My mistake.” She held out her hand. “I’m Katarina Zemanova, the teacher for this class, and even though these may not be the best of circumstances, I am delighted to welcome you here.” She might not feel brave inside, but Katarina could at least make a good show of it on the surface.
The man glanced down at her hand as if not quite sure what to make of her gesture. There certainly was no immediate reply, and just when she thought she would have to rescind her invitation, he abruptly thrust out a hand.
The brief contact should have passed without fanfare, except for the annoying little voice in her head that kept pointing out how big his hand was, and how the pads of his fingers were rough with calluses. How his skin was cold to the touch but somehow warm, very warm within. Maybe, just maybe, that little voice had read too many of her grandmother’s romances?
Katarina ended the handshake after one firm up-and-down motion; then she reflexively tried to wipe away a lingering tingling sensation. “Won’t you have a seat then?” she offered.
He stood still and silent.
It was like pulling teeth. “I know how anxious you must have been, but now that you’ve found your son, you can relax.”
“There’s no relaxing when you have a teenager,” Rufus said from his seat in the front. That raised a nervous twitter from several students.
Katarina looked around the classroom. All eyes were on her to do something. Except two green ones that stayed focused on Matt. The cords in his neck strained like the stretched lines on a skiff heeling hard against the wind. His nostrils narrowed as he breathed in deeply.
Katarina rubbed the side of her nose. She could do this. What was dealing with a little father/son strife when she’d faced down a bullet? She could do this, right? Right?
“Perhaps I could be of service?” Carl said, starting to rise. “I’m the father of two grown sons.”
Katarina cleared her throat.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, Carl,” she said, smiling, buying a few moments as she figured out what she was going to do. “You see, ah…I was thinking that rather than hold up the class any further, perhaps it would be better if I…ah…if I chatted with Mr. Brown and Matt at the break? Yes, the break. That way, we could get on with the lesson and not hold everyone up.” She glanced around the classroom, looking for a response.
There arose an audible sigh of agreement, as well as the buzz from someone’s hearing aid. Marginally more confident, she turned back to the new arrival. “So, Mr. Brown, if you’d just take a seat…” She pointed to a chair next to his son in the back. And was greeted by an even larger frown…
THE TEACHER COULD HAVE been indicating the path of Halley’s comet for all Ben was aware because the plain truth was that he wasn’t listening. All his attention, all the mounting stress that had constricted his airway and frazzled his nerves to the point he couldn’t even feel the tips of his fingers, had been focused on finding Matt—his son.
His son. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he had a son. If someone had ever suggested that he’d be one of those men who nervously patrolled the sidelines of their child’s soccer game or attended piano recitals, listening proudly to halting renditions of “Für Elise,” he would have scoffed, poured two fingers of the finest single malt scotch and gone on about his business of making money for him and a bunch of people who already had too much money for their own good.
Well, scoff away. He had become one. A father. An instant father to be exact. And no matter what critical words had been said about George Benjamin Brown—and there were maybe too many—he had never been accused of shirking his responsibilities. Even when it came to something as uncomfortable as fatherhood.
Ben narrowed his eyes and reassured himself that the skinny kid slumped over in a chair in the back of the classroom was indeed his son, Matt, and not some imposter. Then he let go a giant breath of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Was it always going to be like this? The anxiety? It was one thing to mentor up-and-coming young bucks in the workplace. If they performed well, he recommended them for a fat bonus. If they fell flat on their faces, he had had no qualms about giving them the heave-ho. Either way, it wasn’t personal.
But with parenting, everything was personal. He couldn’t fire his kid because he skipped out at night without asking permission or leaving a note, nor could he promote him if he made his bed two days in a row. As someone who had never known his own father, the underlying assumption that there existed an unwavering bond of love between a father and a son was an alien concept to him. Would he ever feel it? Even more scary, given his own emotional development, would he mess up his son forever? It was this fear that kept him up at night and kept him from reaching out to get closer. So why he had panicked when Matt had failed to show up?
As an afterthought, Ben glanced over at the teacher who was moving her lips and pointing her finger, giving every sign of talking to him. For the first time, he looked at her, really looked at her. It allowed him to notice the way her mouth formed a small circle while her cupid’s-bow upper lip puckered as she was waiting. Waiting for him to say something.
And that’s when it dawned on him that she was the one. Not the one, but the same woman he had met earlier. The one with the flyaway umbrella and pint-size grandmother and that unexpectedly mesmerizing combination of vulnerability and determination. Though the elements had assaulted her, she had stood resolute.
Tearing his gaze away from her delectable mouth and dove-gray eyes, he tried to focus on her outstretched arm. The gesture to “Sit down” was clear as daylight, and it was one he had seen all too often from his own frustrated teachers.
Ben hesitated. All he wanted to do was collect Matt, find a quiet corner and lay into the kid for scaring him half to death.
“So, Mr. Brown, if you’d just take a seat,” he heard her say.
Ben cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your class. I was just looking for Matt.”
“Well, now that you’ve found him, why don’t you sit next to him? As you can see, we certainly have room for one more.”
He backpedaled. “Taking a class wasn’t really what I had in mind when I headed out tonight.”
“Yes, but you’ll never know if it’s a good idea unless you try, correct? Anyway, just think of the motto printed in the front of the course booklet, something along the lines of education doesn’t end with graduation.” She scanned the class as if looking for confirmation.
“‘Education: the Wellspring of Life,’” Carl said. He opened his copy and showed the class how he’d highlighted that declaration in Day-Glo yellow. He turned back at Katarina and beamed. “And that goes double when the teacher’s a pretty gal like you.”
“You’re not supposed to say things like that anymore,” Wanda chastised. “Though I suppose in this postfeminist era of Camille Paglia, chauvinistic statements are now considered meta-statements of female sexuality.”
That had everyone stumped.
Spare me, Ben growled inwardly. Now he was prepared to say, “Thanks for the offer, but tonight is really not the night,” when he noticed the way the teacher’s auburn hair framed her face like a maelstrom of fiery locks….
Maybe the confrontation with Matt could wait, at least until the first break in the class? Then, after offering his apologies, they’d be outta there, at which point he’d attach a chain so strong to the kid, nothing short of heavy-duty bolt cutters could set him free.
That settled, he made his way to the back of the room. Not without considerable difficulty, he scrunched his oversize body into the desk next to Matt.
“Hey, what do you mean taking off without a word to anyone?” he whispered to Matt. “I was worried sick.”
Matt chewed on his lips. The top one was already worked raw. He stuck out his pointy chin, making more conspicuous the few