Coming In Hot E-Book

Jennifer Bernard

• Herausgeber: Jennifer Bernard
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Tobias has always been the strongest of Jupiter Point’s sexy Knight brothers, stubborn, intense…protective to the core. Which is why he rides to the rescue when he thinks an older woman has ensnared his starry-eyed baby brother. But one look at Carolyn Moore, and Tobias understands why a man might fall instantly under her spell. The art history teacher is every inch the “golden goddess” Aiden keeps raving about. Which makes Tobias’s own attraction to Caro incredibly inconvenient.
Carolyn knows she looks the part of the calm, yoga-loving teacher. Beneath the Zen exterior, however, beats the heart of a warrior, trained during a past she’s worked hard to forget. The uber-alpha Tobias may have had it wrong about his little brother, but it’s all Carolyn can do to resist the sexy temptation of the hyper-protective pilot and ex-soldier. She can’t risk a real relationship…especially now that the icy danger of her past is coming back to haunt her.
Carolyn’s had plenty of time to learn how to handle her problems solo, but she’s never wrangled with a Knight brother determined to protect her like his own. This time, when trouble finds her, Tobias has her back—and he’s COMING IN HOT.

Leseprobe

COMING IN HOT

JENNIFER BERNARD

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Hot and Bothered

Also by Jennifer Bernard

About the Author

Acknowledgments

1

The man sitting at the back of Carolyn Moore’s class looked nothing like her usual students. Starting with the fact that he was male, since most of the students in Renaissance Art History 201 were women. Then there was the fact that he was a full-grown adult male, not a kid who'd barely reached drinking age. Not to mention the additional facts of his size and appearance, which were big and imposing. Attractive, one might even say, if broad shoulders, intense dark eyes, and black leather jackets were your thing.

A peaceful art history teacher like herself should certainly not find someone like him attractive. But he actually reminded her of a painting she loved, a Bronzino portrait of a man aiming his smoldering gaze directly at the viewer. So to be completely honest with herself, the mystery man did push a few of her buttons.

But she could deal with that kind of unsettling stare a lot better in an oil painting than in the back of her classroom. He'd slipped in midway through her lecture on the technique of chiaroscuro and immediately thrown her off stride.

She cleared her throat and checked her notes. "Does anyone here know the precise meaning of the term chiaroscuro? Any Italian speakers in the house?"

A few students volunteered words like "cappuccino," and "Prada," which made her laugh. The blond kid in the middle row looked lost in a dream, as usual. One student surreptitiously checked her phone.

"No Google," Carolyn said with a smile. "We can figure this one out. Let's start with the last part, "scuro." What other words contain that root?"

Again, no answer.

"I'm thinking of a common word, very familiar, not at all…" She dragged it out as a teasing hint.

"Obscure!" someone exclaimed.

"Exactly. Obscure means hidden, hard to find, because it's … what?"

"In the dark? Scuro means dark!" A student in the front row bounced in her seat, thrilled that she'd come up with the answer, then slouched back down. They were always so anxious about playing it cool, sometimes it made Carolyn sad. Was there something wrong with getting excited and passionate? She always tried to encourage that in her students.

"Yes!" She stepped away from the podium where her laptop was set up with slides and high-fived the student. "You're correct, scuro means dark. So you can probably guess what chiaro means as well."

A brief silence followed, interrupted by the man at the back of the class. The man in black.

"Light," he said in a voice so deep and resonant it sent a chill down her spine. It brought to mind the image of the last dregs of black coffee in a pot that had been left on overnight. Late nights, rough times, danger, adventure, somehow it was all there in that one softly spoken word.

In the middle row, the blond boy—Aiden something—craned his neck to see who had spoken. Then he wheeled back around and slouched deep in his seat. The girls in the class looked too, so Carolyn found herself responding to an array of turned heads.

"Correct. Chiaro, in this context, means light."

She pretended to check her student roster, but she certainly had no need to. There was no way this man had enrolled in her class midterm. "I'm sorry, are you a student here?"

"I'm just visiting the campus." He moved his jacket to show his stick-on visitor's badge. "I'm sorry to interrupt."

"No problem." Although, eyeing him more closely, she wasn't entirely sure that was true. She could spot several potential problems, or at least distractions. The width of his shoulders. The sensual fullness of his lips. And most especially, the way he was looking—or glaring—at her. Wary. Suspicious. Curious. Hot. Or some heady, confusing mixture of all of the above.

"If you were a student, you'd get a high five." She smiled at him brightly, determined not to allow a dangerously attractive visitor to disrupt her class. Tapping her laser pointer on the podium, she brought her students back to attention. Or tried, anyway. Several were too fascinated by the stranger to get back into Renaissance painting mode.

"Chiaroscuro is the treatment of light and shade. It's a technique that uses strong contrast between light and dark to create a three-dimensional effect. It was developed during the Renaissance by masters of oil painting like Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. They were looking for drama, for impact—we might call it the ‘wow’ factor today. These masters figured out how to manipulate the effect of a light source falling against a solid dark object. I'm going to show some slides now, and I want you guys to look for where the light is coming from and how it helps illuminate the subject of the painting."

She tapped a button on her laptop to play her slide show. Then she looked up and realized that the person closest to the light switch happened to be the solid dark object of the man in black.

"Sir, would you mind hitting that light behind you?" she asked him.

He twisted around to locate the light switch. Her eyes widened at the sight of his powerful torso and big hand reaching for the wall. He turned his head at the last minute, so the last thing she saw before the room went dark was that intense gaze of his. Wowza. It really packed a punch. Everything about him did. He was like a truckload of TNT plopped into a meadow of college-student flowers.

With the room in darkness, she let out a long breath, calling on some yoga breathing to regain her cool. Just because she spent most of her time with kids under the age of twenty didn't mean she couldn't handle an adult. Even if it was an intensely male sort of adult.

She too was an adult, after all. Granted, an adult who'd gone quite some time without any intimate contact with a man. Also known as sex.

Sex. Bad thought. Don't go there. Look at the slides. Talk about Caravaggio. Yes.

"Notice how you don't really know where that light comes from or what's producing it? It doesn't matter. It's only there to create the dramatic contrast that enables us to get the full impact of this portrait. In case you were wondering, this technique isn't confined to Renaissance oil paintings. Can anyone tell me who else uses chiaroscuro?"

"Black-and-white photography?" someone suggested.

"Yup. Exactly." She drew in another deep breath. Thank goodness, she was back in the groove now. The stranger was just a minor, temporary glitch. This was her class, she was in control.

She switched to the next slide. "Now not everyone was in favor of chiaroscuro. This portrait of the Queen of England is set in an open meadow with no sources of shade anywhere nearby. As you can see, the effect is serene rather than dramatic. Does anyone have any theories about why chiaroscuro would be controversial?"

Silence while the students gazed at the pleasant portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. She looked at the back of the class. The stranger, head tilted, was surveying the slide with a thoughtful expression. Talk about chiaroscuro … his eyes were deep pools in the minimal light cast by the projector.

Suddenly she wanted to hear what an adult man would say instead of a twenty-year-old. It wasn't really fair. He was a visitor, not a student paying for his education. But no one else seemed eager to step up with their thoughts. So she addressed the man in black.

"You in the back, by the light switch. Why do you think chiaroscuro would find opponents in the art world at that time?"

His gaze flicked to her, as if in surprise. But he didn't hesitate. "Some people would rather not deal with the shadows. You might even say most people."

A shiver passed through her. That was exactly why she'd wanted his reaction, to hear someone with experience speak. But at the same time, his words hit close to home. Unintentionally, of course. He knew nothing about her. But still, it was enough to give her a little chill.

"Right. Here's a quote from the artist who painted this portrait. "Seeing that best to show oneself needeth no shadow of place but rather the open light…Her Majesty chose to sit in the open alley of a goodly garden where no tree was near, nor any shadow at all. So…" She turned back to the students. "What say you, young members of the twenty-first century? Do you prefer the more open lighting in this painting, or the chiaroscuro effect in something like this famous Rembrandt portrait, An Old Man in Red? Are the subjects revealed more by direct sunlight or by the use of shadows?"

Finally the students seemed to get it. Discussion erupted as they looked back and forth between the two examples.

Carolyn grinned happily. There was nothing she loved more than when her students stopped daydreaming or looking at their phones and actually engaged in the material. And really, she had to thank the man in black for that. He'd been willing to dive in with an answer despite not even being enrolled in the class.

She looked toward the back of the room to offer some kind of "thank you" to the mystery man.

But he was gone.

2

Tobias Knight strode across the pretty pastoral campus of Evergreen, picturing himself like some kind of ogre trampling through a magical fairyland. He felt about a foot taller than everyone else here, even though there were plenty of football players and the like wandering around the central landscaped area called the "quadrangle." Maybe his extra years made the difference, or his time in the army, or his naturally fiery temperament.

Whatever it was, he felt about as alien to these students and this environment as a warrior at a tea party.

Weirdly, he hadn't felt that way in Carolyn Moore's class. Something about the way she looked at him, as if she really wanted to know what he thought, had gotten to him. Plus, she was beautiful, with all that ash-blond hair and luminous gray-blue eyes under delicately arched eyebrows. He didn't normally notice eyebrows. But she had the kind of face you just wanted to stare at forever and figure out what made it so appealing.

No wonder his little brother Aiden was in love with her.

"A golden goddess," he'd called her in his letter explaining his decision to transfer from Evergreen. He’d quoted some poem--"Like the first evening star bright against the infinite sky." He’d even confessed to staying up late writing her love letters.

Good God. The poor kid was hooked harder than a trout. And if Carolyn Moore chose to, she could reel him in and get a small fortune for her trouble. Aiden, like all of the Knight brothers, had a trust from his share of their father's life insurance. Will had used his to buy a house and raise Aiden. Tobias and Ben had used theirs as the startup capital for Knight and Day Flight Tours, their new flightseeing business. Aiden, still only nineteen, needed Will's permission to access his trust.

He'd asked for exactly that in the letter that had sent all the brothers into a panic. Aiden wanted to transfer to Jupiter Point Community College, and use funds from his trust to win over his "golden goddess." The kid had lost his damn mind.

So far, Aiden had refused to identify the "golden goddess." The fact that he refused to give any other details pointed in the direction of someone they wouldn't approve of. So Tobias had combed through his schedule and located all the female professors on the list. One was nearly sixty and sported a gray braid down her back. Another was a proud-and-very-out black lesbian. That left the blond and lovely adjunct professor Carolyn Moore as the only potential “golden goddess.”

A little more research had revealed the fact that Carolyn Moore was on staff at JPCC, and was only teaching at Evergreen for one semester.

Bingo.

Tobias had volunteered to come to Evergreen and rescue Aiden from making the worst mistake of his life. He hadn't planned to participate in Ms. Gold Digger's class on Renaissance art, but every mission had its unexpected moments.

Footfalls came pounding after him, and someone grabbed the back of his jacket. Good thing he knew it had to be Aiden, or his unknown accoster would have gotten a shock. Special Forces training died hard.

"What the hell are you doing here, Tobias?"

Tobias turned to see his youngest brother glaring at him. His blond hair stuck up in bedhead spikes. He wore torn jeans and a t-shirt that said, Ride the Wave, with a picture of a surfer wearing headphones. For a moment, just a brief one, Tobias wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn't joined the army, if he'd gone to college the way his counselors had urged him. But life had sent him in a different direction. Once a warrior, always a warrior, he supposed.

Aiden, on the other hand, was a sunny, sweet-natured kid. He was naive, and this was his first time entering the big bad world. Granted, Evergreen College didn't really fit the "big bad" description, but appearances could be deceiving. A beautiful, soft-eyed blonde could well be a scheming gold digger, and how would Aiden have any clue about it?

He wouldn't. That was Tobias’s job. He had one mission—save his brother from squandering his future on a con woman.

"Good to see you, kid." Tobias reached out to squeeze his brother's shoulder. Aiden looked too pissed to risk anything more than that, like an actual hug. "You don't look too happy to see me, though."

"That depends. I mean, yeah. I'm kind of happy." Aiden eyed him with blatant suspicion. With his blond good looks, he resembled their mother, whereas Tobias had gotten his darker coloring from their father. "But if you're here to talk me out of leaving Evergreen, you can forget it."

"I don't know why you'd want to leave." Tobias shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed around at the sweeping lawns and winding pathways shaded by oak and pine trees. "It's a nice campus."

"I told you all why I wanted to leave." Aiden lifted his chin and shifted his backpack, which he'd slung over one shoulder. "And I'm not changing my mind."

Tobias surveyed his younger brother and thought about the last time he'd seen him. Aiden had come home for a long weekend and the four brothers had held a family meeting. Even though Will was a deputy sheriff and Tobias and Ben had both recently left the armed forces, Aiden had been the one who had fearlessly confronted the elephant in the room—the murder of their father.

Aiden might look young—he was young—but he was no pushover.

"Hey, you're over eighteen. You can make your own choices," Tobias told him. Of course he hoped to talk him out of this choice, but he couldn't do that if Aiden got stubborn right off the bat. "Can we go somewhere and talk? Do you have another class now?"

"No, I have a break until my Geology class." Aiden glanced around the quadrangle. "Do you want coffee? We could go to the Caf. It's your basic cafeteria, but not too bad."

"Works for me."

As they walked toward the Caf—which had a paved courtyard dotted with tables—Aiden peppered him with questions. "Do you want to see my dorm? How long are you here for? When are you going back to Jupiter Point?"

"No specific plans yet, young blood." Tobias ruffled his hair affectionately. "Just thought it would be cool to see you living the life. My little goofball brother, a college student. What do you know."

Aiden grinned at him. Now that Tobias had acknowledged his sovereignty over his own life, he'd apparently relaxed his guard. "College is pretty cool, Tobias. There are students from all over here. My roommate is from India, how cool is that?"

"Very cool. How are the parties?"

"I hardly ever party because I'm studying so much." He plastered that innocent smile on his face, the one Tobias remembered well from his younger years.

"Busted," he said good-naturedly. "But don't worry, Will doesn't have to know."

Will was the one who had raised Aiden after their father's murder. He'd done a great job, of course, but if you asked Tobias, he'd held the reins a little too tight.

"Does Will know you're here?" Aiden asked.

"He does. He said to give you a hug. So here you go." Tobias pulled his brother into a one-armed side hug from which Aiden emerged with his hair even more mussed.

"Jeez, Tobias, you're like a two-ton truck." Aiden grumbled as he adjusted his backpack. They'd reached the edge of the outdoor patio of the Caf. Students filled the tables, laughing, eating, chatting, checking their phones, listening to their headphones. Tobias felt about a thousand years old compared to the youthfulness of these kids.

"You know what I feel like right now?" Aiden complained. "I feel like one of those kids who hires a bodyguard to scare bullies away. Do you have to scowl so much?"

Tobias relaxed his face. He hadn't realized he was scowling. "I'm not trying to scare anyone. You've heard of 'resting bitch face?' I figured out that I have 'resting fuck-you face.'"

Aiden howled with laughter. The sound lightened Tobias’s heart. That was the sound of life, right there. Young, innocent life. Protecting that innocence was his job here.

Aiden spotted a table being vacated by a group of girls. "You go claim that table and I'll get the coffee."

"I can get the coffee," Tobias protested. He was the big brother, wasn't that his job?

"Nope. I got it. I prepaid a hundred dollars so I can come get a drink whenever I want. This is my turf, Tobias. My treat."

Tobias gave in and went to claim the table while Aiden disappeared through the glass doors into the Caf's inner workings. He sank into a chair and stretched out his legs. Since he and Ben had started Knight and Day Flight Tours, he didn't get nearly as much hardcore exercise as he was used to. Maybe he ought to hit the gym when he got home, or go for a trail run in the hills, or⁠—

His brain momentarily short-circuited when he caught sight of the woman crossing the quadrangle, the sunlight catching her hair as she passed between two oak trees.

Carolyn Moore.

Except now she wasn't hidden behind that lectern, bathed in hideous fluorescent light. No, she was in full, glorious view. She wore a knee-length skirt and suede boots, along with a soft pearly sweater that clung to her long and elegantly curved torso. She was chatting with one of the students from the art class as she walked; she kept smiling at the younger woman, also a blonde, as if to encourage her. Tall and lithe, she moved with a sensual grace that sent a message right to his cock. His body responded with annoying eagerness. You want her, it said. You're attracted. Possibly fascinated.

Except that his body wasn't in charge here. He was. And he wasn't here to get involved. In fact, he was here to stop his brother from getting involved. And one thing he absolutely wouldn't do was upset Aiden.

So he determinedly dragged his gaze away from Carolyn Moore and stared at the tips of his shoes. A working-man's boots, designed to help him fly planes and traverse the tarmac. That's what he was—a working man, a warrior, a brawler, a brother. He had no business lusting after a refined art history type who would probably faint if he took off his shirt and showed what eight years as a Chinook pilot in the 160th Airborne—also known as a Night Stalker—did to a guy.

"You still like your coffee black, right?" Aiden said as he appeared at the table with a cardboard tray holding two steaming paper cups. Recycled paper, Tobias noticed. College campus style. Piled in the middle of the tray were a variety of snack bags ranging from unhealthy to utter crap.

"Sure, sounds good." Actually, he'd been adding sugar and cream to his coffee lately. Just one more of the changes he was experimenting with since leaving the army. But it didn't really matter. The coffee was just an excuse. "Hey isn't that the teacher from the class we were just in?" he asked, feigning innocence.

Aiden's head shot around so fast it could have made sparks. He zeroed in on the two women, teacher and student, like a laser beam. "Yes," he said in a strangled voice. He plopped down on the chair next to Tobias and sighed. "That's Ms. Moore. What did you think of her class?"

"Interesting," Tobias said, referring to both the class and Aiden's reaction. "What inspired you to sign up for a class on art history?"

Aiden turned red and avoided his gaze.

Bingo again.

So Carolyn Moore was the woman who could ruin Aiden's life. The question was, would she do it? Teacher-student relationships were against the rules at Evergreen College. She could lose her job if she crossed the line with Aiden. But if she'd figured out that Aiden had a substantial fortune in the bank, she might not care.

He shouldn't jump to conclusions yet. He had to talk to her. Face to face, he'd be able to get a feel for what her intentions were, and what kind of person she was. Until then, he had to keep Aiden talking.

"I'm not sure I agreed with her interpretation of that Rembrandt painting. You know, how she said the guy was trying to bring out the shadow side of his personality? How'd she get all that just from the angle of his head?"

Aiden blew on his coffee. "So now you're the expert just because you know how to kill people and fly planes?"

"Mostly helicopters," Tobias pointed out gravely.

"Whatever! Rocket ships, I don't care. You're a pilot, not a professor, so you should really give Ms. Moore a lot more respect."

"Oh, I give her a lot of respect." You always had to respect the enemy. Otherwise you might get caught with your pants down.

"What does that mean?" Aiden went on full alert. "Why did you show up in her class, anyway? Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" He narrowed his eyes. "Is this some kind of ambush?"

"Dude. Would you take it down a notch? I gave up ambushes when I left the army. This is a pop-in, not an ambush."

Aiden ripped open a bag of cheese puffs. "Just a random pop-in. And these are meatballs wrapped in solid gold." He brandished a puff before popping it into his mouth.

Tobias closed his eyes with a sigh. He should have stayed out of sight in that class. Chosen his moment more carefully. Now Aiden was full-on suspicious, and the only way he could throw him off the scent would be to lie. And he didn't want to do that. His brother would lose trust in him if he lied. Besides, he despised liars and deceivers of all sorts.

"Okay, you're right. I came here for a reason. We got your letter about leaving Evergreen and obviously we're worried. This is a great college, Aiden. You worked hard to get in and you're pulling good grades. It doesn't make sense to leave after one semester."

Aiden fixed his wide gray eyes on him. Those eyes always reminded Tobias of Mom, and the reminder was fricking painful, like a serrated knife to the chest. "What do you care? You've been gone for twelve years."

The note of betrayal in Aiden's voice took Tobias aback. "I came back during my leaves. I kept in touch."

Aiden, unimpressed, popped another cheese puff in his mouth and offered the bag to Tobias. He waved it off. After so many years of relying on his strength and fitness, he didn't like to pour junk into his body. "Fine, you kept in touch. Yay Skype. I just don't get why you care now. I can get a good education in Jupiter Point. And I'd be around you guys, too. All the Knight brothers could be together again. What's wrong with that?"

"We'll be together at Christmas. We can be together all summer. But Jupiter Point Community College doesn't compare to Evergreen and you know it."

Aiden shrugged, looking mulish. "I have other reasons too. And they're important to me. Maybe I don't want to be here without—" He broke off.

"Without the golden goddess?" Tobias said gently. He didn't want to push Aiden, but it would be easier to have this discussion if the kid came out and named his mystery crush.

"I don't want to talk about it." Aiden surged to his feet. "Just…just go. Go home. My life is my business. You shouldn't have even come here."

Tobias pushed his chair back, sloshing black coffee all over his pants. Damn, he'd screwed this up. He didn't want to alienate his brother; that was the last thing he wanted. "Shit, Aiden. Come on. I'm not trying to run your life. We're just having a conversation, right?"

"Not anymore. This is some kind of army Jedi mind trick you're pulling, isn't it? You're going to get me to talk about…her…and then you'll twist everything around and make it seem like she isn't the most amazing, incredible, amazing…"

"You already said that," murmured Tobias.

"Gaaah!!!! !" Aiden tossed his bag of cheese puffs in the air, so a neon-orange shower of fake cheese cascaded around them. "I'm done. I said I wasn't going to talk about it and I won't. Goodbye, Tobias. I'll see you at Christmas. Maybe."

He grabbed his backpack and stormed away from the table, crunching cheese puffs onto the courtyard pavers as he went.

Tobias ran a hand across his nearly bald scalp. He'd stopped shaving his head when he left the army. New start kind of thing. His hair was just beginning to grow back in a soft baby-like fuzz. Man, he'd fucked up. Aiden was furious with him now. He was going to dig in and refuse to listen to reason.

But at least he was pretty darn sure who the golden goddess was.

He looked at the cheese puffs scattered across the pavers. The sight offended his clean-freak sensibilities, which had been honed in the orderly living quarters of military barracks. The least he could do was clean them up. He dropped to his knees and swept the orange runaways into the bag that Aiden had left behind.

He worked quickly, already thinking about his next step. Clearly he couldn't go back to Jupiter Point yet. He didn't want to leave on a bad note with Aiden. At the very least, he had to patch things up with his brother. And he still had to have a talk with adjunct professor Carolyn Moore. But before he did that, he wanted to do some research. He wanted to find out everything he could about her. And he wanted to look up the exact wording of the rules forbidding teacher-student relationships. Were there any loopholes she might try to slip through?

There was another possibility. Maybe she was unaware of Aiden's crush. In which case, his job was pretty simple. Point it out and make the rules perfectly clear to her. Also, let her know that he'd be watching. Maybe that would make her extra cautious about stepping over any lines.

A suede boot the color of red wine stepped into his field of vision. Then another one. He looked up, an act that seemed to take longer than it should, because his gaze had so far to travel. Hot sexy boots, skirt molded around long thighs, slim hips, trim waist, cashmere sweater with buttons running between perfectly curved breasts, the soft shadow at the base of her throat, the long line of her neck, the tilt of her face looking down, the quirk of her lips, the shine of her eyes.

Jesus. She was a goddess.

3

"Need a little help there, man in black?"

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry, it was a Johnny Cash reference. I tend to assign students little monikers because I'm bad at remembering names. When you visited my class, you became the Man in Black, at least in my head."

"Big Johnny Cash fan here too," he said stupidly.

"Well, that settles it. Us Johnny Cash fans have to stick together. Let me help."

She crouched next to him, and suddenly they were face to face, and he was having a little trouble with his heart rate.

"Let me guess. Snack attack?" She smiled at him as she scooped up a handful of puffs and dumped them into the bag he still held.

"Something like that."

With all the cheese puffs back in the bag, he rose to his feet. She followed suit and they stood facing one another. He still felt tongue-tied, almost as if he were a student in the presence of a much smarter authority figure.

"So what do you think of Evergreen so far?" she asked patiently, almost as if she were talking to a student.

"Pretty campus. Good reputation. Still a few questions I need to resolve, but I'm impressed so far." Was he referring to Evergreen or to her? He wasn't completely sure.

"Well, if there's anything I can answer, go ahead. I'm not the best source, since I'm only a guest lecturer here. But I'll share what I know, and I can point you to the people with the real answers."

He tried to get his head back in the game. Drag out the conversation. Seach for confirmation. "Where do you normally teach?"

"Jupiter Point. It's a little town on the coast with a very high-quality community college."

Should he mention that he was born and raised there? No. He didn't want to tip her off to his hidden agenda.

"So do you have a kid considering Evergreen?" She gave him a swift up-and-down assessment with those soft blue eyes. It damn near gave him the chills. "You don't look old enough to have a college-age child."

"You're right, it's not for any kid of mine. No kids. Not married. Or ever likely to be." Why'd he go mentioning that? "I'm here for someone I care about," he added.

She nodded, her eyebrows arching. He must sound like a moron. He had to get it together before she decided he had a screw loose and refused to talk to him. When she surreptitiously checked her watch, he knew his time was running out. "I do have a few questions, as a matter of fact. Any chance you have some time later?"

"I have office hours this evening from five to seven. You're welcome to stop by." She gestured toward a building adjacent to the quadrangle. "First floor, last office on the right. But I suggest you talk to the Admissions people first. They're much more informed than I am."

"I'll do that. Thank you." She nodded politely and turned to go. He added, "See you at seven."

"Office hours are over at seven."

"Exactly. You'll probably be hungry by then."

She opened her mouth to object.

But didn't.

Instead she gave him a confused smile and hurried away from the Caf.

Sweet Jesus. Did he just come on to Aiden's crush? Did he just arrange a semi-potential date-ish meeting with her? Whatever it was, she hadn't turned him down flat. Did that mean she wasn't involved with Aiden? Did it mean she was toying with his little brother? Or did it mean he'd taken her by surprise and she didn't quite know how to react? She didn't even know his name. He ought to give her some dating safety tips. Could anyone just walk onto this campus and go to her office and talk to her? That didn't seem right.

He caught himself up. This was a peaceful college campus, not Afghanistan. No threat existed here, except from pissed-off older brothers of innocent kids who thought they were in love. Get a fucking grip.

* * *

The Man in Black kept popping back into Carolyn's brain as she moved through her day. Something about his banked intensity and smoldering good looks made him hard to forget. She realized, in the midst of a lecture on religious themes in the Venetian school, that she didn't even know his name. He'd become the Man in Black in her mind, and that was that.

If he came to her office hours, she would definitely ask him. Certainly, if he wanted to have dinner with her, she'd have to know his name. She pictured that square-jawed, dark-grained, fierce-eyed face across a dinner table, with a bottle of red wine between them. Would he switch the black leather jacket to something else? A dinner jacket or a dress shirt? Or did he always stay casual? Why was she so fascinated?

Actually, she knew why. It was that response that he'd given in her class. "Some people don't want to deal with the shadows."

She knew from personal, firsthand experience just how true that was. Why else had she taken refuge in this sweetly pretty campus filled with smiling faces and controversies no bigger than who should be the commencement speaker?

But when she unlocked her office door shortly before five, she was immediately reminded that even Evergreen College wasn't immune to the darker side of life. Another anonymous letter had been slid under her door.

She hesitated, then bent to pick it up. Lately she'd been getting unnerving anonymous messages. Four of them had been slipped under her door so far, all in the same style. Same block handwriting on the same kind of basic, difficult-to-trace paper. Something about the way they were written made her think they were from a student, but she couldn't be sure. They all conveyed basically the same threatening message.

This one read, I know who you are and where you're from. Did you think no one would figure it out? Pretty soon everyone's going to know the truth because the light is going to shine. But you can save yourself. Be ready.

She shivered as she picked apart the letter for clues. Creepy. That phrase "the light is going to shine" proved that the mystery letter-writer did know who she was. Or at least who she used to be. "Save yourself. Be Ready"—was that some kind of extortion attempt? Was she about to get blackmailed?

Or—was the writer hoping to drag her back to the Light Keepers compound? He or she was welcome to try. There was no way in hell she was going back. When she'd turned eighteen and left the group, they'd banned her anyway. She hadn't seen her family or anyone else from there since.

She slid the note into the manila folder where she kept the others. Technically, she ought to report it to the campus police. But she didn't want anyone knowing about her past, so that option was out. If the anonymous letter writer wanted her to react with fear, she refused to give him or her the satisfaction. She'd wait it out and see if they followed up their words with action. Otherwise, the threats were just pen markings on a piece of paper.

Since she had a few minutes before her office hours were due to start, she rolled out her yoga mat and did a few moves that always calmed her down. Breathe long and deep, in through the nose. Release all the tension. This was her life now. Peace and tranquility. The crazy armed paranoia of her childhood was in the past. Just breathe.

Between the yoga and the distraction of students complaining about their grades or asking for advice about their personal lives, she'd nearly forgotten about the Man in Black when he walked into her office a few minutes before seven.

Immediately her heart did a weird twisting move, possibly inspired by one of her yoga poses. He'd taken off his jacket and carried it draped over his arm. Under it he wore a simple black t-shirt that displayed the hard rippling muscles of his forearms. No tattoos, no statement of anything on his t-shirt. On campus, she was used to college kids going crazy with self-expression in the form of piercings, markings, words on t-shirts, hair color, really anything.

But this man didn't wear any part of his inner self on his sleeve, so to speak. Neither did she, so she supposed they had that in common. She preferred to reveal herself slowly, once she felt comfortable with someone. Not even her closest friends—such as Merry Warren—knew the full story of her upbringing. She worried that it would create a barrier between them, so she just avoided talking about it.

Avoiding the shadows. Yup, that was her.

She rose to her feet and came around to the front of her desk with her hand outstretched. Time to get a name out of this man. "We haven't met properly. I'm Carolyn Moore, Professor Moore to my students.”

He took her hand. "So cheese puffs don't count as meeting properly?"

His hand was rough and powerful and warm. The contact made some deeply hidden part of her respond with a flare of heat.

But he still hadn't said his name. "No, and neither do Rembrandt slides. You are?"

"Tobias Knight." He watched her closely as he spoke. The name registered only distantly because she was trying to pin down the color of his eyes. She noticed, with her eye for artistic detail, that they weren't black. They were a very, very deep blue, the kind of deepest indigo that Caravaggio might use in a night landscape, shot through with lighter glints of gray. "But you can call me Tobias."

"Tobias. Okay." She shook herself back to attention and went to sit behind her desk. These were office hours, and even though he wasn't a student she should be professional. She waved him toward the chair facing her desk. "Have a seat, Tobias. So what would you like to know about Evergreen?"

He lowered himself into the metal folding chair, his powerful frame dwarfing the poor thing. "Well, let's start with the student body. What's your take on the caliber of students here? What sort of student does best at Evergreen?"

She picked up a pen and tapped it against her palm. She needed something to occupy her hands. It irritated her that she found this man so attractive. Was it thanks to some kind of residual childhood attachment to strong aggressive men willing to fight?

"I've only been teaching here one semester, but my take so far is that it's a pretty harmonious campus. The kids seem to take their studies pretty seriously, although there's certainly some partying. Underage drinking is highly discouraged. The administration is very hard on date rape, that sort of thing. Is the student in question male or female?"

"Male."

He could have been summing up himself in one impactful word. Male. Amen. One thousand percent male.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I deal more with female students. Art history seems to draw the ladies more than the gentlemen. That's probably because the boys don't know how badass Renaissance artists actually were. Did you know that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel while standing on a wooden scaffold, working over his head, living on onions and stale bread? It took him years. Maybe I should tell the boys he did it on a skateboard."

Tobias smiled, his firm lips curving in a devastatingly sensual manner. "So is skateboarding a big thing here, based on the male students you know personally?"

Puzzled, she frowned at him. Clearly, this guy had some kind of hidden agenda behind his questions. She had no idea what. "I don't really know any of the students personally, unless you count problems in their lives that interfere with turning their papers in on time. I know a lot about those."

"Really? None of them? No apples for the teacher?"

Suddenly a horrified thought struck her. Was it possible this was the man who'd been sending her the anonymous threatening messages? She'd assumed they came from a student, but maybe she had it wrong. Had the Light Keepers sent this man? He looked like the paramilitary type. "What are you after, Tobias?"

"Excuse me?" But from the way his expression shut down, she knew she was onto something.

"You're here for a reason, and it's not to talk about skateboarding or ask me to dinner."

"You're wrong about that part," he murmured.

The idea that the person sending her nasty letters might ask her to dinner made her ill. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out the manila folder with the letters. Grabbing one at random, she brandished it in the air. "Why don't you just cut the crap and tell me what this is all about?"

He narrowed his eyes at the letters. "You saved them all."

"So it was you!" Her stomach dropped in a sickening plunge. All her little fantasies about the Man in Black seemed stupid now. "I thought these were bad coming from a student, but from an adult? That's a whole different story. If you don't want me to call security, you'd better tell me right now why you're doing this."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. She couldn't read his expression, but the predominant emotion seemed to be confusion. "Is it really such a mystery?" he finally asked.

"Of course it is. I left over ten years ago and that ought to be the end of it."

She held his gaze, refusing to back down no matter how intimidating he was. This was her turf. Her office. His dark eyebrows drew together. The air between them pulsed with tension.

"Can I see those?" he finally asked.

"Need to refresh your memory about what you wrote? These are copies, by the way."

She thrust the folder at him. He leafed through the letters quickly, then looked at her sharply. "What the hell is this?"

For the first time, her certainty faltered. Maybe Tobias wasn't the letter writer, in which case she'd just handed over a little window into her past life. "That was my question, too."

"Who sent you these letters?" he demanded.

"If it wasn't you, then I have no idea."

"Me?" His face turned into one big, astonished scowl. "Why would I send you these? I've never even seen you before today. I have nothing to do with this."

"Then what are you here for? You knew about the letters. You weren't surprised when I pulled them out."

"I thought they were…" He rubbed the heel of his hand into his forehead, then rose restlessly to his feet. Not wanting to be at a disadvantage, she did the same, though she kept the desk between them. He paced back and forth around her small borrowed office. "You should give those letters to the police. You could be at risk."

"Don't change the subject," she snapped. "You thought they were what?"

"A different kind of letter," he muttered, as though deathly embarrassed. "Love letters."

She gaped at him in astonishment. Love letters. "Does anyone write love letters anymore? I'd like to meet that person."

As he gave her a fierce frown, she spotted a hint of a blush under the dark scruff of his five o'clock—now seven o'clock—shadow.

"So tell me what's really going on here, Tobias Kni—" She broke off as she recognized the name.