[Harlequin] - Beverly Sommers - Outside In (txt), Ksiazki, txt, ebook, pdf

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Outside InByBeverly SommersFrom the cover:IF SHE'D KNOWN THEN WHAT SHE KNEW NOW...At twenty-seven, Jill was masquerading as a high-school senior to find the truth about her sister's death.She was also causing quite a commotion. Snubbing the cheerleaders. Hanging out with the jocks.And giving her civics teacher the fright of his life. Poor Doug Lacayo had no way of knowing that his provocative, attractive pupil wasn't a teenager.Jill meant to tell Doug--but she couldn't resist having a little fun with him first.Doug wondered what his problem wasHe was twenty-nine; he was single; up until now he had always considered his sexual appetite to be healthy.You're in deep trouble, Lacayo, he told himself. You 've become fixated on an underage student who stole your clothes and makes a fool out of you in class.He was very close to crossing over the line from normal behavior to aberrant behavior. He was very close to committing a crime. After twenty-nine years of clean living, he had to actually fight off the urge to walk into the school office and look up her address.It wasn't really his fault, of course. He hadn't started it. She'd been coming on to him since her first day in class. Girls like that shouldn't be allowed in high school.What the hell was she up to? ABOUT THE AUTHORBeverly Sommers recently moved to an apartment on East Sixty-third Street in Manhattan, which she is decorating as a Mexican cafe. Readers visiting New York can feel free to stop by for a taco.OUTSIDE INBEVERLY SOMMERSharlequin 'BooksTORONTO NEW YORK LONDONAMSTERDAM PARIS SYDNEY HAMBURGSTOCKHOLM ATHENS'TOKYO' MILANAUCKLAND MANILA This is for Jill Wyckoff,my only relative who actuallybuys my books and reads themThanks, Jill.Published February 1990First printing December 1989First Australian Paperback Edition March 1990ISBN 0 373 16331 2Copyright 1990 by Beverly Sommers, All rights reserved. Philippine copyright 1990. Australian copyright 1990. New Zealand copyright 1990.Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher. Harlequin Books, P.O. Box 810, Chatswood, N.S.W., Australia 2067.All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.Published by Harlequin Books 72-74 Gibbes Street Chatswood, NSW 2067 AustraliaThe Harlequin trademark, consisting of the words HARLEQUIN INTIMATE ENCOUNTER and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of the Philippines.Printed in Australia by The Book Printer, VictoriaPrologueOverhead a jet was banking over the water before heading due north. The night was warm, still in the seventies, the humidity way up there. A strong wind was blowing in off the ocean and causing the palm trees to sway seductively in rhythm to the lapping of the waves on the shore.In the shadow of the pier, Ernesto was setting up for the night. When he thought about it at all, he deemed himself lucky to be homeless in South Florida rather than in the north where the elements would likely as not kill him some night. Right now, though, all he was thinking about was the bottle of wine he had scrounged up the money for and the cigarette butts he had found in a parking lot where someone had dumped out a car ashtray. It was almost enough to persuade him that he was homeless from choice, that he chose to live on the beach and sleep under the stars, that he didn't miss the dead-end job and the room he had shared with a boiler and his weekly dominoes games at the neighborhood bodega with his friend, Felipe, who was always good for a couple of bucks when he needed it.He stretched out the beach towel with the picture of an alligator on it that he had found abandoned in the sand one day and used now as a-bed. He didn't mind the sand, but the sand fleas were fierce this year and the towel offered the illusion of protection.He took the cigarette butts out of his pockets and lined them up in front of him on the back of the alligator. They averaged about half filters and half nonfilters and he picked up the nonfilters and buried them in the sand because they were already smoked right down to the cardboard. He chose one of the longer butts and lit it, then unscrewed the top of the bottle of cheap wine and held it up a moment, as though appraising it, before lifting it to his mouth and taking the first satisfying swallow. It went down warm and mellow and he tried to appreciate it while he could because soon he would be beyond even knowing what he was drinking, or caring.After two drinks he always thought he could see Cuba on the horizon, beckoning him, luring him into the ocean for the long swim. But there was nothing for him there now, except maybe jail. And if he had his choice he'd choose jail in the States to jail in Cuba. He'd spent a few nights in jail for drunk and disorderly and a couple of times for vagrancy, and the cot had been soft and the food had been warm and he'd been half-reluctant to leave in the morning.He preferred his place under the pier; it was beginning to feel like home. It was early yet, the sun not yet down, but later there would be others who would join him. There might be some food and more wine to share. A few nights ago, or maybe it was a few weeks, there had even been a cigar for him to enjoy. He still thought about that cigar in odd moments.Ernesto heard their laughter before he saw them. He knew at once that it wasn't anyone he knew. The others didn't laugh like that, not with pleasure, not with that youthful tone that said life was still wondrous. He looked around and saw three young men walking across the sand in his direction. They looked as if they had just stepped out of a television commercial, with their skin bronzed by the setting sun and their muscular bodies set off by the briefest of swimming trunks. One of them carried a bat and the others baseball gloves. The ones with the gloves were tossing a ball back and forth as they walked, their arms graceful and glinting in the last of the light.As they got closer he could see they they weren't young men at all but still boys, maybe sixteen, seventeen. They were tall and well built, but their faces didn't look as though they'd seen a razor, and their laughter was that of children. Two of them were dark and one had tight blond curls and all of them were quite beautiful in the way that youth and health and spirit are always beautiful.He was so used to feeling invisible, of people's eyes passing right through him on the street, that he was surprised when they didn't walk right by him. Instead they stopped a few feet away, and smiles spread across their faces like warm margarine across Cuban bread."Hey, you want to play some ball?" one of the dark ones asked him, still smiling.Ernesto pointed to his foot, the one with the sore that wouldn't heal and that caused his foot to swell to twice its size."Will you look at that?" said the blond boy, squatting down to take a close look at his foot. "It looks like a balloon about to pop, doesn't it? I'll bet if you stuck a pin in it it would explode." The one with the baseball bat moved in for a look, but instead of a look he swung the bat down on Ernesto's foot, causing him to let out a scream of pain fierce enough to wake the night."You were wrong, it didn't pop," said the boy with the bat. The others found this funny and staggered around, slapping each other on the back.The pain seemed to be flowing upward from his foot, and Ernesto took a long drink of the wine, trying to numb it. He didn't even question why the boy had hit his foot with the bat. He had long ago lost any sense of having any control over what happened to him.The blond boy grabbed the bottle of wine from out of Ernesto's hand and started to lift it to his mouth."Hey, don't even think about it," one of the others said to him. "This guy could have any disease you could name."Showing off his strong arm, the blond hurled the bottle like a curve ball so that it landed in the ocean and disappeared. Ernesto felt the tears then, not for his foot, which was still throbbing, but for the loss of the anesthetic that had been so casually tossed away."Look at all those cigarette butts," said one of the boys. "That's disgusting. Hey, old man, don't you know that smoking can kill you?" There was more laughter as Ernesto quickly reached for the butts and stuffed them back in his pockets."Okay, what's the batting order for tonight?" asked the blond, and for a few moments Ernesto thought they were going to go back to their game and leave himalone."I feel a hitting streak coming on," said the boy withthe bat."Hey, you were first last time," said the other dark-haired one, making a grab for the bat, but the boy holding it pulled it away in time."I don't mind hitting clean-up," said the blond."All right, go ahead, give it your best shot," said the boy with the glove.The batter hefted the bat and took a few practice swings. Just as Ernesto was waiting for the other boy to throw him the ball, a memory surfaced. Other homeless men he had heard about, beaten to death on the beach. But he shook his head, not believing it, and so did not see the first blow that was-aimedstraight at his head.Overhead a jet was banking over the water before heading due north. . , Chapter OneIt was a moment of pure terror; the kind of moment nightmares are made of. Jill froze, unable to utter a word... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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