Miss Liz's Passion

“He builds stuff. You know, like shopping centers and things. He’s building one now that’s really neat.”

Liz made one of those impetuous decisions that occasionally got her into very hot water. She didn’t believe in breaking rules, but she sometimes bent them in two if she thought it would help one of her students. Right now, Kevin needed all the positive reinforcement she could give him. She’d brave a lion in his den, if that’s what it took. Todd Lewis seemed only slightly less formidable.

“Do you know where it is?”

“Sure. He takes me with him lots on the weekends. Sometimes we even go by at night, if he has to go back and work late.”

It didn’t sound like any sort of lifestyle for a young boy, Liz decided, and only added to her conviction that Todd Lewis was treading dangerously close to being an unfit father. Yet Kevin always spoke of his father with such obvious pride. He clearly idolized the man. That intrigued her.

“Come on, then,” she said to Kevin. “Let’s go see him.”

When they found Todd Lewis, he was standing with one dusty, booted foot propped on a steel girder that was about to be hoisted to the third level of a future parking garage. A yellow hard hat covered much of his close-cropped brown hair and shaded his face. A light blue work shirt was stretched taut over wide shoulders. Liz found herself swallowing hard at the sight of him. He was bigger—at least six-foot-two and probably two-hundred pounds—more imposing and more masculine than she’d imagined. He made her feel petite and fragile and very much aware of her wrinkled shirt, the run in her hose and the fact that she hadn’t stopped long enough to put on lipstick.

His eyes, when she got close enough to see them, sparked with intelligence and curiosity. At the sight of his son running toward him, those eyes filled with something else as well, a warmth and concern that startled her and made her wish for one wild and timeless moment that the look had been directed at her.

“Dad, this is Mrs. Gentry,” Kevin blurted with a wave of his hand in her direction. Something in Todd Lewis’s self-confident demeanor seemed shaken by that announcement, but there was no time to analyze it because Kevin was rushing on. “We came to see you because we’re going to celebrate, but Miss Gentry said we had to get your permission and we couldn’t call you, so I showed her where you are. Is it okay?”

There was another flash of amazement in those clear hazel eyes. An errant dimple formed in that harsh, tanned face. “A celebration?”

“Yeah. I got all my homework right. Mrs. Gentry helped me while we were waiting for you. I told her you were coming, but that sometimes you got really busy and forgot things. You know like you did when you had that date last week and she came to the house all dressed up and you were working on the car.”

Liz noted that Todd Lewis nearly choked at that. She figured the revelation served him right.

“Sorry,” he said. “I told him to tell you I’d be there today or tomorrow.”

He didn’t sound the least bit repentant. Before she could stop herself, she reminded him, “And I asked you to come in today. I’m sure if you’d explained things to your boss, you could have arranged for the afternoon off.”

“I am the boss,” he said matter-of-factly. “And I can guarantee you that I didn’t get the title by walking off the job in the midst of a crisis just because of some damned whim.”

Liz had to do some quick revising. She glanced around at the sprawling mall with its Spanish-style architecture, man-made lakes and fountains already bubbling. Even weeks away from completion, it promised to be spectacular. How on earth could a man in charge of all this run a business without an office? Perhaps he was one of those laid-back eccentrics who delighted in going his own way and was talented enough or wealthy enough to get away with it. She, however, didn’t operate that way.

“It was hardly a whim, Mr. Lewis. If I hadn’t thought it extremely important, I wouldn’t have requested the meeting.”

“Demanded.”

“Semantics, Mr. Lewis. The point is that you did not come. Again,” she added.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, this time sounding genuinely apologetic. “Your earlier notes…” He gazed pointedly at Kevin. “They seem to have gone astray.”

She felt some of her tension and antagonism begin to ease. That put things in a slightly different light. She should have guessed that Kevin hadn’t passed them along to his father.

“And the phone messages?”

He stared at her blankly. They both turned to gaze at Kevin. He was staring at his shoes.

“Sorry, Dad. I guess maybe they got erased.”

Todd Lewis sighed wearily. “We will talk about all of this later, son.” He smiled at Liz and shrugged. “I guess that explains that. I really am sorry. No wonder you had such a lousy impression of me.”

Liz blushed as she thought of the barely veiled charges she’d leveled at him in her last note. She probably owed him an apology of some sort. Still, he had ignored that one. He wasn’t entirely blameless. Or was he?

“You did get the note I sent yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well…” If she’d expected to intimidate Todd Lewis with a cool stare and an unyielding attitude, she’d vastly underestimated him. Those hazel eyes pierced her without once wavering.

“It is nearly five o’clock, Mr. Lewis,” she stated pointedly, not sure why she felt the need to attack rather than be conciliatory. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t one bit happy about the way her pulse had been skipping erratically ever since she’d gotten within five feet of Todd Lewis.

He grinned. Her pulse leapt. She wanted to attack. Yes, indeed, that was it. An instinctive and vitally necessary response.

“Thank you for enlightening me,” he retorted. He held out his hand, displaying a forearm that was bare to the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t wear a watch on the job. I don’t like clock-watchers.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to himself, his employees or her. Either way, if he’d hoped to rattle her, it was working. She couldn’t take her eyes off that muscular forearm. If the man weren’t quite so large or quite so masculine, she’d be tempted to grab it and experiment with that self-defense technique she’d learned at her last karate lesson. The prospect of flipping him onto his backside cheered her considerably.

“You know what I meant,” she said stiffly. “I expected you at 3:30.”

“And I had hoped to be there,” he said so solemnly that she knew he was mocking her. “You know Miss Gentry…”

He made it sound as though she were some dried-up old prune. “Mrs. Gentry,” she retorted.

He shrugged indifferently. That faint suggestion of amusement continued to play about his lips. “You may be in charge of your classroom, Mrs. Gentry, but I’m in charge around here. Unfortunately at a construction site things are apt to go wrong according to whim, rather than your rigid schedule. If you can think of some way to make these girders do your bidding, more power to you. I’ve had a helluva time with it.”

This time he waited expectantly. Liz felt her insides quiver. Possibly with fury. More likely with something entirely less rational. The man was positively maddening. And far too attractive. She suspected the two characteristics were probably related. She realized she was gripping the handle on her purse so tightly the leather was biting into her flesh. She tried to relax. When that didn’t work, she went for the jugular.

“You’ve already explained that you run the company, Mr. Lewis. You don’t strike me as the sort of man who’d be foolish enough to believe he’s either indispensable or indestructible. I’m sure you have assistants who could handle any crisis that occurs in the brief time it would have taken for you to keep an appointment with me.”

He simply scowled at the note of censure. “That’s not the way I do things,” he said with finality. “Now what was so all-fired important that it couldn’t wait another twenty-four hours?”

She glanced at Kevin and hesitated. She’d already said far more than she should have in front of him. What on earth had gotten into her? “I don’t think this is the time or place to be discussing this.”

“You picked it,” he reminded her.

“Mr. Lewis!”

He stared at her intently, then finally nodded. “Kevin, go into the trailer and ask Hank if he’ll take you to the top of the garage. It’s another story higher since the last time you were here.”

“Oh, wow! Great, Dad. Thanks.” He bounded off without a second glance at either of them.

Todd Lewis watched Kevin until the door of the construction trailer slammed behind him. Then once again he propped his foot on a pile of girders, put his elbow on his knee and said, “You were saying…”

Liz sighed at the challenge and tried very hard not to stare at the way his jeans stretched across his hips. “Mr. Lewis, I did not come here to argue with you. I came to ask permission for Kevin to have a hamburger with me as a reward for working so hard this afternoon.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just want to check out his irresponsible father firsthand?”

The teasing glint in his eyes unnerved her. Again. “I’m sorry for some of the things I suggested in the note.”

“But not all?”