Beautiful Stranger. Ruth Wind

resented her. Sunlight caught in the fall of her elegantly cut dark hair, hair that swung in a thread by thread flow that came only from a very expensive set of scissors. Today she wore a royal blue blouse, silk by the low luster, together with a simple straight skirt. Lush breasts and round hips, a complexion clear as a bowl of milk, teeth as straight and white as a picket fence.

      He didn’t move immediately, caught by a swift, sharp surge of lust, rare and surprising. He narrowed his eyes, wondering what kindled it, noticed the fine heavy sway of flesh beneath her blouse, the unconscious swish of hips—she had a very female kind of walk, one you didn’t see much anymore. Like one of those old-time movie stars, Marilyn Monroe or Rita Hayworth. Yeah, she had a very Rita Hayworth look, a siren in silk.

      It was only then that he realized how he must look himself, covered in hundred-year-old plaster dust. The recognition, couched as it was in the obvious wish to look better for her, annoyed him, and although he brushed a little at his shirt and face as he walked down to meet them, he dared her to look down on him for being a working man.

      Anyway, it was Crystal who mattered, not her teacher.

      As the two of them approached, Robert saw that Crystal’s face was streaky and red-eyed. In the oversize jacket she insisted upon wearing, she looked like a refugee, especially in comparison to the elegance that came off Marissa in clouds, along with that rich-girl smell. For a moment, he hated the teacher and everything she represented—the entire power structure, the do-gooder mentality. Gritting his teeth, he resisted brushing dust from himself and said, “What’s going on?”

      They exchanged a glance. “I think I’ll leave that up to Crystal,” Marissa said with a soft smile at the girl. Even her voice was rich. Perfect vowels, perfect tone. He bet she never shouted, even when she was flat-out furious.

      “Crystal?” he prompted.

      She looked toward the tops of the trees, to the roof, at the ground, anywhere but at his face. In some way it wounded him. Why wouldn’t she talk to him? “You tell him,” she told Marissa.

      “I’d rather you did, Crystal,” Robert said. “Have I ever yelled at you? Have I done anything to make you think I’m judging you?”

      “No.” The word came out hoarsely. “It’s not that.”

      “What, then? I don’t get it. I want to help you.”

      Marissa touched his arm, just above the elbow, and when he looked up, she gestured toward a cluster of white buckets tucked under the shade cast by an old pine. “Why don’t we go sit over there?”

      He spared a glance at her skirt. “Mighty expensive clothes to go slumming in.”

      “They’ll wash,” she said, steel in her tone.

      He knew better, but shrugged. “Whatever.”

      They walked across the neglected yard in silence and settled on the sealed buckets that contained plaster repair mix. Marissa, straight as a Victorian lady, waited for Crystal to look up. “I really think this is in your court, kiddo.”

      “She caught me smoking,” Crystal said, and dropped her face into her hands, hiding behind her yards of hair.

      “Smoking?” He sat up, shocked in spite of himself. “Crystal!”

      “See?” Crystal flung away her hair, threw out her hands. “That’s what I mean. That shock thing you do. I hate it.”

      He felt like he’d been kicked, and before he spoke, he took a minute to breathe deeply, in and out, and tell himself that whatever Crystal did was just a symptom of her anger. He found himself touching a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, a memento of his own days of anger. “Crystal,” he said quietly.

      She looked at him finally, and there was so much misery in her expression that he reached out and took her hand. “Are you all right?”

      Her fingers tightened around his convulsively. “Yeah.”

      “Do you smoke a lot?”

      “No. I did sometimes, back in Albuquerque, but not since I came here.”

      “Why today?”

      A shrug.

      Marissa asked, “Do you want to get out of this school that badly?”

      “No,” she said, aggrieved. And to Robert’s complete amazement, she started to cry again. “I don’t know why I did it. It could be bad for the baby! But there was this girl and I just asked her for one, like to prove something, I guess. And—” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “It was stupid. I know it was. But, Miss Pierce, I’ll do anything you want. Please?”

      Robert let himself look at Marissa then, clenching his jaw to keep hope from showing on his face. The blouse made her eyes even bluer in her pale face, but it seemed like he could see goodness there. Not Rich Girl benevolence, but something real and honest.

      And something more, too. In anyone else, he’d have named it street savvy, but he didn’t know how this woman, with her three-hundred-dollar shoes and that million-dollar cosmetic smell, would have picked up street smarts.

      But the bright blue eyes narrowed, her lips tightened and she leaned forward. “Listen here, Crystal. You got me the minute you walked in that door, and I know I’m a soft touch where certain kids are concerned. Fifteen was the worst year of my life, and I bet you’re having an even more miserable time than I did, so I’m on your side in a way you aren’t going to find very often. But—” she leaned closer, elbows on one knee “—I’m also smarter than I look, and if you play me, you’ll lose me. Got it?”

      Crystal, without a single atom of surprise about her—which was more than Robert could say—nodded. “I promise, Miss Pierce.”

      “Good.” She looked at Robert. “Are you free to take her home?”

      He hesitated, only a second. “Sure,” he said.

      Marissa inclined her head, and he found himself snared in a strange way by the measuring expression in her eyes. “There was no right answer to that question. Why don’t you let me call Louise if you have to go to work? I know she won’t mind.”

      “Who’s Louise?”

      He shot Crystal a silencing glance, and considered it. Louise Forrest Chacon was famous—almost infamous—for her need to take care of not only her own children, but the children of the whole damned world. He had been the beneficiary of that loving attention more than once, the most memorable time being when he’d had to tell her that her son was in the hospital after falling down a cliff.

      Something eased, all the tension and conflict he’d been feeling since they’d walked up, and he gave Marissa Pierce a smile. Rich Girl or not, she had something real that he liked a lot.

      “Truth is,” he said, “I got connections to my boss. He won’t fire me. But maybe me and Crystal can take the afternoon and go for a visit.” He stood and held out his hand, only realizing, when it was fully extended and she couldn’t refuse without being rude, that it was covered with dust, making his dark skin look as if it had been plunged in flour.

      But Marissa didn’t even hesitate. She smiled—a true, deep smile that went all the way to her beautiful eyes—and she put her small, neatly manicured hand into his.

      “Thank you,” he said.

      “You’re welcome.”

      Robert knew, even in the few seconds that he allowed himself to want her, that it was impossible. She wasn’t just well-to-do, not like an officer’s wife or a doctor’s daughter—but bloody rich. He recognized the difference from his days in the army, when he’d occasionally been called to provide security for a diplomatic function. It didn’t matter what country the rich guests came from—an Arabian prince or a Brazilian rancher’s wife or a Japanese royal—the details of that kind of money were always the same.

      Clean. Impossibly well-groomed. Hair that looked