The Measure of a Man
Marie Ferrarella
Jane JacksonThis quiet girl has battled loneliness since a car accident left her an orphan and an unhappy marriage left her alone with a small child. Now a devoted single mom and assistant to everyone's favourite English professor, Jane has no time for romance–not even with the boy, now man, she'd never been able to forget…Smith ParkerSmith seemed to have it all: good looks, good grades and limitless opportunities. But when he was falsely accused of stealing, a much-needed scholarship evaporated along with his motivation–and the college dropout became resigned to a life of menial jobs. Still the right woman might make him see that it's never too late to reclaim what might have been…
I remember that Jane Jackson had hidden depths, even as an eighteen-year-old coed. When her parents died in that car accident, she made it through school by virtue of her grace and steely determination—the same qualities that drive her now as a hardworking single mom. Her classmate, Smith Parker, wasn’t so lucky: when he was accused of stealing, his grades plummeted along with his confidence, costing him a college career. Now this Big Man on Campus is relegated to changing light bulbs as a Saunders University janitor.
But I haven’t given up on Smith yet! Combining forces with Jane to help their favorite professor might be the way for them both to shake the past once and for all….
The Measure of a Man
Marie Ferrarella
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To
Susan Litman, who kept her cool
while coordinating six authors
MARIE FERRARELLA
This RITA
Award-winning author has written over one hundred and fifty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.
Dear Jane,
I bet you can’t count the number of times I caught you looking my way in our English class! Just kidding—I’m flattered. Who wouldn’t be—you’re the prettiest girl in the room. If I’m in town over the summer, I’ll look you up—maybe we can get together sometime and talk about Shakespeare.
Your friend,
Smith
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
“I miss you, Mary.” Professor Gilbert Harrison sighed, feeling the ache go deep into his chest like a long, sharp serrated knife. “I miss your beautiful smile.”
Standing in his cluttered second-floor office at Saunders University, his hands clasped helplessly behind his back, the professor gazed at the framed photograph of his late wife, which sat on his bookshelf.
Wedged in between stacks of books he’d long since forgotten about, it was the photograph he had taken of Mary about a year after they’d gotten married. In it she was young, vibrant, with the joy of life sparkling in her eyes. It reflected the woman he had locked in his heart. Mary, the way he always pictured her each time his mind summoned her image. And Gilbert summoned that image as often as there were hours in the day.
Even now, eight months after she’d died so suddenly of a heart ailment neither one of them had known she’d had, leaving him to face the world on his own, hardly an hour went by when something didn’t bring his thoughts back to her.
He’d never really been aware of just how much he depended on her, just how much his sweet, quiet, steadfast Mary had been his rock, his haven, when times were bad. Just having her to come home to had been a comfort.
There was no such comfort available to him now.
And soon, he thought sadly, there might not even be a home, for he lived just off the campus in a cozy two-story house provided by the university.
What the university giveth, it taketh away, he thought without humor. And because of Alexander Broadstreet, the board of directors seemed bent on taking away his job as swiftly as it could.
“They’re trying to get rid of me, Mary,” he told the photograph sadly. “Trying to squeeze me out.” He’d sensed it for a while now, tried not to think about it. But the efforts had gone into high gear since he’d failed to take any of the “hints” thrown his way. They used excuses, saying things like “early retirement” and perhaps he should look into taking an extended sabbatical abroad. But he knew what they were really saying. “Get ye gone.” Gilbert sighed, shaking his head. “Extended sabbatical abroad. What would I ever do abroad by myself? All I ever wanted to do was to stay here, to teach and do some good. And be with you.”
Staring at the photograph again, he ran his hand over his full mane of dark graying hair. “I’m tired, Mary. For two cents, I’d go—if you were still here to go along with me. But you’re not, and this is all I’ve ever known how to do.” He raised his chin proudly, struggling to remain the fighter he knew his wife would have wanted him to be. “Besides, I’m not some doddering octogenarian, I’m only fifty-eight. Fifty-eight,” he repeated more heatedly. “And I’ve still got a lot left to give to the university. To the students.”
And then he frowned, a glint hardening his eyes. Besides he was not about to give Alex Broadstreet the satisfaction of giving him the bum’s rush. Gilbert Harrison had been at Saunders long before Broadstreet, and he planned on being there long after the board of directors asked Broadstreet to leave. The satisfaction in that image made him smile at the photo. “Try to get rid of me, will he? We’ll show him, right? Right?”
His words echoed back to him, absorbed by the dust and clutter in the room that had basically been the same since he’d taken it thirty-one years ago.
Gilbert suddenly felt old, despite his words. He felt not unlike the fictional Don Quixote, tilting at windmills and sensing the futility of it deep in his bones.
“Oh, Lord, I wish you were here, Mary. You always knew what to do, what to say, to make me feel better. Even when things were darkest.” An ironic smile curved his lips.
Reaching out, he traced his fingertips along the glass that separated him from the face he loved, wishing he could touch her just one more time. Have her look at him like that just once more.
“You were always the person I could turn to.” And then, as it always did, that nagging little voice from deep inside of him whispered recriminatingly in his head. His one indiscretion weighed heavily on him as always. Mary had never known, but that didn’t lessen the guilt. It was not something he was proud of.
He sighed. Thank God she’d never found out. He would have rather died than to ever hurt Mary. And then an ironic smile slipped over his lips. “Of course, you know now, don’t you? You’re in the position to know everything now.” He blinked, his shame for the affair a burden he’d never lost despite the years he spent trying to make it up to his wife.
He resumed pacing, careful to avoid knocking over any of the files on the floor. In some places they were stacked calf-high. Maybe his current troubles were pay-back, then. Except, somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to think of Mary as being vengeful in the afterlife.
At the window now, he looked out onto the rolling green of the campus. Soon it would be filled with students again, another year beginning. A year he meant to be a part of.
Even as he sought to cleave to the thought of surviving this game the board was playing with him, his thoughts turned to Broadstreet, the man who was spear-heading the none-too-secret campaign to oust him. What had Broadstreet called him in one of his arguments? Old-fashioned, that was it.
Gilbert looked over his shoulder to his wife’s picture again. “Old-fashioned, Mary. They’re saying I’m too old-fashioned. As if caring and compassion, seeing the student, not the grade, was something that had fallen out of favor. When did it stop being about learning?” The sigh that came this time as he shook his head was from deep inside his soul.
Just as he uttered his concern, Gilbert heard a polite cough behind him. Ordinarily, Gilbert would have expected to see a student standing on the threshold of his office. The number of students who had come into his office in the last thirty years, seeking his advice, was legion. He’d long since stopped counting. But in the past six months, there had been fewer and fewer, as if this student body somehow sensed that he was now considered a pariah in the scheme of things and to be associated with him meant tying yourself to not a shooting star, but to a sun that was about to go nova at any moment.
The office door creaked as Jane Jackson closed it behind her. She stood looking at the professor a little uncertainly. A moment earlier, her pale green eyes had swiftly swept around the almost-claustrophobic room, looking for whoever the professor was talking to. There were stacks of books and files on every available surface, as well as on the floor surrounding the scarred desk, like some pint-size invaders. But no person or persons were on the receiving end of the professor’s words.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt, Professor.” Who had he been talking to? She brought her eyes back to him and, because she felt close to him, said the obvious. “You’re alone.”
It wasn’t a question. Unless he’d acquired some small pet she couldn’t see because of the clutter, Professor Harrison was very much alone in the room.
Turning from the bookshelf, the professor smiled at her warmly. “Not alone anymore, now that you’re here.”
“But I heard you talking…”
Jane let her voice trail off, not wanting to upset him or to sound accusatory. It was obvious that he’d been talking to himself. Extensively. She’d heard the sound of his voice as she’d approached from her own office located across the way from his. Ever since the professor’s wife had died, he’d become a little more eccentric and she worried about him, about the state of his mind. He and Mrs. Harrison had been married for decades. So unlike her own marriage, Jane thought ruefully.
She’d long since come to think of Professor Harrison as a surrogate father. Having lost both her parents in her freshman year at Saunders University, she’d found herself at emotional, not to mention financial, loose ends. The financial dilemma had been mysteriously resolved when she’d received a letter from the university’s administration office telling her that her tuition for the remaining three years at Saunders had been paid for and that some money had been set aside for her living expenses, as well. She’d never found out where the money had come from and had spent the first year convinced that there had been some mistake, praying that it wouldn’t come to light until after she graduated.
As for emotionally, that had been an even greater dilemma. She’d been an only child of only children. There was no one for her to turn to. Being shy, there was no network of friends, either. She was utterly alone, isolated. And having very dangerous thoughts about the futility of life. At the time, Professor Harrison had been her English teacher. But he’d become so much more.
He’d found her crying on the steps of the library shortly after her parents’ funeral, feeling hopelessly lost and alone. Very quietly, very gently, he’d expressed his sympathies and extended an open invitation to her to come see him in his office anytime she needed to talk. At first, she’d hesitated, but slowly found herself taking him up on his offer. And feeling the better for it.
Even so, that first Christmas after her parents’ death, when almost everyone at the university had gone home for the holidays, she knew she would have expired from loneliness if the professor hadn’t insisted that she spend them with him and his wife.
As far as she was concerned, he’d saved her life. Professor Harrison had literally been her lifeline back to the world of the living and she wanted desperately to return the favor any way she could.
But at times it was hard to reach him in his grief.
Gilbert smiled at Jane. She was twenty-nine years old, but he still thought of her as a young girl. Time moved by too quickly. His Mary had been very fond of Jane. Very upset, too, when the girl had suddenly announced that she was to marry Drew Walters.
“He’s no good for her, Gil, but she’s too blind with love to see,” Mary had sighed.
“Maybe it’ll work out,” he remembered saying, and Mary had looked at him with that smile of hers. The one that said she knew better.
She’d patted his face and brushed a kiss across his cheek. “Oh, Gil, you like to see the best in everyone, but some people don’t have a best. Or if they do, they don’t try to live up to it.”
And, as usual, Mary had been right. Drew Walters had turned out to be as shallow as he was handsome. The rumor was that Walters had run around on Jane almost from the very beginning of their short, tumultuous marriage.
Gilbert nodded at the photograph on the bookshelf. “I was just talking things over with Mary.”
Jane nodded knowingly, glancing at the photograph. “And what did she say to you?”
“To fight.” The professor squared his shoulders unconsciously.
Jane forced a smile to her lips as she nodded again. She was determined not to show the professor just how worried she was about this skirmish between him and the board. It bothered her that a selfish note had entered into this, but she couldn’t help being worried, not just for him, but for herself, as well. Because if they forced the professor into early retirement, or worse, made him so angry that he resigned, there would be no place for her here, either. She was Professor Gilbert Harrison’s personal assistant and secretary. If he was persona non grata, then so was she. Anyone coming in to take his place would bring his or her own secretary with them.
Not that she could see herself working for anyone who usurped Professor Harrison. But she did need a job. Desperately. Drew had left her with next to nothing when he’d disappeared.
Jane inclined her head toward the professor’s photograph of his wife. “Mrs. Harrison was always a fighter.”
He was unaware of his sigh as he struggled against the sharp sting of longing. “Yes, she was.”
Noting the signs of impending sadness, Jane did what she could to rally the professor’s spirits. “And she would have told Alexander Broadstreet just what she thought of him.”
At that, she succeeded in getting Gilbert to laugh. “My Mary was first and foremost a lady, Janie.” He turned from the photograph. “She would have never used four-letter words to describe anyone.”
“Maybe not,” Jane allowed with a smile. “But Broadstreet would have gotten the message. Mrs. Harrison would have let her eyes do her talking for her.”
Envisioning a scene between his fiercely loyal wife and the sharp-featured Broadstreet, Gilbert chuckled. Mary had never liked Broadstreet. “That she would have.” And then, because he knew he had to keep on pushing forward, no matter how hard it felt, Gilbert turned toward his former student and asked, “So, did you come by to ask me something?”
“Just that I’m going to lunch and I wanted to know if I could bring you back anything.”
He smiled wistfully at her. “Yes, the last thirty years.” He was almost half serious as he added, “I’d like to live them all again.”
Jane patted his arm, hoping that she sounded at least a little convincing as she said, “The next thirty will even be better.”
“Not if Broadstreet has his way.”
Jane attempted to give him a confident look, the way she used to see Mrs. Harrison do. “Then we’ll just have to make sure that Broadstreet doesn’t win, won’t we?”
Genuine concern entered his eyes as he looked at her. “Jane, I don’t want you getting into any trouble on my account.”
“Believe me, Professor, I couldn’t think of a nobler cause to undertake than to make sure that you remain with the university for as long as you want to,” she said firmly. “And even longer than that,” Jane added with a smile. What would she have done without him? And she wasn’t the only one. She knew of a great many students who had come to feel the same over the years. “There are still lots of students who could benefit from your advice, your wisdom and your kindness.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at her serious tone and the look on her face. Bless the girl, she really had helped raise his spirits. “My God, Jane, I feel as if I’ve just been eavesdropping on my own eulogy.”
“Bite your tongue,” she told him. Death was something she didn’t like to even joke about. “Not for many, many years to come.” Pushing the thought away, she summoned as serene an expression as she could and asked, “Now then, can I bring you back a roast beef sandwich from the Sandwich Bar?”
The Sandwich Bar was little more than an afterthought beside the campus bookstore, quite apart from the main cafeteria and the two food court areas that were on opposite ends of the campus. But it served the best sandwiches around and she had been going there for the last year. Since the prices were more than reasonable, it was her one indulgence for herself: not to have to brown bag it, with leftovers every day.
“French dipped,” she prodded. “Just the way you like it.”
Since Mary had died, his appetite had been less than stellar. There were times that he went from one end of the day to the other without eating. There was no rumbling stomach to remind him, no hunger at all. Apparently, Jane had taken keeping his strength up upon herself, too.
He shook his head. “You’re trying to take care of me.”
She saw no reason to deny it. She wanted him to know how much he mattered, not just to her but to so many of them. With his wife’s death and now this campaign to be rid of him, she was afraid his once-indomitable spirit would be killed entirely.
“Doing my damnedest, Professor.” She shifted so that her feet were firmly planted on the worn carpet. “I’m not leaving until you place your order.”
“All right, Janie, you win.” So saying, Gilbert put his hand first into one pocket, then another, until he located his wallet. He pulled it out and looked through the bills.
“No,” Jane protested, pushing his wallet back, “it’s on me.”
He gave her a steely look that was meant to penetrate down to her soul. “Young lady, I know for a fact that you can barely afford your own lunch, much less pay for mine.” Taking out a twenty, he pressed it into her palm. “Here, this should cover us both.” He saw the protest rising to her lips and headed it off. “Please, Jane, allow me a few pleasures.”
Reluctantly she closed her hand over the bill, then brushed a quick kiss against his cheek. How could they possibly be thinking of getting rid of him? It was Broadstreet who should be getting his walking papers, not the professor. And as quickly as possible.
“You really are a dear, dear man,” she told him affectionately.
Sinking into the leather chair that welcomed him like an old friend, Gilbert waved her away, his attention already directed toward the open file on his desk. The university had long since removed him from the English department and he no longer coached a baseball team the way he had in the old days. But they had allowed him to continue in the capacity of adviser and counselor and he took his work and the students that went with it very, very seriously.
It meant he could still help the deserving. The way he’d been doing, one way or another, for the last thirty years.
For a second longer, Jane stood watching him.
Damn them all to hell, she thought angrily. How dare they threaten to put that wonderful man out to pasture? Without his wife, all Professor Harrison had was his work here at the university. She knew in her heart that if he was forced into retirement, the man who had been like a father to her would, in a very short period of time, certainly whither away and die.
She wasn’t about to let that happen—even if it wouldn’t impact her own financial situation the way it would. Not while there was a single breath left in her body.
Angry, wishing she could get her hands around Broadstreet’s throat and squeeze it until the man promised to leave the professor alone, Jane turned on her heel and swung open the outer office door. She did it with the same amount of force she would have delivered to Broadstreet’s solar plexus if she were given to street brawling.
She heard the creaking noise at the same time she shut the door behind her.
The ladder hadn’t been there when she’d walked into the professor’s office.
If it had, it would have blocked her access. As it was now, the door had come in jolting contact with the side of the wide, ten-foot ladder. Jolting as well the man who was perched two rungs from the top.
Momentarily stunned, Jane reacted automatically. Being the mother of one very hyper five-year-old had trained her to be prepared for anything and to react to situations even when she was half asleep or caught completely off guard, the way she was now. That was why the saleswoman at the department store last month hadn’t been smacked over the head by a mannequin that would have fallen right on her head if Jane hadn’t caught it in time. And why the maintenance man changing the light bulb didn’t go flying off the tottering ladder now.
Her legs braced, Jane grabbed both sides of the ladder that were facing her, pulling back with all her might and steadying it so that the ladder didn’t go over on its side.
The next minute its rather well-built, muscled occupant was all but sliding down the steps, eager to do so on his own power rather than because of gravity. Inches apart, his hand on the rungs to ground the ladder, his temper flashed as he glared at the cause of his sudden earthquake.
“Damn it, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” he demanded.
She’d once been timid and shy. But life and the professor had taught her that she needed to stand up for herself or face being stepped on. She was in no mood to be stepped on.
Jane met the man’s glare with one of her own. “Why don’t you watch where you’re sticking your ladder? Don’t you know any better than to put it so close to a door?”
Chapter Two
Nothing irritated Smith Parker more than being in the wrong. The way he was now. He frowned deeply. Not at the woman in front of him, but at the situation. This was not where he expected to be at this point in his life.
At twenty-nine, Smith had expected to be doing something important. At the very least, something more significant than changing light bulbs in the hallway of one of the older buildings at the very same university he’d once attended, nurturing such wonderful dreams of his future.
A future that definitely did not include a maintenance uniform. But this was the same university that had abruptly turned his life upside down, stripped him of his scholarship, money awarded through a work-study program, and thus his ability to pay for the education that would have seen him rise above a life involving only menial jobs.
An education that would have allowed him to become something more than he was now destined to be.
In a way, Smith supposed that he should be grateful he was working, grateful that he was anywhere at all. There had been a stretch of time, right after he’d spiraled down emotionally and sleepwalked through his exams, causing his grades to drop and him to leave the university, that he had seriously considered giving up everything and meeting oblivion.
Ultimately it was his love for his parents who had loved him and stood by him with unwavering faith throughout it all, that had kept him from doing anything drastic. Anything permanent. He knew that ending his own life would in effect end theirs.
So he had pulled back from the very brink of self-destruction, reassessed his situation and tried to figure out what he could do with himself.
The answer was just to pass from one day to the next, drifting without a plan, he who had once entertained so many ideas.
To support himself and not wind up as a blot on society’s conscience, he’d taken on a variety of dead-end, lackluster jobs, doing his best but leaving his heart out of it. Some of the others he worked with felt that a job well done was its own reward, but he didn’t. He did them because that was what he was getting paid for, nothing else. He did them well because that was his nature, but one position was pretty much like another. When his father’s health had begun to fail, any tiny speck of hope he’d still entertained about eventually returning to college died. He’d needed to help out financially.
When this unsolicited offer had arrived out of the blue, asking him to come down to the university to apply for the position that began at something higher than minimum wage, he’d taken it only because of the money. There had been no joy in it, no secret setting down of goals for himself to achieve anything beyond what he was offered.
He was seriously convinced that, for him, there was no joy left in anything. Being accused of something he had not done and verbally convicted without being allowed to defend himself had killed his spirit.
So he did his work, making sure that he was never remiss, never in a position to be found lacking by anyone ever again.
But today, his mind had wandered. Just before beginning his round of small, tedious chores, he’d seen a landscaping truck go by. The truck’s logo proclaimed it to belong to a local family company that had been in business for the past fifteen years. Seeing it had momentarily catapulted him into the past.
That had been his goal once. To have a business of his own. Something where he was his own master, making his own hours, responsible for his own success. Evaluated and held to high standards by his own measure, not whimsically made to live up to someone else’s, someone who might, for whatever reason, find him lacking through no fault of his own but because of something they themselves were dealing with.
The truck had driven around the corner and disappeared. Just as his dreams had.
He’d returned to his chores in a dark frame of mind. Even so, he went through the paces, giving a hundred percent, no more, no less.
He’d spent most of the morning dealing with a clogged drain incapacitating the university’s indoor pool. The smell of stagnant water was still in his head if not physically with him and admittedly he wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind, even though he was tackling a far lesser problem.
So he hadn’t been paying attention when he set up the ladder and worked the defunct bulb out of the socket in the ceiling. He’d only used the ladder instead of the extension pole he normally employed because someone had apparently made off with the pole.
Even the hallowed halls of Saunders saw theft, he’d thought.
It seemed ironic, given that was the offense he’d been accused of all those many years ago. Theft. When he discovered that the pole, an inexpensive thirty-dollar item, was missing, he couldn’t help wondering if this would somehow come back to haunt him. Would the head of the maintenance department think he’d taken it for some obscure reason?
Once a thief…
Except that he hadn’t been. Not even that one time he’d been accused by that pompous, self-centered jerk, Jacob Weber.
Smith looked down now at Jane Jackson’s face, biting back a stinging retort that was born of defensiveness and the less-than-stellar mood he was in. She was right, he’d been careless, which made his mood even darker.
Still, he couldn’t just bite her head off, not if she didn’t deserve it. That wouldn’t be right and he’d made a point of always abiding by what was right, by walking the straight and narrow path even when others veered away from it.
He always had.
Which made that accusation that had ruined his life that much more bitterly ironic.
So he blew out a breath, and with it the words that had sprung to his tongue, if not his lips. Instead, after a beat, Smith grudgingly nodded his head. “You’re right. My fault.”
Since he’d just admitted it was his mistake and not hers, the anger Jane had felt heat up so quickly within her died back. Leaving her feeling awkward.
She looked up at Smith—he had to be almost a foot taller than she was—a little ruefully, the way she did each time their paths crossed. She remembered him. With his dirty-blond hair, magnetic brown eyes and chiseled good looks, he would have been a hard man to forget.
Smith Parker had been in one of her English classes when she’d attended the university. The one taught by Professor Harrison. Back then, she’d had a bit of a crush on Smith. Maybe more than just a bit. She’d been trying to work up the courage to say something to him, when suddenly, just like that, he was gone.
The rumor was he’d been caught stealing things from one of the girls’ dorms, forcing the university to take away his scholarship. She’d heard that his grades dropped right after that. And then he was gone.
Shortly thereafter, she went on to meet and then to marry Drew.
She hadn’t thought about Smith in years until one day, not that long ago, she’d seen him hunkered down against a wall in one of the classrooms, working on what appeared to be a faulty outlet.
Standing there that day, looking at him, she couldn’t help wondering if he remembered her. But the brown eyes that she recalled as being so vivid had appeared almost dead as they’d turned to look at her. Like two blinds pulled down, barring access to a view she’d once believed was there. There was no recognition to be found when he looked at her.
Or through her, which was how it had felt.
Still, because of the incident in his past, because of the shame that was attached to it, she was never comfortable around Smith. Because she knew about it, it was as if she’d been privy to some dirty, little, dark secret of his. She found pretending not to know him the easier way to go.
She cleared her throat as he stood beside the ladder, looking at her. “Are you all right?”
He half shrugged at the question. “Yeah, thanks to your quick hands.”
Something shivered through her as he said that, although she had no idea why. A smattering of those old feelings she’d once secretly harbored about him struggled to the surface.
Jane pushed them back. She wasn’t that girl anymore. Wasn’t a girl at all, really. A great deal of time had gone by since then and she’d discovered that the world was really a hard, cold, disagreeable place. If it wasn’t, then people like the professor could go on about their chosen professions, professions they loved, until they ceased to draw breath.
And if the world wasn’t such a disagreeable place, she wouldn’t have made such an awful mistake, wouldn’t have allowed herself to fall so hard for a student two years ahead of her. Wouldn’t have impulsively married him instead of thinking things through.
She shrugged, that same awkward feeling she always felt around Smith returning to claim her. “I’ve got a five-year-old.”
Smith looked at her blankly as he moved the ladder a good foot away from the path of the door. He hadn’t really been around any kids since he’d been one himself. The explanation she’d given him created no impression in its wake.
“I don’t follow.”
She smiled. No, she didn’t suppose he did. She’d nosed around a little and discovered that Smith was very much alone these days. No children, no wife, no attachments whatsoever. The world she lived in, even without the constant demand of bills that needed paying, was probably foreign to him.
“Danny is a little hyper.” She considered her words, then amended them. “Actually, he’s a lot hyper.”
Smith moved his head from side to side slowly. “I still don’t—”
He really didn’t know anything about kids, did he? “Okay, let me put it to you this way. Danny never really took his first step. He took his first leap—off a coffee table.”
She remembered how her heart had stopped in the middle of her throat. One minute her son had been crawling on the floor beside the table and she’d looked away for a split second. The very next minute he’d clambered up not only to his feet but to the top of the coffee table where he proceeded to take a fearless half-gainer on wobbly, chubby legs while gleefully laughing.
“I was just lucky enough to be there to catch him.” She’d all but sprained her ankle getting there in time to keep him from making ignoble contact with the floor. A smile curved her lips as she remembered another incident. All incidents involving Danny fared far better when they were relived than during the original go-round.
“And last year, during the holiday season, I was walking through a department store with Danny, holding his hand. Which left his other hand free to grab the branch of one of the trees they had just finished putting up. He got hold of a string of lights and if my mother’s radar hadn’t kicked in, the tree would have gone over, flattening another customer.” She’d swung around just in time to right the tree. The shoe department manager, whose area it had been, hadn’t looked very happy about the matter, despite the smile pasted on his lips.
Smith tried not to notice the way her smile seemed to light up her face. And curl into his system. “Sounds like you have your hands full.”
And her life, she thought. “Keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure.”
He knew she worked full time. Did five-year-olds attend school? He’d never had a reason to know before. He hadn’t one now, he reminded himself. This was just conversation and now that he thought of it, he was having it more or less against his will.
Still, he heard himself asking, “Who watches Danny when you’re here?”
Kindergarten would be starting for Danny soon. Another hurdle and rite of passage all rolled into one to go through, she mused. But for now, he was still her little boy and she was hanging on to that for as long as possible.
“Some very exhausted day-care center people.” The cost of which, she added silently, ate huge chunks out of her weekly paycheck. But it was a good day-care center and Danny seemed to be thriving in the environment, which was all that mattered. She couldn’t ask for anything better than that.
Except, maybe, a father for the boy. But that wasn’t ever going to happen. For Danny to get a father, she would have to start dating again. Have to put herself out there emotionally again. After the mega-disaster that was her marriage, she had come to the conclusion that she and love had nothing in common.
Unless, of course, she was thinking of love for her son. Or the professor.
Smith caught himself studying Jane. Minding his own business to a fault, he knew very little about the lives of the people around him. He’d never pictured Jane with a son. Hadn’t really thought of her as married, either. But that was because she still used the same last name she’d had when they were students in English class together. He’d been aware of her from the first day of class. The cute little redhead with the pale green eyes, soft voice and perfect shape. He’d even come close to asking her out. Back then, he’d thought anything was possible.
But that was before he learned that it wasn’t. Not for him.
Smith glanced down at her hand and didn’t see a wedding ring. Was she one of those independent women who didn’t care for outward signs of commitment? Or hadn’t acquiring a husband along with a son been part of her plan?
“Don’t you miss him?” he asked.
She wondered if Smith had always been this abrupt or if getting caught and then having to leave the university had done this to him. What was he doing here, anyway? If something that traumatic had happened to her, she certainly wouldn’t have come back, asking for a job. She would have starved first.
Maybe that was what he was faced with, she suddenly thought. Compassion flooded through her. “Miss him?” She didn’t quite understand what he was driving at. “I see Danny every morning and evening.”
Smith shook his head. His own mother had stayed home to raise him, returning to the work force only after he entered middle school. “No, I meant, wouldn’t you rather stay home and take care of him?”
A soft smile flirted with the corners of her mouth. “In a perfect world, yes.” And then she laughed shortly. The world was so far from perfect, it was staggering. “But if I stayed home, the cupboard would get bare incredibly fast.”
“Your husband doesn’t work?”
Smith had no idea where that question even came from. For that matter, he didn’t even know why he was talking to her. Ordinarily he didn’t exchange more than a barely audible grunt with people he passed in the hall. Especially the ones he recognized from his initial years as a student. Those he avoided whenever possible.
Only Professor Harrison was the exception. But that was because the man seemed to insist on taking an interest in him. Long ago, he’d decided that the professor, like his parents, was one of the few good people that were scattered sparingly through the earth.
He noticed that Jane stiffened when he mentioned the word “husband.” Obviously he must have hit a nerve.
“I have no idea what my husband does. And he’s my ex, actually.”
The very thought of Drew brought with it a wealth of silent recriminations. Looking back now, she had no idea why she had been so stupid, not just to put up with his infidelities, which he’d never really made much of an effort to hide, but with his abuse, as well. A self-respecting woman would have never stood for any of that, especially the latter.
Smith saw her jaw harden. Time to back away. He hadn’t meant to get into any kind of verbal exchange with Jane, much less wander into personal terrain. In general he’d found that the less he interacted with people, the better he liked it.
He imagined from her tone that she felt the same way, at least in this case. It probably embarrassed her, sharing something so personal with a maintenance man. He doubted very much if she even remembered him. Or would remember him ten minutes from now.
After all, in his present capacity, he was one of the invisible ones. One of the people that others looked right past, or through, without having their presence actually register on any kind of a conscious level. People, like bus drivers, waitresses, hotel workers and gardeners, who were there to serve and make life a little easier for the people who felt themselves above them.
Hell, he’d been guilty of that himself once. Filled with high-powered dreams and drive, he’d seen only his own goals, not the people who toiled around him. Working just the way he did now.
“Sorry,” he apologized, his voice monotoned. “Didn’t mean to sound like I was prying. None of my business, really.”
Because of all the baggage her marriage had created, not the least of which was Drew’s vanishing act and with it, her alimony and child support payments, Smith had hit a very raw spot. She hated being reminded that she had been such a fool. And that because of her poor choice, Danny wouldn’t be able to have the things that his friends did. Right now, he didn’t notice, but soon, he would. And that was all her fault.
“No,” she snapped, “it’s not.”
Embarrassed, afraid that he might say something else, Jane abruptly turned on her heel and hurried down the still-darkened hallway. The sound of her three inch heels clicked against the vinyl until they finally faded out of earshot.
For a second Smith thought of following her and repeating his apology, but then he shrugged to himself. If he did that, he’d risk getting involved, however peripherally. It was the last thing he wanted or needed. Right now, it was hard enough just getting through the day.
Whistling under his breath, he got back up the ladder and finally attended to the bulb that he had originally set out to change.
As Smith began to climb back down, he saw Professor Harrison opening his door very slowly and peering out. Unlike the first time, the door completely cleared the space without coming in contact with the ladder. If Jane hadn’t come out like gangbusters, Smith thought, she wouldn’t have rocked his ladder and there would have been no need for any kind of verbal exchange to have taken place.
And he wouldn’t have noticed how pale and beautiful her eyes still were.
The professor looked up at him, as if startled to see him there. He shifted the files he was carrying to his other side. “Oh, Smith, I almost didn’t see you.”
“A lot of that happening lately,” Smith murmured nearly under his breath.
Gilbert looked up toward the ceiling and saw the new bulb. He shaded his eyes and smiled broadly. “Ah, illumination again. I knew I could count on you, Smith.”
The professor made it sound as if he’d just slain a dragon for him, or, at the very least, solved some kind of complicated mathematical equation that had eluded completion up until now.
Smith frowned. “It’s just a bulb, professor. No big deal.”
The expression on the professor’s face said he knew better. The old man was getting eccentric, Smith thought. The next words out of the man’s mouth seemed to underscore his feelings.
“Better to light one candle, Smith, than to curse the dark.”
That was probably a quote from somewhere, Smith thought. What it had to do with the situation was beyond him, but he didn’t have the time or the inclination to discuss it. He’d had enough conversation for one day. For a week, really.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to be going…” Taking the two sides of the ladder, he pulled them together, then tilted it until it was all the way over to the side. It was easier to carry that way, although by no means easy. He silently cursed whoever had taken the extension pole. “I’ve got another ‘candle to light’ over on the third floor in the science building.”
About to leave, he felt the professor’s hand on his arm.
“Something else I can do for you, professor?”
Gilbert looked at the young man for a long moment. There was a time when Smith Parker had been one of his more promising students. He’d been like some bright, burning light, capable of so much. And then, just like that, the light had been extinguished. His pride wounded, Smith had dropped out of Saunders after those charges had been leveled against him, charges he could never get himself to believe were true. But Smith had left before he’d had the chance to try to talk to him, to see about making things right again.
“Smith, have you given any thought to your future?”
It wasn’t what he’d expected the professor to say. And it certainly wasn’t anything that he wanted to get into a discussion about. “Yeah, I have. Right after I replace the other bulb, I’m having lunch,” Smith replied crisply. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The professor dropped his hand from Smith’s arm.
Before there could be any further conversation, Smith hefted the ladder beneath his arm and made his way down the hall.
Chapter Three
Just as Smith managed to clear the corner without hitting anything with the unwieldy ladder, he realized that he’d left behind the box of light bulbs. Most likely, it was still on the floor in the hall next to Professor Harrison’s office.
Stifling a curse born of an impatience he couldn’t quite seem to put a lid on today, Smith put the ladder down, leaning it against the wall as best as possible. He was pretty certain that no one would walk into it where it was. Even if the school year were under way now, this area of the building saw very little foot traffic.
Smith paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, stuffed his handkerchief into his back pocket and doubled back to the professor’s office. Just as he walked into that part of the hallway, he stopped in his tracks.
The professor was across the hall from his office and juxtaposed to Jane’s. He was unlocking the door to a storage room that was tucked between the door that led to the stairwell and east wall of the building. It was a room that saw, as far as Smith knew, next to no activity at all. For all intents and purposes, it was a forgotten room, an appendage no one paid any attention to. He hadn’t even been given a key to the room when Thom Dolan, the head of the maintenance department, had given him the sets for all the buildings that had been assigned to his care.
“Nobody ever uses that room,” Dolan had informed him on the first day while giving him a tour of the building. The heavyset man had lowered his voice before continuing, as if what he was about to say was a dark secret. But then, he’d noted that Dolan was given to drama. “Rumor has it that this place was built on the site of a boys’ reformatory. This was one of the original buildings. During that time, the people who ran this place used to stick the kids who gave them the most trouble into that room. It’s small, boxlike, with no windows. As far as I know, there’s only junk being stored in there now. No need for you to have a key to it. Hell, I’m not even sure there is a key for that room.”
Well, the professor obviously had a key to it, Smith thought now. He had no idea what prompted him to step back and keep his presence from being detected. Granted, by nature, he was no longer the type to call out a greeting when encountering someone he knew. That had been the teenager, not the man. Besides, he and the professor had just spoken. If he called out to him, the professor would undoubtedly pick up where he’d left off, asking about his “future.” There was no such animal and he had no desire to discuss it.
Still, stepping back so that he wasn’t readily seen by the professor made him feel as if he were skulking. That didn’t exactly sit well with him.
But there was just something almost suspicious, for lack of a better word, Smith thought, about the professor’s behavior right now. Before putting the key into the lock, the older man had looked over his shoulder toward Jane’s office, as if to make sure that the door was still closed and that no one saw him.
Why?
Smith thought for a moment, waiting for the professor to go into the room.
Maybe the old man was losing it. Maybe all those long hours he’d kept, sitting in his office amid dust that was never quite removed, just regularly disturbed by halfhearted attempts on the part of the cleaning crew to live up to its name. Baskets were emptied regularly and what could be seen of the worn beige carpet between the stacks of files and books haphazardly scattered around the professor’s office was vacuumed on a weekly basis, but the dust remained as permanent a resident as the books on the shelves.
That kind of thing had to eventually affect a man’s lungs, Smith decided. And who was to say that what the professor had breathed in hadn’t finally left its mark on the man’s mind, as well?
Still, the professor did seem to be more or less all right whenever they did run into each other. Harrison always had a good word for him, whether he wanted to hear it or not. When you came right down to it, of all the people on the faculty, only Professor Harrison seemed to see him, to treat him as a person rather than a tool or a lackey to be told what to do and then disregarded. Granted, the man had become a great deal sadder in these last eight months than he’d normally been, but he hadn’t withdrawn from life, hadn’t used it as an excuse to be curt or mean in his dealings.
For a second Smith debated saying something to let the professor know that he wasn’t alone in the hallway. He did feel somewhat deceptive about standing in the shadows like this.
But then he decided that none of this was really any of his business and the professor obviously wanted whatever he was doing to be kept secret. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked around so furtively before unlocking the door.
So he waited until the professor disappeared inside the room before moving out into the hallway. Picking up the box of light bulbs he’d returned for in the first place, Smith walked away before the professor emerged out of the room.
For the first time in a long while, Smith found that his curiosity had been aroused. He figured a stiff drink or two after work this evening would effectively take care of that.
The Sandwich Bar had been more crowded than Jane had anticipated today. A lot of the returning students were on campus to purchase new books for the coming semester, or just to settle back into their dorms in anticipation of the routine that was to come. A quick ten-minute venture had turned into half an hour.
She hurried to the professor’s office and dropped his order on his desk. He wasn’t around, but she assumed that he’d just stepped out for the moment and would be back shortly. Leaving his office, she hurried across the hall to her own.
Lunchtime was more than half over. Not that the professor ever placed any boundaries on her time. More than once he’d told her she could take as long as she wanted for lunch in case there were any errands she needed to run. He’d said that he knew a single mother with a young son had demands on her time that couldn’t always be neatly tucked away within the hours that came after she left the college for the evening.
But the university had a strict policy as to how long anyone could take for lunch and she didn’t want to be seen abusing it. It was bad enough that the board was after the professor. She didn’t want them saying that his secretary was found wanting, as well, and in some twisted way use that against him, too.
So she was going to have her lunch at her desk while she caught up on some data she needed to input into her computer. God knew she was behind this week. She’d taken the last week off, wanting to spend some time with Danny before he took that first big step into the world of learning. From here on in, once school began for him, her son’s next seventeen years plus were going to be accounted for.
She thought of that time in terms of money and the very notion sent a long, cold shiver shimmying down her spine.
Somewhere, somehow, she was going to find the money for Danny’s college education. There would be no mysterious benefactors for her son the way there had been for her, but that didn’t mean he was going to be deprived. Danny was going to receive his college diploma even if she had to work 24/7 to get the money.
Jane stopped her train of thought. There were times, she knew, when she got a little too carried away.
“First, you need to let Danny get through kindergarten,” she told herself as she opened the door to her cramped office.
Jane stopped in the doorway. There was a tall, slender blonde standing in her office with her back to the door, taking up what felt like one quarter of the tiny space.
“Can I help you?”
The woman turned around. Jane felt a little foolish, thinking that this was a stranger. Not that they were exactly friends, but they knew one another. They’d both been at Saunders the same year and had had some classes together. Their lives, however, had gone on to take completely different paths.
For some reason Sandra was in her office, obviously waiting for her. Jane tried to think if there was anything remotely newsworthy going on. Sandra was a journalist for a neighborhood newspaper in Boston’s North End, given to writing human interest stories and short, entertaining articles about up-coming local functions. Sandra was also the wife of one-time Saunders University jock, David Westport. Jane remembered that the two had been college sweethearts around the same time that she and Drew had gotten together. Theirs was a match thought to be made in heaven, or at least a successful Hollywood romance movie.
Nice to know some marriages actually worked, Jane thought.
Still looking at Sandra, she put down the bag with her sandwich and her tall container of soda, the caffeine in which she hoped would see her through the long afternoon. Danny’d had nightmares last night. Twice. The second time he’d come running into her room, she’d taken him back to his and then stayed up with him until long past when he’d settled back to sleep. She estimated that since Danny had been born, she’d averaged roughly five hours of sleep a night—if she was lucky.
Without a doubt, she was going to need more than one hit of caffeine. After she found out what the ex-cheerleader was doing here.
Sandra moved away from the window she’d been looking out of. “I certainly hope you can help.”
Jane’s eyebrows pulled together thoughtfully. She had absolutely no idea what she could possibly do to help someone like Sandra. At first glance—and twelfth—Sandra seemed to have it all: beauty, a job she liked and, most important of all, a loving husband.
But Jane was nothing if not game. Sticking a straw through the small hole in the soda container’s lid, she took a long, refreshing sip, then looked up at the other woman in the room.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“Please, go ahead and have your lunch,” Sandra told her, waving at the brown bag with its whimsical logo of a college student devouring a three-foot sandwich. “I promise this won’t take too long.”
Now Sandra really had her intrigued. Despite the fact that marriage to Drew had made her always expect the worst, no matter what the turn of events, Jane was struggling hard to break that habit.
But it wasn’t easy. Especially when Sandra’s pretty heart-shaped face looked so tense, despite the smile she’d so obviously forced to her lips.
“And ‘this’ would be?” Jane prompted, taking out her sandwich.
Sandra sank onto the chair that was directly against the side of the desk and looked at Jane. “I’m sure by now you know that the board is trying to get rid of Professor Harrison.”
Jane wasn’t thrilled with Sandra’s imperious tone. “Yes, I’m aware of what’s happening,” she said coolly. She waited for Sandra to continue.
Sandra flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I’ve got some kind of inside track. If anyone does, it’s you. Which is why I’m here.” She took a breath, then launched into the heart of the matter. “The professor called on a few people—David, Nate Williams and a couple of others—asking them to come and speak to the board on his behalf.” Sandra’s mouth curved into a smile that seemed to Jane to be more sad than happy. “I guess he thought if he could show off some of his success stories, they wouldn’t come down so hard on his ‘old-fashioned’ methods.”
Jane was well aware of the professor’s plan. He’d had her scan the Internet for phone numbers of a handful of his former students who had gone on to make something of themselves so that he could get in touch with them.
She’d noted that although she and the professor were close and she worked with him every day, the professor hadn’t asked her to address the board on his behalf. She supposed he might have thought it was putting her on the spot. Nothing could have been further from the truth. She had every intention of speaking up for him.
Granted she wasn’t a shining example of what one could achieve given the advantages of an education at Saunders and the benefit of having sat in one of Professor Harrison’s classes. But it didn’t matter that her personal life was in a state of flux and upheaval. That was certainly no fault of the professor’s. After her parents’ death, if it hadn’t been for the professor, she wouldn’t have found the courage to complete her education. Coupled with the mysterious bequest that had taken the financial burden off her shoulders, she’d been able to graduate and receive her diploma. But she wouldn’t have been able to do it on just money alone. The state of her emotions had been an equal if not more important factor in her attaining her diploma. The professor had helped her to believe in herself.
She wasn’t sure just how much of an impact she would have, pleading the professor’s case. After all, she wasn’t some high-powered doctor, or famous lawyer, or internationally known model like the people he’d contacted. She was just an administrative assistant, which in her case was a glorified euphemism for secretary.
Still, that didn’t take away from the fact that Professor Harrison had left a tremendous, lasting impression on her life, one for which she would be forever grateful. To her way of thinking, he should be allowed to do the same for the students of the classes that were to come.
Jane nodded in response to Sandra’s words. “That sounds just like the way the professor thinks,” she agreed.
Eager to get started, Sandra continued, “I’ve discovered that Alex Broadstreet intends to humiliate the professor, to twist things around and accuse him of improper behavior.”
Jane looked at her, stunned. She’d almost dropped the sandwich she was unwrapping. Of all the absurd things she’d ever heard in her life, this had to take the prize. “Improper behavior? That’s ridiculous. Professor Harrison is the epitome of a gentleman. He’s—”
Sandra held up her hand, realizing the confusion. “No, I don’t mean harassment. Improper things like grade tampering.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “Cheating? He’s going to accuse the professor of cheating? To what end?”
Sandra shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe for money?”
Jane felt as if she’d been insulted herself. Indignation for the professor’s honor swelled in her chest. “That is the most mean-spirited, awful thing I have ever, ever heard—”
“I totally agree,” Sandra quickly interrupted. She shook her head at the half sandwich Jane offered her. “Thanks, but I already ate.” She blew out a breath, addressing the reason she was here. “But protesting how heinous the accusation is isn’t enough. By all accounts, Alex Broadstreet is a very, very clever man. He wants to bring Saunders University into the twenty-first century, to shed the ‘quaint’ aura and turn Saunders into a college that all the moneyed captains of industry want their children to attend. The professor isn’t fast-tracked enough for him, so he has to go. And Broadstreet undoubtedly feels he’s just the man to make him do that.”
Broadstreet could “feel” that all he wanted to, but that still didn’t change the fact that Gilbert Harrison was the most principled man June had ever met. “I still don’t see how—”
Sandra smiled at her. Whether the journalist was aware of it or not, she was also guilty of delivering a slight, almost-derogatory shake of the head, as well, as if to say that Sandra thought her to be naive. She might be a lot of things, Jane thought, but naive was no longer one of them. Not after Drew.
She raised her chin defensively as her eyes narrowed. “He can’t do anything honestly.”
Sandra laughed shortly. “I don’t think Broadstreet troubles himself with things like strict honesty. It’s all in the phrasing.”
“Phrasing?”
“You know,” Sandra urged, “It’s like saying, ‘So when did you stop beating your wife, Professor Harrison?’ When the person protests that he didn’t stop, it doesn’t really matter that he didn’t stop because he’d never started, the implication that he beat his wife is there, in the mind of the listener. The seed has been planted. And Broadstreet will be the first with a shovel in his hand to add some nice, warm dirt so that it can thrive.” She looked at Jane pointedly. “We need to make sure that there isn’t any ‘dirt’ he can use.” Sandra relaxed a little, now that she’d gotten rolling. “In addition, there’s that urban legend—”
She really needed to get more sleep, Jane thought. She was having trouble following Sandra as the former cheerleader leaped from one thing to another. “Legend? What legend?”
“You know.” Everyone in their graduating class had heard talk about it. About one of their own being on the receiving end of some scholarship or bequest of money that no one had ever heard about before. “About the mysterious benefactor.” Since Jane said nothing, Sandra continued to elaborate. “Money that suddenly appears to help a financially strapped student—” She stopped abruptly when she saw Jane’s face go pale. “What’s the matter?”
Jane had never really paid much attention to rumors and campus gossip about the so-called benefactor who anonymously gave all kinds of aid to students in need. When the money had first turned up, she’d made a few attempts to track down the source of her sudden windfall, but quickly came to a dead end each time. She’d finally just come to think of it as her own personal miracle. No one she knew had that kind of money to lavish on a newly orphaned student and there was no family, however far flung, to have come to her rescue. That qualified it as a miracle.
Until now.
“It’s not a legend,” she told Sandra. “I had money placed into an account for me when I was attending Saunders.”
Sandra stared at her. The reporter in her was making copious mental notes. “It just suddenly appeared one day?”
Hearing Sandra say it, it sounded almost ludicrously unbelievable. But truth had a way of being stranger than fiction.
“Basically, yes. There was a letter saying the money was to pay for the remainder of my tuition. Whatever was left over was to be used for housing and books. I got a job waiting tables off campus and the earnings plus the ‘gift’ was enough for me to stay on at Saunders and get my diploma.”
Sandra could barely contain her excitement. Maybe they could show that the professor somehow had a hand in this, maybe through quietly soliciting donations from charitable foundations for deserving students. The wheels in her head began whirling.
First things first, she warned herself. “Who was the letter from?”
“The administrative office.” Jane could still recall how stunned she’d been, opening the letter and holding it in her hands. She’d thought she was dreaming. She remembered weeping for a long time.
Sandra leaped to the logical conclusion. “So it was a school scholarship—”
But Jane shook her head. “No, that’s just it. It wasn’t. Not the way the letter was worded.”
Sandra looked at her intently, as if willing her to have total recollection of the event. “And just how was it worded? Exactly.”
Sandra was asking more of her than she could give. Again, Jane shook her head.
“I can’t remember.” And then, to prevent the other woman from thinking that she was some kind of an air-head, she explained, “You have to understand, my parents had just been killed in a car accident. I was all alone in the world and I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly about anything. When the letter came, it was like the answer to a prayer. I couldn’t believe it. If that money hadn’t come when it had, I would have had to drop out of school.”
The way Smith had.
The thought brought her up short. Where had that come from?
And why?
With renewed verve, Jane pushed on, her sandwich completely forgotten. “All my parents had was a small insurance policy that would have barely taken care of burial expenses. Eventually, I had to sell our house to pay off most of their other bills.”
It had been a point of honor with her, even though Drew had called her a fool for doing it when she’d told him what she had done. She didn’t add that her father had had a problem hanging on to money. That he spent it faster than he earned it, striving for a lifestyle he couldn’t afford. No one, except the professor, knew about that. Not even Drew. Though her mother had loved her father, they’d argued a great deal about his compulsion.
There was no doubt in her mind that her parents were probably arguing about it the day they were killed. The driver of the semi that hit their car swore that the driver looked as if he’d had his face turned away from the road.
Sandra digested the information, trying to turn it to their best advantage. “Do you think there’s a chance that the professor might have had something to do with your windfall?”
Not likely, Jane thought. The salary of a college professor was far from a king’s ransom. Certainly not enough to secretly bestow the kind of money it took to attend Saunders on a number of students. Or even one student for that matter.
“I sincerely doubt it. When I worked in the administration building in the accounts office, I got to see what Professor Harrison, along with the rest of the staff, earned. Not nearly enough money to play fairy godmother. Why?”
Sandra shrugged. “I’m looking for something, anything, that might put him in the very best possible light in front of the board. If we could somehow show that Professor Harrison gathered together funds from other sources to help needy—” she quickly substituted another word and hoped that Jane didn’t notice “—um, deserving students, then maybe…”
That wasn’t the way to go, Jane thought. “I’m sure he would have said something to me in all this time if he was involved in some kind of charitable action.” Her eyes met Sandra’s. “We can’t lie to the board about that, tempting as it might be. Somehow, Broadstreet would call us on it.”
Sandra sighed. It had been a nice idea while it lasted—all of six seconds. “I know.”
Jane took another long sip of her soda, then asked, “So, what is it you’d like me to do?”
This time, Sandra proceeded slowly, building word on word. “You said you used to work in the administration building, right?”
That was a matter of record. It was a job she knew the professor’d had a hand in getting for her, just as he’d gotten her this one when his own secretary had retired. “Yes.”
“All the old files are archived in the basement.” Sandra didn’t wait for Jane to confirm the fact. “Maybe if we go through the ones pertaining to the professor’s former students and the others he advised, we can find something that we can use. I really don’t know what we’re looking for until we find it,” she confessed. “But I do think it’s worth a try. And I do need your help.” Sandra looked at her hopefully. “Can I count on it?”
“I’ll do anything to help the professor,” Jane told her. “That goes without saying.”
“Wonderful.” Sandra took her hand in both of hers and shook it heartily. “I’ll get back to you on this. Soon,” she promised.
Walking out quickly, Sandra left Jane pondering the situation. Chewing on a sandwich she didn’t taste, Jane wondered if there was anything else she could do to help further the professor’s cause. She felt energized and at the same time at a loss as to where to place all that energy.
She supposed she didn’t have to wait for Sandra’s go-ahead. She could just get started doing what the woman had suggested. Looking.
Except there was one thing wrong with that.
Sandra’s basic supposition had been flawed, Jane thought. She knew where the files were kept, all right, but she couldn’t get at them. They were in the basement, under lock and key. To get to look at them, she was going to need to unlock the door to the room where they were all archived.
Which meant she needed a key. Either that or a handy burglar.
She couldn’t ask anyone in the administration office to unlock the door. They’d want to know what she was doing. Most likely, they’d want to go down to the basement with her. She couldn’t very well say she was hunting for documentation showing what an excellent man and educator the professor was. Word undoubtedly would get back to Broadstreet and then they really wouldn’t be able to get at the files. There was no telling if someone in the administration office was trying to curry favor with Broadstreet. She had a feeling the man had spies everywhere.
What she needed, Jane thought, was to approach someone she felt confident was in no one’s pocket. Someone who would never run and tell Broadstreet or the board what she was up to.
Outside, it was beginning to rain. Within a blink of an eye, her office was cast into shadow, turning afternoon into practically night.
She reached across her desk and turned on the lamp. As light filled the room, Jane smiled to herself.
There was someone she could ask. Someone, she instinctively knew, who was in no one’s pocket and never would be.
Chapter Four
Some twenty minutes after she’d put in a call to Thom Dolan in the maintenance department, requesting that he send Smith Parker up to her office, there was a quick, sharp rap on her door.
Before she could say, “Come in,” he did.
Looking, Jane thought, not unlike a thundercloud casting ominous shadows over the western plains. There were even some drops of rain clinging to his hair, as the rain had just let up.
It was obvious that Smith didn’t care for being summoned, but that couldn’t be helped. She didn’t have the luxury of waiting until their paths crossed again, especially since they did so seldomly.
Smith moved closer to her desk, his very presence making the room feel even smaller than it was. The man had muscles, she thought absently.
“What’s the emergency?” he all but growled.
Without intending to, she pushed her chair back a little. “No emergency,” Jane answered. “I just needed to talk to you.”
Wheat-colored eyebrows pulled together over the bridge of his finely shaped nose. Smith looked at her very skeptically, as if waiting for a punch line. “You called me in here to talk?”
Now that Smith was actually here, she wasn’t sure just how to proceed, how to phrase her request. Except for today outside the professor’s office, whenever they did run into one another, the most she’d say was hello because she didn’t know whether or not he wanted her to acknowledge the fact that they knew one another.
When she’d first seen him wearing the navy-blue jumpsuit with the university’s logo across the back and the title of Maintenance Engineer finely stitched across his breast pocket, she had been completely dumbstruck. She remembered thinking that there had to be some mistake, or maybe even some kind of a joke. Either that, or the maintenance man was a dead ringer for the student who had sat two rows away from her. They couldn’t possibly be one and the same.
The Smith Parker she was acquainted with had been very bright. When he’d abruptly left Saunders shortly after those accusations had been brought against him, she’d just assumed that Smith had gone on to attend another college. And a man with a college degree didn’t concern himself with clogged pipes unless they were in his own house.
But then she’d heard him say something to one of the teachers and she knew it had to be Smith. His voice, low in timbre, sensual even if he were merely reciting the alphabet, was unmistakable. With every syllable he uttered, his voice seemed to undulate right under her skin.
Just the way it seemed to do now.
Feeling suddenly nervous, Jane cleared her throat. “Actually, I wanted to see you because I need a favor from you.”
Smith put down the toolbox he’d brought with him and looked at her as if she was speaking in riddles.
“A favor,” he echoed slowly, taking the word apart letter by letter, as if that would reveal something beneath it. When she nodded and he was no closer to an answer than before, Smith prodded, “What kind of favor?”
As he asked, he glanced around the office. The size of a broom closet on steroids, it still managed to be cheery because of the few personal touches she had added to it. On the wall directly behind her was a poster of a kitten, its front paws wrapped around a tree branch as its back legs dangled in midair. The animal looked precariously close to falling. For some reason that eluded him, the kitten made him think of her.
Beneath it, in white script, was the slogan “Hang in There.” He wondered how many times a day Jane said that to herself. Subconsciously he’d been saying something along those lines to himself for some time now. Of late, he’d had this feeling that something better was going to be coming his way if he was just patient enough to wait it out.
He guessed that maybe his spirit wasn’t entirely dead the way he’d once believed it to be.
Aside from the poster, Jane had left the walls un-adorned. Looking at them now, he could see that they could stand a fresh coat of paint.
He made a judgment call as to the nature of her as yet unspoken request. “Would that favor have anything to do with giving this room a makeover?”
About to cautiously put her case before him, Smith’s words threw her. She looked at him quizzically. Where would he have gotten that idea from? She’d never complained to anyone about her office. After being part of a large collective over in the administration building, she valued this little bit of turf that was her own—for as long as she had her job.
“Excuse me?”
Confusion made her look adorable.
The observation had slipped in out of nowhere, surprising him. Smith sent it packing back to the same place.
Waving his hand around the space around him, he elaborated, “The room, it could stand a paint job. Is that the reason you sent for me?” he asked, enunciating each word slowly because she looked as if he’d lapsed into a foreign tongue.
Jane could almost feel every single word moving along her body before it faded away.
Nerves, just nerves, she told herself. She wasn’t accustomed to asking for favors, even if it wasn’t for herself. It made her uncomfortable.
But this wasn’t about her, Jane reminded herself. It was about the professor. Who had been there for her when she’d needed someone.
She shook her head dismissively. “Maybe someday, but no, that wasn’t what I meant.”
Smith didn’t appear to hear her. His attention had obviously wandered and so had he. Over to the weeping fig tree she’d bought a month ago. It had been on sale, standing in front of a local florist shop. Passing it, the tree had caught her eye and she could envision it brightening up the dark corner of her office. Ficus benjamina was its botanical name. She called it “Benny” for short.
Right now, tall, thin and pale, Benny looked as if he needed to be placed on a respirator. His grasp on life appeared a little tenuous.
Smith touched one of the wispy branches. Two leaves immediately fell off. It felt as if he’d just raised the limb of a terminal patient. Why did people buy plants only to neglect them? he wondered.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “You’re killing this, you know.”
God, he was a strange man. “No, I’m not,” she retorted defensively. “Benny’s just adjusting to his surroundings.”
“Benny?” He raised his head and looked at her just as she’d rounded her desk and walked over to him. She was wearing a skirt whose hem was even with the tips of her fingers when her hands were at her sides. He tried not to stare at her legs.
“That’s what I call him. And I’m not killing him,” she repeated.
He loved plants, had an affinity for them, but he’d never named one. That she did seemed more than a little odd to him.
“Yes,” he replied firmly, “you are.” Stooping, he took the side of the wicker pot she’d placed the fig tree in and slowly turned it around. The slight movement caused more leaves to come raining down. There were less than two dozen left on the sapling. “It’s not supposed to look like Greta Garbo in Camille.”
She bent beside him, completely lost. “Who?”
Feeling suddenly hemmed in by her presence, Smith rose to his feet. “Greta Garbo.” Her face remained blank and he shrugged. “Never mind.” It didn’t matter if Jane didn’t understand his comparison. What did matter, though, was that the plant was dying. And it didn’t have to be. “The point is, this plant is going to die unless you do something.”
She’d followed the instructions on the little card that had been attached to one of its branches. There hadn’t been many, but the shop owner had assured her that the tree was hardy and once it adjusted to its new surroundings, it would thrive.
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Like what?”
Because of its location, the room saw very little sun, getting its illumination, instead, from the overhead lighting. He pointed toward the lone window in the office, even though it was still overcast outside.
“Give it sun, fresh air, a chance to breathe, introduce vitamins into its water, get some fertilizer for it.” It might not be too late, he judged, studying the plant’s pale color. Here and there were a few new green shoots trying to push through. “Otherwise, its chances of surviving are next to none.”
She had no idea having a plant was so complicated. To her, plants were to be watered and, for the most part, ignored. “You sound like a doctor talking about a patient in the E.R.”
“Plants are living things and should be accorded respect.” Putting his finger into the soil, he found it was bone-dry. Smith saw the large empty soda container she’d thrown out. Taking it from the wastebasket, he walked out without saying another word, leaving her flabbergasted. But he was back in a few minutes, the cup now filled with water. He poured the contents into the pot. “This should be outdoors.”
He made it sound like an accusation. And that she had broken some cardinal rule. Jane bristled before she could rein herself in. “It’s an indoor tree.”
The look he gave her all but asked if she believed in the tooth fairy, as well. “There’s no such thing as an indoor tree, unless it’s a treehouse and you happen to be Tarzan. That’s just a ploy to help sell this to people with no gardens.”
She decided to do an about-face and put the ball in his court. “Okay, since you know so much, can you ‘save’ Benny for me, Smith?”
He looked at her sharply. Not because of what she’d asked him to do, but because she’d used his name. It was the first time he’d heard her say it. Since she hadn’t said anything up to this point, he’d just assumed she hadn’t recognized him.
“You know my name?”
Jane stared at him incredulously for a second. “Of course I know your name. How do you think I asked for you?”
For a second he’d forgotten that she’d put in a request for him. They’d come almost full circle. Smith glanced down at his uniform. His name was supposed to be embroidered over his pocket, just beneath the politically correct jog title. Wanting to be as anonymous as possible, he’d opted to leave the space blank.
“I’ll bite. How?”
Something inside her began to falter again. Life with Drew had sapped her of her self-esteem and made her doubt her every move. It took effort to conquer her uncertainty, but she had a feeling that Smith didn’t suffer cowards well.
It gave them something in common. Neither did she. Especially when that coward was her.
“You were in my English class.” And then, even as she said it, another more personal memory came back to her. “You were also the guy who collided with me on the steps of the library that time, knocking all my books out of my arms.”
He remembered that. Vividly. Remembered how soft she’d felt against him, despite the momentary collision. Remembered catching her in his arms before she fell. The books had gone flying, but she hadn’t. It had taken him a second longer to release her than it should have.
“Yeah, it was raining.” His eyes met hers. “And the pages got all wet.”
“Not all of them,” she allowed, a soft smile taking possession of her mouth.
The incident, during midterm week, had occurred shortly before he’d abruptly dropped out of sight.
Something very personal, almost tangible, hung between them for a moment, making time stand still.
But there was something larger than her own insignificant feelings at stake here. There was the professor to think of. She blew out a breath, searching for the right way to begin again.
Smith was still looking at her, making her skin feel as if it was alive. “I didn’t think you recognized me.”
She drew conclusions from his tone. “But you recognized me?”
What could have passed as a small smile faintly graced his lips. “Hard not to. You haven’t changed much.”
That wasn’t strictly true, he decided silently. She had. The pretty girl she’d been had blossomed and matured into a woman who was more than lovely. A woman with a subtle beauty that easily turned a man’s head when she passed by.
But saying so might give her the wrong idea. Might make her think he thought things he didn’t. He just noticed things, that was all. He always had.
She laughed softly at the notion that she hadn’t changed. “A lot you know.”
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