Now he wasn't.

She just didn't feel him anymore. Kim sighed inwardly. Maybe it was just something she had to forget about. Maybe it was just that they were both growing up.

She was jerked out of her reverie by… what?

Something had touched her leg! Then she felt Luke Roberts's thigh pressing against hers. She turned and glared at him. "Could you just move over?"

Luke rolled his eyes scornfully, but he pulled away.

"And keep your hands on the table," Kim told him.

"Jeez," Luke groaned. "What is with you?"

Kim gave him a cold smile. "Not you!" she said.

Across from Kim, Sandy Engstrom was acutely aware of Jared Conway's presence next to her. She'd seen him when he first came in, and when their eyes met, the strangest feeling had come over her.

As if he'd looked right inside her.

But not just looked in. It seemed he'd reached into her, actually touched her. She'd felt a rush of heat and her skin broke out in goose bumps. And right away-even before he'd started toward her-she'd known he would sit next to her.

Now, with his body pressed against hers, the goose bumps were back, and she could once again feel that delicious heat.

What if Jared asked her out?

Should she go?

Sandy shivered with excitement as she began to think about the possibilities.

I don't believe it! Kim thought as once again Luke Roberts's fingers touched the skin on her leg. Giving Luke a hard enough shove that he almost fell off the banquette onto the floor, she slid out of the booth. "Let's get out of here," she told Sandy. "We've only got ten more minutes, and I have to stop at my locker."

"What's the big hurry?" Luke protested. "Come on-we just got here!"

"Maybe you don't care if we get caught, but I do," Kim snapped. "This was a stupid thing to do in the first place!" She headed toward the door, refusing even to glance back.

Sandy followed her, but at the door, turned to look back at Jared. His eyes locked on hers, and once more she had the strange feeling that he was reaching right inside her, sending a warmth through her that made her almost tremble with pleasure.

Like he's making love to me, she thought. It feels like he's making love to me. Doing her best to control her emotions-and praying no one would notice her deep blush-Sandy hurried after her friend.

Suddenly, she could hardly wait for the sleep-over at Kim's house.

The pizza parlor had emptied out twenty minutes ago, but so far Jared showed no sign of being ready to leave. Luke Roberts was starting to get nervous. Very nervous. For ten years-ever since he'd started at St. Ignatius, when he was five years old-he'd lived in fear of the wrath of the sisters. He'd first learned to fear their swift brand of retribution when Sister Katherine rapped his knuckles with a ruler for passing a piece of chewing gum back to one of his friends, sitting behind him. His hand had bled for the rest of the day, but Sister Katherine wouldn't even let him go put a Band-Aid on it. "If Jesus didn't ask for Band-Aids on the Cross, I think you can stand a little cut on your knuckles, Luke," she'd told him. The rest of the class giggled at the way she talked about Jesus on the Cross, but a single look from the nun silenced them, and Luke burned with shame when the pain in his knuckles made him cry. If Jesus hadn't asked for Band-Aids, he sure couldn't have cried, either. But he'd learned his lesson, and never tried to pass another piece of gum.

He'd also learned not to talk during class, and to stand up next to his desk when he answered a question.

And he'd learned not to be late.

He made that mistake in sixth grade, when Sister Michael was his teacher. Sister Mike-the only nun who let the kids shorten her name-had made him stay after school and write on the blackboard.

I waste my time when I'm late.

I waste the class's time when I'm late.

I waste Sister Michael's time when I'm late.

He'd written the three sentences a hundred times, and when he was done, he vowed never to be late to class again.

And he hadn't, until today. Now he glanced at the clock, trying not to let Jared Conway see him doing it. But Jared seemed almost as good as the sisters at knowing what he was doing.

"What's the matter?" he asked now. "Afraid Sister Clarence is going to make you stay after school?"

"No," Luke replied, knowing he'd spoken a little too fast.

Jared's eyes clamped mockingly onto his own. "'I waste my time when I'm late. I waste the class's time when I'm late. I waste Sister Michael's time when I'm late,'" he parroted, as if reading the words off the blackboard.

Or out of his own mind, Luke thought.

How? How'd he know? He thought back over the last few weeks, when he'd been spending almost all his time with Jared Conway. Had he told Jared about that afternoon when he was in Sister Mike's class?

He must have.

But he hadn't-he was almost sure of it!

How had Jared known?

"I can read your mind," he told Luke the day after they'd smoked the joints in Jared's basement room, when Luke had the weird hallucinations.

Hallucinations that were still so vivid, even weeks later, that he could hardly believe they'd been hallucinations at all. Just last night, before he went to sleep, he'd even imagined he felt the touch of the woman who appeared that night, stroking his cheek and letting her fingers trail down over his neck and chest, caressing his stomach, then reaching lower and lower until-

"Maybe you better go into the men's room," Jared drawled, slouching back in the booth and leering suggestively at Luke.

Luke felt his face burn, and shoved the memory out of his mind. Then he looked at the clock again. Sister Clarence is gonna kill us, he thought. This time she's really gonna kill us.

Jared grinned at him, and winked. "Well, we wouldn't want Sister to kill us, would we?" he said. Laughing, he slipped out of the booth and headed for the door.

As Luke followed, he found himself wondering again if it was really possible that Jared could somehow read his mind.

Sister Clarence stopped speaking as the door to her classroom opened and the two boys walked in, led by Jared Conway. A cold knot of anger formed inside her as she gazed at her newest student, and-not for the first time-immediately begged her savior for forgiveness for her failings. I know I should love all the children, she silently prayed, but I cannot love Jared Conway.

She'd thought about it many times over the past six weeks. Late at night, when she was alone in her tiny cell on the third floor of the convent next door, she occasionally blamed herself for the change in the boy. Perhaps she'd been too hard on him that first day, when he passed the note to his sister, but she'd learned years ago that when children arrived at St. Ignatius from public school, it was never too early to begin challenging the laxity of their habits. That nothing was demanded of the children was the worst failure of the public schools. Not that their parents were much better than the teachers, for the most part. But at St. Ignatius, lack of discipline-mental, physical, or moral-was simply not tolerated, so when she'd caught the Conway twins misbehaving on their very first morning, she hadn't hesitated to discipline them. And Kimberley had certainly responded well. The girl settled right into the routine of the school, and immediately made friends with exactly the right sort of girl-Sandy Engstrom was one of Sister Clarence's favorites.

But the boy was another story entirely. On the surface, Jared seemed unchanged. He was still the handsome boy who had walked into her classroom with his sister, a friendly smile on his lips, a strand of his dark curly hair falling over his forehead.