Sloane stopped in the middle of the river and waited for Elise to catch up with him. They had moved in silence through the dark water, changing their strokes to suit each other’s pace. Now Elise was lagging behind, and Sloane knew she was tired. He treaded water as she caught up with him.
“Put your hands on my shoulders and rest,” he said when she was beside him.
Elise hesitated. The intimacy of swimming side by side with him, their bodies brushing, had been greater than the hesitant kiss they had shared. Here, in the middle of the river, it was harder to put their past in its proper perspective. “I think we should turn back. I don’t want to be gator bait.”
“It’s too civilized for gators. And too cold.”
“You’ve been away too long. We see alligators in this stretch of the river and moccasins too. I rarely swim this far from the springs.”
“Why’d you come here tonight then?” Sloane grasped Elise’s hand and set it on his shoulder. Then he reached for the other one and did the same.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you always swim with your hair loose like that? I remember you’d always braid it in prissy little braids before you’d go in the water.”
“And you’d unbraid it.”
“You were my mermaid with your hair loose floating behind you as you swam.” He fingered a long tendril. “I’m glad you didn’t cut it.”
“I’ve thought about it. More times than I can count.”
“Some things should never change.”
“A peculiar sentiment coming from you.” Before she realized she’d done it, Elise reached up to trace the thick mustache, beaded now with drops of water. “How long have you had this? I don’t remember seeing it in your publicity photos.”
Sloane smiled. “You looked at photos of me?”
“I told you I read your books. I couldn’t miss the man on the back cover.”
“I grew it when I found out I was a father. I decided it would make me look more paternal. What do you think?”
“It makes you look like someone who keeps a gun under his sport coat and a dagger strapped to his ankle.” She traced the gleaming mustache once more. “I like it. Now you look as dangerous as you are.”
“As dangerous as alligators and water moccasins?”
“Infinitely more.” She pulled away to begin her swim back to shore, but Sloane stopped her.
“Don’t go yet. We haven’t completed the ritual.”
Elise knew what was coming. “Nostalgia time is over, Sloane. We’re grown-ups now.”
“I don’t feel grown-up. Do you?” He pulled her against him until her breasts fitted perfectly against his chest and he was treading water with one hand. “Do you remember all the times we did this?”
“Sloane, don’t.”
“That’s exactly what you always said.”
“We’re going to drown.”
“That’s what you always said next.”
“I mean it, Sloane.”
“So do I, Elise. Take a deep breath.” He covered her mouth with his and they sank beneath the surface. Elise clung to him for support although there was no support to be had. She was dizzied with the sensation of his warm body in the cold water and his mouth drinking the breath from hers. When she thought her lungs would explode, he propelled them both to the surface.
She tore her mouth from his to gasp for air. “You could never resist that, could you?” she said when she could talk again.
“I could never resist you. Not from the first moment you turned your ladylike attentions on me.” One hand cupped the back of her head and his mouth traveled over hers again as they treaded water together, their bodies moving in unison.
Elise shuddered. There was nothing hesitant about Sloane’s kisses now, nothing hesitant about the hardening of his body as it brushed against hers. Immersed in the water and in memory they clung to each other. Sloane coaxed her to open her lips, demanded this intimacy and Elise complied. Quicksilver flashes shot through her body as their tongues united, stroking, exploring, retreating only to renew their quest with more passion.
She was so hungry for this; it seemed that her body had been starved for years, denied of all satisfaction. A few kisses in the water couldn’t begin to quench the ache inside her that had grown and grown until it felt as if it might never be assuaged. Sloane was leading her somewhere she would soon be helpless to turn away from. He had always been able to do that; seventeen years of absence had changed very little.
“No more, Sloane.” She turned her head from his, fighting to free herself.
He pulled her closer, forcing her to tread water with him so that their legs tangled repeatedly. “Put your arms around my neck.”
“No. Let me go.”
Sloane could feel the softness of her breasts press against his bare chest, and he was overcome with the desire to touch her. He wanted to slip the simple one-piece suit down and fit his hands around her breasts to feel the smooth fire of her skin. He wanted to grasp her waist, then plunge his face under the water to seek the hidden contours with his mouth.
“Don’t fight me. You’re going to drown us both.” He hooked one finger under the strap of her suit and began to slip it over her shoulder.
Elise jerked at the new intimacy and struggled harder. “Stop it, Sloane.”
Sloane was drunk on the feel and smell and taste of her. He wanted more than he had a right to ask for, and he didn’t care. “I want you,” he whispered against her cheek. “Damn it, Elise. You can still make me want you.”
“What are you trying to do to me?” To her chagrin, she knew her eyes were filling with tears. “I’m not seventeen anymore. I know what year it is, even if you don’t.” Without another word she pushed hard against his chest, and when she was free she swirled in the water and began to swim back to the shore. Once there, she grabbed her towel and clothing from a low-hanging branch and disappeared into the jungle.
Sloane remained in the middle of the river, watching her retreat.
Afternoon homeroom was just a way to make sure the students who started the day in school also finished it. Elise checked the last name off her roll book and passed out the latest stack of notes to her students. Announcements were still sounding over the intercom when she sat back down at her desk. It was the end of the second week of classes, and the students were beginning to settle into the routines of high school. As soon as the last announcement was finished, the room filled with the excited buzz of prisoners who knew they were about to be released.
Elise began to grade a quiz she had surprised her classes with that day. The surprise test was a favorite technique of hers, a way to see if anyone was paying attention. The students didn’t know it, but her quizzes really figured very little in their ultimate grades. Luckily by the time they figured that out, the year was half over, and they’d learned how to listen.
Elise divided the quizzes into two simple stacks: good and bad. She would look at the bad ones to see if there was any pattern to the way those students were seated, possibly moving them away from others who had also failed. As she worked, she kept an eye on her homeroom to make sure that the end-of-the-day horseplay didn’t get out of hand.
Watching the social groupings of a roomful of teenagers was a fascinating thing. Now that a week had passed, the kids had begun to form cliques. There were the losers or the “late bloomers”—as Elise liked to think of them—who were too unattractive, too awkward or shy to be friends with the popular kids, so they became friends with each other. There were the rebels, a select few who proclaimed their individuality with wild haircuts and angry facades. There were the neatly dressed students wearing polo shirts with the correct emblem on the pocket who endlessly discussed student council business, and there were the popular kids who rarely wore the same outfit twice in the same month and spent their time discussing who was going to represent the sophomore class at the Get Acquainted Dance in three weeks.
And then there was Clay.
Certainly there were students who drifted from group to group; the boundaries were not yet so fixed that there wasn’t room for change. But Clay was the only student in her homeroom who didn’t seem to fit anywhere. He was an observer, the most entrenched loner that Elise had ever known in a group of teenagers. He seemed totally unaffected by the commotion, the maneuverings, the joys and sorrows of adolescence.
Elise wasn’t a big fan of the social climbing of the teenage animal. But neither was she stubborn or blind enough not to see the value. Adolescence was a series of experiences designed to teach pre-adults how to get along in civilized society. Part of that was learning how to function in a group. Clay was not functioning in the group because he had separated himself from it. It wasn’t just his ponytail or the fact that he was new in a school where most of the kids had attended elementary and junior high together. It was his obvious rejection of the whole experience that was causing the problem.
Elise had heard the whispers. She knew what was said about him behind his back and more and more often now to his face. He was that “different” kid, the most insulting thing one teen could say about another. The few times anyone had reached out to him in her presence he or she had been met with a polite but blank gaze. Only in his journals and in his poetry could Elise detect echoes of the pain Clay was hiding.
The bell rang and the students raced to the door. Clay was last, as if going home held no more joy for him than staying in a school where he was destined to be a perpetual stranger. Elise had avoided personal contact with him since Sloane’s accusations, but today she was too worried to care what Sloane might think.
“Clay? Can I see you for a minute?”
He came to her desk and stood quietly, his hands clasped behind his back. Elise allowed herself the inevitable reaction to him. Yes, he was Sloane’s image. Yes, it would have been wonderful it he’d been her son instead of the son of some commune member with no maternal instinct. But he wasn’t. She was only his teacher and his friend. It was as the latter that she spoke.
“Clay, I’m worried about you. You don’t look happy.”
A new expression flickered over his face. Elise could have sworn it was amazement. Did the boy find it so strange that someone would notice how he was feeling?
Clay’s face quickly resumed its careful mask. “Thank you, Miss Ramsey, but I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.” Elise stood and came around to perch on the edge of her desk so that she could be closer to him. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be happy. I’d be wishing I’d made some friends, or wishing I didn’t have to work so hard to catch up, or even that I was back in New Mexico.”
“There’s nothing there to go back to.”
“But you’ve wished you could.”
His nod was slight but perceptible.
“It’s hard to make so many changes at once. I’d like to help, Clay. And I’m sure all your other teachers feel that way.”
“Mr. Cargil wants to help so much that he’s trying to send me back to ninth grade.” As soon as he’d said the words, Clay clamped his lips shut as if he wished he hadn’t opened his mouth.
Elise didn’t let Clay see her anger. “Mr. Cargil is giving you a hard time?” she asked, lowering her voice.
“It’s all right. I can handle it.”
Elise suspected that nothing was further from the truth. Clay Tyson had entirely too much to handle in his life as it was without having to absorb the venom of a man who looked at him and saw his father. “Tell me what he’s doing, Clay.”
Clay shrugged.
She used a tactic she didn’t like but knew would be effective. “Shall I ask the other students in your class? They’ll be glad to tell me.”
“He’s just after me,” Clay conceded. “I’ve had people after me before. I know how it feels.”
“What does he do? Insult you? Pick on you? I could talk to him.”
“If you talk to him, it’ll only get worse. Besides, other than announcing every day that he’s got my number and won’t take any funny business, most of what he does is subtle.”
“Like what?” Elise couldn’t believe Clay had been singled out as a troublemaker before he’d had a chance to prove himself one way or the other.
“He asks me questions he knows I can’t answer. He sticks to the reading assignments with the other kids, but with me he hops around to other areas and quizzes me on them. He seems to love making me look stupid. Then he shakes his head and rambles on and on about my terrible education and how I shouldn’t be in high school, that junior high might even be too difficult.”
“In front of the other kids?”
“He calls me up to his desk, but they hear.”
The worst part of this was that Elise could believe what Clay was saying. Bob Cargil was generally a rather harmless hypochondriac with limited understanding and sensitivity. But there was a streak of something darker inside him. If he felt threatened, he was capable of fighting back with any weapon. And for some strange reason, Bob saw Sloane and Clay Tyson as threats.
“I’ll see he stops,” Elise said, her mouth set and her chin tilted.
Clay’s face relaxed a little, but he shook his head at her words. “Once, when I was about seven,” he said, “a new kid came to live in the dome where I was staying.”
“Dome?”
“Geodesic dome. Destiny had seven big ones. I lived in one of them until I was ten, then I moved into the big house. Anyway, this kid was older than I was, but he liked to pick on me. So every chance he got when nobody was looking or the person who was looking didn’t care, he’d do something to me. Once he hit me with a big stick and I fell and lost a tooth. At first I just tried to stay away from him, but finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I went to Jeff, the guy who was in charge of everything, and I told him what was going on.”
Elise was amazed at the atypically long reminiscence, and she nodded, afraid to break Clay’s spoken thoughts.
“Jeff got the kid who was bothering me off to one side and gave him a long lecture about how to treat people. It was a good lecture. Afterward the kid had to shake my hand and promise not to bother me anymore. And as soon as everyone’s backs were turned, he redoubled his efforts. Only by then, everyone was sure it had been taken care of, so whenever I complained they told me to bug off.”
Elise didn’t know what to say. She wanted to cry.
“He kept after me for two more years until his parents moved off the ranch and took him with them.”
Elise swallowed the lump in her throat. “And you’re afraid that if I talk to Mr. Cargil, he’ll pretend he’s going to stop. Only then he’ll make it worse for you.”
Clay looked relieved that she’d understood. “It just wouldn’t help me any.”
“Then what can I do?” She picked up a pencil and bounced it on her knee. “You may be right about what’ll happen if I interfere, at least at this point, but you can’t handle this by yourself. Not with everything else you’ve got going on.”
“I’m just studying harder, trying to catch up with everything I’ve missed.”
“You didn’t have much history at Destiny Ranch, I take it.”
“Jeff, the guy I was telling you about, didn’t believe in history. He said it was all lies. He said the only truth was in the present.”
“What do you think about that?”
Clay smiled a little, and for a minute he looked like a fifteen-year-old boy was supposed to look. “I’m not sure the present has much truth in it either.”
Elise restrained herself from giving him the fierce hug he deserved. Why couldn’t this boy have been hers? He needed so much, and she had so much to give. “Clay, I want you to come to me if this gets any worse. I’ll have the principal interfere if he has to, but in the meantime, I have an idea. We’re going to get you a history tutor.”
Clay was suddenly the image of his skeptical father. “What good would that do?”
“You can read all you want, but you need somebody to help you select what’s important and question you on what you’ve read. Another student would be best because he’d know what someone your age is expected to have learned.” Elise was pleased with her idea. If she could get the right person to help Clay, she might be helping him find a friend too. It was certainly worth a try.
“I’d rather not.”
“Will you just try it for a little while? I think it could help.” Elise could see Clay struggling. He liked her, and she knew he didn’t want to ignore her advice. But the idea of having someone help him went against his better judgment. Clay had received so little help in his life that the concept was as foreign as American history.
“I’ll give it a try,” he said finally.
“Good, I’ll let you know as soon as I find someone for you.”
“Are you going to tell Sloane?”
“It would be better if the news came from you. I’m sure he’ll approve.” Elise watched Clay leave, raising her hand in a slight wave as he vanished through the doorway. Then she stood to gather the rest of her quizzes to take home and grade.
Tell Sloane? She allowed herself a grunt. No, she wouldn’t tell Sloane she was trying to help his son. She hadn’t seen him in the days that had passed since their moonlight swim, and she intended to continue trying to avoid him. What was it that Clay had said? History was lies and the present didn’t have much truth in it either? The statement might not apply to everything, but it certainly applied to her relationship to Sloane.
Where Sloane Tyson was concerned history and memory and present experience were a curious blend that could be absolute truth or complete lies. And as Elise turned out the light and closed the classroom door behind her, she knew she was much too confused to tell the difference.
That evening Elise put the finishing touches on a chicken and artichoke casserole and popped it back into the oven. The casserole was one of Amy Cargil’s favorites and one of the few things Amy’s picky father would eat without complaining. Elise stepped out into the dining room and checked over the table setting. She was rearranging a display of lavender hibiscus when the doorbell rang.
“Hi, sweetie.” Elise gave Amy a big hug, then stepped back to examine the low-waisted knit dress that showed off Amy’s nicely developed figure to perfection. “You look wonderful. We made the right choice.”
“Thanks for helping me pick it out.”
Elise offered her cheek for Bob to kiss and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you could come,” she told them both.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Bob said gallantly. “Your cooking beats mine any day.”
Actually they all knew that Bob seldom cooked. Either Amy made something or they ate out. Bob seemed to feel that domestic skills were strictly in the female domain. For Amy’s sake, Elise tried to have them to dinner as often as possible.
“Well, I made something you both like,” Elise said. “Bob, why don’t you fix yourself a drink while Amy and I finish the salad?”
Bob settled in the living room with his eternal Scotch and water and the national news, and Amy followed Elise into the tiny kitchen. “Elise,” Amy started when her father was out of earshot, “I’ve got a date tonight after dinner. Will you help me get out of here without a fuss?”
“Is your daddy giving you trouble about the boy?”
“No, it’s Gregory Thompson, the pharmacist’s son. Daddy likes him as well as he likes anybody. I think he just doesn’t like me leaving him alone. He doesn’t want me to go out with anyone.”
Bob was becoming more rigid, more irritable all the time. Elise thought of her conversation with Clay earlier in the week, and she thought of her own mother. Jeanette Ramsey had got worse as she’d grown older, too. Whatever positive qualities she’d had seemed to disappear with the passing of the years. Elise had taken the brunt of her moods. She was determined not to let the same thing happen to Amy.
“I’m on your side, sweetie. I’ll keep him entertained while you’re gone. I might even let him beat me at Scrabble.”
“Thanks, Elise. I knew I could count on you.”
“Can I count on you for something?” Elise asked, turning to face the girl who was like a daughter.
“Anything!” Amy said with heartfelt enthusiasm. “Always!”
“I need to find a history tutor for Clay Tyson. He’s not doing well in one of your daddy’s classes, and I think a tutor is just what he needs.”
“Clay Tyson?”
“Do you know him? I know you’re not in my English class together.’’
“Actually I’m in his history class. He sits right in front of me.”
Elise tried to read the tone of Amy’s voice, but she was unsuccessful. “His father and I were friends many years ago,” she explained carefully. “I like Clay a lot, and I want him to do well in school. He’s very intelligent.”
“My father can’t stand him. He’s picking on him in class.”
There had been a part of Elise that had wondered if Clay was imagining Bob’s harassment. She pushed down her anger and tried to be fair. “Does Clay give your dad a reason to pick on him?”
Amy shook her head. “Not that I can tell. He’s a quiet kid, hardly says a word. He acts like he’s from another planet.” She picked up a carrot and took a sizable bite, crunching it with small, pearly teeth. “But he doesn’t do anything that would bother anybody. Just listens and tries to answer when he’s called on. I’ve helped him a few times when he doesn’t seem to know what to do.”
“Thank you, Amy. Clay needs friends.”
“Oh, I’m not his friend. I don’t think he wants friends. And he’s not shy or anything, because he always meets your eyes. He’s just… just off by himself. You know what I mean?”
“Only too well.”
“It’s too bad, too, because he’s cute.” Amy punctuated her sentence with another crunch.
So Amy thought Clay was cute. Elise couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of Amy as a tutor for Clay. Who better to work with the boy than the daughter of the man teaching his history class? Certainly Amy would know exactly what information Clay should have. Elise broached the subject with all the caution her enthusiasm would let her muster.
“Amy, I just had a brilliant idea. There’s only one person who’s right for this job. And I happen to know that person would like to earn a little extra spending money so she could buy a certain designer dress for the Get Acquainted Dance.”
“Me?”
“Got it.” Elise opened the oven door and bent to lift out the casserole. “What do you think?”
“He’s cute, but he’s so strange, I don’t know if I can help him.”
“Are you afraid of what your friends will say?”
Amy crunched the last of her carrot. “Sure. A little.”
Elise appreciated her honesty. “Is ‘a little’ too much to keep you from doing it?”
“He’ll pay me?”
Elise nodded.
Amy visibly struggled with her answer. She wasn’t as much a victim of the high school herd mentality as some, but peer pressure had its effect on her, too. Finally she nodded. “I’ll give it a try. But not at my house. I probably won’t even tell my dad unless he asks where I’m going.”
“If you think it’s going to be a problem with your dad …”
Amy giggled. “He’s always telling me how important hard work is and how I’ve got to earn my way in the world. If he finds out and says anything, I’ll tell him I did it for him.”
Elise tried to stifle a smile. “I’m never going to have to worry about you. You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?”
“Sure am,” Amy agreed blithely.
“When’s your friend coming, honey?”
Clay met his great-aunt’s eyes and shrugged. “Sometime around four.”
“I baked brownies. It’s not often I get to have two young people in my house for the afternoon. I’m glad your father’s over in Gainesville on Wednesdays doing his research.” Lillian Tyson dropped an affectionate kiss on Clay’s head. “I’m glad you’re going to be studying here.”
Of all the adjustments in his life, Clay decided that the most pleasant one was getting to know this great-aunt who seemed to care about him no matter what he did or didn’t do. It was so strange knowing that in her eyes he was accepted just because he was a Tyson. Certainly she was the only person he could ever remember who had felt that way.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Elise Ramsey seemed to care about him, too. For some unknown reason Elise seemed to understand his feelings and want to help him. And her concern didn’t seem to be based on how he did in her class or whether he told her what she wanted to hear. She just seemed to care. Period.
He supposed that on some level Sloane cared, too. Once he was over the shock of being presented with a son who was obviously going to be a problem, he had tried to do his duty. That was caring in action as they would have called it at Destiny. Love was what you did for others, not what you felt. If you clothed or fed someone, that was caring.
Sloane did those things for him, and he didn’t have to. He could have denied paternity, relinquished any rights over this stranger who was said to be his son. No one would have blamed him. He supposed he was really lucky that Sloane had saved him from the foster home where he’d had to stay until the child welfare people untangled his background. But at least in the foster home someone had been paid to take care of him. He wondered what reward, if any, Sloane was getting.
“Clay? You were staring into space like a zombie.”
Clay pulled himself back into the present. “Sorry.” He wondered if he dared ask his great-aunt if she knew what he could do to make his presence a little easier on Sloane. There must be something he could do to soften the grim expression that so often crossed Sloane’s face when he looked at him.
“Don’t be sorry, boy. Tell me what you were thinking.”
Clay shook his head. “Just about my homework.”
The doorbell chimed. “Well, that’ll be your friend,” Lillian said cheerfully. “Why don’t you get it?”
Clay rose obediently and crossed the room. Amy Cargil was standing on the front porch, her books clasped in front of her. She was wearing a pale-yellow shirt and shorts to match. Clay thought she was just as pretty on the front porch as she had been the first day of school when she rescued him from her dragon-father.
“Hi, Clay. Am I late?”
Clay shook his head. “No, come on in.” He waited until Amy was inside, then introduced her to his aunt.
“Glad to have you help Clay here,” Lillian’s voice boomed. “Now I’ll leave you two youngsters alone. There are brownies in the kitchen when you get hungry. And soda pop.”
“I didn’t think I was going to be fed, too,” Amy said after Lillian had left the room.
“Lillian… Aunt Lillian,” Clay corrected himself, “likes to feed people till they burst.”
“Do you live with your aunt?” Amy asked curiously.
Clay shook his head. “No, I live with Sloane, down the street a ways.”
“Is he your brother or something?”
“My father.”
“You call your father by his first name? My dad would eat me alive if I tried that.”
“What do you call your father?”
“Daddy, or Dad sometimes now that I’m older.”
Clay tried to imagine calling Sloane either of those things. He smiled a little.
“Do you think that’s funny?” Amy asked with an edge to her voice.
Clay realized she thought he’d been making fun of her. “No. Not at all.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Maybe we’d better get started,” Amy said. “Where do you want to work?”
Clay pointed to the table where his books were all spread out.
“Good grief! You’ve got the whole library there.”
“Just the history section.” Clay sat down and motioned for Amy to take a seat.
“You don’t have to read all these books, Clay. If you do you’ll know more than my dad, and he’ll dislike you even more.” Amy bit her lip as she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That was awful.”
Clay frowned. “What was?”
“Saying that thing about Daddy.”
“It wasn’t awful. It was the truth. He does dislike me.”
Amy was quiet for a moment as if she had to adjust to his words. “Well, doesn’t it bother you?” she probed.
“Sure. Nobody likes to be picked on. Not even that ‘strange kid from New Mexico.’“
Amy winced at the direct quote. “I wish people wouldn’t say things like that. They don’t really mean it.”
“Sure they do.” Clay looked up from the table where he’d been clearing a space for them to work. “People almost never say things they don’t mean. They may not tell the whole truth, but when they say something they’re telling part of it.”
Amy was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. She was used to her friends hedging when a subject was controversial and to boys who rarely met her eyes for any length of time. Clay was so different. Already their conversation had been more honest and more serious than any conversation she’d ever had with anyone under twenty. “Do you always say whatever’s on your mind like that?” she asked. “It’s kind of unsettling.”
“Why? I always think it’s unsettling not to know what someone is thinking.” He thought of Sloane. “In fact, I hate it when people play games with me.”
“What kind of games?” In spite of her discomfort, Amy wanted to find out what he meant.
“If somebody’s feeling something about someone else, he ought to tell the other person. That’s the only way that person is ever going to understand. At school it’s so different. Everybody plays games. They pretend they like somebody and then they talk about them behind their backs. Or even if they do like somebody and nobody else does, they won’t talk to that person because they’re afraid of what other people will think. It’s weird.” Clay examined Amy’s face as he talked. She looked utterly flabbergasted. Maybe Amy wasn’t really any different from everybody else.
“We’d better get to work,” she said finally.
Clay shrugged. “All right. Where do you want to start?’
Amy wished she had the nerve to tell Clay where she really wanted to start: with a full explanation of where he had come up with these ideas and more importantly, where he had got the courage to talk about them. Why was he so different? Most boys couldn’t manage a sentence unless it was about football or their favorite rock group or what kind of skateboard they were getting. Clay really was “that strange kid from new Mexico,” and at that moment, Amy didn’t know if she liked him or not. But one thing was certain, he was sure more interesting to talk to than anyone she’d ever met.
Clay watched Amy stare at him, and he wondered if he ought to tell her she could go. Obviously they weren’t going to be able to get anything important done. But as he watched, she smiled a little and seemed to pull herself together.
Amy sat down and opened her book. Then she lifted her eyes to his. “Clay, you’re a very different kind of person.” She gave him a wide, brilliant smile that did funny things to the muscles in his chest. “But you know something? This may turn out to be an education for both of us.”