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 l
oopholes 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?"
Coming In Hot (Jupiter Point Book 6) Page 2