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‘Excuse me.
The latecomer was standing over her. Out of the comer of her eye, Shannon saw him motion at the chair on which she’d placed her shoulder-bag. She nodded, took the bag from the chair and put it on the floor beside her.
‘Thanks.’ .
‘Shhh,’ she whispered.
‘Right. Sorry.’
The chair creaked as he settled into it and she frowned. It was bad enough to come in so late; the least he could do was try to keep noise to a minimum. She gave him a sidelong glance, watching as he opened his copy of the play the class was reading—A Streetcar Named Desire—and began rustling through the pages of the first act. She thought of telling him they were reading from the second, but before she had the chance, he leaned towards her.
‘Uh—could you tell me what page they’re on? I can’t seem to find it.’
‘Page forty-four,’ she muttered. ‘And could you please be a little quieter? I’m trying to...” Her sentence ended before it had begun, the words drifting into the air as aimlessly as smoke in a summer breeze. That voice, she thought, while her heart thumped into overdrive, that distinctive voice...No, no, it couldn’t be. It was impossible.
Shannon took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Easy, she told herself, easy. Lots of men have husky voices. She raised her lashes slowly, glancing down and to the side. Motorcycle boots, she thought, as mounting panic fluttered inside her chest, dusty black motorcycle boots. Her glance moved slowly up the length of blue-denimed leg beside her. Please, she thought, please...
He turned towards her and she choked back a moan. ‘What are you doing here?’
Cade Morgan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘Don’t play cute with me!’ she whispered frantically. ‘I asked you a question. What are you doing here?’
He crossed one boot-clad ankle over the other. ‘What does it look like?’
‘You... you can’t just walk in here and sit down. This is a classroom.’
‘Really?’ He looked around and then nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s what it is, all right.’
‘Mr. Morgan, please...’
‘Cade,’ he said, leaning towards her.
‘Mr. Morgan, my teacher will be furious at me.’
Cade,’ he repeated. ‘Shall I spell that for you, Shannon? Capital C...’
She took a deep breath. Don’t antagonize him, she thought desperately. Don’t even try to understand why he’s doing this to you. Just get rid of him before somebody realizes what’s happening.
‘OK, OK. Look, my teacher. . .’
‘Cade,’ he repeated. ‘It’s an easy name. Just one syllable.’
She ducked her head and bit her lip as a woman in front of them stirred. ‘All right, Cade,’ she said swiftly. ‘Look, my teacher doesn’t let us bring visitors to class.’
‘No problem,’ Cade said easily. ‘I’ll just tell him I’m not here with you.’
‘Will you stop being such an ass?’ she whispered in fury. ‘You can’t do this!.’
The woman seated ahead clucked her tongue in annoyance and swiveled around to face them.
‘For God’s sake,’ she said through tight lips, ‘isn’t it enough you both came in late? Must you keep interrupting things?’
Shannon’s face whitened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘This wasn’t my idea.’
‘You should be sorry. You know better. As for you,’ she added, turning her angry glare on Cade, ‘you shouldn’t even be here. You...’ A sudden spark of recognition lit the woman’s face. ‘Aren’t you—aren’t you…’ She blinked. ‘Cade Morgan?’
‘No,’ Shannon babbled, ‘he isn?
