by Julie Miller
With as much grace as a belly-heavy woman could manage, she bent across the seat and retrieved the stack of lecture notes she’d left inside her Buick. She shifted her balance back over her hips and straightened, relocking the car behind her.
She braced her gloved hand on the roof of the car.
I’m watching.
So much for not letting the note get to her.
A sudden shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature cascaded down her spine. She huddled inside her long, cocoa-brown wool maternity coat and turned to look beyond the Holmes Street parking lot toward the heart of downtown Kansas City.
Someone was watching her.
The creepy sensation sparked along her nerve endings and made her spin around an embarrassing 360 degrees.
The bustling energy of a city campus kept everyone moving quickly along the sidewalks and makeshift shortcuts. Sometimes alone. More often in chatty pairs or small groups whose animated conversations created a cloud cover of sorts in the cold air, preventing her from really making eye contact with anyone.
“Get a grip, Rache,” she scolded herself.
She rubbed her distended belly, cradling her hand against the tender muscles where her miracle baby loved to stretch and kick. “Imagine.” Her voice slipped into that breathy pitch reserved for mothers speaking to their unborn child. “Calling you an ‘it.’ That’s probably why Daddy isn’t doing very well in my class.”
Right on cue, the baby kicked against her hand. Rachel smiled, imagining a shared high-five between mother and infant. Her tension eased on a cleansing breath.
There was no daddy in their lives, she reminded herself, slinging her leather tote over her shoulder and heading toward class.
As far as she was concerned, the father of her baby was 93579. A brown-haired Caucasian with an excellent health record, a high I.Q. and interests in classical music and Jayhawk basketball.
The dark hair and intellectual pursuits were to match her own. The clean bill of health was to prevent any future need to contact the donor of the sperm she’d selected from the Washburn Fertility Clinic.
She’d paid good money to ensure anonymity. That stupid note meant nothing. This was her baby. No one else’s.
It wasn’t the way she’d planned to have a family.
But it was the way it had to be.
JOSH TANNER SAT in the second row of his Community Psychology class and watched his professor, Dr. Rachel Livesay, rub the small of her back. It was a subtle movement done with her left hand, hardly noticeable considering the way her right hand flitted through the air with the grace of an exotic dancer, emphasizing each point she made as she lectured.
He liked watching her mouth, too. Her lips were tinted with a frosty neutral shade of lipstick. They were full and sensual, and moved with the same fascinating grace as her hand, in spite of all the technical jargon and graphic examples that flowed between them. Her eyes were green and almond-shaped, a perfect foil for her dark-brown hair. As rich as a sable pelt, it fell thick and straight to her shoulders in a boxy cut that swung back and forth each time she lifted her face to look at the students sitting behind him, near the top of the banked, theater-style lecture hall.
But the best thing about her was her breasts. Ripe. Full. Sensuous treasures that could fill a man’s hands and spill over into his fantasies.
With the cold of winter, she wore smooth-knit tunic sweaters that emphasized the shape and size and beauty of her breasts.
Josh breathed in deeply, slowly, silently. Savoring the gentle course of heat that raised his body temperature by several scintillating degrees.
His psych professor was a hottie.
A very pregnant, and very off-limits, hottie. Despite the fact she wasn’t wearing a ring on her left hand. He wondered about that last observation. He’d heard that pregnancy drew couples closer together. But Rachel Livesay seemed to be conspicuously alone.
His own sister-in-law had given birth just a few months ago, and Mitch Taylor, his cousin and boss—whom Josh considered his eldest brother—had mellowed considerably. Sure, falling in love in the first place had changed Mitch from a hard-ass workaholic into a much more grounded—though no less tough—precinct commander.
But with the baby… Hell, Mitch and his wife, Casey, had been downright frisky at the family’s Christmas get-together. Always touching. Holding hands. Sneaking kisses. Cooing over their newborn and each other.
Where was Dr. Livesay’s attentive mate? Was her pregnancy the accident of a misguided affair? The leftover burden of a messy divorce? The last memory of a deceased husband?
Why was a woman that beautiful and that smart walking around unattached? He couldn’t imagine any sane man not staking a possessive claim on the mother of his child.
Or those luscious breasts. Those eloquent hands. Those beautiful green eyes. Those come-kiss-me lips.
Stupid bastard.
“Mr. Tanner.”
Josh’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of his alias, as if he’d been caught condemning the unknown father out loud. But no, the professor wasn’t telepathic. And he hadn’t been broadcasting his appreciation with an admiring glance.
Had he?
It still took him a split second to assume the Josh Tanner persona and make himself think like a coed, even after a month and a half of campus life. But without allowing more than a smile of acknowledgment to crease his face, he pulled himself from the politically incorrect yet inevitable trail of his thoughts to listen to Dr. Livesay’s question.
“What do you think?”
Though he’d just turned twenty-eight, he knew a moment of juvenile panic. He broadened his smile until it dimpled on either side, buying himself some time to think. Technically, he’d been paying attention. He just hadn’t been listening to what she was saying. But he was getting better at covering his mistakes. He rolled the dice and gambled that he could fake his way through this.
“I agree with you.”
His answer earned a few snickers from his classmates.
Dr. Livesay shushed them with an upraised hand. Oh, great. What had he just agreed to?
She stepped closer, moving her hand from the small of her back to the curve of her belly. “You think training in classical music and the arts is a way to help young, displaced teens stay away from gangs?”
Josh shifted in his chair, straightening from his slouch. Lady Luck was with him today. He could do more than catch up with the discussion. He took the topic and ran with it.
“Sure. If the arts is something that interests him or her, that’s the way to go. For others it’s sports.” Like the group of teens he volunteered with at his neighborhood youth center. “Some do well helping out younger kids as a mentor or tutor. They like that sense of responsibility.” He braced his elbows on the tiny piece of Formica that passed for a desk and leaned forward. She’d touched on an issue near and dear to his heart. One that had put him in this seat in her classroom in the first place. “There’s no one way to reach every kid. But something clicks with each of them. It’s a matter of finding the time and the patience and the funding to discover and supply that thing that clicks.”
He began to move his hands in the same fluid way she had. “If they have nothing to live for or work toward, then the gangs and the drugs are there waiting for them. They all want to connect with something positive. Unfortunately, the trouble is usually easier to find.”
Too easy, he thought, remembering his other life. The life before this one. The one in which one teenage boy could lie lifeless in his arms and another could damn him for saving his sorry hide. Such a waste. He clenched his gesturing hand into a fist and silently consumed his anger. The grim memories threatened to steal his ability to even fake a smile.
Such a waste.
A smattering of applause and a couple of appreciative whistles gave Josh the opportunity to look around the room. He nodded at the blond girl sitting two desks over. Kelly, he thought she’d said. Nine years younger than he, though s
he seemed to think he was eligible material—judging by the hooded sweep of her bright-blue eyes. Josh grinned and she giggled.
He looked beyond her, at the end of the aisle, two rows back. Joey King. A long-haired loner who wore his thick nylon parka to class every day.
To Josh’s left, he glanced at David Brown, king of the class, surrounded by two thick-necked jocks, a nerdy-looking accounting major and a changing variety of pretty girls. Today there was a redhead. On Friday, his conquest had been a brunette.
Behind him, probably dozing in the top row, he’d find Larry, Moe and Curly. Okay, so he knew they were really Nathan, Rod and Isaac. But the nicknames fit them only too well.
He was watching them all. Slowly but surely getting to know each student. There were others in the class. He recognized every face. Knew them each by name. But those were the ones he wanted to know better.
One of them he wanted to get to know better than he knew himself.
Because one of them could lead him to a killer.
But not today.
Today he’d do well to keep his cover intact.
“I don’t think I can top that speech.” Dr. Livesay clapped her hands together and commanded their attention. “Don’t forget that Wednesday you have your next quiz. Be sure you’ve read all the chapters and reviewed your notes.”
An answering medley of moans and groans made Josh smile again. He added his own complaint to the chorus for good measure and reached for his backpack to load up his books and pen.
“David?” As the students filed toward the exit, Dr. Livesay singled out the self-proclaimed leader of the class and motioned him down the stairs. “Could I speak with you for a moment?” Judging by the tight expression around her mouth, Josh figured David wasn’t going to like what she had to say. She thumbed over her shoulder toward the door behind the speaker’s platform that led into a wing of smaller, private rooms. “In my office?”
David Brown was a wiry young man in his early twenties with dark-brown hair and eyes. He stood a head shorter than either of his pseudo-bodyguard buddies, though Josh suspected he possessed the explosive strength of a bantamweight boxer. His face was nothing remarkable to look at, but today’s redhead sure seemed clingy. Josh supposed David was heartthrob material in a future-C.E.O. kind of way.
Josh noted the lack of visible tension in the young man’s body. His laid-back nonchalance bordered on rudeness.
While Josh zipped his bag shut and reached for his padded leather coat, David Brown nudged his girlfriend du jour up the stairs and nodded to his linebacker friends.
After Dr. Livesay had gathered her things at the podium and exited through the rear door, the three young men traipsed down the stairs. Before the door closed behind them, Josh noted David’s hand signals to his buddies.
Strange. What kind of college student needed the protection of two oversize jocks stationing themselves like guards at the end of the hallway?
Josh zipped his jacket and lingered a moment, digging into his pockets for the matching black leather gloves. The commonsense warnings of Lieutenant Cutler told him this was none of his business. Curiosity told him otherwise.
Trusting his instincts over his training, Josh grabbed his backpack and hurried after them.
He pushed the locking bar on the door and entered the oldest part of the building, onto which the lecture hall had been added. Sure enough, Jock One and Jock Two were pacing like sentries at the water fountain across from Dr. Livesay’s office.
Boldy testing his theory, Josh walked right up between them and took a drink. They stood their ground as if ordered to do so, instead of scattering to a polite distance.
Josh was definitely sticking around to figure this one out. Stepping back, he pulled his research paper from his backpack and crossed the marble floor to Rachel Livesay’s office.
He had the doorknob turned before Jock One tapped him on the shoulder. “You can’t go in there.”
Jock Two framed him on the opposite side. “Yeah. The professor’s got somebody with her right now.”
Josh grinned his best good-ole-boy smile, pretending he hadn’t heard the threat in their helpful comments. “No sweat. I can wait.”
He sat on a bench beside the office door and evaluated the would-be guards. Intimidating in size, perhaps, but not terribly observant. He’d left the door nudged open a crack to hear what was being said inside. If the twin jocks had the brains to go along with that brawn, Josh would have his hands full justifying his presence. As it was, they dismissed his unassuming slouch and he faded into the woodwork.
“You can’t kick me out of class for that.” David Brown’s too-cool voice shrilled with an unexpected whine from Rachel Livesay’s inner office.
Josh snuck a peek at David’s protective cohorts. They’d heard the same protest. They traded confused glances. Maybe no one had ever challenged their fearless leader’s autonomy before. He gave a mental thumbs-up to Rachel Livesay and whatever law she was laying down.
“Yes, I can.” She raised her volume a notch to command David’s attention. “That’s school policy. Read your handbook.”
“But I need this credit for my major.”
David’s protest was followed by the screech of wood against wood, a chair sliding across a floor. Josh tensed at the sudden, forceful sound. Was it a burst of temper or a defensive maneuver? Was David making a threat? Or was the doc standing her ground?
Either way, he wasn’t supposed to notice. He couldn’t maintain the laid-back demeanor of his cover and show a reaction. He silently counted to ten, waiting for some sign to lessen the impulse to barge in, to Dr. Livesay’s defense, to see if she was all right.
A door swung open inside, making her next words crystal clear. “You don’t understand, David. Plagiarism is a probationary offense that can lead to expulsion from the university. I’m turning you in to the Dean’s Office. You’ll be required to appear before a review board. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you stay in school.”
“We’ll see about that. I’m talking to my advisor. He’ll listen to my side of the story.”
“Do that,” she challenged.
David’s temper seemed to dissipate as quickly as it had flared. “Is that all, ma’am? I need to get to my next class. I assume I should continue my regular schedule until I hear otherwise?”
The outer door to the hallway opened wide, and Josh sat up straight, more suspicious of this sudden mood change than of David’s initial burst of anger. One of the bruisers standing guard at the fountain took a step closer. Josh stood, surreptitiously blocking the young man’s path to the doorway.
“Of course,” Dr. Livesay answered after a slight pause, as if she, too, had noticed the reinforcements heading her way. “Someone from the Dean’s Office will be contacting you.”
“Got it.”
David brushed past Josh and sauntered down the hallway toward the outside exit. He disappeared through the double glass doors. His goons followed close on his heels.
In the sudden emptiness of the marbled hall, Josh heard a small catch of breath.
He turned and looked down at the pale color of Dr. Livesay’s cheeks. Without thinking, he let his gaze slide up to meet hers. Her eyes had blanched to the dull gray-green color of a lake on a sunless winter’s day. The vibrant energy that had animated her during her lecture was absent in the current sag of her posture.
Josh felt his body turning, shifting toward her. She seemed tired, spent, emotionally drained. She looked like she needed a shoulder to lean on right about now. He had two, size extra-large. And he was willing to accommodate her.
But then she broke their mutual gaze and retreated toward her office.
Josh debated a moment, hovering in the open doorway, wondering if he should say something. Worrying that he should stay to make sure she’d be okay after that unpleasant encounter with David Brown.
She stopped and turned. “Did you need something, Mr. Tanner?”
“Uh, no, ma’am. It can wait.”
/>
“Catch the door on your way out, okay?”
“Sure.”
She closed the door to her inner office, dismissing him the way she did the other young teens and twenty-somethings.
And why not? Josh chided himself. If she saw him as a student, and not a fellow adult, that meant he’d created a convincing cover. Besides, she probably had a friend her own age whom she was calling right now. Someone whose sympathetic ear would mean something to her.
Adjusting his bag on his shoulder, Josh turned his back on Rachel Livesay and headed down the hallway.
It felt wrong to turn his back on anyone in trouble. But he had a different job to do right now.
And this time he’d play by Cutler’s rules and get it done right.
A detective’s shield and a lot of innocent young lives were depending on it.
RACHEL LOCKED HER DOOR and sank into her office chair. She stood up again, just as quickly, as the baby protested the change in position.
“Give me a break, little one.” She rubbed at the tender skin on her left side, where the baby liked to wedge her foot up under one of Rachel’s ribs. “Sorry about Mommy’s blood pressure. You know how it flies when she loses her temper or gets upset.”
And that confrontation with David Brown had really upset her. Of course, with her hormones so out of whack, she never knew what was going to set her off. And then there was that damn note.
Rachel blinked and pinched her nose shut, fighting off the salty rush of tears that stung her eyes. She would not let that stupid prank get to her. But she could barely remember what she’d discussed in class today. She’d spent half her time sizing up each student and wondering which one could be crass enough or desperate enough to threaten her precious baby.