Son of the Enemy (3 page)

“Arthur warned me that you’re a lot tougher than you look,” he said, holding her amber gaze. “He was right.”

“Did he also tell you that I’m bossy, suspicious and fiercely protective of my kids?”

John gave her a slow smile. “I’m bossy, too, and tenacious. I go after what I want and don’t give up without a fight.”

“Just be careful what you wish for,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, John strode into Hannah’s office carrying a Starbucks bag and set it down on her desk. The smile he flashed her said loud and clear,
I want to jump your bones
. He grabbed a wooden chair from the corner and moved it close to her desk. She scooted hers back.

Given how gorgeous he was, his pride probably demanded he score with every woman he met. Well, she’d learned a long time ago that sleeping around didn’t get her what she wanted, and she wasn’t going down that road again.

“I don’t have much time this morning,” she said.

“No problem. I figured I’d have to catch you at odd moments.” He opened the Starbucks bag, releasing a heavenly aroma of coffee and baked goods, and held out a cup to her.

“I’ve already had some, thanks. Too much caffeine makes me shake.”

“This one’s decaf. I got it just in case.”

She accepted the cup, feeling manipulated. She refused the muffin and the biscotti even though she was starved, and set the coffee off to the side of her desk. John dumped cream and sugar into his and bit into a gigantic blueberry muffin before he noticed she was tapping her fingers on her blotter. He finished off the muffin with the speed of an adolescent and settled into the wooden chair.

“Arthur told me you dropped everything in Santa Fe and came back east to take over the school without being asked twice. What were you doing out there?”

“Teaching and working with kids from the pueblo.”

“That must be where you got this jewelry.” He reached toward her turquoise necklace, but she leaned back before he could touch it. “It suits you.”

She twisted the bangles on her wrist. “Is my jewelry relevant to the book?”

“Everything about you is relevant,” he said. “The way you dress, the books you read, how you spend your time out of school. The way you move. I’ll definitely describe that. Did you study ballet?”

She glanced up at the clock, fiddling with her necklace. “Are you going to ask me anything about the school this morning, because if not—”

“How serious are you and Thornton Bradshaw?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not exactly a secret that you spend time with him,” he said. “There was a photo of the two of you in
The Washington Post
. The caption said—”

“I know what the caption said.” And it pissed her off every time she thought about it. “I believe it described me as
one more in a long string of women in his life
.”

John leaned forward. “
A long string of beauties
, actually. Since there aren’t many women out there as beautiful as you, I’d say he was a damn lucky guy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can we stick to the book? About the
school
?”

“So, are you actually serious about him?”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she said.

“About your relationship, or about some of Bradshaw’s business associates?”

“Both.”

“So you’re not an item?”

“We’re friends.” That much was true. That she had also been Thornton’s lover was no one’s business. Especially John Emerson’s.

“Is there someone else in your life?”

This time she leaned forward and folded her arms on her desk. Their gazes locked. “It’s not going to work, you know.”

He gave her a slow, sexy grin.
Damn
him. “It’s not?”

“No. So you may as well get over it and move on. Maybe we could talk about Arthur. You know, the guy who persuaded me to let you in here?”

He propped an ankle on his knee, making himself comfortable. “Okay, fine. What words come to mind when you think of your former boss and mentor?”

“That’s easy. Wise. Funny. Generous. Compassionate. That’s a big one.”

“Tell me about his compassion,” John said. “Toward you, specifically, when you were a student here.”

She stared at him. How did he always manage to bring it back around to her? “He and Bebe, that’s his wife, saved my life, if you must know the truth.” Now why had she gone and told him that?

“You lived with them instead of with other students. Why is that?”

She fiddled with a paperclip. “I had a hard time adjusting to being away from home. Living in a cottage with five other girls didn’t work for me.”

“What happened? Did you get in trouble?”

“No, I was…depressed.”

“The headmaster took you in because you were depressed? Back then the school was for troubled kids. Why’d they take you and not some other depressed kid?”

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

He shrugged. “No point. So what happened?”

She glanced up at the clock. “Oh, will you look at that? I’m out of time. We’ll have to finish this another—”

“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said. “Or dessert. I’m easy.”

She straightened a pile of papers. “Can’t.”

“Or won’t? You don’t have to be afraid of me, Hannah.”

Yeah, right.
“Larissa’s been working here longer than I have. I’m sure she would go to dinner with you and talk about whatever you like.”

“Larissa’s not my type.”

She began stacking files, refusing to do more than glance at him. “There’s a pretty blonde sub helping out in the library today.”

“I’m not attracted to blondes.”

“
Every
body’s attracted to blondes.”

“I prefer long dark hair with golden eyes, personally.”

“I really do have to get some work done, so—”

“Tell me about the Grange when it was a boarding school. How would you compare the students then to the students now? This is your chance to dispel any lingering sense that the school is still for troubled kids. Arthur’s hoping the book will jumpstart your enrollment, which I understand isn’t great at the moment.”

She sighed. He was right, of course. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything that would make the reader feel like they’re getting a glimpse into the soul of this place. Starting with you.”

“Oh, the readers wouldn’t like what they saw in
my
soul.”

If he really were an author, John thought when he left her office, interviewing Hannah Duncan would make him reconsider his career.

He crossed the foyer and headed outside to the lawn. Even though classes had started, stragglers were making their way from the parking lot with cups of coffee and large Cokes in their hands. He waved at a couple of kids and got a friendly nod or wave in return. How strange to be around so many teenagers.

Hannah had insisted he take the Starbucks bag when he left, so he parked himself on a wooden bench and bit into a chocolate biscotti. God almighty, but she was a tough nut to crack. Granted, they hadn’t gotten off on the best foot this morning thanks to his impulsive need to jump in and “fix” things. She had maintained a civil tone throughout the interview, but the barriers went up every time he ventured into personal territory.

Sex was the best way he knew to get close to a woman quickly. Four weeks was hardly enough time to develop a friendship—nor was it enough time to lose his soul, as his father had lost his to Sharon Duncan. Sam Daly’s love for Hannah’s mother had been strong enough to eclipse everything and everyone else in his life.

John swallowed. Could he really make love to a woman who looked so much like…
her
?

I’ve never believed your father was guilty, John.

That was the first line John had read when he opened the letter two months ago. He had immediately glanced at the signature, but it was signed,
Regretful
. The letter had gone on to say that Sam Daly had been railroaded into a conviction by an ambitious prosecutor and a wealthy, humiliated husband.

I suspected we tampered with a key piece of evidence, but I didn’t speak up.

That revelation had blown John’s mind.

It had been a simple, open-and-shut case, handled by the local police up in Marblehead, Massachusetts. They found the letters his father had written to Sharon, begging her to leave her husband, and Sharon’s letter, written two days before she was killed, breaking off their affair. His father had admitted to being in the Duncan house within the time frame the medical examiner established for her murder, but claimed he left after a short, painful conversation and drove around for an hour before going home. In other words, he had no alibi.

Case closed.

Now, twenty-three years later, someone was writing to John anonymously, suggesting that his father was innocent and implying that Hannah Duncan somehow held the key to his prison cell.

Your father was convicted on mostly circumstantial evidence and the coached testimony of a six-year-old. Hannah was the only witness to the crime. But she was deeply traumatized. I’m sure she knew more than they let her tell the jury.

After all these years of struggling to come to terms with his father’s guilt, now John was presented with an opportunity to try to prove his innocence. To do that, he had to gain access to Hannah’s darkest, most horrific memories, without revealing his true identity to her. He was prepared to mess with an innocent woman’s head, to risk her emotional and mental well-being on the long-shot possibility that she remembered anything.

It was unfair and unethical. Like his father’s imprisonment.

He rubbed a knuckle over the furrow between his brows. What he was doing went against everything he stood for.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Larissa plopped down on the bench beside him, holding a stack of files. In her bright yellow sweat suit, she looked like some kind of exotic bird. She aimed a flirtatious smile at him, and he returned it, but kept it strictly friendly. No sense straying into dangerous territory.

“How’d your first interview with Hannah go?” Larissa asked.

“Let’s just say if I’d been counting on that interview for my last meal, I’d starve to death.”

Larissa tipped back her head and laughed. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“How long have you known her?”

Larissa crossed her thin legs. “Not quite three years. Since she took over the school from Arthur.”

“Why did she live with the headmaster and his wife? Do you know?”

“Yeah, but you have to promise not to put it in your book.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

She looked around for eavesdroppers. “She tried to kill herself a few weeks after she got here.”

John’s chest squeezed, and for a moment he stopped breathing. “Poor kid,” he managed. No doubt her mother’s brutal death had led to the suicide attempt. There were probably other factors, but a six-year-old who’d witnessed her mother’s murder was bound to have problems. Serious problems. He was barely twelve when they took his father away, and the exuberant boy had transformed into an angry, insecure adolescent who went looking for trouble to stave off his desperate helplessness.

“What about her father?” he asked. “Why didn’t he take her home?”

She shrugged. “Hannah doesn’t talk about her father. Nobody seems to know anything about him.”

“Do you see her outside of school?”

“Now and then,” Larissa said. “But she doesn’t let people in easily, that’s for sure. I, on the other hand, am very open and have plenty of free time for interviews. Or whatever.”

He grinned. No one could accuse Larissa of being subtle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You do that, honey,” she said, reaching across and giving his shoulder a little squeeze.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

They turned to find Hannah standing behind them. Her face was pale and she seemed slightly breathless. “Who left the roses, Larissa, do you know?”

Larissa frowned in concern. “You got more roses?”

What the hell?

“I just found them outside, on the steps off the teachers’ lounge,” Hannah said.

“Was there a note?”

“No. No note. If you could check around, I’d appreciate it.” She glanced quickly between Larissa and John. “When you can spare a minute.”

Hannah set off back to Grange Hall at a fast pace. John hopped to his feet and caught up with her at the bottom of the steps.

“What’s going on with the roses?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, her expression shuttered. “It’s really nothing.”

“I noticed your cleaning lady pulling flowers out of your trash on Friday night.”

“Oh?” She hugged herself.

“I figured it was boyfriend trouble. Guess not, huh?”

“No.”

“You’re upset about them.” She didn’t respond. “What are you afraid of, Hannah?”

She looked startled for a moment, then recovered. “Nothing. I’m not afraid of anything.”

“You can trust me, you know.”

“Uh-huh. Right. So, how’d it go with Larissa? Got a date later?”

“It’s not Larissa I’m interested in.” He stepped closer but stopped short of touching her.

Damn if she didn’t step back. The intensity of his disappointment surprised him.

“You may as well stop flirting with me.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “It won’t get you anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

Chapter Three

Hannah was sipping wine by the fire when she heard the footsteps on the porch. The clock over the mantle said seven forty. Which one of the teachers would be working this late on a Friday night?

Damn it.
She loved the people she worked with, but she just wasn’t in the mood to solve their problems right now. It had been a long week and she hadn’t been sleeping well. All she wanted to do was have dinner, take a long bath and crash early. She stood slowly, realized she already had a buzz on, and concentrated on walking a straight line to the door.

“Oh,” she said, when she opened it. “I didn’t hear your motorcycle.”

“I walked it up the driveway.” John’s hands were tucked inside the pockets of his bomber jacket, and his breath was turning to steam in the cold, damp air. “I know I should have called first, but I really wanted to see you.”