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“You’re talking about sex,” his father said flatly.
Max didn’t deny it. “You’re damn straight. And what’s wrong with that?”
“Because there’s more to life than sex,” the older man said indignantly.
Max winced. “There you go again—talking about love. It doesn’t exist, Dad. Haven’t you figured that out? That’s why marriage doesn’t work. You let your raging hormones convince you you’ve found your soul mate, and while you’re under the influence, you make everything nice and legal. Then the magic wears off and you lose half of everything to a woman you no longer ‘love.’ You’ve got to stop this.”
He was truly worried about his father, but he might as well have saved his breath. John Sullivan had always been an eternal optimist, and if eight failed marriages couldn’t change that, than nothing else could. “You’re the one who needs to stop the way you’re living, son. What are you now…twenty-six?”
“Twenty-eight,” he said dryly.
“Almost thirty,” his father said. “And you’ve never had a serious relationship, never fallen in love. And that worries me. If you keep this up, you’re going to miss out on what life is all about. And I don’t want to hear that malarkey about love being nothing more than raging hormones. If you’d ever been in love, you would know that it’s a hell of a lot more than that. It’s finding someone you can share not just your bed with but your life. Aren’t you lonely?”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Max said quickly. “You’re not going to turn this around and make it all about me. I’m perfectly happy with my life, thank you very much. Let’s stick to the subject—you.”
Far from offended, John Sullivan only laughed. “A bit touchy, are we? What’s the matter? Did I hit a nerve?”
“Dad, I’m warning you!”
“Just think over what I said,” he said, sobering. “Okay?”
“If you’ll do the same,” Max replied. “I mean it. I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine,” his father assured him gruffly. “I just need some time.”
“Let’s have dinner next week,” he suggested, frowning. “We’ll go to Pete’s and have some ribs. I’ll take you for your birthday.”
“Hey, that sounds good. I can’t remember the last time I went to Pete’s.”
Not surprised that he’d jumped at the offer—his father had been going to Pete’s for ribs since before he was born—Max grinned. “I’ll see you Wednesday, then. Are you still at the apartment?”
Just that easily the conversation returned to the divorce. John Sullivan’s sigh carried easily across the phone line. “Yeah, but it just doesn’t seem the same without Joanna. She’s moved in with her daughter.”
“It’ll take time, Dad,” Max said quietly. “Try not to let it get you down.”
As he hung up, however, Max knew his father was hurting. He was a sensitive man who didn’t handle rejection—or divorce—well. He always moped around, stuck close to the house and generally felt sorry for himself for at least a month. Then—just when it seemed like he would never smile again—he would meet someone and the roller-coaster ride would start all over again.
If it would just end there, Max thought as he returned his attention to his writing, there would be nothing to worry about. But it was only a matter of time before his father planned his next proposal—he couldn’t seem to help himself.
Just thinking about it made Max groan. Returning his attention to his writing, he tried to dismiss his father’s troubles from his mind but without much success. When the phone rang again twenty minutes later, he hadn’t written a single word.
Irritated with himself, he reached for the phone. “Yes?”
“Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that. I take it you’re still having problems.”
At the sound of his editor’s voice, a reluctant grin curled the corners of Max’s mouth. “How’d you guess?”
“You sound just a little bit testy,” Katherine Stevens replied. “Have you pulled all your hair out yet?”
“Not yet,” he said, “but I’m considering it. How’d you know I needed to talk to you?”
“I’m psychic when it comes to my authors. What chapter are you on?”
He hesitated, but she would have to know sooner or later. “Two.”
Even though she didn’t say a word, he could almost hear her wince. Finally, quietly, she said, “You know you’re trying too hard, don’t you? You don’t need to put all this pressure on yourself. If you’d just let me reset the pub date, everything would be fine.”
“I can do this.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she agreed, “but the point is you don’t need to. Ed understands that our authors don’t live in a vacuum. Life happens. We have to be adjustable.”
Ed Quinn was the sole owner and publisher of St. John’s Press. Max had met him after his first book made the Times list, and he had to admit that Ed went out of his way to work with his authors. Max just hated to ask for extra time for writer’s block, of all things. He’d never had this kind of problem before, and he didn’t like it, dammit!
“Don’t make any changes in the pub date just yet,” he said gruffly. “I may still be able to make it.”
“You just need to lighten up,” she assured him.
“How? I’ve tried everything short of standing on my head.”
“Let’s go to dinner tomorrow night and talk about it.”
“Tomorrow? Are you in town?”
“I will be tomorrow,” she said with a chuckle. “Right now I’m in Denver for a conference. I thought I’d rent a car and drive up to see you tomorrow afternoon. If you’re free, of course.”
“Of course I’m free. Why don’t you meet me here at my office? When you come into town, turn right on University Avenue and it’ll take you straight to Old Main. There’s visitor parking out front. I’m in 204.”
“I should be there by five,” she replied. “Send out the cavalry if I’m not. My sense of direction stinks.”
“Don’t worry.” He laughed. “It’s almost impossible to get lost between here and Denver. There’s only one road and it goes straight to Eagle Creek.”
“Trust me—you haven’t seen me with a map.”
Laughing, she hung up, and for a moment Max found himself grinning at his computer screen. Katherine was a saint—and a hell of a good editor. If anyone could walk him through writer’s block—and he still wasn’t convinced that was possible—it was Katherine Stevens. Lighten up, she’d said. It sounded easy, but as he studied the single line he’d written in Chapter Two, his stomach knotted with tension. So much for lightening up, he thought grimly.
When Natalie’s alarm went off the next morning, she blindly slapped at the snooze button and found it without lifting her head from the pillow. It couldn’t be six-thirty already, she thought groggily. She’d just gone to bed at…what? Three?
She groaned at the thought. No wonder she was exhausted! She’d been working on her homework for all her classes, trying to get ahead of the game before she found herself behind. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she’d never dreamed it would take so long just to read three different homework assignments and go over her class notes. And that was after only the first day of classes! How was she going to keep up the pace all semester when she had projects to do, papers to write, the boys to take care of, and she worked four days a week? She could forget snoozing five extra minutes in the morning, that was for sure. She didn’t have time!
Jumping out of bed, she hurriedly dressed, then woke the boys. Then the fun began.
“I don’t want to wear that. It itches!”
“That’s my shirt! Mom! Tommy has my shirt!”
Playing peacemaker, aware of every tick of the clock, she separated them, found shirts that didn’t itch and belonged to the right boy, then rushed to the kitchen to pop some waffles in the toaster. When the boys straggled in a few minutes later, she had everything ready. “As soon as you’re finished, put your plates in the sink and go brush your teeth while I put on my makeup,” she told them. “No playing around, guys. We can’t be late again this morning.”
Everything should have gone smoothly—she’d even poured the syrup, so all the boys had to do was sit down and eat. But she’d just smoothed foundation onto her cheeks when she heard a crash in the kitchen and one of the boys yelled, “Mom! Bongo ate my waffles and knocked over the trash can!”
“What?” Dropping her makeup, she rushed into the kitchen. “No, Bongo! Down!”
Too late. Bongo jumped up, planted his large, damp paws on her chest, and greeted her with a wet, sticky kiss. “Woof!”
“Oh, you bad dog! Down! Who let you in?” She shot a stern look at her five-year-olds, but she might as well have saved herself the trouble. They giggled in unison, and she couldn’t hold her frown. “Scamps! What am I going to do with you?”
“Take us to McDonald’s,” Harry suggested, mischief dancing in his eyes.
“Pleeese, Mom,” Tommy entreated, turning his mouth down into a sad little smile. “We didn’t get breakfast. We’re hungry.”
“Why do I have the feeling I’ve just been scammed?” When they just grinned, she laughed and ruffled their hair. “Okay, we’ll go through the drive-through—this time. Let me change.”
She was five minutes behind schedule by the time she changed and got the boys and their backpacks loaded in the car. When she pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and zipped around to the drive-through, she knew it was going to be another one of those days when nothing went right. There were five cars ahead of her.
If she’d just had herself to worry about, she would have skipped breakfast, but the boys couldn’t go all morning at school without something to eat. Resigned, she got in line.
Fifteen minutes later she pulled up in front of the boys’ elementary school and couldn’t help but notice what a difference a day made. Unlike yesterday, when they’d begged her to stay with them, this time, they hardly took time to kiss her goodbye before they grabbed their backpacks and burst from the car with huge grins on their identical faces. Their two new twin friends ran to meet them, and Natalie realized with amusement that she was all but forgotten.
With two hours to spare before she had to report for work, all she wanted to do was go to the university library and begin researching possible topics for her term paper for her archeology class. Unfortunately she still had a flat that had to be repaired, all because Derek was nowhere to be found. She hoped he was enjoying his life in the Caribbean with no responsibility, she thought grimly. She and his sons were doing just fine without him.
The old resentment stirred at the thought of his abandonment of them, but as she finally stepped into the university library, she was relieved to discover she wasn’t nearly as angry as she’d once been. And there was only one reason for that—after all these years, she was finally in college.
Still unable to believe it, she hurried into the library with a light step and a smile on her face. When Max Sullivan had told the class about the term paper that was due at the end of the semester, her younger classmates had grumbled about the amount of work they would have to do, but she’d been waiting for eighteen years for the chance to do just such an assignment, and she couldn’t have been happier. Finding a small alcove close to the archeological section, she went to work.
Lost in an ancient tomb filled with fascinating details about a dig in Peru, Natalie didn’t even notice the other students who quietly passed her alcove. Then she felt the touch of eyes. Glancing up, she gasped in surprise. “Professor Sullivan!”
A pained look wrinkled his brow. “Please…call me Max. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not hung up on titles.”
When his mouth curled into that quick, engaging smile that always seemed to knock the air right out of her lungs, she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from the sensuous curve of his mouth. Lord, he was good-looking! If only he wasn’t so young…
The thought shocked her. What was she doing? She didn’t care if he was forty and as dependable as the sunrise. He was her teacher. And she wasn’t looking for a man! How many times did she have to remind herself of that?
“Natalie?”
She blinked, and her gaze flew to his. She took one look at the amusement dancing in his eyes and realized too late that he obviously knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her and every other woman who had any estrogen in her veins. Mortified, she just barely held back a groan. What was it about him that had her acting like some kind of starstruck teenybopper? She had to stop this!
Cursing the hot color in her cheeks, she straightened her shoulders. “I beg your pardon, Professor. Did you say something? I was up late last night working on my homework and my brain’s not working very well today.”
“You’ve found my secret hiding place,” he said, grinning. “Do you mind if I join you? Feel free to tell me to take a hike if you need the space to yourself. You were here first, and I don’t want to intrude.”
She should have sent him on his way. It certainly would have been the wise thing to do, considering the way her heart seemed to skip a beat every time her eyes met his. He knew exactly what she was doing by insisting on calling him Professor, and she had a sneaky feeling he was just biding his time. For no other reason than that, the last thing she should have done was share a table with him in a secluded nook of the library. But when she opened her mouth to tell him she worked better alone, she heard herself say instead, “Of course you’re not intruding. I just didn’t expect to see anyone I knew.”
“I always come here when I need to jump-start my creativity,” he said as he pulled out the chair directly across the table from her. With an animal grace that was incredibly sexy, he dropped into the chair and stretched out his long legs.
Underneath the table, his foot innocently brushed against hers. Just that quickly, the air in the alcove grew much more intimate. If he noticed that she’d gone as still as a post, he gave no notice. Instead he nodded at the book open before her on the table. “Are you working on your term paper already?”
“I can’t afford to get behind,” she said simply. “I have to be at work in an hour, but I thought I’d at least get started.” Cocking her head at him, she frowned. “What about you? What did you mean…you come here to jump-start your creativity?”
He grimaced. “Writer’s block.”
“Are you serious?”
“Hopefully, it’s not a permanent condition,” he retorted in disgust. “Though it certainly seems like it. Every time I sit down to write, all I do is stare at the screen and get nowhere.” Suddenly realizing how that sounded, he grinned crookedly. “Wah! Feel free to call me a crybaby. Sometimes, the truth hurts.”
She had to laugh. “Well, now that you mention it…”
“No more whining,” he promised her. “You’re here to study and I’m just rambling on, bothering you. I’ll shut up now.”
“You’re not bothering me,” she said.
“Shhh,” he whispered, grinning as he pointed to a sign on the wall. “No talking. Can’t you read?”
When she gasped, then narrowed her eyes at him, he almost laughed. Damn, he liked her! Unable to resist the chance to find out more about her, he abandoned any idea of reading and sat back to openly study her.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, blushing.
Wicked mischief flashed in his eyes as he leaned forward and said in a whisper that forced her to lean forward, too. “Watching you. I was just wondering how everything’s going. What other classes are you taking besides mine?”
He watched in delight as she narrowed her eyes at him again. “I thought you came here to read.”
“No, I came to jump-start my creativity,” he corrected her. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Oh, really? And how are you doing that? All you’re doing is asking me questions about school.”
He smiled. “You don’t have a clue how fascinating you are.”
“I bet you say that to all the women you find yourself sharing this table with.”
Uncaring of the sign asking for silence, he burst out laughing. “I like you, Mrs. Bailey.”
“Like I said, Professor, I bet you say that to all the women—”
Chuckling, he didn’t deny it. “Guilty as charged. Now that we’ve got that settled, what was that you were saying about your other classes?”
For a moment she gave him that look again, the one that made him want to laugh, then she laughed herself. “Okay. I don’t know why you’re so interested, but I’m also taking English lit and algebra. With your class, that’s nine hours. I’d love to take more, but with the boys and my work schedule and everything, that’s about all I can manage.”
“I think it’s incredible that you’re able to take anything when you have children,” he said honestly. “Do you have any time at the end of the day to just sit down and put your feet up and relax with your husband?”
Something flickered in her eyes, but she only said quietly, “The husband took a hike a long time ago, but yes, I do get to put my feet up once in a while.”
So that was what had put the shadows in her eyes, he thought. Obviously, there was more to the story, but he didn’t intend to push. “If you find time to relax when you’ve got sons, then you must be better organized than my mom was when I was growing up,” he said easily. “Most of the time she was running from daylight to midnight.”
“Oh, I can handle that.” She chuckled. “Algebra is another matter completely.”
He grinned. “Not your thing, huh?”
“God, no! The only math I’ve done in the past eighteen years is balance my checkbook, and sometimes, I don’t do that well. Give me your class any day. It’s a piece of cake compared to algebra.”
“Really? Maybe I need to toughen up the curriculum,” he said dryly.
