Now That You're Here. Lynnette Kent

      “Another degree. And another. Academic life is addictive.”

      “If you say so.” High school had been more than he could take, though he’d stayed in long enough to graduate. Because Emma had wanted him to. “What’d you study?”

      “History—British colonial history, actually, with an emphasis on relations between the Crown and the indigenous peoples of America.”

      “Indians, you mean?” He grinned at her raised eyebrow. “I don’t have to be politically correct. You said you taught college. In England?”

      “At Cambridge, yes, then Edinburgh and Toronto. I spent two years at Harvard on a fellowship.”

      That hit him in the chest. “I’ve got a Harvard professor cooking in my kitchen?”

      She looked away, toward the band. “An ex-professor.” Her freckles darkened over a sweet rose blush. “I…um…was sacked about six months ago. Dismissed.” The rose deepened to a splotched red.

      His mind took a second to catch up. “You mean fired?” Emma nodded. “Why?”

      With a soft glissando on the piano, the music ended. The bandleader said good-night, and the couples around them began to leave. Emma stepped back, needing to get away. Needing to avoid Jimmy’s very reasonable, completely unanswerable question.

      He kept hold of her arms, drawing her close again. “Why did you get fired, Emma? Too many parties? You couldn’t get up in time for your eight-o’clock classes?”

      Without looking at him, she pushed against his chest, against the solid muscles under a deceptively soft black shirt. His hands retained their strong grip on her elbows.

      “I wrote a paper,” she said softly, desperately. “Had it accepted for publication in a major journal, was getting ready to be promoted to department head at an exclusive New England school. Just before I was to present the findings at a conference, the truth came out.”

      “Truth?”

      “The central conclusions of my paper, the most important parts of the entire project, were based on a recently recovered set of letters, written from the colonies to England in the eighteenth century. I’d been reading for information about native cooperation with the English, but I discovered a remarkable peripheral thread.”

      “Yeah?”

      “The letters revealed a traitor on the English military staff during the French and Indian war. The spy kept the opposing armies apprised of the movements of English troops. The fact that he was connected to some very highly placed figures in the governments of England and France widened the conspiracy. Or so I thought. The truly vital letters were found to be…to be…” She dragged in a breath. “Forged.”

      After a few moments of silence, Jimmy’s hands softened. “Who did it?”

      She threw her head back to stare at him. “The presumption is that I did, of course.”

      His grin was cynical, knowing. “Sure. But who really did the forging?”

      Now she couldn’t look at him at all. “That’s the truly pitiful part. The forgery was discovered by Eric Jeffries, my…my colleague on th-the project. And…” Her voice did not want to work. “And my fiancé.”

      Jimmy muttered something under his breath.

      When she pulled this time, he let her go. “It doesn’t really matter who forged the letters. As a historian, I should have been certain of the evidence and its provenance. I didn’t check deeply enough, and for that mistake alone I deserved to lose my post.”

      He followed her into the kitchen. “Everybody makes a mistake once in a while. Some of us make more than one.”

      Emma stood at the sink, staring down at the marred stainless steel. “Better not to do it when there is…are people standing at your shoulder, ready to take your place. I doubt I’ll ever be accepted as a serious historian again.”

      “You think Jeffries planted the letters? So he could get the glory?”

      “I…yes.”

      Jimmy’s warm hands closed on her shoulders and turned her around. Unwillingly she looked into his lean dark face, into eyes as black as the night sky over the desert.

      “You might have lost one round, Emma.” His thumbs stroked across her collarbones just above the neck of her shirt. “But you’re not a loser. Give yourself some time. You’ll be back where you belong.”

      The touch of his skin, light as it was, set her to trembling. Emma looked at his mouth, remembered his flavor as if they’d kissed only yesterday. Did he still taste the same?

      His thumbs stilled. The pressure of his fingers on her shoulders increased, drawing her forward. Emma closed her eyes, waiting.

      Not for long. Jimmy touched her mouth with his, softly, asking permission. She parted her lips, granting it. She expected to be swept away. She wanted to be swept away.

      But the kiss stayed well within the boundaries of control. Touching, parting, touching again—a sweet torment that brought tears to her eyes and need into her chest. She had no defense against gentleness.

      Jimmy drew back, leaned in again to press kisses on her eyelids, her forehead. “You still taste like strawberries,” he said softly. Then he let her go and stepped away. “I’ll make sure the cab is waiting.” Before she could gather her thoughts together, he had left the kitchen.

      She managed a calm goodbye as he held the door of the cab for her. She kept herself together during the ride across town, the wait for the elevator and the ride up with two tired-looking men. Emma didn’t react at all until she was safe behind the door to her private room.

      There, she set free her self-disgust. “Haven’t you learned anything?” She yanked the band out of her hair and jerked a brush through the tangles. “Throwing yourself at the man like…like a lovesick undergraduate. Surely you know better by now.”

      Even before the debacle that ended her research career, Emma’s experience in academia had taught her more than historical facts. Over years of competition with male scholars and teachers, she had come to see herself in a realistic light. Her brain was formidable, her talents varied and useful.

      But as a woman she lacked the spark to ignite men’s hearts. Eric had as much told her so when he broke the engagement. “Thanks for the leg-up, Emma,” he’d taunted. “I knew if I played you right, you’d believe me when I said those letters were authentic. What I do for my career…” He sighed. “Now, of course, there’s no need for me to marry you. Amazons just aren’t my type.”

      She wasn’t anyone’s type, apparently. That summer with Jimmy, they’d both been young, ready to learn the ways of love. Adolescent hormones and natural curiosity created a powerful chemistry. Only a fool would expect the reaction to last twenty years. Or to survive the twenty pounds she’d gained, the lines at the corners of her eyes, the awkwardness of being too tall, which she’d never managed to conquer.

      Jimmy’s charm, his charisma, were as natural to him as breathing. But Emma knew better than to believe the fantasy. Cinderella she was not. When Jimmy was kind, when he was flattering, she would simply have to keep her head. He’d given her a job, given her a means to start over with her life.

      How much more could she reasonably ask?

      Turning off the bedside lamp, she burrowed under the sheet, arms folded tight against her chest, and acknowledged the answer to her own question.

      Not nearly as much as I could want.

      EVEN ON SUNDAY, the late-night streets weren’t deserted. Long after Emma had left, Jimmy set the club’s alarm, stepped out the front door and locked it, then turned to assess the situation. The cops patrolled fairly often until about midnight. After that, the pretense at control disappeared, and the street people reclaimed their territory. For a few hours,