Miss Liz's Passion

Elizabeth Gentry put all her passion into her students. Educating them, encouraging them, reaching them—that was easy. It was the living that was hard. After the betrayal, the grief and the pain, there was a kind of peace in giving away her heart to her pupils.

That was what made Todd Lewis so dangerous. With his dogged determination and rugged handsomeness, he had slowly staked his own claim on her heart and made her feel again. Made her want to hope and dream. But her hopes, her dreams, her heart—were so fragile. Could she entrust them to him? Or would he destroy them for good?

Although Dolphin Reach, the characters and the incidents in Miss Liz’s Passion are fiction, a similarly innovative program is currently under way at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida. A special thanks to Dr. David Nathanson for sharing his expertise, to the enthusiastic Dolphin Research Center staff and to Spring and her family for sharing their time and enthusiasm.

For Moira, who brings dedication, imagination and love to some very special students.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

The bite mark was an angry red, only one shade darker than Teri Lynn’s face as she howled at the top of her lungs and clutched her injured arm. Breathless from streaking across the grassy playground to break up the fight, Liz Gentry knelt between the crying girl and her eight-year-old tormentor.

“Kevin, what is the meaning of this?” Liz demanded as she wiped away Teri Lynn’s tears with a lace-edged, lavender-scented handkerchief.

The towheaded boy she addressed stared sullenly at the ground, scuffing the toe of his sneaker back and forth in the dirt. She put a firm hand on his chin and forced him to meet her gaze. “Kevin?”

She sighed as he remained obstinately silent.

“He bit me, Mrs. Gentry. For no reason, he just bit me,” Teri Lynn said between sobs.

“Did not,” Kevin muttered defiantly.

“Did, too,” Teri Lynn insisted with a sniff as she inched closer to Liz’s side.

“Kevin, if you didn’t do it, who did?” Liz asked impatiently, then sighed again.

Of course, Kevin had done it. She’d seen him herself. One minute he and Teri Lynn had been tossing a ball back and forth on the playground. Seconds later he had flown at her in a rage. Half a dozen shocked classmates had stared on silently, while others, seemingly immune to Kevin’s displays of temper, continued with their noisy games.

So much for her hopes for an uneventful recess, she thought as she comforted Teri Lynn. Thanks to Kevin, at the rate the school year was going, she would have had a quieter time of it in the Marines.

As the bell rang ending recess, she surveyed the combatants. Both of them had cuts and scrapes, but that bite mark on Teri Lynn’s arm was the worst injury.

“Okay, we won’t argue about it now. Teri Lynn, I’ll take you to the school nurse as soon as I get the rest of the class inside. Kevin, you and I will discuss this after school. In the meantime, you will go to the principal’s office and wait for me.”

Her tone left no room for argument. Not that Kevin would have given her one. He simply nodded as he always did. Inside the building, as she watched, he walked down the deserted hall and turned into the office. She knew from experience she would find him there at the end of the school day, sitting on a bench, his expression stoic. Only the telltale traces of tears on his cheeks ever offered any indication that he’d found the recurring incidents of misbehavior or the punishment upsetting.

The last hours of school dragged on interminably. She tried to listen as the students read their English assignments aloud, but she couldn’t get her mind off Kevin. Despite his troublesome behavior, something about the child’s lost, world-weary expression tugged at her heart. She cared about all of her students. She loved the challenge of making them respond, of making learning exciting for them. With Kevin the challenge had been doubled because her usual methods had failed so miserably. Whether it was her own ego or Kevin’s apparent need, he had gotten to her in a way that none of the other students had.

But how on earth was she going to handle this ongoing behavior problem? No matter how compassionately she felt toward Kevin, his conduct had to be corrected. There was a fight or a temper tantrum, or a sulking retreat almost every day. The child clearly needed help, more help than she could possibly offer him in a room crowded with thirty-five energetic third-graders.

It was only the first month of school and already she had repeatedly sent notes home to his father, who had sole custody for reasons not made clear in the file. No mention was made of the mother. In her first letter to Todd Lewis she had explained Kevin’s behavior problems in depth, detailing her suspicions about the cause and requesting a meeting to discuss solutions. The second note and the third had been a little more impatient, a little more concise. Admittedly, the last one had been barely polite.

Todd Lewis had yet to call, much less appear, which told her quite a lot about the man’s indifference to his son’s wellbeing and left her thoroughly frustrated. Reaching him by phone had been no more successful. With an increasing sense of urgency, she had left at least half a dozen messages on his home answering machine in the last two days. If he had a business number, or cell phone number, she couldn’t find it. The emergency number in the file had turned out to belong to a neighbor, who looked out for Kevin after school. Liz had been unwilling to draw the woman into the midst of the problem. She had asked her only to relay a message asking Todd Lewis to call. The woman had agreed readily enough, but admitted she rarely saw him.

Liz resolved to try just once more to arrange a meeting. If the man failed to show up yet again, she would have to resort to stronger action. There were authorities she could ask to intercede. Filled with indignation on Kevin’s behalf, she dismissed the class, asked the teacher next door to get her students to their buses, then wrote the harshest note yet, hoping to shake Todd Lewis from his parental apathy.

When she’d finished the note, she went to get Kevin. As she’d expected, he was sitting on the wooden bench in the office, his short legs sticking out in front of him, his hands folded in his lap. He didn’t even look up as she sat down beside him. She was torn between wanting to hug him or shake him. He looked as though he desperately needed a hug.

“Okay, Kevin. Let’s talk about this for a few minutes before you catch the school bus. Tell me what happened out there this afternoon,” she began quietly.

He shook his head, his expression hopeless. That look broke her heart. No child of eight should have eyes that devoid of hope.

“Why not?” she probed.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said in a voice so soft she had to lean down to hear him.

“It does matter. Fighting is no way to settle an argument.”

“Teri Lynn started it,” he said with more spirit.

“Kevin, I was watching. I saw you knock her down.”

“Only because—”

“Because what?”

His chin set stubbornly.

“Kevin?”

“She said something,” he mumbled.

“What?”

He shook his head again.

“Kevin, this is not the first fight you’ve had. I can’t help, if you won’t tell me what the fights are about. I don’t want to recommend that you be suspended, but that’s where you’re heading.”

Blue eyes shimmering with tears blinked wide at her stern tone. Liz felt her heart constrict. If only she could get to the bottom of this. Her voice softened. “Honey, please, what did she say that made you so mad?”

His lower lip trembled. Liz waited as he started to speak, swallowed hard, then tried again. “She-she…said…”

“Come on, sweetheart. You can tell me.”

His shoulders slumped and tears spilled down his cheeks. “She said I was a…a d-dummy.”

Liz felt the sting of salty tears in her own eyes at the note of despair she heard in his voice. He believed it! This bright, outgoing child believed he was a failure because of the cruel taunts of a classmate and her own inability to find teaching methods that would reach him.

Kevin needed diagnostic testing. He needed special classes. Most of all, he needed a father who loved him enough to see that the answers to his learning dilemma were found before Kevin withdrew into himself entirely. Damn Todd Lewis!

More than ever, she was glad that this latest note had been worded so strongly. The man’s indifference was appalling. Furious, she decided if he failed to respond this time it would be the last. She renewed her vow to set in motion whatever regulations were necessary to see that Kevin got the help that would enable him to learn. More important, she would see that something was done to restore his rapidly deteriorating self-esteem.

“Kevin, you are not a dummy,” she said with every ounce of conviction she could manage. “You are a very smart little boy.”

He regarded her doubtfully. “But you’re always correcting me. That’s why Teri Lynn said it. She says you don’t like me, that nobody likes me because I always make mistakes.” He sighed heavily. “And I do. I can’t get nothing right.”

“Anything,” she corrected instinctively, then could have bitten her tongue. Why just this once couldn’t she have let a mistake slide? “Honey, I do like you. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I believe that the reason you make mistakes is not because you’re not very, very smart, but because you have something called a learning disability. That’s what I want to talk to your father about. I think we should do some tests to find out why it’s so hard for you to learn.”

“Is that what the note says?” he asked, fingering the sealed envelope suspiciously.

She considered the note’s indignant comments. For a fleeting instant she was almost grateful that Kevin had difficulty reading. “More or less,” she said wryly. “Kevin, is there some reason your father hasn’t been able to come in when I’ve asked him to?”

He stared at the floor and shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s pretty busy, I guess.” There was an obvious note of pride in his voice as he added, “He works real hard.”

“You just tell him that I expect to see him tomorrow. Okay?”

“I’ll tell him.” He frowned. “You’re not gonna be mad at him for not coming before, are you?”

Liz struggled to keep her tone impassive. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll work things out and once your dad and I talk I’m sure things will get better for you. Now run along before you miss the early bus again today.”

He was on his feet at once, his natural exuberance restored.

“Kevin!”

He glanced back at her. “We’ll discuss your apology to Teri Lynn in the morning.”

He nodded once, shot her a cheerful grin and was out the door, leaving her to ponder exactly how many years she would spend in jail if she tarred and feathered Todd Lewis.

Chapter 1

The neat, handwritten letter had all the primness of some Victorian maiden’s blush. According to the indignant opening line, it was not the first such reprimand that Todd Lewis should have received in the past month. The prissy, uptight tone might have amused him had the contents not infuriated him so.

Exhausted by an endless and frustrating day under the hot Miami sun, he reached for the can of beer beside his chair. Perhaps he was overreacting. God knows, it would be understandable. He was bone-weary. His shoulders ached, his back felt like someone was holding a burning knife in the middle of it and his thighs throbbed from the strain of struggling with those damned girders since just after dawn. He had little patience left for someone who’d spent a few hours lolling around in an air-conditioned classroom and still had complaints about how tough the workday was.

He took a long swallow of beer, then slowly read the letter again. The words and the crisp, precise, censuring tone hadn’t mellowed one whit. Neither did his dark mood.

Elizabeth Gentry—he was willing to bet it was Miss Gentry—was sharply criticizing his son. For some reason he couldn’t quite follow, she didn’t seem to be too thrilled with him, either. She demanded that Todd come in the following afternoon at 3:30 to discuss the boy’s “uncontrollable behavior, deplorable manners and inappropriate language.”

Todd felt his blood pressure begin to soar again. He did not appreciate being chastised in such a demeaning tone by a woman he’d never even met. Nor was he wild about the labels she’d slapped on his son. Another sip of beer soothed his parched throat but not his fiery temper.

He could just picture the woman. Gray hair drawn back in a tidy little bun, a spine of steel, no makeup, rimless glasses sliding down to the end of her too-large nose, nondescript clothes in gray or brown or maybe one of those little floral prints his grandmother used to wear. He sighed at the daunting prospect. He had no idea how to deal with a sexless, unimaginative woman like that.

He took another sip of beer and read on. “Your continued refusal to take action in this matter indicates a startling lack of interest in Kevin’s educational well-being and social adjustment. Should you fail to keep this appointment, I am afraid it will be necessary for me to pursue the matter with other authorities.”

What other authorities? Was the woman actually suggesting that he be reported to some local bureaucrat, maybe even a state agency? A knot formed in his stomach at the insulting suggestion that he was an uncaring father, who approved of—what was it?—uncontrollable behavior, deplorable manners and inappropriate language.

Okay, he was willing to admit that Kevin was a handful, but what eight-year-old wasn’t? He just needed a little firm discipline every now and then.

Suddenly the nagging memory of his ex-wife’s endless complaints about Kevin’s manageability returned with untimely clarity. He’d dismissed her rantings at the time as yet another excuse for walking out on them. Sarah had wanted to leave long before the night she’d finally packed her bags and departed. She’d been too young, too immature to accept the responsibility of marriage, much less a troublesome son. He had blamed the inability to cope on her, not Kevin.

The comparison gave him a moment’s pause, but he dismissed the significance almost at once. No doubt this terribly proper and probably ancient Miss Gentry was equally inept with children. If she couldn’t handle an eight-year-old boy, perhaps she’d chosen the wrong profession. Perhaps she should be teaching piano and embroidery to sedate young ladies in frilly dresses and dainty white gloves, instead of third-grade boys who got dirt on their clothes even before the school bus picked them up in the morning.

He glanced across the room at his sturdy, blond son. Kevin was quietly racing small cars through an intricately designed village he’d built from the set of Lego blocks he’d begged for and received for his birthday. Todd figured the subdued behavior would last no more than another ten minutes, long enough for his son to feel secure that this note from his teacher would not result in some sort of punishment.

“Kevin.” He kept his tone determinedly neutral. Still, wary blue eyes glanced up from the toy Porsche that was about to skitter around the village’s sharpest turn. A tiny jaw jutted up, mimicking all too accurately Todd’s own frequently belligerent expression. That look warned him that there just might be something behind Miss Gentry’s complaints.

“What’s this all about, son?”

“Same old stuff.” Kevin directed his attention back to the car. It whizzed around the turn and up a hill.

“What stuff?” Todd persisted. “I gather this is not the first time your teacher has written.”

A guilty blush spread across Kevin’s round, freckled cheeks and he continued to look down. Todd nodded with sudden understanding. No wonder the teacher had been indignant. She thought he’d seen all of her earlier notes and had intentionally ignored them.

“I see,” he said wearily. “What did you do with the other letters?”

There was the tiniest hesitation before Kevin said in a whisper, “I lost ’em.”

“Really? How convenient,” he said, barely controlling his temper. “Suppose you tell me what they were about.”

Kevin studied the miniature red Porsche he was pushing back and forth and mumbled, “She said she told you in this one.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Kevin remained stubbornly silent. Todd knew from experience that getting him to talk now was going to require tact and patience. He was shorter than usual on both tonight.

“Son, she says this is the fifth note in the last three weeks. Are you sure there’s not something happening in school that you should tell me about?”

Kevin’s expression turned increasingly defiant. “I told you, Dad. She don’t like me. That’s all it is.”

“School just started a month ago. Why would you think your teacher doesn’t like you?”

“Everybody knows it, Dad. She’s always telling me how to do stuff.”

Despite himself, Todd grinned. “She’s a teacher. That’s what teachers do.”

“Yeah, but Dad, she only tells me. Even when I tell her I can’t do it, she makes me. The other kids get it, but I can’t. I try, Dad. Really.”

The tears that welled up despite the tough facade convinced Todd that his son was telling the truth, at least as he saw it. A swift surge of compassion swept through him, blotting out for a moment his need to get to the bottom of the teacher’s complaints. His overwhelming desire to protect Kevin at any cost refueled his anger at the stiff, unyielding Miss Gentry and gave substance to all of his long-standing suspicions about the school system’s ineptitude. It had done a lousy enough job with him. He’d obviously been foolish to hope that things had improved.

What kind of teacher would single out a child day after day like that? He’d tried his darnedest not to interfere, to let the school do what it was supposed to do—educate his son, but he wouldn’t have the boy made out to be some sort of freak because he was a little slower than the other kids. Kevin was smart as a whip. Anyone who took the time to talk to him could see that.

“Are you going to talk to her, Dad?” Kevin’s voice was hesitant, the tone a heartbreaking mix of hopefulness and fear. Todd wasn’t sure what response his son really wanted.

“Don’t you want me to?” he asked, though he knew there was no longer any real choice in the matter.

Kevin shrugged, but his little shoulders were slumped so dejectedly it made Todd feel like pounding his fist through a wall. “She’s made me stay after school almost every day this week,” Kevin finally admitted. “A couple of times I almost missed the bus. I think she’s real mad at both of us now.”

Todd sighed. Kevin tried so hard not to let anyone fight his battles for him. If only he’d told Todd sooner, perhaps this wouldn’t have gotten so far out of hand. The prospect of confronting Miss Gentry’s self-righteous antagonism held about as much appeal as putting in another grueling, mishap-ridden twelve-hour day at the site of his latest shopping center.

“Then maybe it’s time I have a talk with her,” he said, anyway. “Don’t worry about it, son. I’ll get it straightened out. Tell her I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.” He recalled the string of problems he’d left behind at the construction site and the imperious tone of that note, then amended, “Or the next day, at the latest.”

But despite the reassurance, fear still flickered in Kevin’s eyes. That frightened expression aroused all of Todd’s fierce protective instincts. He remembered every single humiliating moment of his own school experience and swore to himself that Miss Elizabeth Gentry would not put his son through the same sort of torment.

Liz stared longingly out the classroom window at the swaying palm trees and deep blue sky. It was a perfect Florida day. The humidity had vanished on the breeze. She had only five more spelling papers to grade before she could leave the confining classroom and enjoy what was left of the early October afternoon. The prospect of a long swim raised her spirits considerably.

She had had an absolutely hellish day again. The school had instituted yet another form that had to be filled out, though no one knew quite why. Two of her students had been sent home with the flu, after generously sharing their germs, no doubt. She’d had cafeteria duty, which almost always left her with a headache. Today’s was still throbbing at the base of her skull. And Kevin had gotten into another fight. This time he’d sent Cindy Jamison to the school nurse with a bloody lip. She herself had gotten a lump on her shin and a run in her hose trying to break up the brawl.

Now Kevin was sitting at his desk, his head bent over another assignment as they waited for his father, who was already forty minutes late. The man probably had no intention of showing up this time, either, though Kevin had vowed that he would be here.

She heard a soft, snuffling sound and looked back just in time to catch sight of a tear spilling onto Kevin’s paper. Her heart constricted. Blast that stubborn, indifferent father of his.

“Kevin, bring me your paper.”

He looked up, his expression so woebegone that once again she felt like taking his father apart piece by piece.

When Kevin didn’t move, she said, “Aren’t you finished?”

He shook his head.

“That’s okay. Show me what you have and we’ll do the rest together.”

“It’s not very good.”

“No problem. We’ll work on it.”

Kevin approached her desk with the look of a child being told that Santa Claus was leaving him only a lump of coal. It was an expression without hope. Stoic and resigned, he placed the rumpled page in front of her. “I made a lot of mistakes.”

“Then let’s see what we can do about them,” she said briskly. “You know everybody makes mistakes when they tackle something new. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and it’s definitely no reason not to at least try.”

Kevin regarded her with surprise. “My dad says that, too.”

Liz was startled that they’d even discussed the subject. Her image of Todd Lewis did not include supportive father-son talks. She’d been certain that he either ignored the boy altogether or pressured him by expecting perfection.

“Does your dad help you with your homework?”

“Sometimes,” Kevin said evasively. “Mostly Mrs. Henley helps me.” Mrs. Henley was the woman next door.

“Sometimes, if Dad’s real late, she fixes dinner and helps me with my homework.”

Liz felt that familiar surge of helplessness rush through her again. For the next half hour she and Kevin worked on correcting his paper. It was a tedious, frustrating process for both of them, but Kevin’s glowing smile at each tiny success made the effort worthwhile. When he printed the last of the words on his list perfectly, she hugged him.

“That’s exactly right. I think you deserve a reward. What would you like?”

His eyes widened. “You mean like a present or something?”