The Brain and The Beauty. Betsy Eliot

child prodigy, she knew she’d found someone who could help her. The story had described his ability to read at ten months and perform complex calculations by seven, reporting his talents with the tone of a carnival barker. A photo had shown a dark-haired boy with thick glasses and an oversize bow tie that made his head look too big for his little body.

      Later, as little more than a young adult, he’d opened Still Waters, a school for gifted and talented children. From what she’d been able to discover, it had been a great success, but according to a form letter she’d received when she’d tried to contact him, the school had closed several years ago.

      It would have been easier for Abby if it was still open, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She’d come too far and there was too much at stake to give up now.

      She turned toward the car she’d left in the overgrown excuse for a driveway. Robbie waited patiently in the back seat, more patiently than any other five-year-old she’d ever seen. She gave him a cheerful shrug and held up her index finger with the signal to wait.

      Trying not to feel like one of those silly heroines who hears a bump in the night and goes to investigate in her sheer white nightgown, she followed the sound around to the side of the house.

      Just beyond the shroud of trees that had contributed to the gloomy feel, the land had been cleared and the hot sun of early summer once again beat down on her.

      Instead of a gothic novel, the kind of book she’d been imagining shifted. Abby found her pulse racing for another reason entirely.

      There was a man, all right, but he wasn’t digging the grave of his recently deceased wife. This was more like one of those books where the innocent, sexually frustrated wife of a neglectful husband stumbles upon the sexy gardener and is overcome with instant pangs of lust.

      Well, she sighed, she wasn’t innocent, at least. She had a son to prove it.

      Abby had to remind herself that she’d outgrown fiction the day Robbie was born. But she could look. She supposed there was no harm in just looking.

      The man’s back was to her as he stabbed a hoe into the ground, loosening the dirt of a large vegetable garden. His hair was black and long, brushing his shoulders as he worked. An ancient pair of cutoff jean shorts rode low on his waist and hugged his behind when he bent. His shoulders were wide, his back solid, with the kind of powerful build that typically came from physical labor rather than pumping iron in a gym. The muscles in his arms bulged in a ragged sleeveless T-shirt as he swung the hoe and slammed it into the ground in a continuous motion. For a moment she was mesmerized by the swell and clench of the muscles, the almost poetic perfection of the male form. Abby had learned not to put much stock in appearance, but she couldn’t deny a purely female response.

      She cleared her throat and concentrated on the matter at hand. “Excuse me.”

      He didn’t appear to hear her, continuing with the repetitive motion that seemed to take his anger out on the rocky ground. It was a good thing he wasn’t a demented recluse, she thought. She wouldn’t have had a chance.

      She stepped closer. “Excuse me,” she tried again. “I’m looking for Dr. Jeremy Waters.”

      The hoe slammed into the ground with an angry whack and he turned to face her. The way he was glaring at her gave the impression that he’d known she was there all along.

      Abby was used to people looking at her. The startling length of her white-blond hair and the green eyes that had been described as emerald so often that she’d come to hate the stone usually brought about an instant softening effect on the opposite sex.

      Not on this man. Soft would be the last word she’d use to describe him. His face was a mass of contradictions, long and narrow with a square jaw and grooves instead of cheekbones. His nose looked like it had been broken on occasion and a tiny scar slashed across his chin. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes from this distance, but they were dark like his hair and the brows that scowled at her.

      Abby had the strangest urge to run and check her own appearance. The old habit of carefully applied powders and paints caught her by surprise. For the last few years she’d done little more than pull her hair into an elastic and apply a gloss to her lips when she remembered. It was a long way for a woman who had once considered her looks her most valuable asset. That had been a lifetime ago, before Robbie had taught her what was really important.

      “Who are you?” he demanded finally.

      She jolted at the harsh tone, but refused to let him intimidate her. She’d allowed enough of that in the past. “My name is Abigail Melrose. Abby. I’m here to see Dr. Waters. Is he around?”

      He continued to glare at her as if the force of his disapproval would chase her away. She’d have been tempted to take the hint if she had anywhere to run. “I’ve been in contact with him about my son, Robbie. I was hoping I could talk to Dr. Waters about him.”

      He stared at her for so long, she began to wonder if he understood. Since people had always taken one look at her and assumed the same, she tried not to judge him based on his strong, silent type.

      “You’ve come to the wrong place,” he said finally. “You should leave now.”

      Abby took a deep breath and wondered what it was about her that made people want to tell her what to do. Her ex-husband had made the skill into an art form, always explaining to her in that smarter-than-thou tone that she should leave the thinking to him.

      She wasn’t about to give up so easily. “Isn’t this the Still Waters School?”

      “No.”

      She frowned at his answer until she realized that technically it wasn’t a school anymore. “Is Dr. Waters here?” she tried again.

      “I’m the only one here.”

      Just her luck. She’d come all this way and he wasn’t even home. “Do you expect him back soon?”

      It wasn’t a difficult question, but it appeared to give him trouble. Just when she was sure he wasn’t going to respond, he answered, “He’s not coming back.”

      “Ever?”

      He shrugged. “I suppose if he left he would have to come back sometime.”

      “I see.” That was as clear as mud. “Maybe I could come back later. I want to talk to him about—”

      “Talking’s not going to do you any good. Go away!”

      This wasn’t just ill-mannered. This was rude. No wonder this man was working out here all alone, in the middle of nowhere. “I’m only asking for a minute of his time. Don’t you think he could give me that much?”

      “Time can’t be given away.”

      Abby paused. It was strange but his comment sounded like something Robbie would say. “That’s true, I suppose,” she responded finally. “Maybe I could borrow some.”

      His frown deepened. “Are you making fun of me?”

      Her mouth dropped. She’d be the last person to criticize. “Of course not. I’m just trying to explain…”

      Once again, he interrupted her. “Were you invited?”

      “Well, no, but—”

      “Then that’s not my problem.” He turned away as if their conversation had come to an end.

      Abby resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Look, I’ve come a very long way—”

      “Five hundred and sixty-three miles to be exact,” Robbie clarified, approaching from around the house. “At an average forty-seven point six miles per hour, it took us seven hours and thirty-eight minutes, including rest stops. It would have been only three hundred and seventy-two miles if we could have flown with the crows.”

      Her son, Abby thought, as she turned to look at him crossing the yard, saw the world a little differently than most five-year-olds.