Angel in Disguise by Patt Marr Page B

don’t think I could take being a celebrity there again today.”
    “No?” He gave her another quick glance. “You were good at it. Even I couldn’t tell you were pretending.”
    It hadn’t felt as if she were. “They won’t be linking me with Bruce anymore. What shall I say when they ask me about you?”
    “Do you think they will?” He seemed astonished at the possibility.
    She laughed. “They’ll talk all right.”
    “I guess pretty teachers always get talked about. Now that I think about it, we kept pretty close tabs on our art teacher and the blond teacher who taught French or Spanish. I forget which. They were knockouts. Who did your friends talk about?”
    “The dating habits of the nuns at Our Lady of Tears didn’t generate much gossip.”
    “Our Lady of Tears? Never heard of it.”
    “It’s a girls’ boarding school near Carmel.”
    “All girls?” he asked, horrified, or pretending to be. “Did you like that?”

    “Did I like what?” She knew what he meant. She’d had this conversation before.
    “A school with no guys.”
    “We saw guys,” she said, assuming a lofty air.
    He lifted a brow. “With a telescope trained on the beach?”
    She smacked his arm. “No! For your information, there was a mountain between us and the beach.”
    “Bummer. So you girls didn’t date?”
    “It was a prep school, Maguire. Parents didn’t send their daughters there for the social life.”
    “Prep school, huh? Sounds more like a juvie prison. Were you a bad girl, Sunny Keegan?”
    The very idea of Eleanor Keegan’s daughter being a bad girl made her laugh aloud. “I’ll have you know, there’s a waiting list to get into Our Lady of Tears.”
    “Go figure,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “I wouldn’t have liked an all-boys school. Not once those hormones kicked in.”
    “We had a social life. They arranged events with an all-boys school nearby. Dances, cookouts, mixers, all heavily chaperoned.”
    “Doesn’t sound much different than a Dream Date.”
    “The dress code was. Cheryl couldn’t have gotten away with her low-cut dress, and Kevin couldn’t have worn those holey jeans.”
    “How about my tie? Betcha all the little preppies wore ties.”
    “Not with grapes on them.”
    He grinned at her. “You really checked me out, didn’t you?”

    “Not necessarily. I just couldn’t miss that ugly tie.”
    He laughed silently. “How about little short skirts? Did the nuns let you wear leather?”
    “Never!”
    “Pity. I liked that skirt. You’ve got great legs, Coach.”
    How was she supposed to respond to that? She felt the heat build in her face.
    “You want some coffee?” he asked. “There’s a thermal jug and cups on the floor.”
    That was impressive. Bruce might have wanted coffee on an early-morning drive, but he would have expected her to bring it.
    “If you need cream and sugar, I threw some packets in the glove compartment.”
    “Pretty thoughtful.”
    “No, just habit. Lisa couldn’t stand black coffee.”
    Neither could Sunny until that moment. If it choked her, she’d drink hers plain. Whoever Lisa was, Sunny didn’t want to be anything like her. It was irrational, but instinctive, as natural as her sudden desire to know everything about Lisa.
    Pete seemed comfortable with the silence between them, and she didn’t mind, for it gave her more time to wonder about the mystery woman. He had said, “Lisa couldn’t stand black coffee.” “Couldn’t” was definitely past tense. So Lisa was an ex. Ex what? Girlfriend, wife, coffee drinker? What?
    Sunny sipped the bitter black brew and focused on the blossoming ice plants that turned the freeway into a gorgeous pink corridor. It was ridiculous tospeculate about some woman in Pete’s past, and she wouldn’t do it, not at all. She had great discipline.
    Channeling that discipline, she wondered how many calories she would save by giving up cream in her coffee. She wondered if spring was Pete’s favorite