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She loved mornings and had felt that way even after the accident, when her life was nothing but a series of question marks. Would she survive? Would she walk again? Without a limp? Would she be scarred forever? Now she knew the answers: yes, yes, almost, and yes.
The miracle workers at the rehabilitation hospital had done their best to get her back on her feet and as close to her pre-accident appearance as possible. It had been months before she’d been pushed out of the rehab nest with a hearty “fly, be free.” And now her life was only a single question mark, but it was a doozy. Now what?
The summons from Professor Harrison had enabled her to put the answer aside. And she was relieved, which probably made her a coward. And she hated that she was. She hated being weak. But she was trying to face facts. And the fact was, she was glad to put off a decision about her future. Besides, she genuinely wanted to do what she could for the professor. She could manage to stay at the hotel for a few days and hope to meet with the board of directors to give her testimonial. Then, because her modeling career had come to a screeching halt, she had to figure out what she was going to be when she grew up.
For the moment, she was stuck in her room with no place to go, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. After yesterday, she had to conclude that she was very bad at slipping in and out of places unseen. Although the silver lining had been running into Nate. Just thinking his name turned the silver lining into a warm glow centered deep in her midsection.
For all the good it did her.
Yesterday she’d shut the poor man down faster than an airport on high alert. That was something the accident hadn’t changed. Once a social geek, always a social geek. What had happened in college just intensified the condition. Her agent had given her the lecture about career success depending on being seen and photographed with the right people if she wanted to make it to the top. That had been just before she’d hit life’s rock bottom. Her agent hadn’t dumped her, but then he didn’t have to. No one was calling with work for a face that looked like hers. She’d only had one offer and she’d turned it down.
So she’d never flexed her social muscles and on some level that had been a relief. But poor Nate. He’d been on the receiving end of her nerdiness and was probably out counting his lucky stars while doing the dance of joy that she’d saved him from himself.
A knock on her door startled her. She wasn’t expecting anyone.
She stood and walked over to look through the peephole. Surprise mixed with pleasure when she recognized Nate. She waited for uneasiness, and was a little amazed when it never came. Instead, she was grateful that he hadn’t washed his hands of her.
She removed the chain lock and opened the door. “Hello.”
“Good morning.” He studied her. “You look well rested.”
She winced inwardly even though his tone was nothing but friendly. But she knew he was needling her about the transparent way she’d turned down his invitation. And she deserved the teasing. The irony was that she liked him. Way to make him like her back, she thought. But she’d learned the hard way that familiarity breeds contempt. And it worked both ways. The more he learned about her, the more likely he’d be to leave her in the dust.
“I’m fine,” she said. “How are you?”
“Never better.” He grinned as he leaned a broad shoulder against the door frame and folded his arms across his chest.
Today he was casually dressed in jeans and a sport shirt with a very expensive logo on the front. He’d been pretty devastating in his suit and tie, but this look made her weak in the knees. And that was only one of the reasons she refused to invite him into her room.
“I don’t mean to sound blunt—”
“But?” he said. “And before you ask, no one starts out like that unless there’s a but coming.”
“But,” she said, struggling not to smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I believe we said we’d talk today.”
“Yes. But I thought you were just being nice.” With no intention of following through.
“So you think I’m that superficial?”
“I hardly know you well enough to judge. I’m just being realistic.”
“Realistic about judging me?” One eyebrow lifted. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You don’t remember me, but you’re making judgments about what I will or won’t do.”
“You’re twisting this like a pretzel.”
“Twisting is such an ugly word.”
“But accurate,” she challenged.
“To be more precise, I’m clarifying.”
“I’m not going to debate with you. Obviously you’d win.”
“I like winning,” he admitted.
“So what are you here to talk about?”
He straightened and slid his fingertips into the pockets of his jeans. “I tracked down Sandra Westport and talked to her on the phone.”
“I see. Did you convince her to back off on Professor Harrison?”
He shook his head. “No, but I talked her into having lunch with me so I could do that.”
“Good luck.”
“I could use some. Not to mention backup,” he said, giving her a pointed look.
“Me?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She might feel less threatened if there was another woman present. I’d rather not look like the big bad bully.”
“I couldn’t,” she said automatically.
“True. No one would ever mistake you for a bully.”
“No. I meant I couldn’t possibly go with you.”
He shook his head. “Technically, that’s not true. I’ll drive. All you have to do is sit in the passenger seat. We meet Sandra at the restaurant, order food and eat. That’s exceedingly doable.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Yeah.”
“Be serious, Nate.”
“I am. About needing some help.”
“Not mine. I’m probably the last person Sandra Westport wants to have lunch with.” Kathryn had turned down a request from the other woman, only a week or two ago. It was highly unlikely Nate would benefit by her presence at lunch.
“You’d really be doing me a big favor if you’d come along,” he insisted.
“What part of no don’t you understand?” she asked.
“The N and the O. I’m very fragile,” he teased.
There was nothing fragile about him, not in the way his shirt hugged his muscular biceps or the masculine way he filled out his jeans. But when she looked closer, for a split second, his eyes showed a hint of hurt. Then it was gone and she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. Just her imagination. She didn’t have the power to wound him. They didn’t know each other well enough. And why in the world would he even want to get to know her better when he could have his pick of perfect women? A man with his blow-in-my-ear-and-I’ll-follow-you-anywhere-good-looks would not be bothered by a rejection from someone who looked like her.
“Fragile my foot,” she blurted out. “This isn’t about you, Nate.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he asked, suddenly serious.
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“Then you’d be wrong. In spite of what you think, I’m not an insensitive jerk.”
“I don’t think that—”
“Obviously you do,” he interrupted. “In my own defense let me point out that I got it when you hid behind your sunglasses. I’m not so self-absorbed that I don’t get that you’ve been through something traumatic.”
“There’s no way you can understand what I’m feeling,” she retorted.
“There’s that jumping to conclusions thing again. How can you possibly know what I would or would not understand?”
“Come on. It’s not jumping to conclusions when the man looks like you.” She stared at him. “You belong in the sexiest lawyer section of People magazine’s sexiest man of the year issue. You couldn’t possibly know what it feels like to look in the mirror and know this is the best you’re ever going to look. You can’t understand what it feels like when people won’t look you in the eye because they see the scars and don’t know how to deal with it.”
He frowned. “This isn’t about other people. It’s about you, Katie. You can’t sit passively in a room. Life isn’t a spectator sport. It happens if you let it.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Nate. No one knows better than me that life happens. It happened all over my face and it isn’t pretty.”
“Now who’s twisting words?”
“I’m just saying, until you’ve walked in my shoes, don’t presume to know how I feel.”
“And I’m saying things aren’t always the way they seem. Have you ever heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
“That’s baloney.”
One eyebrow rose. “The Katie I knew wasn’t a glass-is-half-empty person.”
That arrow sliced clear to her soul and drew blood. “I resent that. It’s not pessimism, it’s realism.”
“You say tomato, I say toe-mah-toe. You say potato—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
“No, for mine.”
He looked so sincere, and her steadfast resolve began to waver. It had all seemed so simple before he showed up in the flesh. He’d accepted her turndown; she was okay with that. But now, seeing all that attractive flesh, engaging in stimulating verbal sparring, she wasn’t sure about anything. Except that suddenly the loneliness she hadn’t even acknowledged loomed black and frightening. She hadn’t realized how isolated and alone she’d felt since her accident.
He was there and she found his larger-than-life personality so very appealing, so very difficult to resist. Even for her—the ice queen. But she knew not resisting was a prerequisite for disaster. If she made the mistake of letting him close, the ugliness from her past was certain to come out and she simply couldn’t bear that after working so hard to bury it.
“Look—” he ran his fingers through his hair “—all I’m trying to say is that you can’t stand at a fork in the road indefinitely. Sooner or later you’ll get run over.”
This time she couldn’t suppress a smile. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You do motivational speaking on the side.”
He grinned. “Busted.”
“I knew it.” That boyish expression combined with his square-jawed, lean good looks, and perseverance and genuine likability propelled her stomach into a triple backflip.
“Actually I’m just a hardworking attorney who’s only interested in motivating you to go out with me.” Again he twisted and clarified.
“I don’t know, Nate.”
“I do.” He reached out a hand, but didn’t touch her. “Look, Katie, whether you believe it or not, I know how to take no for an answer. But I hope I won’t have to.”
She shook her head. “I just can’t go to lunch with you and Sandra.”
“Okay. Then how about just me?”
“What? I thought you needed to try and get her to cut the professor some slack.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’ll see Sandra and try to get her to back off. Then we can have dinner tonight. Please?”
No was on the tip of her tongue, but Kathryn hadn’t counted on his ability to captivate her. Suddenly she was the one who didn’t understand the N and the O.
“All right. Dinner,” she said. “But, Nate, could we—”
“You order room service. I’ll be here about seven?”
She nodded. “Seven.”
When he was gone she closed her door and leaned against it. How was she grateful? She mentally ticked off the ways. He was sensitive to her need for privacy with these baby steps forward. But he didn’t know some of her hesitation was because this was her first step with a man since that awful night in college. He’d worn down her defenses with his charming verbal assault and she hoped she didn’t regret her decision. Still, she trusted him and for the life of her she couldn’t explain why.
But she didn’t need a mirror to know she was grinning from ear to ear. Defenses be damned. For the first time in a long time she was looking forward to an evening with a very charming and attractive man.
Nate was anticipating dinner with Katie that night and nearly missed the turn for the Italian restaurant where he’d agreed to meet Sandra Westport for lunch. He’d thought getting her phone number would be difficult until he talked to his paralegal, Rachel James. Nate had given her some time off to assist Professor Gilbert in locating a former student who might be able to help save his job at the university. She didn’t know it yet, but her time off would be with full pay even though suspicious Sandra had enlisted her support in her crusade for the truth. Whatever that was. At least Rachel had a phone number for the woman.
He parked and went inside, the smell of garlic and spices making his mouth water. Skipping breakfast did that to a guy. When he explained he was meeting someone, the hostess showed him to an outside table where Sandra was already waiting, sipping an iced tea.
While he’d been nosing around Saunders U, he’d seen her. Their paths had crossed in the last couple weeks and fortunately she hadn’t remembered him from college. But he couldn’t forget the beautiful blond, blue-eyed cheerleader who’d hung out at the Alpha Omega fraternity house with David Westport, her boyfriend. He wondered how much she remembered from that time. Did she know that he’d rigged the house’s security cameras to film in the bedrooms? And would the curious woman going after a good man like the professor believe Nate had been duped into using his expertise to do it?
Joining that boys-will-be-boys society was something else he wished he could forget. How in God’s name had his past become so littered with regrets? Where was the guy with dreams of using his knowledge and skills for people in trouble who desperately needed it? Officially that’s what he did, but only someone in trouble who could afford his exorbitantly high fee. How had he gone so far off his original path?
He pushed the thoughts away and braced for hurricane Sandra. He held out his hand. “Sandra? Nate Williams.”
Her eyes widened. “Nate Williams? You loaned me your handkerchief.”
“When you were crying,” he remembered. “I hope everything is better now.”
“Williams,” she said. “That’s what the W was for. I’ve been calling you Mr. W.”
“That works. Thanks for meeting me.” He sat.
“Fortunately you caught me on a Friday. The only other days I come into Saunders are Monday and Wednesday.”
That was still enough time to do the professor damage, unless he could convince her to abandon her crusade. “Have you already ordered?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. But I know for a fact that the food is great. David and I have eaten here and I highly recommend the pasta primavera. Unless a macho guy like you needs his daily ration of raw meat.”
He wondered if the barb indicated she was aware of his high-profile profession. When she didn’t say more, he ignored it. And he was grateful she apparently didn’t remember that in his fraternity days he was the overweight geek in the corner, hibernating and hoping no one would notice him. These days he always made healthy food choices. It was easier with money. Almost everything was.
“That sounds good to me.” He ordered for them, then met her gaze. “How are you and David?”
She looked radiant. “We couldn’t be better.”
“Tell me about the two of you.”
“We have a family. Twins. Molly unfortunately inherited my naturally curly hair and Michael favors David with his black hair.”
“That’s great. Twins must be a challenge.”
“Yes. But I love it. Takes some doing to juggle motherhood with my job at the newspaper. So right now I just do small-town stuff. David coaches Little League and soccer for our kids’ teams. Once an athlete, always an athlete. Passing those good physical genes on to the next generation. Although how that translates into Ping-Pong is anyone’s guess.”
“Excuse me?”
She laughed. “The twins have their hearts set on being the first brother-sister Ping-Pong team in the Olympics.”
“Goals are good.”
“And to pay for those goals we own a small grocery in the North End of Boston. Which is probably way more information than you wanted.” She took a breath. “And what about you?”
“I’m a lawyer. My office isn’t far from where your store is.”
“So you’re an attorney,” she said, studying him closely.
“Yes.” He tensed, waiting for the “aha” moment. The instant when she recognized him from some press conference for a high-profile case he’d handled or a news segment analyzing his courtroom performance. He hoped Nickelodeon trumped nightly news in her house. When she didn’t say anything, he allowed himself to relax.
“Did you always want to be an attorney?”
He nodded and relaxed a little more. Anyone who really knew him from college would remember that.
“Do you like what you’re doing?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
She smiled. “It’s a reporter thing.”
“Is your vendetta against Professor Harrison a reporter thing?” Nate asked.
“It’s a reporter’s responsibility to search out the truth.”
“No matter who gets hurt?”
She sighed. “I look at it like going to the doctor. Sometimes it hurts, but knowing what’s going on always brings you peace of mind in the long run.”
“I disagree.” He didn’t want anyone knowing what was really going on with him. Especially Katie. “So, what have you got against the professor?”
Frowning, Sandra leaned forward. “Are you asking specifically? Or just inquiring about my general motivation?”
“Either. Both.” Nate lifted one shoulder. “Whatever you want to tell me.”
“I’m simply trying to learn the truth.”
“Even if it costs him the career he loves? A way of life that’s all he has since his wife died?”
“There’s something strange going on with him, Nate.”
“Define ‘something.’”
“I’ve been digging—”
“From what I hear, you could be halfway to China.”
She smiled. “Very funny. The thing is, I’m finding some disturbing patterns in the professor’s behavior.”
The waiter appeared and set their plates of pasta in front of them. When they were alone again, Nate met her gaze. “What kind of patterns?”
“Let me start with David. He’s a gifted athlete, and a very intelligent man—”
“I can see you’re not prejudiced,” Nate commented, noting the glow of love that sparkled in her blue eyes. A hollow feeling opened wide in the center of his chest because a man like himself could never hope for what she had—love and a family.
She grinned. “Not me. I’m into the facts. The fact is, I love my husband.”
“I envy you.”
“Don’t sidetrack me.”
“Okay. So you were saying that David’s a rocket scientist,” he said, getting back on the subject.
She laughed. “Hardly. But in spite of above-average IQ, in high school he was more interested in sports than learning and no one was more surprised than David when he received a scholarship. There are supposed to be academic standards for those and his grades just weren’t high enough.”
“How did he get it?”
“Courtesy of a mysterious benefactor.”
The professor had mentioned that. “Do you know who this person is?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’ve come across more records and found some troubling irregularities.”
“So what does that have to do with the professor?”
She frowned. “I haven’t found a solid link, at least not on paper. But in every instance of an undeserved scholarship or pulling strings in some way, the person involved was mentored by Professor Harrison.”
“That’s not proof of anything. It’s coincidence. Circumstantial.”
“Tell me about it. But he’s the common denominator. The link to this mysterious patron.”
“I don’t get it, Sandra. Someone is doing good—like the Lone Ranger—and you’re looking to lynch him from the highest tree.”
“It’s never okay to do the wrong thing, even if it’s for the right reason. There are rules and they’re meant to be followed. As a lawyer, I’m surprised you’d even question something so basic.”
That’s because she didn’t know him. “As a lawyer I know everything isn’t always black and white. There’s a lot of gray areas, which is why we’ve got judges.”
She put down her fork and studied him closely. “Hmm.”
“What?” he asked sharply.
“You remind me of someone. I thought so the couple times I saw you on campus and I can’t shake the feeling now.”
Oh, for crying out loud. Did she mean the geek he used to be? Or the high-profile defense attorney he was now? If she remembered either one it was bad news.
“They say everyone has a double.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Time to change the subject and one of his favorites was Katie. “Do you remember Kathryn Price?”
Instantly she looked up and frowned. “Do I? College beauty queen. Model on her way to superstardom. Yeah, I remember her.”
“What’s wrong?”
“David and I decided to start a camp for disadvantaged children.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. He felt guilty about that scholarship he didn’t deserve, and then wasted. So together we came up with the camp idea to use his strengths and talents as sort of cosmic payback for the gift he once received.”
“That’s a great idea.”
She smiled. “We think so.”
“But?” he prompted.
“We need funding to get it off the ground and decided to impose on our college ties with Kathryn Price. I contacted her through her agent to be the celebrity face for our project and get the donations going.”
“What happened?”
“She refused.” Her mouth pulled tight. “Rachel James got just a glimpse of her here in Saunders.”
“Rachel is my paralegal.”
“Small world,” Sandra said.
“Yeah. So what did she say?”
“She said Kathryn was wearing a scarf covering most of her face.”
“And big sunglasses?” he asked.
“Maybe. Rachel didn’t mention that. But she said the wind lifted the scarf enough to see there was something wrong with her face.”
“So that explains why she turned you down.”
“No, it doesn’t. Her agent said she refused to even hear the details. So we never got a chance to pitch the idea. I can’t help thinking she’s turned into a snob.”
Anger churned in his gut. “For someone who preaches the truth above everything, you’re certainly jumping to conclusions.”
She looked surprised. “Oh?”
He leaned forward and rested his hands on the table. “There could be a thousand reasons she turned you down.”
“Like what?”
“She’s out of the country on a shoot. She doesn’t like sports. She doesn’t like you or David. She’s busy with a hundred other philanthropic projects that are more near and dear to her heart. Like ballet. Or basket weaving. Or sand sculpture.”
Sandra looked surprised. “Wow.”
Wow, indeed. When did he forget to censor everything that came out of his mouth? He’d learned to do it in college when any slip could result in being the butt of a painful joke. As a lawyer, the health of his career depended on editing his thoughts, words and deeds. But just now, he’d worn his heart on his sleeve. Not smart, Williams, he thought.
“I guess I know where you’re coming from,” Sandra said.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I’d say that was a typical male reaction to an incredibly beautiful woman.”
“Oh.” Good. He wasn’t busted after all. “The thing is, I ran into Katie—Kathryn. I happen to know she has a good reason for turning you down.”
“And what would it be? Surely not sand sculpture,” she said wryly.
“No.” He laughed sheepishly. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“You know that just makes a reporter more curious and determined.”
“I know.” Snooping reporters were the bane of his existence. But Katie was none of her business. “All I’ll say is that she’s fragile and needs a little time. You need to cut her some slack.”
He hoped that didn’t pique her journalist’s curiosity and get her off the professor only to go after Katie. “Look, Sandra, I came here to convince you to leave Professor Harrison alone. He’s only ever wanted to help students. I think this witch hunt is wrong after all he’s done.”
“Wrong has been done, all right. Students who had the credentials to receive those scholarships were victimized. What about justice for them?”