going,” he said. Once upon a time, he’d have lingered on this veranda, clung to the time with a pretty woman and a chilly night. Back in that time, he’d have believed in futures, been blind to the pitfalls and dangers that lurked in the shadows.

“Oh. Okay.” She looked understandably confused.

“Good night,” he said gruffly. He curled his hand into a fist to avoid raising it to her silken face.

“Do you want a flashlight to get back to the bunkhouse?” She turned to face him. The movement was abrupt and unexpected.

He wished she hadn’t turned to face him. Her eyes were too luminous in the light cast from the windows, her face too guileless and, for some reason, wistful. He could read the curiosity there and a tinge of sorrow or pity. But he couldn’t see the quest for the news story he’d half accused her of pursuing only moments before. He saw a lovely woman on a cold, moonless night, a woman who had come to offer comfort or perhaps mere camaraderie, and he’d closed her out.

It was best that way, he thought. As he’d told her, he didn’t believe in promises. Lost in his thoughts, he’d forgotten her offer of a flashlight.

“No, thanks,” he said, “I can see my way. You’d better get in before you freeze.” But he was the one who turned to go.

“As Juan Carlos would say, watch out for ghosts,” she said.

“I’m used to them,” he said.

“Plural?”

She was too quick, could hear too much. He turned back to face her but didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Plural.”

“As in, you’re used to more than one ghost.”

“As in,” he agreed, almost enjoying the interplay.

“Are you speaking metaphorically or literally?”

“Both,” he said.

“A man who speaks on multiple levels. Hmm. And talks in riddles.”

“We all have ghosts,” he said.

“But most people call them baggage, not ghosts.”

“I could say I’m not most people.”

She gave a slow smile. “I think I’d agree.”

He tried a smile in return, but it felt odd on his lips. “I think I’ll turn in,” he said, lying through his teeth. If tonight were like any other, he wouldn’t sleep until nearly dawn.

“Good night, then,” she said. “Dream of the angels.”

One angel in particular, he thought. “Right,” he said. “You, too.”

“Always,” she said, rocking against the cold. She didn’t seem like a child then; she was everything a man could possibly want on a lonely night. And if he didn’t walk away from her that very minute, he’d find out exactly what kind of a miracle it would feel like to have her in his arms.

He gave her a stiff half wave and got off the veranda as quickly as he possibly could. He wasn’t far enough away, however, not to hear her clear voice murmur, “What are you hiding, Mack Dorsey?”

Chapter 4