Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  Rory plunged immediately into his lecture—they only had three hours, two nights a week, after all, and much to cover—losing himself completely in the lesson. Whenever he glanced up to gauge how his students were faring, his gaze inevitably fell first on Miss Thornbury, who, invariably, seemed to be wholly absorbed in every word he uttered. That wasn’t necessarily true of some of his other pupils, though, which was why, Rory was certain, his gaze fell more and more often on Miss Thornbury, and less and less often on her classmates.

  At 7:25, exactly eighty-five minutes into class, Rory told his students to take a ten-minute break. “But only ten minutes,” he admonished them carefully. “We shall reconvene at 7:35 and continue with the lesson. Hurry back. As I said, we have much to cover over the next five weeks.”

  All but one of his students abided by his instructions—some more quickly than others, he couldn’t help noting—filing out of the classroom to see to whatever needs they might have. Miss Thornbury, however, apparently didn’t have any needs. Or, at least, she seemed not to have any needs outside the classroom. Because she remained seated exactly where she had been sitting for the last hour and a half. And she continued to look every bit as delectable as she had been looking for the last hour and a half. And Rory found that he was in no way immune to her appeal. Nor, God help him, could he think of any way to tactfully escape.

  “So,” he said suddenly, surprising them both, if the jerk to Miss Thornbury’s entire body was any indication of her reaction. “I’m puzzled to find you in class, Miss Thornbury. Your name wasn’t on my original class list. I just now noticed it was penciled in at the end.”

  “I only enrolled on Friday,” she replied. “They told me in admissions it wasn’t too late.”

  “No, no, of course not,” he assured her. “After all, it’s never too late for knowledge.”

  Oh, hell, had he actually just said that? Rory groaned inwardly. To an attractive woman? An attractive woman whose calves were exposed, and whose blouse had two—count them, two—buttons unfastened? He fought off a cringe.

  However, Miss Thornbury didn’t seem to be put off by his inane comment, because she smiled at him in response. “No, you’re absolutely right, Professor Monahan,” she agreed. “It’s never too late for…knowledge.”

  For some reason Rory couldn’t comprehend, she dropped her voice a bit on that last word, fairly purring it the way a cat would. In fact, she was speaking in a voice that bore no resemblance whatsoever to her usual voice. It was huskier somehow, lower, more throaty.

  “Miss Thornbury, do you have a cold?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened in something akin to panic. What an odd reaction, he thought.

  “No,” she replied, still in that same, rather hoarse, voice. “Um, why do you ask?”

  He pointed to his own neck. “You sound like you have a frog in your throat.”

  If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he had just said something to embarrass her, because her cheeks were suddenly tinted with red. But he couldn’t imagine why she might be embarrassed. Then another thought struck him. He hoped she wasn’t running a fever, as well as having a sore throat.

  “I’m fine,” she told him softly, her voice sounding much more normal now.

  But her cheeks were still red, and Rory had to battle the urge to place his open palms against them. Just to see if she was indeed feeling feverish, he hastily qualified. Not for any reason other than that. It was a simple concern for her health, that was all.

  “Well, that’s good,” he said, still not quite convinced.

  He was disconcerted by the intensity of her gaze, too. She had her attention fully fixed on his face, as if she were preparing to ask him something very, very important. Rory waited to hear what that question might be.

  And waited. And waited. And waited.

  For, truly, a full minute must have passed with Miss Thornbury doing nothing but stare at him, as if she were trying to unravel a particularly troublesome riddle. Finally, though, she opened her mouth to speak. But what emerged was really the oddest thing.

  “Professor Monahan,” she said. “Do you mind if I call you Rory?”

  He arched his brows in frank surprise. Really, the request was unprecedented. Had she asked him such a thing in her capacity as librarian, it might not have been quite so unexpected—though, even then, he would have been surprised. But in her capacity as his student, it was really rather unusual.

  “I mean, we are colleagues of a sort, aren’t we?” she asked further. “We both work in jobs that contribute to the education of people.”

  Rory opened his mouth to respond, but found that he honestly had no idea what to say.

  “And we’re contemporaries of a sort, too, yes?” she asked. “I mean, how old are you?”

  This time Rory gaped slightly in response. He’d never been asked such a personal question, point-blank this way, by anyone outside his family. Although, now that he thought about it, he’d never been asked such a question by his family, either. Of course, he reminded himself, they all already knew how old he was, so asking him something like that would have been unnecessary, not to mention silly. Still, coming from Miss Thornbury, it was a peculiar request.

  He suddenly wondered if she had been drinking. That would explain her hoarseness, and even the blush on her cheeks. Nevertheless, she didn’t seem intoxicated….

  “I—I—I’m thirty-two,” he heard himself reply. Though he didn’t recall making a conscious decision to do so.

  She smiled, a smile that was quite dazzling. “There, you see,” she said. “I’m twenty-eight. We’re practically the same age.”

  “Yes, well, that’s true, but I—I—I—”

  “And we do seem to share all kinds of interests in common, don’t we?” she hurried on. “Not the least of which is Classical Civilizations.”

  “I—I—I suppose, but I—I—I—”

  “So it only makes sense that I should call you Rory.”

  “I—I—I—”

  “And you should call me Miriam.”

  Oh, now wait just a minute, Rory wanted to say. Instead, what he heard come out of his mouth was, “I—I—I suppose it would be all right.”

  “Especially now that I’m one of your…students,” she added, her voice once again pitching to that strangely husky timbre as she uttered—nay, purred—that final word.

  How very, very curious, Rory thought. Perhaps she had been drinking.

  “And I’ve always wanted to learn more about…what you have to teach,” she continued in that same husky, peculiar, emphatic tone. Then, even more huskily, even more peculiarly, even more emphatically, she added, “Rory.”

  “I—I—I see,” he managed to reply. Somehow.

  My, but it suddenly seemed warm in the class room. Was the custodial staff turning the air conditioner off at night now, to conserve energy and save money? he wondered. With a quick twist of his head, he shook the observation off quite literally.

  “Well then,” he said. “You’ve, um, you’ve come to the right place, haven’t you?” Just to be polite, he concluded, “Miriam.”

  “Oh, I do hope so,” she said with a smile.

  A smile that was even more puzzling than what she had been saying, a smile that Rory could only liken to…wicked? Oh, surely not. She just wasn’t feeling well, obviously, in spite of her assurances to the contrary.

  Or perhaps she really had been drinking.

  He was about to say something else—though, truly, he knew not what—when a pair of his students ambled back into the classroom, having concluded their break. Within moments, a few others joined them, until, at precisely the time Rory had indicated, everyone was back in his or her designated seat, ready for the last half of class.

  He breathed a sigh of relief to see it. For several moments there, his wonderfully steady, predictable existence had felt a bit…skewed. As if the Earth had somehow tilted, just the tiniest bit, on its axis. Now, though, with everyone seated back in their earlier place
s and prepared for his lecture, he felt as if everything had reverted back to normal again.

  Until, involuntarily, he turned his attention to Miss Thornbury again. Or, rather, he corrected himself, to…Miriam. Because…Miriam…still sat at rapt attention, her hands folded daintily on her desktop, her legs crossed, her calves exposed, her two buttons unbuttoned, her mouth luscious. And the moment Rory’s attention lit on her, damned if the Earth didn’t do that tilting thing all over again. In fact, damned if the Earth didn’t threaten to go spinning right out of its orbit.

  He sighed heavily. It was going to be a long and intensive—five weeks.

  Well, seductive step number three—repartee—hadn’t gone well at all, had it?

  Miriam drew her conclusion with a sigh of defeat as she watched Rory Monahan erase the elaborate time line he’d drawn on the chalkboard behind himself, and as the rest of her classmates paraded by her and out the door. He’d barely noticed her during class, she thought. Only when she’d remained behind for the break to deliberately waylay his attention had he spared her little more than a glance.

  Still, the evening hadn’t been a total waste, she tried to reassure herself. Because Professor Monahan’s—or, rather, she corrected herself, Rory’s—lecture had been utterly fascinating. The man was amazing. His store of knowledge was, she was certain, limitless. And so casual about it he was, too. Why, he’d pulled dates and locales and names from thin air, facts with which Miriam hadn’t even had a nodding acquaintance. Had she not already found him thoroughly attractive, she would be half-gone on him now.

  In fact, she realized with some trepidation as she gathered together her own things, she was half-gone on him now. She had been half-gone on him for nearly six months, since the first day she had laid eyes on him at the library. And she feared it would take very little to make her fully gone. The problem was, of course, that once she was fully gone, she would be there by herself. Because Rory Monahan certainly wasn’t going anywhere with her.

  Ah, well, at least she’d managed to convince him to address her by her first name, she consoled herself. That was something, wasn’t it? She still grew warm at the recollection of how he had voiced it, too. Miriam. She’d never considered her name to be a particularly beautiful one. No, she had always thought it too sedate. Too plain. Too functional. Much like the woman upon whom it had been bestowed. But when Rory said it, Miriam became the stuff of legends.

  It had been rather exhilarating, really. And it was just too bad that hearing him say her name was evidently going to be the high point of their relationship.

  She rose from her desk to make her way out of the classroom just as Rory stepped around the table upon which he had placed his dais. As a result, their bodies collided, her right shoulder connecting with his left arm, and the action jostled her just enough to send her book and notebook flying to the floor. Immediately she bent to retrieve them, but when she did, her oversize straw purse fell from her opposite shoulder and likewise dropped to the floor. In doing so, it spilled much of its contents, including a six-month old issue of Metropolitan magazine that cried, in big red letters, How to Seduce a Man—and Keep Him Coming Back for More!

  Naturally, Rory, being a gentleman, fell to his knees beside Miriam in an effort to help her collect her things, lightly offering the observation that they just had to stop meeting like this. And naturally, Rory, being a searcher of knowledge, reached first for the written word. And naturally, closest to him was the issue of Metropolitan. and, naturally, he read the headlines upon it.

  When he realized what they said, though, and what sort of knowledge he held in his hands, he blushed, hastily stuffing the magazine back into her bag. Then he scooped up her book and notebook and handed those to her, as well. Miriam was left to chase after an errant pen, a runaway roll of breath mints, a purse-size atomizer of Chanel No. 5, and her much-celebrated tube of really red lipstick.

  Oh, what a girly-girl she had become, Miriam thought as she stuffed all her feminine accessories back into her bag, alongside the copy of Metropolitan. Really, until today, all she’d ever carried in her purse were her wallet, her sunglasses, a pack age of tissues, and, it went without saying, a good book—usually one of the classics, but sometimes it was a well-thumbed paperback from the browsing collection with words like temptation, seduction and irresistible in the title. Much like Metropolitan magazine, she couldn’t help but think. And now, suddenly, thanks to Metropolitan magazine, Miriam had discovered that she had needs she’d never realized she had before.

  She was fast becoming, she suddenly realized—oh, dear—a Metro Girl.

  Good heavens, she thought. How could this be happening? Although she’d been reading the magazine and taking the articles to heart, she hadn’t actually intended to become one of…them. One of the sultry, sexy, sleepy-eyed temptresses who appeared on the front cover. Of course, all of those temptresses, she reminded herself, had considerably more tools of temptation to work with than Miriam had herself. Still…

  “This seems to be becoming a habit with us,” Rory said as he straightened, extending her book and notebook toward her.

  Grateful for his remark, because it scattered her troubling thoughts, Miriam took her belongings from him and slid those, too, into her big purse. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” she replied.

  Replied inanely, she couldn’t help thinking. Too bad she’d used up all of her repartee during the class break. Not that her repartee then had been particularly stellar, she amended when she recalled the dubious results of her earlier conversational endeavors. Nevertheless, she could really use some repartee now, regardless of its questionable quality.

  But words truly did escape her. Because Rory Monahan was standing right next to her, close enough to touch, close enough for her to turn him around and drape her arms over his shoulders, close enough for her to thread her fingers through his dark hair, close enough for her to push herself up on tiptoe just the slightest little bit and touch her mouth to his, and—

  Well, he was just standing very close, that was all, she thought with some shakiness. Much too close for her peace of mind. Among other things.

  “Once again, your choice of reading material surprises me, Miss—I mean, Miriam,” he said, smiling.

  But his smile seemed a bit nervous somehow, she noted, and she couldn’t help wondering if maybe he, too, was just now realizing how very close the two of them were standing.

  “Well, I don’t know why you should find it surprising, Prof—I mean, Rory. This may come as a surprise to you, but librarians do, on average, rather enjoy reading. A variety of things, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, of course,” he readily conceded. “I didn’t mean…I mean, I wasn’t trying to…That is, I hope you don’t think me…” He sighed heavily. “Oh, never mind. Can I walk you to your car?” he added, seemingly impulsively. His expression, she noted, suggested that he was as surprised by the sudden offer as she was. Even so, he dipped his head toward the door as he continued, “Everyone else seems to have deserted us.”

  So they had, Miriam realized when she trained her gaze in that direction. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d appreciate it. I had to park farther away than I normally would.”

  Not that Marigold, Indiana, was in any way dangerous, she knew. Even a newcomer like her could easily see that the place was as safe and secure as a Disney film. Still, she thought further, every now and then, those Disney films had surprisingly heinous villains, didn’t they? So it was doubtless best not to let oneself get complacent.

  Besides, Miriam really did want to spend as much time with Rory as she could. And he really was staying very close to her. And he really did look and smell so nice.

  The night sky outside was black and clear and limitless, the near-full moon spilling silver light over the couple as they walked toward Miriam’s car. She strove to find some kind of light, meaningless conversation that might make the stilted silence of the quick trip less awkward, but truly, all that was going through her mind at th
e moment was how nice it felt to be walking with Rory, even if it wasn’t hand in hand, and how warm his body seemed to be next to hers, and how very much she wanted to touch him, and how wouldn’t it be so wonderful if he just leaned right over and kissed her.

  And then, too soon, they were standing beside her car, and Rory was waiting politely for her to unlock it and climb inside and drive away, out of his life, at least until he encountered her in the library the following afternoon. And it hit Miriam then that if she wanted Rory Monahan to ever become anything more to her than her teacher or an escort to her car, she was going to have to do something drastic—something even more drastic than enrolling in Classical Civilizations II.

  Oh, what the heck? she asked herself. She might as well just skip right over seductive step number four and proceed onward, to seductive step number five: making the first move.

  After unlocking and opening her car door, she tossed her purse and books over the driver’s seat, into the passenger seat, to make room. Then, her hands freed, her stomach churning with nervousness, she spun back around. She gripped the car door fiercely with one hand, then lifted the other to push back—seductively, she hoped—a stray length of her hair.

  And then, before she lost her nerve, “Rory,” she said, “would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

  Her question seemed to hit him the same way a two-by-four upside the head would. For a moment he only gazed at her blankly, as if he didn’t understand the language she was speaking. Then, abruptly, he shook his head once, as if to clear it.

  “I—I—I beg your pardon?”

  “Dinner,” she repeated. “Tomorrow night. With me.” Maybe by keeping the sentences short, she thought, they would gel more quickly in his—admittedly crowded with knowledge—brain.

  For another long moment he only gazed at her face—or, more specifically, she noted, at her mouth—without replying one way or the other. Miriam held her breath, preparing herself for his rejection of her offer, and waited to see what he would say.