LITMIR.BIZ

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now, Jorge thought, he was plenty stimulated. He had no idea that “cute” could be such a turn-on. “You look very Heidi-ish,” he finally said.

      She’d never thought of Heidi as being sensual before. She did now. “Thank you,” Jane murmured.

      Twirling one of her pigtails around his finger, he kept his eyes on her face. “Sure I can’t get you to postpone this?”

      She sincerely doubted that she’d ever been so tempted to go back on her word in her life. But she had given her word and all she had to think about were all the times that her parents broke promises they had made to her, or worse, forgot that they had made them at all, and that made up her mind for her.

      It killed her to do it, but Jane flashed an apologetic smile and shook her head. “I can’t. I gave my word. They’re waiting for me.”

      “This is new for me,” he had to admit, “losing out to a bunch of kids.”

      “Hospitalized kids,” she emphasized.

      “Hospitalized kids,” he repeated dutifully. And then he really surprised her. “Mind if I tag along?”

      The air was cold and she quickly secured a button, pushing it through its hole before locking the door behind her. He was kidding, right?

      “You want to come to the hospital with me?” she asked incredulously.

      “Yes.”

      She tried to picture him in the ward, surrounded by small children. It wasn’t easy. “Why?”

      He wasn’t used to being questioned as to his motives. She was definitely keeping him on his toes. “I never read Heidi as a kid.”

      Now that she believed. “I’m in the middle of the book,” she warned.

      If that was meant to make him change his mind about coming along, it failed. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch up,” he assured her. “I’ve been told I’m bright for my age,” he teased.

      She was out of excuses and if she was being honest with herself, she liked the idea that he wanted to come with her. It made him seem more human to her.

      “All right,” she agreed, “if you’re sure you want to do this. My car’s parked over here.” She nodded in the general direction of the carport and then led the way to her space.

      Jorge kept pace with her and then watched the way the wind played with the ends of her hair as she unlocked her side of the car. Opening the door, she hit the lock release. His door was opened.

      “Is this part of your job, too?” he asked as he got into the small, economical foreign vehicle. “Reading to kids in hospitals?”

      “No.” Leaving her purse on the floor between her and the door, she put on her seat belt. “I wanted to do something meaningful and this was the only thing I could think of—entertaining the kids at the hospital by reading to them.”

      His seat belt was giving him trouble. He had to extend it twice before he could get it to fit into the slot.

      “Wouldn’t it be easier just to donate a couple of video games and maybe a secondhand game console?” he suggested.

      “Easier, maybe,” she agreed looking over her shoulder as she pulled out of her spot, “but not nearly as rewarding.” Books had always been her saving grace, her safe place to go when things became difficult to deal with. “Books spark the imagination.”

      He thought of some of his friends’ kids. They spent hours glued to a television set, their fingers flying across a keypad. “So do video games.”

      She supposed video games had their place, but she had never cared for them. “Most video games are about blowing things up. Books build minds.”

      There was a note of passion in her voice, as if she were defending old friends. “Bet you read a lot as a kid,” he said.

      She’d taken a lot of teasing for that, but that had helped her develop a tougher outer shell. “Anything I could get my hands on,” she confirmed. “I loved to escape into stories.” It wasn’t until the word was out that she realized her mistake.

      “What were you escaping from?” Jorge asked, his curiosity aroused.

      If she’d had more time, she would have come up with some vague, acceptable story. But the question was here and now. She had no choice but to fall back on the truth. “Parents who yelled at each other and ignored me.”

      He hadn’t anticipated that kind of an answer. His parents had always been there for him, even when he hadn’t deserved it. Sometimes he forgot that he was one of the lucky ones and that not everyone grew up with a support system to fall back on.

      Not that he ever did, he thought, but it was still nice to know it was there if he needed it.

      “Must have been rough,” he sympathized.

      She shrugged, glad that she had an excuse to avoid his eyes. The last thing she wanted to see there was pity.

      “Other people had it worse.” She suppressed a sigh. There was no changing the past. “They were just two people who should have never gotten married. To anyone,” she added. Her father had been completely into his work and her mother had been completely into herself. They didn’t need outsiders in their lives and they certainly didn’t need to be responsible for a child. “I used to wonder why they got married in the first place.”

      Jorge thought of all the times he’d seen his father sneak up behind his mother and steal a kiss or nuzzle her. He’d grown up thinking that all parents loved

      each other and demonstrated their affection.

      “Did you ever ask them?”

      “I asked my mother once,” she recalled. “She said it seemed like a good idea at the time.” A rueful smile curved her lips. “One of the longest conversations I ever had with her.”

      “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Having someone sympathetic to turn to could help take the edge off rejection.

      Jane kept her eyes on the road, even as her mind revisited the past. Even with the distance of time, it was painful to recall. She shook her head. “One mistake was enough for them.”

      “Is that what they told you?” Jorge could feel his temper suddenly materializing out of nowhere, flaring and aimed at people he wouldn’t have recognized if he tripped over them on the street. How could people say something that hurtful to any kid, let alone their own?

      “In a way,” she recalled. “When I was six, one of the girls at school bragged about getting a new baby sister over the summer. I came home and asked my mother if we could get one and she looked at me for a long time and then said that when people made mistakes, they were supposed to learn from them, not make another one.” She could feel his eyes on her and she flushed, glancing at him. “I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but I figured it out later.”

      The sadness in her voice was hard to miss. But there was no condemnation.

      “And you’re not bitter?” he asked in amazement. A background like that was perfect for producing loners and serial killers, yet here she was, sweet and generous to a fault, working at a job that he knew for a fact paid very little, just because she wanted to help children.

      “Wouldn’t change anything if I was,” she theorized. “Besides, they did the best they could.”

      Jane’s reasoning eluded him. “How do you figure that?”

      “I never went hungry.” At least, not for food, she thought. “I had shelter, clothes and a library card.” Mentioning the last item made her smile fondly. It was one of her best childhood memories. “My father took me to get it when I was seven. The only outing I remember with him, actually,” she confessed.

      There were no picnics, no

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