Perfect Read online

  Zack didn’t hear him, he was already striding into the school, following the direction of the noise coming from behind the double doors at the end of the corridor to his right.

  77

  HE SPOTTED JULIE IN THE crowd before the gymnasium doors swung closed behind him. She was conducting a chorus of children dressed in various costumes, some of whom were in wheelchairs, while a pianist accompanied them up on the stage.

  Mesmerized, he stood there, listening to the sweet sound of her voice, watching her incredible smile, and the shattering tenderness he felt made his chest ache. Clad in jeans and a school sweatshirt, with her hair pulled into a ponytail and tied with a scarf, she looked adorable . . . and thin. Her cheekbones and eyes were more prominent now than before, and Zack swallowed over the knot of guilt in his throat when he realized how much weight she’d lost. Because of him. The cab driver said Zack had shamed her in front of the town; he was going to undo some of that now if he could. Ignoring the startled glances and exchanged whispers beginning to circulate around the room as people in the bleachers and on the floor noted his presence and recognized his face, he started forward.

  “Okay, you guys, what’s the problem?” Julie said, when several of the older children stopped singing and began to whisper and point. Behind her, she was distantly aware of the hush falling over the cavernous room and the echo of a man’s footsteps on the wooden floor, but she was preoccupied with the increasing lateness of the hour and her students’ flagging attention. “Willie, if you finally want your chance to sing, then pay attention,” she warned, but he was pointing to something behind her and whispering furiously to Johnny Everett and Tim Wimple. “Miss Timmons,” she said, looking up at the pianist who was also gaping openmouthed at something behind her. “Miss Timmons—let’s run through it again.” But when Julie looked back down, part of the children’s chorus was breaking up and moving forward in a small group being led by Willie Jenkins. “Where do you think you’re going?” Julie burst out as they passed her. She spun around. And froze.

  Zack was standing fifteen feet away from her, his hands at his sides. He’d finally read her last letter, she thought wildly, and he’d come at last to get his car. She stood there, afraid to speak, afraid to move, gazing at the sternly handsome face that had haunted her dreams and tormented her days.

  Willie Jenkins stepped forward, his gravelly voice loud and belligerent. “You Zack Benedict?” he demanded.

  Zack nodded silently, and suddenly several other boys moved forward, fanning out in front of Julie, three of them in wheelchairs—all of them ready to defend her against the monster in their midst, Zack realized.

  “Then you better just turn around and get outa here,” the one with the bullfrog’s voice warned, thrusting out his chin. “You made Miss Mathison cry.”

  Zack’s solemn gaze stayed on Julie’s pale face. “She made me cry, too.”

  “Guys don’t cry,” he scoffed.

  “Sometimes they do—if someone they love hurts them very much.”

  Willie glanced up at his beloved teacher’s face and saw tears sliding slowly from her eyes. “Look at that! You’re making her cry again!” he warned with a ferocious glower. “Is that why you came here?”

  “I came here,” Zack said, “because I can’t live without her.”

  Everyone in the auditorium gaped at the famous tough-guy movie hero who was humbling himself by making these astonishing admissions in front of them, but Julie didn’t notice their stares. She was rushing forward through the children, walking fast, then running . . . running into the arms that were opening wide to her.

  They closed around her with stunning force, his hand cradling her tear-streaked face against his chest, shielding her from their audience as he bent his head and whispered hoarsely, “I love you.” Her shoulders shaking with sobs, she slid her hands around his neck, her face buried against his chest, holding him fiercely to her.

  At the far end of the auditorium, Ted put his arm around Katherine and drew her close. “How did you get so damned smart?” he whispered.

  Herman Henkleman was of a more practical, albeit equally romantic, mind. Winking at Flossie, he shouted, “Rehearsal’s over folks!” Then he slapped the light switches off, plunging the room into total darkness, and trotted off to get his taxi.

  By the time someone found the light switch, Zack and Julie were gone.

  “Hop in,” Herman said with a grand gesture of his general’s hat as they raced out the school doors, hand in hand. “Always wanted to drive a getaway car,” he added, shoving the accelerator to the floor and sending the cab jolting away from the building. “Where to?”

  Julie was past all rational thought for the moment.

  “Your house?” Zack asked.

  “Not if you want to do any smoochin’,” Herman said. “Whole town’ll be comin’ by and callin.”

  “Where’s the closest hotel or motel?”

  Julie looked at him uneasily, but Herman was more blunt: “You tryin’ to tear her reputation up or fix it?”

  Zack looked down at her face and felt speechless and helpless and desperate to be alone with her. Her eyes told him she felt the same.

  “My house,” she said. “We’ll take the phone off the hook and disconnect the doorbell if we have to.”

  A minute later, Herman pulled the cab up in front of the house, and Zack reached into his pocket for more money. “How much do I owe you this time,” he asked dryly.

  The man turned in his seat and with a look of wounded dignity handed Zack’s hundred-dollar bill back to him. “Five dollars, round trip, including picking up your pilot. That’s a special rate,” he added with a startling boyish smile, “for the man who wasn’t afraid to admit he loves Julie in front of the whole town.”

  Oddly touched, Zack handed him a twenty-dollar bill and said, “I left a suitcase and another briefcase on the plane. Would you bring them back here after you take my pilot to his motel?”

  “Sure thing. I’ll leave them at Julie’s back door so you don’t have to answer the doorbell.”

  78

  JULIE WALKED INTO THE LIVING room and turned on a lamp, but when Zack reached out for her hand, she came wordlessly into his arms, kissing him with a silent desperation that matched his own, holding him to her, crushing her soft mouth to his, her hands rushing over him. Zack clutched her tighter to him, his lips ravaging hers, his hands hungrily memorizing her beloved form.

  The shrill ring of the telephone right beside them made them both jump, and she reached out a shaky hand to answer it.

  Zack watched her as she lifted it to her ear, and he smiled to himself at the way she self-consciously lowered her eyes when he began to take off his jacket.

  “Yes, it’s true, Mrs. Addelson,” she said, “he’s really here.” She listened a minute and then said, “I don’t know. I’ll ask him.” Covering the phone with her hand she gave him a helpless look and said, “Mayor and Mrs. Addelson would like to know if you—we—are free to have dinner with them tonight.”

  Zack stripped off his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt and slowly, emphatically shook his head no, watching a gorgeous blush climb her cheeks as she caught his unmistakable meaning.

  “I’m afraid we can’t. No, I’m not certain what his immediate plans are or his future plans either. Yes, I’ll ask him and let you know.”

  Julie hung up the phone, then hastily picked it up, shoved the receiver under a sofa pillow, straightened, and nervously rubbed her palms against her thighs. Dozens of questions raced through her mind as she stood there looking at him, doubts and uncertainties and hopes, but over it all was a feeling of joyous unreality that he was actually standing there, in her living room, his eyes gentle, amused, sexy. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered aloud. “A few hours ago, everything seemed so—”

  “Empty?” he provided in the deep, compelling voice she’d longed to hear again. “And meaningless?” he added, walking toward her.

  She nodded. “An