Errant Angel

God, you’re tired when you start fantasizing like that, he muttered inwardly. You’ve got no business thinking about her at all, or any other woman for that matter. You’re out of that race, for good, and you’d damned well better remember that.

That’s what you get, he lectured himself, for letting that kid get close. You should have kept the walls up. Once you let one person in, they start dragging in others. Well, it wasn’t too late. He might have let the kid in, but he could throw him right back out again. So Jimmy’s got problems. Don’t we all? Let him deal with them. Nobody ever gave a damn about you, and you survived. He’d better learn to survive, too, because nobody was going to help him. And he’d better start learning now.

Dalton stood, rubbing at the scar on his temple, and feeling the ache in his right ankle where more metal than bone held the joint together. He welcomed the pain. It served as a reminder of why he was here, of what he had done. And it was only physical pain, a hell of a lot easier to stand than the other agony, the one that ripped at his insides like the jagged pieces of a race car had once ripped at his flesh.

He strode toward the bathroom, with each step forcing his right foot down harder, heightening the pain. He knew it was the only way to get past it, to work it out. It was also no more than he deserved.

And as he stood beneath the flow of steaming water, he found himself flexing the aching joint fiercely, hoping the ache would be enough to drive the memory of a pair of huge brown eyes out of his mind.

Three

Evangeline smiled at the waitress as she accepted the mug of coffee. The small restaurant was less busy now as patrons hurried off to work, and since her first class wasn’t until nine, she decided she would take this chance to speak to the woman.

“You’re Mrs. Kirkland, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Weary blue eyes sparked with interest as the woman looked at her. “I’m Maggie. You’re Ms. Law, the new teacher, aren’t you?”

Evangeline nodded. “And I live across the street from you, I think.”

“At Lilah’s. Yes, I know. I’ve been meaning to come over and thank you.”

“Thank me?”

The woman nodded. “In the two years Jimmy Sawyer has lived with us, he’s been trouble from morning to night. Angry, bitter...we can’t seem to get through to him at all.”

“He is very angry,” Evangeline agreed.

“He sneaks out at night, to hang around with those awful friends of his, older kids, real troublemakers. Lord knows what kind of things they’re up to. I know they’re the ones who set that fire at the high school last year. I think Jimmy was with them, but he didn’t get caught. If he had, he could have wound up in juvenile hall.”

“He’s been through some tough times,” Evangeline said carefully.

“Yes, I know that. It’s awful, what that child has been through. That’s why Bob and I took him on. We have no kids of our own, and we thought...well, we wanted to help. You know, an older child, who probably would never get adopted. But we got more than we bargained for.”

A hopeful smile curved the woman’s mouth, brightening her weary expression for a moment. “But he hasn’t cut class since you came. And the other night he stayed home. He was actually reading a book. For your class, he said.”

Evangeline smiled. “I’m glad.”

“I’ve never seen him reading anything that didn’t have comics or cars in it.”

“Well, there’s a lot of wonderful art in comics, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with cars. They can be a very healthy hobby, compared to some.”

“I suppose,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “And I must say, it’s been a lot more peaceful at my house since Jimmy started hanging around that garage after school these past few weeks. He doesn’t see quite as much of those other boys, thank goodness. I’m not sure about that man, though.”

Evangeline went still. “Dalton MacKay?”

“Yes. He’s...strange.”

“Strange?”

“Oh, not like dangerous, but...unfriendly, I guess.”

“I got the impression he was more...detached,” Evangeline said neutrally.

Mrs. Kirkland considered that. “Yes, I suppose that fits. I mean, he’s lived here for over a year, but he’s not really part of the town. And that’s odd, in a small place like Three Oaks.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. But I imagine he has his reasons.”

“My husband says he was famous, a couple of years ago. Some kind of race car driver or something. I don’t follow that kind of thing, so I wouldn’t know. But I suppose that’s why Jimmy’s so fascinated with him.”

Or perhaps the boy just senses a brother under the skin, Evangeline thought as memories of those painful images came back to her.

“He’s a good mechanic though,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “He’s kept our poor old station wagon going long after the dealer in Santa Barbara said we should buy a new one. And he doesn’t gouge us with high prices, either. Barely charges for his labor, just parts. In fact, if he didn’t live in that old room over the garage, I don’t know how he’d get by.”

“He’s generous, then.”

Maggie looked puzzled for a moment. “Yes, in that way, I suppose you’re right. And we’re glad to have him, really. That old garage had been empty a long time before he came. It’s wonderful not to have to drive twenty miles to have work done, or pay to have your car towed.” She smiled slightly. “Mr. MacKay makes house calls. He doesn’t even seem to mind, no matter what time it is.”

He doesn’t care enough about anything to mind.

The instinctive knowledge leapt into her mind fully formed, making her wonder if the bosses had developed some new way of sending information. But they would hardly be sending her anything on Dalton MacKay, so she didn’t know where this was coming from.

It wasn’t until the woman had gone to serve a late customer that Evangeline realized that once again she’d been diverted, that when she’d meant to find out more about Jimmy, she’d wound up spending almost the entire time talking about Dalton MacKay.

* * *

“Jimmy? Can I see you for a minute after class?”

The boy turned red at the chorus of hoots and howls that met her request. But he stayed behind as the rest of the students filed out. They’d had a raucous day; their role-playing as the rebels and Tories of the American Revolution had been lively enough, but when she had stopped the debate and made everyone switch sides, things had nearly gotten out of hand because the two sides knew each other’s position well enough to attack with devastating accuracy.

It had taken her nearly the whole class period to get them to see they also knew each other’s position well enough to understand each other. In the end, she’d gotten her point across; knowledge was power, however you used it, and neither side was fully right or fully wrong.

“You didn’t seem to be with us today, Jimmy,” she said after the others had gone, hurrying now that classes were over for the day.

The boy shrugged carelessly. For the past two days—ever since the morning after she’d gone by the garage, in fact—he’d slipped back into his old ways, his attitude bitter, his answers sarcastic and his expression sullen. He was hurting; she didn’t need any special powers to see that. He was also tired, yawning throughout the class, and she sensed he was back to sneaking out with his friends at night.

She sat back in her chair, studying him for a moment.

“What is it, Jimmy?” she asked gently.

“Nothin’.”

She reached out to him. “You’re obviously upset—”

“I’m not,” he snapped, backing away.

“All right,” she said after a moment. Then she stood to gather her things. Jimmy lingered, as if uncertain whether or not he was free to leave. Or as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to. As she picked up her jacket, she asked, “Can I give you a ride to the garage? I have to stop at the drugstore on my way home.”

His eyes lit up at the thought of a ride in her car, but an instant later the sullen expression was back.

“Nah. I got my bike. Besides, I don’t hang around there anymore. It’s stupid.”

Stupid. It had been the only bright spot in his young life two days ago, but now it was stupid.

“Mr. MacKay will miss you, don’t you think?”

Jimmy swore out a negative answer, a crude oath that she sensed came more from pain than the usual teenage desire to shock. “He’s the one who threw me out.”

Evangeline blinked. Dalton had thrown the boy out? That didn’t fit at all with what she’d picked up during that brief but unforgettable contact.

“Jimmy, are you sure?”

He snorted. “He told me to leave him the hell alone. Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Maybe he just...”

Her voice trailed away as she realized the boy wasn’t hearing her. She probed gently, and although his protective walls were substantial—not nearly as tough as Dalton’s, however—she finally got it. He’d expected this. To him, everyone in his young life had rejected him sooner or later, his parents by dying, then his grandmother, who had also died shortly after rather dutifully taking him in, and then his other foster homes, by sending him back because he was too much trouble.

And she also got the memory of last night’s activities, and had the answer to the graffiti that had appeared overnight on the gymnasium wall.

“I gotta go now, okay?”

It was a measure of respect, she supposed, that he had asked rather than just gone. She had sensed, too, that she was the one remaining light flickering in a world that was rapidly going dark for Jimmy Sawyer.

As the boy walked away, swaggering the moment he got through the door and out where others could see him, Evangeline felt an odd tightening in her midsection. It took her a moment to recognize it, it had been so long. Fear. Astonished, she sank back down in her chair. She was afraid. Afraid she wasn’t up to this. Afraid she would let Jimmy down, that she wouldn’t be able to turn his life around.

She wasn’t supposed to be afraid. Or confused. Or anything else. Even in her disagreements with the bosses she had never been afraid. Nor had she ever been on any of her assignments, even that one with the pilot who had wanted to take himself out and didn’t much care if he took his planeload of passengers with him. This kind of work would be near to impossible without an unshakable confidence and utter lack of anxiety. Purposely put in situations of great stress, operatives would be worn out in weeks if they had to go through the ups and downs of normal human emotions.

Nor had she ever doubted that she would succeed in her task, only that she would manage to irritate her bosses in the process. She supposed they had given her that, along with everything else. So why had they apparently taken away that insulation now?

Her hand rose to the pendant at her throat. She hesitated, loathe to subject herself to another lecture on Dalton MacKay. Especially when she’d been behaving herself, staying away from him, and trying very, very hard not to think about him. But how was she supposed to get this job done without thinking about him, when he seemed to be smack in the middle of it? At first she’d thought him an ally, but now that he’d destroyed what little enthusiasm Jimmy had for anything, he was hardly that.

The more she thought about it, the madder she got. In some distant part of her mind she acknowledged that she wasn’t supposed to be feeling anger, either, except that which the bosses had finally had to concede went hand in hand with the sense of justice. But that expression on Jimmy’s face made her furious at the man who had put it there. Her hand moved away from the pendant and she quickly stood, picked up her books and papers, and strode purposefully out of the classroom.

* * *

Dalton heard the rumble of the car long before it pulled into the driveway. He knew who it was; the tap-tap of solid lifters was distinctive. He didn’t look up, didn’t even move when the car door slammed, just continued to fiddle with the butterfly on the old carburetor that sat in the pan on his workbench.

Swift footsteps approached him. The feminine sound of high heels echoed oddly in the cavernous garage. High heels. He knew he didn’t want to look up now; the memory of her legs, exquisitely long and curved, was emblazoned too vividly in his mind. It’s your imagination, she’s too small to have legs that long, he’d told himself over and over again.

“Just what the hell is your problem?”

It wasn’t the opening he’d expected, and his head came up sharply as he looked at her in surprise. And knew immediately he’d been right to be wary; the skirt of her yellow linen suit, which beautifully set off her burnished hair and the golden gleam of that pendant she wore, was shorter than the one she’d worn the other day. Short enough to show shapely knees and tease him with a glimpse of equally shapely thighs.

She wasn’t too small, after all, he thought wryly. She was perfect.

Silently he reminded himself of all the time he’d spent trying to chase her out of his mind since her appearance here the other day. Out loud, he asked “Problem?”

“If you want to shut yourself off from the whole world, to hide from everything and everyone, that’s your business, but—”

She stopped when he straightened, his face going rigidly still. She’d hit a nerve he’d thought deadened beyond response. He had long ago instinctively sensed that his personal hell took him to the limit of his endurance; the world had to be kept at a distance. He didn’t like the fact that she had somehow guessed that.

“Yes,” he said, his voice soft, “it is my business.”

“I said it was,” she went on, her chin coming up as if to show him he couldn’t intimidate her despite the fact that, even with her in heels, he towered over her. “If you want to build walls around yourself as high as these hills, fine. I know you have your reasons—”

“You don’t know a damn thing about my reasons.”

She drew herself up even straighter. There was nothing of the fawn in her eyes now; they were dark and fairly glittering with anger.

“Nor do I care,” she snapped. “If you want to hide here and nurse your guilt for the rest of your life, that’s fine with me.”

Dalton went very still. He’d met this woman once, for all of five minutes, never mind that she’d haunted him ever since. Where the hell had she gotten this idea? Did she know who he’d been, what he’d done? When he spoke, his voice was even softer than before, with an undertone many had once recognized as the prelude to an eruption. He doubted he was capable of that kind of emotion any longer, but this was as close as he’d come in a long time.

“Guilt?”

She looked oddly abashed for an instant, as if caught doing something she shouldn’t have.

“Or whatever it is that’s eating at you,” she said hastily. “I told you, I don’t care. But I do care about other people getting hurt. You can’t let somebody in, just enough to start to care, then slam the door on them!”

To start to care? Dalton’s heart slammed in his chest, startling him into wondering if his emotions were as dead as he’d like to believe. Had that five minutes of their first meeting been as indelibly carved into her mind as his? Had she been haunted by it as he had?

Stop it, he ordered himself. Even if she had, it meant nothing. He wouldn’t allow it to mean anything.

“He’s just a boy, Mr. MacKay. A very troubled boy.”

Jimmy, he thought. This was about Jimmy. God, MacKay, you’re a fool.

“The last thing he needs,” she was saying vehemently, “is the one adult he thought was his friend turning his back on him.”

Dalton fought off the twinge her words caused. “I didn’t turn my back on him. I’m just not used to having a kid around all the time.”

“So tell him you’re busy, to come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s not going to be any better.”

“Nice philosophy. And now you’ve got Jimmy believing it, too.”

“I can’t help what he believes.”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you? He idolizes you! You could make him believe whatever you want.”

“Idols,” he said flatly, “usually have feet of clay. He might as well learn that early.”

She studied him for a long moment. “Did yours?” she asked softly.

Caught off guard by the unexpected question, the answer slipped out before he could stop it, a harsh whisper that was barely audible.

“No.”

He backed up a step, unable to bear the gentle understanding in her eyes. That was three times now she’d gotten to him, gotten through to a part of him buried so deep it should have been impossible. It was as if she could read his mind somehow, as if she knew his deepest thoughts, things he rarely dragged out into the light himself.

“Who was he, Dalton?”

His entire body tensed. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was treading ground upon which he never let anyone walk, or if it was something much more primitive, much more elemental: the sound of his name in that low, soft voice. The only thing he was certain of was that this had to stop. Now.

“None of your business,” he said harshly.

“I see,” she said in that same gentle tone, and he had the oddest feeling that it was literally true, that she saw everything, clear down to the twisted, shriveled darkness of his soul. Pressure built up inside him as the threat closed in. This woman, and the boy she was so valiantly fighting for, could make him lose sight of why he’d come here. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Look,” he growled, “I don’t have time for this. And I don’t have time for that damn kid hanging around and asking questions all the time, let alone having him drag in everybody else in town.”

It was a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes.

“You mean me, don’t you?” Astonishment echoed in her voice. “You’re angry at Jimmy because he brought me here? And you’re making him pay for my intrusion? Of all the misguided— How dare you?”

He’d known she was angry when she’d first come in, but there was little doubt that now she was furious. He’d never known brown eyes could be icy, but these were.

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