Too Good to Be True(87)

“Oh, really?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He wiped a little frosting off my chin, then kissed me.

“Okay, then. I’m yours,” I murmured.

“I like the sound of that,” he said, kissing me again, long and slow and sweet, so that my knees wobbled when he let me go. “I’ll pick you up around two, but I have to run now. The appliances are being installed today.”

“You’re almost done with the house, aren’t you?” I asked, a sudden pang hitting my heart.

“Yup,” he answered.

“What happens after that?”

“I have another house to work on, couple towns north. But if you want, I can come back and lie on the roof of this house so you can spy on me. If the new owners don’t mind.”

“I never spied. It was more of a gazing thing.”

He grinned, then glanced at his watch. “Okay, Grace. Gotta run.” He kissed me once more, then went up the path to his house. “Two o’clock, don’t forget.”

I let out some line on Angus’s retractable leash so my puppy could sniff a fern and took a pull of my own coffee.

Then I headed back home to correct papers.

As I sifted through my kids’ essays, I had an uneasy thought. I needed to tell the Manning search committee about Callahan. He was, after all, in my life now, and I should be upfront about that. However it happened, Cal had served time in a federal prison, had covered up a crime, even though his intentions had been honorable.

That wasn’t something I should try to hide. That was also something that would probably tank whatever chance I had at becoming chairman of the history department. Nonprofit institutions tended to frown on embezzling and felons and prison records, especially where impressionable children were concerned.

My shoulders drooped at the thought. Well. I had to do it just the same.

At two o’clock sharp, Cal came up the walk. “You ready, woman?” he called through the screen door as Angus leaped and snarled from the other side.

“I have four papers left to grade. Can you wait half an hour?”

“No. Do it in the car, okay?”

I blinked. “Yes, Master.” He grinned. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out when we get there. When do you think this dog will like me?”

“Possibly never,” I said, picking up my dog and kissing his head. “Goodbye, Angus, my darling boy. Be good.

Mommy loves you.”

“Ouch. That’s really…wow. Sad,” Cal said. I punched him in the shoulder. “No hitting, Grace!” he laughed. “You need to get those violent urges looked at. God. I never got beat up in prison, but I move in next to you, and look at me. Hit by sticks, bitten by your dog, my poor truck dented…”

“Such a baby. I’d think prison would’ve toughened you up a bit. Made you a man and all that.”

“It wasn’t that kind of prison.” He smiled and opened his truck door for me. “We did have tennis lessons. No shivving, though. Sorry to disappoint you, honey.”

Honey. I sort of flowed into the truck. Honey. Callahan O’ Shea called me honey.

Ten minutes later, we were on the Interstate, heading west. I took out a paper and started to read.

“Do you like being a teacher?” Callahan asked.

“I do,” I answered immediately. “The kids are fantastic at this age. Of course, I want to kill them half the time, but the other half, I just love them. And they are sort of the point of teaching.”

“Most people don’t love teenagers, do they?” He smiled, then checked the rearview mirror as we merged.

“Well, it’s not the easiest age, no. Little kids, who doesn’t love them, right? But teenagers—they’re just starting to show signs of who they could be. That’s really great to watch. And of course, I love what I teach.”

“The Civil War, right?” Callahan asked.

“I teach all areas of American history, actually, but yes, the Civil War is my specialty.”

“Why do you love it? Kind of a horrible war, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” I answered. “But there was never a war where people cared more about their cause. It’s one thing to fight a foreign country, a culture that you don’t know, cities that you’ve never visited, maybe. But the Civil War …imagine what would drive you to raise troops against your own country, the way Lincoln did. The South was fighting for rights as individual states, but the North was fighting for the future of the nation. It was heartbreaking because it was so personal. It was us. I mean, when you compare Lincoln with someone like—”

I heard my voice rising, becoming that of a television preacher on Sunday morning. “Sorry,” I said, blushing.

Callahan reached over and squeezed my hand, grinning. “I like hearing about it,” he said. “And I like you, Grace.”

“So it’s more than the fact that I was the first woman you saw out of prison,” I said.

“Well, we can’t discount that,” he said somberly. “Imprinting, they call it, right, Teacher?”

I swatted his arm. “Very funny. Now leave me alone. I have papers to grade.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

And grade them I did. Cal drove smoothly, not interrupting, commenting only when I read a snippet out loud. He asked me to check his MapQuest directions once or twice, which I did, quite amiably. It was surprisingly comfortable.