“Maybe one Saturday before the weather turns cold I’ll take her out on the mountain roads,” he said easily. “I’ll bet it’s beautiful up there.”
“Right now especially.”
He twisted, offering one arm to help her lever herself off the bike. She was honestly sorry when her feet hit firm ground again. Reluctantly, she reached up to unsnap the helmet.
“That was awesome,” she admitted as she handed the helmet back, then watched him stow it. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He pulled his own helmet off and hesitated. “Maybe, if you want, you could take that mountain ride with me.”
It was her turn to hesitate. The ride sounded like incredible fun, but she still couldn’t escape that strange feeling about him. “I don’t know anything about you,” she said finally.
His polar-ice eyes narrowed a hair, then he surprised her by laughing. “Of course you don’t. We just met. Do you want my fingerprints and birth certificate first?”
All of a sudden she felt foolish for her suspicions. “No, of course not.”
He leaned toward her a little, his teeth still gleaming in a smile. “Getting to know each other takes time, Liza. Don’t you think?”
Then he hopped off the bike, waved and headed to his class.
She stood there feeling utterly flat-footed. How had he done that? He’d told her exactly not one thing more about himself yet had managed to make her feel foolish for even wondering.
Yet, she argued with herself, he was right. It took time to get to know someone personally. But she was still annoyed by the feeling that he was deflecting her.
Why should he? Surely the college wouldn’t have hired someone with a criminal record. They did background checks as well she knew. So why couldn’t she be satisfied with just knowing that he was another instructor like her? Exactly like her.
Because something about him seemed different? Because something didn’t feel quite right?
Sheesh. Shouldering her backpack, she started the short hike to her office. She hated questioning her own instincts, but maybe it was time to start. She was rusty, and even when she hadn’t been rusty she’d made an occasional mistake.
Well, she thought they were occasional mistakes only because she hadn’t come up with anything about the person who aroused her suspicions. That didn’t exactly mean those persons were okay.
When she reached her office, she tossed her bag on her desk and powered up her computer. She needed to check the presentation for her first class, a comparison between a TV news story and the actual facts of a legal case that showed how easily a reporter could create a false impression. It was important to her that her students understood exactly how the news could be bent before they got into the nitty-gritty of trying to write it.
Maybe she was getting a false impression now. Maybe Max was nobody at all but a former cop with a law degree who had decided to take a break by teaching at a community college. Maybe all her questions arose from the simple fact that he seemed out of place here.
It could all be as simple as that. As simple as her training driving her to look for the story behind the story, even if there wasn’t one. Man, no wonder guys didn’t much hang out with her. Not only had she worked weird hours, but dating her must have been like dating an inquisitor, now that she thought about it.
Few answers were good enough for her. She always wanted more information.
All of a sudden she remembered a boyfriend from five years ago who had erupted at her. “I can’t just say it’s a nice day,” he had snapped. “You always want to know exactly what kind of nice day it is. Did something good happen? What’s the temperature? Can I tell you the exact color blue of the sky?”
She winced at the memory, mostly because there was more than a kernel of truth to it.
She had defended herself by demanding to know what was wrong with curiosity. She still believed there was nothing wrong with it, but maybe she was just too impatient for the answers. She’d give Max some time, she decided. If she kept getting the feeling he was too much of a mystery, then she could start digging.
She wondered how long she’d be able to rein herself in.
She learned the answer not two minutes later when she realized she was researching active law licenses in the state of Michigan.
She had it bad.
Max strolled to his office, wondering if he’d done the right thing in stopping to pick up Liza and offering her a trip into the mountains.
Yes, he decided. One of the things he had learned quickly was not to act suspiciously, and one of the most suspicious things you could do was avoid someone who was asking questions about you.
The only way to seem aboveboard was to act as if you were. And while he was at it, maybe he could convince her that she really didn’t want to know him or know more about him. Given his job, he knew how to be obnoxiously overbearing, and with an independent woman like Liza, that might be just the ticket.
He tossed his helmet on the desk and brought his computer up. He had some idea how to teach the course he was about to begin. It hadn’t been that long since he’d taken such a course himself, and he knew that part of what students would want to hear were actual on-the-job experiences. He’d heard enough stories to tell them as if they were his own.
He’d even managed to rustle up his own course outline and enough handouts to get him rolling. He figured he could pull this off as well as any role he’d ever had to play. And unlike Liza Enders, his students weren’t going to be suspicious.
Nope, the teaching part would be a walk in the park compared to some of the stuff he’d had to do—like lie.
There were some folks who deserved to be lied to. And then there were the rest, who didn’t deserve it at all.
What was that old joke? The drug dealer is more honest than the average narc, because the narc lies about what he is.
The thought made him shift uncomfortably in his seat.
Keep your eye on the ball, he reminded himself. It was a familiar refrain in his life. He had to keep his eye on the ball here, an important ball. And that was definitely going to mean keeping an eye on Liza Enders.
There were worse jobs, he decided. But nothing that began with a lie could end well. In fact, lies usually just blew up on you.
And right now, he wondered if Liza Enders was going to wind up being a grenade.
Two days later, Liza sat in the back of her own classroom, listening as Sheriff Gage Dalton explained why cops used Public Information Officers to speak with the press. But her mind was elsewhere.
She’d learned that Max did indeed have an active law license in Michigan, but no address for a practice. Private addresses were confidential. Okay, he was licensed. That part of his CV was real. But she had learned absolutely not one more thing, and that bothered her.
Gage, a former DEA agent, a man with a limp and a
