Time to go.

So why wasn’t Cassie moving? Why was she standing there, in front of Joshua, still looking up at that face that was striking even in the dimness of the night?

And why was he still standing there, too? Looking down at her with eyes that seemed to be memorizing her every feature?

It occurred to Cassie that even though they might not have made it to her doorstep, this was exactly what she’d pictured happening if they had. A good-night kiss felt like the next step. But that couldn’t happen. She was doing her job. And he wasn’t interested in her as anything more than a tour guide and to help maintain the role he was playing.

Yet there they were, still standing there, eyes on each other, and if he leaned only a tiny bit closer….

Celebrity Bachelor
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion—besides writing—is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies—the more lighthearted, the better—but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

“Cassie, I need to enlist you for special services.”

Cassie Walker had been called at home and asked to come immediately into the office of the dean of Northbridge College. It was eight o’clock on a Sunday evening and there had been urgency in the summons, two things that had aroused her curiosity.

“Okay,” she said tentatively, sitting somewhat stiffly in one of the two visitors’ chairs in front of the dean’s desk.

“I want you to know that I’m speaking on behalf of myself and Mayor McCullum, because this is a matter of interest to him and all of Northbridge.”

“Ah,” Cassie said, wondering what the dean could be possibly getting at.

“Are you familiar with Alyssa Johansen?” he asked then.

Northbridge College was a private school in the small Montana town of the same name. The total enrollment was a mere 237 students. Cassie had been an academic adviser and the coordinator of residential advisers for the dormitories since her graduation from the college with a master’s degree four years earlier. She wasn’t friendly with each and every student, but small colleges were like small towns—she was familiar with most of the names and faces.

“Alyssa Johansen,” she repeated. “She’s a freshman. Not from Northbridge.” Which was why the eighteen-year-old stuck out in Cassie’s mind. The school didn’t get many out-of-state students. “I’ve spoken to her a couple of times since the semester started. But I wouldn’t say I actually know her yet. It’s only been three weeks, though I know she hasn’t been in any trouble at her dorm.”

Cassie couldn’t imagine what about the pretty, vivacious, black-haired girl required the dean—on his own behalf and that of the mayor—to call her in on a Sunday evening.

“Alyssa Johansen isn’t really Alyssa Johansen,” Dean Reynolds revealed as if it were a state secret.

“Who is she?” Cassie asked.

“She’s Alyssa Cantrell.”

“Alyssa Cantrell,” Cassie parroted. “As in Joshua Cantrell?”

That wouldn’t have been her first guess had it not been for the dean’s emphasis on the name.

“Yes,” the dean confirmed.

No one who picked up a magazine or a newspaper or stood at a grocery store checkout where tabloids regularly splashed pictures and headlines could have avoided knowing who Joshua Cantrell was. He was the Donald Trump of tennis shoes: the Tennis Shoe Tycoon, as he was referred to.

“Alyssa is here as Alyssa Johansen to keep her identity secret so she can have some privacy and a normal college experience,” the dean explained. “There are only a handful of us who know who she really is. She’s Joshua Cantrell’s younger sister. His much younger sister. He raised her. And the press hound them mercilessly.”

The dean paused a moment for effect, then said, “There have been distractions arranged to keep reporters and photographers from realizing where Alyssa actually is—it’s very important to her and to her brother that her real identity and her presence here be kept strictly confidential. But, as you know, Parents’ Week begins tomorrow. Many out-of-town family members are actually arriving today or tonight.”

“Right,” Cassie said, fully aware of that fact.

“We had planned for Kirk Samson to do what I’m about to ask of you. After all, he’s head of fund-raising. But Kirk was cutting a branch off a tree in his yard late this afternoon when the ladder he was on tipped over. He fell to the ground and hurt his back. He had to be taken to the emergency room and be X-rayed, and his wife called us only an hour ago to say that he’s on pain medication and muscle relaxants and will be laid up at least the whole week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cassie said.

“So we need you to fill in in a hurry,” the dean announced.

“To fill in on what? I don’t know anything about fund-raising,” she pointed out.

“As I said, it’s important for Alyssa to have as normal a college experience as possible,” Dean Reynolds said without addressing Cassie’s question or comment. “Having her guardian—in lieu of her parents—attend Parents’ Week is part of that. Plus, her brother plays an active role in her life and wants to be here with her and for her. He’s taken steps to keep the press from following him for the time being, but I need you to show him around. To be his private escort.”

The request sounded slightly seedy to Cassie and the dean must have realized it after the fact because he amended it. “What we need is for you to be the school’s delegate. We can’t have anyone high-profile do it—like the chair of the board of regents or the president or the chancellor or even me. It might cast Cantrell into the spotlight and negate whatever it is he’s doing to throw people off his trail. But we want someone with him as much as possible to be his private guide to the school and the town. To make him feel welcome. At home. Comfortable. To make him feel like one of the Northbridge family.”

“You know I just closed on my house,” Cassie reminded. “My things are all in boxes. I need to buy furniture. To get settled in. I was planning on using every minute I could spare to do that.”

“I know you’re busy,” Dean Reynolds allowed. “But whether your boxes get unpacked this week or next won’t really make much difference, will it? It’s important that Cantrell get the personal touch so he feels favorably toward the school and the town.”

“I don’t know,” Cassie hedged, not thrilled at all with what was being asked of her. For more reasons than simply because she had boxes to unpack.

“We need you,” the Dean insisted. “You’re folksy. A homegrown daisy. No flash. No flutter. One of us, through and through—exactly who should represent us.”

Cassie didn’t know what flutter was, but when it came to flash, she knew she didn’t have any of that. Oh boy, did she know it! Not having any of it had cost her a lot.

But that plain, folksy, lack of flash that she personified made her feel all the more unqualified to contend with someone like Joshua Cantrell, let alone impress him the way she was afraid the dean was hoping she would.

“I think you should ask someone else,” she said then. “I’m reasonably sure I’d disappoint…well, everyone.” Just the way she’d disappointed another important person in her life. “I think you need someone flashier than I am.”

But the dean wasn’t budging. “We just want someone nice and knowledgeable. A welcoming type of person.”

But it would still mean being in the company of a man who was a celebrity of sorts. A very attractive, wealthy, well-traveled man. Someone Cassie knew she would be uncomfortable and extremely self-conscious around. Someone who would only serve to remind her just how flashless, flutterless and folksy she was…

The dean must have realized that she was leaning toward standing her ground and refusing because before she could, he said, “Seriously, Cassie, we’re in a bind. I’m confident you’re the right person for the job. You’re the freshman adviser to Joshua Cantrell’s sister, so it won’t seem odd that you’re who we’ve assigned to him. You’re unobtrusive—”

Ah, another quality to add to the list—flashless, flutterless, folksy and unobtrusive. Quite a claim to fame she had going for her…

“—and I’m asking you as a favor to me, please do this,” the dean concluded.

The dean had moved heaven and earth to get her grants and scholarships to pay her way through her bachelor’s and her master’s degrees because he’d known her family’s financial position didn’t allow for advanced education. So when Dean Reynolds presented what he was asking as a favor to him, she had to grant it. Which he probably knew and had been saving for a last resort.

“I suppose I can show him around,” Cassie conceded reluctantly.

“Good enough,” the dean said victoriously. “Now, could you get right to it? Joshua Cantrell is with his sister in the faculty lounge and I want to introduce you. I also need you to show him to the old chancellor’s cottage. We’ve had it cleaned and repaired and updated so he can stay there.”

“You want me to meet him this minute?” Cassie said, the alarm she felt echoing in her voice.

As a rule, she would not have gone out looking the way she did. But she’d only closed on her house on Thursday and she and her family had spent this weekend moving her in. When the dean had called and asked that she come to his office right away, she’d tried to explain that she was hardly presentable. But the dean had said he understood that she’d been moving and that it didn’t matter how she looked. So she’d taken him at his word and had come just the way she was. But now she took stock.

Jeans with a rip in the knee. Yellow crew-necked T-shirt tucked into them. Tennis shoes that were not Joshua Cantrell’s brand. Her thick, chin-length brown hair pulled straight back into a ponytail. No makeup.

She was definitely not dressed to meet anyone for the first time, let alone a hotshot like Joshua Cantrell.

But it seemed as if she had no choice. Especially when the dean said, “I don’t just want you to meet him this minute, I need you to. Cantrell and his sister are alone in the faculty lounge and I’ve left them waiting too long already. I have to get to the mayor’s house for a dinner he’s having with some mucky-muck from Billings.”

“Oh…”

As if that barely uttered word were enough, the dean came around the desk and urged Cassie to her feet, sweeping her out of the office. The next thing she knew, she and the dean were headed up the stairs to the second floor where the other administration offices were.

“We just want Cantrell to like it here. To like the college. To like all of us in Northbridge,” the dean was saying on the way. “Let the town’s charm infect him. That’s all the mayor and I are asking.”

Cassie managed only a nervous nod as they arrived at the door to the faculty lounge.

She caught sight of herself in the glass upper half of the door and flinched a little.

She’d been hoping Joshua Cantrell might take one look at her and think country girl, but now she was convinced he would think country bumpkin instead. And it didn’t help boost her confidence any.

Maybe Dean Reynolds sensed her dismay because with one hand on the doorknob he whispered, “Don’t worry, you’ll be great.”

Cassie couldn’t even muster a smile at that. She had experience to tell her that she wouldn’t be great at all.

But it didn’t matter.

Because just then, the dean knocked once and opened the door.

And there was no turning back.

Chapter Two

The first look Cassie got of Joshua Cantrell was from the rear. He and his sister were standing at the window across from the entrance to the faculty lounge when the dean opened the door and ushered Cassie in.

The girl Cassie had known as Alyssa Johansen—and now knew to be Alyssa Cantrell—was pointing something out to her brother. Apparently they hadn’t heard the dean’s knock or the door opening because they didn’t turn around.

But no matter what the view from the window, it couldn’t surpass the one Cassie had of Joshua Cantrell’s broad shoulders and expansive back encased in a leather jacket, narrowing to jean-clad hips, an admirably taut derriere and long legs.

“Uh, hmm…”

The dean cleared his throat to gain their attention and this time they heard him. Both Alyssa and her brother turned from the window.

It wasn’t Alyssa who nabbed Cassie’s attention like a train wreck, though.

Not that that initial vision of Joshua Cantrell’s front half was anything like a train wreck. Oh, no, there was nothing ugly about it. In fact, it surprised Cassie considerably. In all the photographs she’d seen of the man in the past several months, he’d looked more like a woodsman than a jet-setter—long, shaggy hair, full beard and mustache. So on the walk up the stairs she’d come to think she was about to encounter a woolly mammoth. A woolly mammoth with an entourage, more than likely—that’s what she’d thought.

But not only was Joshua Cantrell alone in the faculty lounge with his sister, he was also clean shaven and his black hair was cut close to his head all over, with only the top a fraction of an inch longer to leave some sexy disarray.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the dean apologized. “But Joshua Cantrell, I’d like you to meet Cassie Walker.”

“I apologize for my appearance,” Cassie said at the conclusion of the dean’s introduction. “This is certainly not how I’m usually dressed when I’m doing anything in conjunction with the college, but I’ve just spent this weekend moving into a new house and I was in the middle of emptying boxes when I got the dean’s call, and he didn’t really let me know what was going on and—”

That’s not the first thing to say when you meet someone! Cassie silently shrieked at herself when the words slipped out. She cut herself off before it got any worse.

There she was, face-to-face with one of the most awesomely attractive men she’d ever seen in her life and to say she felt even more self-conscious about her hair and the way she was dressed was an understatement. Adonis, meet Dishrag….

And Joshua Cantrell was an Adonis.

If there was a flaw in his face, Cassie couldn’t find it. He had a square jaw and a chin that seemed sculpted to match; his cheekbones were just pronounced enough to give him a rugged edge; he had a full lower lip beneath a thinner upper that curved at the edges as if he couldn’t be easily challenged; a nose that was just straight enough to be masculine and perfect at once; and glorious, crystalline silver-gray eyes that actually seemed to gleam like the reflection of winter snow in steel.

Eyes he cast at the dean in response to Cassie’s regretful greeting. “You made her leave in the middle of everything to come here on a Sunday night just to meet me?”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Cassie rushed to say. “I didn’t mind. I just didn’t have any idea I was coming to meet someone like you….” She was making it worse. “To meet anyone,” she amended as damage control. “Or to do anything in any kind of school capacity. If I’d known I was going to be coming into contact with a parent—or a guardian—I would have changed.”

“You look fine,” Alyssa chimed in. “Like one of us.”

There was some truth in that, Cassie realized just then. Alyssa was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and her brother had on a heather-green Henley T beneath his leather jacket.

“You really do look just fine,” Cantrell confirmed, glancing at her again and giving a smile that Cassie had no doubt could wilt any woman’s will from a hundred paces.

“Well, anyway,” she said, wanting to get beyond all of her opening faux pas as quickly as she could, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cantrell.”

“Pleased to meet you, too. But call me Joshua.”

“And I’m Cassie,” she said, thinking only after the fact—once again—that that probably had been unnecessary and possibly presumptuous.

“Cassie is the freshman adviser,” Alyssa supplied then. “She helped get me out of that awful chem class and into biology.”

The dean took over from there. “Cassie has also agreed to be your private guide through Parents’ Week. She’s good at not attracting attention.”

“Kind of like your average, run-of-the-mill, ordinary fence post,” Cassie said somewhat under her breath, not appreciating that particular accolade on top of unobtrusive, folksy, homegrown daisy, with no flash or flutter.

Cantrell had heard the fence post remark in spite of her soft utterance, but she was grateful that he didn’t comment on it. At least not verbally. The drawing together of his dark eyebrows seemed to refute it, but only in a way that somehow made her feel better.

“Keeping a low profile is the name of the game this week,” he said then. “If you can pull that off, Alyssa and I will both be eternally grateful.”

“Given the fact that your name and picture are splashed all over almost everything I pick up, I can’t promise anything except that I’ll give it a try,” she said.

“Good enough.”

“Now, if you’re ready, I’ll have Cassie show you to the house we thought was the best place for you to stay this week,” the dean said.

“All right,” Cantrell agreed.

The dean returned to the door with everyone else following behind, holding it open for them all. Then he joined Cantrell to descend the stairs, telling him how glad he and everyone else at the college and in town were to have a man of his stature there. Alyssa and Cassie walked slightly behind them.

When they were outside the administration building, the dean thanked Cantrell for coming, assured him Cassie would take good care of him, and then said good-night.

“I should go back to the dorm now, too,” Alyssa said when the dean had left. “I have a quiz in my literature class tomorrow morning and I still haven’t finished reading the book it’s on. Do you mind?” she asked her brother.

“Nah, go ahead,” Cantrell encouraged. “I’ve been on the road all day. I’m looking forward to a hot shower before I crash.”

Alyssa stood up on tiptoe and pressed a quick kiss to her brother’s cheek. “Thanks. Thanks for coming this week, too. And for everything else you did to pull it off.”

“Sure,” Cantrell said as if whatever he’d done had been no big deal, even though Cassie had the impression that wasn’t how Alyssa saw it.

Still, it was obvious that his sister’s kiss and gratitude touched him, and it was nice to see that the ultra-cool titan had a soft spot.

Then Alyssa said good-night to Cassie, too, and trailed off in the same direction the dean had gone.

And just like that, Cassie was alone with Joshua Cantrell in the early autumn evening air, beneath the huge, ancient elm trees that stood watch over the campus.

“Dimples. You have dimples.”

“What?” Cassie said after the moment it took her to realize Cantrell’s attention had shifted from his sister to her.

“You’re actually cracking a smile for some reason and you have dimples,” he explained.

She hadn’t been aware that his reaction to his sister’s gratitude had made her smile.

But rather than showing any more of her self-consciousness, this time she pretended the existence of her dimples was news to her. “No kidding? Dimples? Huh. I wonder where they came from?”

Without missing a beat, Cantrell played along, bending over to take a closer look. “Yep, one in each cheek. Not like any fence post I’ve ever seen.”

Cassie grimaced at that and tried not to notice the magnetic energy the man exuded when he came close. Or the fact that she was not immune to it. She decided against responding to the fence post reference. Instead she nodded in the direction they needed to go—opposite from where both the dean and Alyssa had just headed.

“The dean has you in the old chancellor’s cottage. It’s this way.”

She had another surprise in store for her when Cantrell inclined his chiseled chin toward the school’s parking lot. “Will my bike be all right there overnight or is there a place for it at this cottage?”

“Bike?” she repeated, wondering why he’d brought a bicycle with him.

“I came by motorcycle. It’s there. In the lot.”

Oh.

Cassie focused on the parking lot and there it was. A big, black Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Despite his jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket, Cassie had still assumed he’d come by car. Limousine or town car, maybe, but by car. Not by motorcycle.

And once more she repeated what he’d said out of shock. “Motorcycle? You came all the way here on a motorcycle? Alone?”

“I was going to come by presidential motorcade but it didn’t fit with the low-profile thing,” he joked.

“It’s just that it’s a long way from Billings to here on a motorcycle.”

“Yes, it is. Which is why I’m looking forward to that shower.”

Cassie didn’t know what was wrong with her tonight. She was being so dense. And she told herself to stop it. Immediately.

In an attempt to do that, she searched her memory banks for why they’d started talking about his mode of transportation in the first place.

Parking. And the safety of his motorcycle…

“The chancellor’s cottage is at the other end of the campus, so you could park it on the street back there if you wanted, but no matter where it is, it won’t be bothered. The most recent car theft in Northbridge was ten years ago and that was more a mistake than an actual theft. Ephram McCain was seventy-nine at the time and got confused because his truck was powder blue and so was Skipper Thompson’s. Ephram got into Skipper’s and drove off in it—”

“Without keys?”

“Most everyone kept their keys in the ignition until this happened. Anyway, Ephram drove home in Skipper’s truck and Skipper reported it stolen. But, like I said, it was really just a mistake and there were never any charges pressed or anything. But if you want to move your motorcycle—”

“No, that’s okay,” Cantrell said with a slight chuckle. “I don’t suppose seventy-nine-year-old Ephram is still on the prowl fifteen years later.”

“Actually, he’s still going pretty strong at ninety-four, but he did give up driving.”

Cantrell laughed more openly at that, shook his head and said, “Just lead me to the chancellor’s cottage.”

Cassie did that, taking a brick-paved path through the still lush, green lawns of the campus.

At a loss for anything else to talk about, she launched into a campus tour.

“That building behind the administration building—the same flat front, redbrick, only bigger? That’s where most of the classrooms are,” she began without inquiring if this was information he already had or even wanted. “This whole property was owned by the Nicholas family originally. By the time the parents died, the kids had all moved out of Northbridge and were established in other places, so the Nicholases left the property and all the structures on it to the town to build a college that could mainly serve kids out here in the sticks. The Nicholases’ main house is what we use as the dormitory—”

“That old stone mansion,” Cantrell interjected to let her know he was familiar with that. “Boys in the east wing, girls in the west, with the cafeteria, living and recreation rooms common to them both but keeping the sleeping quarters separated.”

“I see you read the brochure,” Cassie confirmed. Next, she pointed to the burnished brick building they were nearing. “One of the Nicholas daughters was widowed when she was young and left with three small kids. The parents had that built for her and the kids so they could live nearby. Which they did until the daughter remarried and moved away. It’s now our library. The Chancellor’s cottage was actually a house for the man and wife who were the Nicholases’ domestic staff. It was turned into the chancellor’s cottage when this became a college. But only one chancellor has ever lived in it. The first one. He was devoted to the school and never married, so even after he retired the college allowed him to stay in the cottage until his death.”

“Did he die in the cottage?” Cantrell asked, for some reason sounding as if he were smiling again, although Cassie couldn’t bring herself to glance over at him walking beside her.

“No. He actually died sitting on a brick garden wall in front of one of the older homes around here. Apparently he’d gone for a walk the way he did every day, had gotten tired and stopped to take a rest—”

“And that was all she wrote for him?”

“He had a heart attack sitting there. No one realized it for a couple of hours. Everybody who saw him thought he was snoozing. He sometimes did that, he’d walk, find somewhere to sit and nap in the sunshine for a while, then get up and finish his walk—”

“How old was this one?”

“Ninety-seven.”

“People live forever here.”

“Not forever, but we do have some who get up in years. Anyway,” Cassie concluded as they rounded the section of the grounds where students often sat on the benches to read or talk, “by the time the chancellor died, the cottage was too small for the current chancellor and his family, plus they were already living in their own home, so the cottage was just left vacant. But the dean says it’s been fixed up for your visit.”

“You’re just full of stories, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry. I know, they’re dull,” she responded out of reflex because it was what Brandon had always said….

“I didn’t say dull,” Cantrell corrected.

But he also didn’t say she wasn’t boring him, Cassie noted, still convinced that she was.

The chancellor’s cottage came into view then, behind more trees and a lavish hedge that was trimmed to just below the paned and shuttered windows.

“It really is a cottage,” Cantrell marveled as if that hadn’t been what he’d expected in spite of the title. “It looks like something out of Grimms’ fairy tales. Not that it looks grim…”

She knew what he meant. The cottage was a small Tudor-style house, with a sharply pointed roof over gables and a front door that was arched on top rather than squared off. The door was also larger than it should have been, dwarfing the house to some degree.

“Are cookie-baking elves going to rush out?” Cantrell asked as Cassie took the key from under the welcome mat and used it to open the oversized door.

Of course it would seem comically quaint to someone like him, she thought as she did. He might be the epitome of the all-American success story but he definitely seemed more like James Dean than Jimmy Stewart.

But she only said, “I don’t think cookie-baking elves were part of the spruce-up, no.”

She stepped aside so he could go in, but he motioned for her to enter first, earning points for manners even if he had just put down her town. Or at least, that was how Cassie viewed it.

She did go in ahead of him, though, wanting nothing so much as to have this over with so she could get home and not see this guy again until she was more presentable.

He followed behind her as she set the key on the small table just inside the door.

“It’s all pretty much here, where you can see it,” she said then. “One room. Kitchen, bedroom, living room—”

She did a display-model sort of wave to present it to him and gave him a moment to glance around at the few cupboards, sink, miniature refrigerator and two-burner stove that lined the wall to the left of the door; the sofa, armchair, coffee table, single reading lamp and television beyond that and the double bed, nightstand and chest of drawers that made up the bedroom in an alcove toward the rear of the space.

It had all been cleaned and painted, Cassie noted. Plus there were new slipcovers on the furniture and a fresh quilt over the bed she was betting had just-bought linens on it.

“The bathroom is through that door,” Cassie added after a moment, aiming an index finger at the walnut panel facing into the bedroom alcove. “There’s a claw-footed tub with a shower over the center of it, along with the rest of the requisite accommodations—nothing luxurious but it’s all in working order.”

She was just about to ask if he had luggage somewhere when she saw two leather suitcases on the bench at the foot of the bed.

“I guess someone already brought your bags,” she said unnecessarily.

“I had them sent ahead. Glad to see they got here.”

Cassie ventured to the refrigerator then and opened that door to peer inside, discovering what she’d suspected even though no one had filled her in beforehand.

“The fridge is stocked,” she informed him, moving to look in the cupboard above the brand-spanking-new coffeemaker. “There’s coffee and filters. And breakfast cereal. Fruit in that bowl on the counter. But I don’t see any cookies, baked by elves or not.”

He chuckled despite the fact that there had been an edge of sarcasm to her voice.

“Too bad. I like cookies.”

Cassie glanced at him then, discovering him smiling amiably enough, clearly unaware that he’d ticked her off. Which probably meant she was being overly sensitive when it came to her hometown—another throwback to other days. To a different man. So she consciously discarded her own minor pique and amended her tone.

“Is there anything you need that isn’t here?”

He shook his head. “Seems comfortable enough. I have my cell so it doesn’t matter that there isn’t a telephone. And I can probably get cookies somewhere else.”

He could probably snap his fingers and the dean or the mayor would come running with freshly baked ones, Cassie thought. But she didn’t say that. Instead she allowed Joshua Cantrell a small smile.

“Great dimples,” he observed with a tilt of that handsome head.

“Mmm,” Cassie said, beginning to wonder if the guy was working her for some reason. Maybe he was the kind of man who had to win over and try to seduce every woman he came into contact with. Because surely that could be the only explanation if he was actually flirting with her the way it seemed.

“Tomorrow—” she began.

But that was as far as she got. “Alyssa has only one class tomorrow so she and I are going to spend the day together. You’re off the hook as potential-donor baby-sitter in place of what was his name? Curt or Kirby or…Kirk—that’s it. The guy I was supposed to hook up with tonight who already let it slip that he’s the head of fund-raising.”

So he knew.

Cassie didn’t deny it. “Kirk Samson. He hurt his back late today and will be out of commission the whole week.”

“Which is why there was the Sunday night phone call to you, dragging you away from moving and not warning you that what they want my sister’s freshman adviser to do is take over schmoozing the moneybags.”

Cassie flinched and made a face.

“It’s okay. Comes with the territory. But let’s just do it like this—I know up front what the powers that be want of me. You don’t need to put in any kind of plugs or pleas or promotions. Let’s just shelve that right off the bat, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What I’m interested in is getting familiar with the school, the town and the people my sister is going to be in close proximity to and relying on for the next four years. So to tell you the truth, since setting eyes on you, I’ve been thinking that Kirk the Fund-raiser’s accident is a stroke of luck for me—”

“I doubt that it was that for him.”

“True. But for me it means that now I get the insider’s view. Kind of like going into a restaurant through the kitchen instead of being ushered in the front door and taken to the VIP section. I’m also thinking that if people around here meet me as a regular guy who one of their own is showing around, this will all go much more smoothly. There will be less of a chance of anyone realizing who I am or calling some damn tabloid to report it, and that will ultimately give Alyssa the chance of staying off the radar here. And even if someone does track her to Northbridge eventually, it would help if, by then, your little town likes her—and me—enough to circle the wagons to protect her. I think that could all start now, with you.”

In other words, the dean and mayor wanted her to win his favors, and he wanted her to make the whole town love him and form an instant loyalty to him and his sister.

Was that all?

Nothing like a little pressure. And with everything she owned still in boxes she should be unloading.

For the second time—only to a different audience— Cassie said, “I can’t make any promises about people liking you or circling wagons to protect Alyssa. But I will show you around and introduce you as Joshua Johansen.”

But unlike the mayor, Cantrell seemed satisfied with her reply. “Good enough. I just want a low-profile, low-key, no-big-deal week.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“So tomorrow night? The Welcome To Northbridge College thing?”

“Right. It’s a meet-and-greet—mainly with administrators and other parents. The teaching staff will be at the reception on Wednesday night, which you will hear about at the Welcome To Northbridge thing when the dean outlines all of the activities and events scheduled for Parents’ Week.”

“We can hook up for that, then? After my day with Alyssa?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Great. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Cassie wasn’t sure if that was simply a courtesy remark or if he was looking forward to the Welcome night or to seeing her again. There were shades of all three in that simple sentence.

But she opted for discounting the possibility that he’d be looking forward to seeing her because she didn’t really believe that could be true.

And since that seemed to conclude what was needed of her—for the moment, at any rate—she said, “If there’s nothing else you need then, I’ll leave you to your shower.”

He smiled again at that and there was a hint of sexy amusement playing about the corners of his mouth that she didn’t quite understand. It wasn’t as if she’d said something suggestive, she thought.

And yet, once they’d said good-night and she’d left him in the chancellor’s cottage, the thought of Joshua Cantrell taking a shower did seem to linger in her mind in a way that wasn’t altogether innocent.

In fact, it wasn’t innocent at all when she began to imagine him sloughing off that leather jacket, that T-shirt, those jeans….

But Cassie chased the images out of her head by reminding herself that this was Joshua Cantrell she’d been on the verge of mentally picturing in his altogether.

Joshua Cantrell who, if Brandon Adams had been a world away from her, was at least two worlds away. Or maybe three or four.

But however many worlds away from her and hers he was, it was enough to remember that he, like Brandon, was not a man for her.

Joshua Cantrell was a successful, wealthy, sought-after man who showed up on magazine covers with a different woman every week.

A different beautiful woman every week.

And she was a country bumpkin.

Oil and water.

They didn’t mix.

And she wasn’t going to forget it.

Not ever again.

Chapter Three

“Umm, cowboys are coming.”

It was late Monday afternoon and Joshua was lying on a blanket he and his sister had spread under a tree in order to have a picnic in the shade. A tree that he’d thought was in the middle of nowhere when they’d pulled the motorcycle off the road a few hours earlier.

His eyes were closed, his hands were under his head and he’d been dozing while Alyssa read her biology textbook. But Alyssa’s voice snapped him from the brink of sleep and he opened his eyes to find that two men were approaching them on horseback. Complete with the boots and hats to prove his sister wasn’t exaggerating when she’d identified them as cowboys.

Joshua sat up, blinked to clear his eyes and then stood.

The two horsemen guided their mounts to within a few feet of the blanket and came to a stop.

“Hi,” Joshua greeted.

“You know you’re on private property?” one of the men asked without answering Joshua’s hello.

“No, sorry, I didn’t know. It wasn’t fenced off or posted. We were just out for the afternoon, having a picnic. We’ll get going, if we’re trespassing.”

“You’re trespassing, but so long as you’re not squattin’ you can stay a while. Just make sure you pick up after yourself.”

“Absolutely,” Joshua assured them.

Both cowboys were not much older than Alyssa and might not have been as accommodating had she not been there. But Joshua recognized the interest in the glances both men were tossing in her direction.

Apparently Alyssa hadn’t missed it, either. Or the fact that the cowboys were handsome cusses, because she set down her book and got to her feet, too.

“Can I pet your horses?” she asked.

Joshua could barely suppress a laugh at the change in her tone. That was definitely not how she talked to him. But now his eighteen-year-old sister was flirting. And it reminded him that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

There was plenty of other evidence to prove that, as well. She was tall and slender, but had developed some cleavage he’d discovered her showing off underneath the tight tank top and overblouse she was wearing today. She’d also had her black hair cut into a style that was very short and edgy, and she was spiking it on top and in back—something much, much different from the long straight hair with bangs that had always made her look sweet and prim.

There was the addition of makeup, too. She wore a dark gray eye shadow, and a coal-black liner and mascara that caused her pale eyes to stand out much, much more. Plus she was wearing lipstick she hadn’t been using the last time he’d seen her, a month ago.

The stuffy headmistress at the all-girls boarding school she’d only recently graduated from wouldn’t have approved of the changes she’d made to become the college Alyssa. But Joshua reminded himself that he wasn’t her former stuffy headmistress. He was her brother. And he couldn’t deny that she was all grownup. Whether he liked it or not.

So instead of interfering with her playing coquette to the cowboys, he sat back on the blanket as Alyssa went to stand between the horses and their riders.

Joshua didn’t abdicate all his responsibilities or brotherly protectiveness, though. Rather than lie down or close his eyes again, he stretched his legs out in front of him, propped one ankle on top of the other, and crossed his arms over his chest, lounging against the tree trunk to keep watch on the proceedings.

His sister’s back was to him so only a word or two of what she said as she talked to the cowboys was clear to him. They were grinning down at her and answering her questions with as much coy teasing and flirting as Joshua figured his sister was dishing out. But it all seemed innocent enough and maybe because of that, his mind started wandering.

Well, maybe because of that and because the sight of one of the horses served to prompt his brain.

The horse on the right was a reddish-brown color. Almost the identical shade of Cassie Walker’s hair.

Russet—that was what the color was. The color of the horse and the color of the freshman adviser’s hair.

Cassie Walker had russet-brown hair. Really stunning russet-brown hair.

Hair so soft-looking, so shiny, that he’d kept trying to will the band that held it to break so he could know how long it was. How it looked when it was free. So he could see it fall around her face…

It had been such a kid-like thing to be wishing for. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about her again now—he hadn’t been able to think about much else since they’d met, and this wasn’t something he’d experienced in all of his adult life. Not even with Jennie. It was a useless waste of the thought process. Of brainpower. And yet there they were, as big as life—thoughts of Cassie Walker spinning around in his head, out of control. As out of control as he’d expect from some horny teenager.

Thoughts and images of her hair, her face, her body…

It wasn’t even a remarkable body or a strikingly beautiful face or more than pretty hair. It wasn’t as if she had the kind of beauty he encountered day in and day out in the form of fashion models and other amazingly beautiful women who were at his disposal or in hot pursuit of him.

But Cassie Walker had something else. Something all her own…

No, she didn’t have the exaggerated cheekbones and sunken cheeks that were the prerequisites of the models he’d met in his travels, but she did have high cheekbones. It was just that they were more like little red apples. Little red apples that made her look healthy and full of life.

She also didn’t have the surgically precise nose or the forehead that would absorb a photographer’s light and cast it back just right. But what she did have was a smooth, flawless complexion and a nose that was small and pert and gave her a sort of air of mischief.

What Cassie Walker had was freshness. And what seemed to him like an inner sunshine that came through a face that was so pretty, so sweet, it just made him want to smile every time he thought about it, every time he pictured her in his head. It made him want to smile the way she smiled. With lips that were just curvy enough, just full enough, just luscious enough, without being overly anything.

And those dimples that appeared when she did smile? He was a sucker for those. They definitely put her over the top.

The dimples and her eyes.

She had great eyes. Turquoise, but more green than blue. Only unlike the stone, her eyes weren’t an opaque turquoise. They were luminous and glimmering and had a transparent quality to them.

She wasn’t statuesque, either. She was actually on the small side—not more than two or three inches over five feet, he thought. Tiny, almost, compared to the women he was used to. But tight and just round enough where it counted.

He’d liked her. That was the bottom line to it all, and he knew it. That was why he hadn’t been able to avoid thoughts like those he was having about her at that moment.

And it wasn’t only her looks or her body. She had a touch of attitude that had given him a charge, too. Despite the fact that the attitude had come through when she’d alluded to not being thrilled with the gig the dean had obviously thrust upon her at the last minute.

Attitude and spunk. In a package that might not fit into the category of fashion model, but that defined the word adorable for him.

And if that package were gift wrapped? It would have been gift wrapped in gingham.

Gingham that he might like to take some time to slowly, leisurely, tear away…

“Did you hear that, Joshua?”

The sound of his name brought Joshua out of his fantasy and forced him to pay attention to his sister and the two cowboys again.

“No, sorry, I didn’t,” he answered Alyssa’s question, hoping whatever it was he’d been supposed to hear had been said quietly enough to make it possible that it hadn’t reached him.

“They said would you make sure when we leave that the motorcycle doesn’t tear up the pasture,” Alyssa repeated.

“Sure,” he agreed. “No problem.”

Satisfied, the cowboys said goodbye to them both then and when Alyssa stepped back, they turned the horses and sauntered off the way they’d come.

“Why do I have the feeling there are horseback riding lessons in your future?” Joshua joked as his sister rejoined him on the blanket, glad to have her company to hopefully distract him from all those thoughts of Cassie Walker.

Alyssa’s sunny face erupted into a very pleased grin. “Horseback riding lessons,” she mused. “That might be a good idea. Now that I’m in Montana. This is the Wild West, after all.”

“Pace yourself, Lyssa. Don’t forget you’re new to this femme fatale stuff.”

Alyssa only smiled.

“You are new to it, aren’t you?” Joshua probed, wondering suddenly if this was just the first he was seeing of something that had been going on for a while.

“Whatever you say,” his sister finally responded as if humoring him. “But don’t you forget that I haven’t been locked away in a convent—even if that was how you saw boarding school. It was still in the heart of the French Riviera and there was some fraternizing with other, coed schools and the locals in town. You visited only when you could get away and that left me with a lot of time to fill….”

Joshua grimaced as if he were hearing more than he wanted to hear. “Leave me my illusions,” he begged.

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Okay. Then we should probably be heading back soon so you can change for that meet-and-greet tonight,” Alyssa said then.

“Mmm. It’s just so nice and peaceful and quiet out here.”

“And with fabulous scenery,” she said, glancing at the cowboys retreating into the distance.

“Illusions. Remember my illusions,” Joshua reminded her.

Alyssa laughed, obviously enjoying the misery she was causing him. But she went back to the safer subject just the same. “You’re sure you want to do the meet-and-greet alone tonight?”

“Yeah, to test the waters,” Joshua confirmed. “So far you’ve made it under the radar on your own, but it’s tougher for me since I get splashed around the tabloids more. Before too many people connect us, let’s make sure there isn’t any initial recognition that might blow it for you.”

“I haven’t even had a single you-know-who-you-look-like here.”

“Which is great. That’s just what we want. Hopefully I’ll get by the same way and maybe we’ll be home free.”

“I hate for you to have to go alone tonight, though,” Alyssa said.

“I won’t be alone. I’ll be with your adviser. She’s been assigned to me by the powers that be who want donations. You know how that goes—I’m sure she has orders not to leave my side.”

The idea of Cassie Walker’s company pleased him more than he wanted it to. More than it should have, given the fact that it would be against her will. Which, admittedly, was a downer. And yet he was still happy to be going into the evening knowing he would get to see her again.

Then, because he couldn’t stop himself and this seemed like a way of doing it without raising undue suspicion, he said, “So, tell me about her.”

“Her? Cassie?”

“Yeah.”

Alyssa frowned slightly at him. “I can’t tell you anything about her because I don’t know anything about her. She’s been nice. Like I said before, she got me out of that chemistry class I hated when the instructor wouldn’t sign my drop form. She talked to him for me and persuaded him to do it after all. But beyond that—”

“Do you at least know if she’s married? Or single? Or engaged? Or involved with someone?”

Alyssa reared back slightly and took a closer look at him.

Joshua knew he was no good at fooling her, but he had his fingers crossed that she might not see through him this time.

No such luck.

His sister grinned ear to ear suddenly, made fists of her hands, raised them and did a little upper body dance, making circles with her fists as she sang, “You like her! You like her! You like her!”

Still hoping to put one over on her, he rolled his eyes. “Jeez, you can be obnoxious.”

Alyssa’s answer was more of the same torso dance to accompany the second chorus of “You like her! You like her! You like her!”

“I just want to know if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes by keeping her away from them. Husbands, boyfriends, fiancés tend to get bent out of shape if their women are having to hang out with me for the sake of work. And if that happens, significant others could take a closer look, realize who I am—and who you are—and wreck this whole thing.”

His sister didn’t buy it for a minute. Instead, she did the dance and the song for the third time.

“Okay, that’s getting really annoying,” Joshua informed her when she was finished.

“It’s true, though.”

Younger sisters could be such pains in the neck.

“I don’t even know her,” he insisted.

“You know she’s cute.”

“She’s just okay,” Joshua understated, playing it cool when that one word—cute—was enough to bring Cassie Walker’s image vividly to mind again. And that vivid image made a ripple of something that almost seemed like delight run through him.

“She’s nice, too,” Alyssa pointed out.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Suddenly Alyssa’s expression sobered considerably. “But Cassie’s kinda like Jennie. Only worse. At least Jennie was…I don’t know, not from Northbridge. But Northbridge is like really, really removed from the kind of stuff that happens around you.”

“Which is why we chose the school here.”

“And the people are all so…you know, regular. Normal—”

“I do know,” Joshua said, feeling a twinge of regret that he and his sister even had to have this conversation, that normal and regular had become novelties to them.

“You wouldn’t risk another Jennie mess, would you?” Alyssa asked as if it worried her that he might be considering it.

But he wasn’t. He wasn’t considering it at all. Which was why he absolutely would not act on this interest or attraction or whatever it was that Cassie Walker had set off in him.

“No. Of course I wouldn’t risk another Jennie mess.” Especially not when just the mention of that name was enough to make him feel guilty and angry and hurt and just plain rotten. “I told you when it happened that that was it for me. That I’d never do that to anyone else ever again.”

“You swore,” Alyssa reminded him, letting him know she was holding him to it.

Joshua understood. The entire ordeal had scarred Alyssa.

“Because I liked Jennie,” his sister added. “And I like Cassie even if I don’t really know her. I wouldn’t want—”

“Relax. It’s not going to happen. I just wondered what you knew about her so I could go in armed. Like if there’s someone special in her life, I’d encourage her to bring him along, make friends with him.”

That was a lie. Well, the excuse he was giving for wanting to know if there was someone special in Cassie Walker’s life was a lie. The rest—the determination not to let anything happen with Cassie Walker—was the truth. Joshua was nothing if not determined to make sure of that.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured his sister.

But Alyssa didn’t look convinced.

“It will,” he said more forcefully. “Believe me, after Jennie, I know better. I don’t want to go through that again and I sure as hell wouldn’t let you go through something like that again, either.”

Alyssa nodded, but she no longer looked as carefree and confident as she had earlier. Now she looked very, very young to him again.

“Hey,” he cajoled. “Have I ever let you down?”

That made her smile, if only slightly. “No,” she answered as if the question were ridiculous.

“And I’m not here to start now. So relax.”

She seemed to. Although not completely.

“I want you to be happy,” she said then. “It isn’t that I don’t. I want you to be with someone nice—like Cassie. Someone who would like you for you and be good to you. I just don’t—”

“I know,” Joshua cut her off once more. “And I’ll find someone nice and things will work out. But that isn’t what this trip or Northbridge are about. They’re about you and your going to college without any hassles. That’s all I’m paying attention to right now.”

Another lie since the image of Cassie Walker popped into his head yet again.

But still, he meant what he said. This trip and Northbridge were about his sister, about his sister’s finishing out her education like any other person her age. It wasn’t about his hooking up with anyone. Let alone with someone who had too many similarities to the second-to-the-biggest catastrophe that had hit his and Alyssa’s lives.

So pretty or not, spunky or not, even dimples or no dimples, Cassie Walker was—and would remain—nothing but the woman Northbridge College had appointed as his guide through Parents’ Week.

But if things were different, he thought as he and his sister finally decided to return to the small town, if things were different, things might be a whole lot different…

Chapter Four

“On behalf of myself as chancellor of Northbridge College and our entire staff, we want to welcome students, family and friends.”

It was the opening line of the chancellor’s speech to kick off Parents’ Week at the meet-and-greet Monday evening. But as Cassie sat on the auditorium stage with the rest of the advisers and administrative personnel, she wasn’t paying too much attention. She’d heard the chancellor make the same speech several times, and she had other things on her mind. Like taking a mental inventory to make sure that tonight—unlike the previous night—when she connected with Joshua Cantrell, she looked her best.

She had on her favorite navy blue pantsuit with the asymmetrical front-button closure on the short, round-necked, collarless jacket, and the matching slacks that she’d been told more than once made her rear end look fabulous. Three-inch heels with peekaboo toes completed the outfit that always made her feel confident. Which was exactly what she wanted.

She’d had her hair trimmed this morning—not too much, just enough to shape it so it fell to an inch below her chin and swept under at the ends in a way that was neat and professional but had a bit of bounce, too. Plus the style was softened by the bangs that swept over her left eyebrow to add some intrigue.

She’d also been careful to apply a neutral-toned eye-shadow to highlight but not overwhelm her eyes, and two layers of mascara that promised to lengthen and curl her lashes.

The blush she’d brushed across her cheekbones made her look as if she’d spent a day at the beach, and a sort of pink, sort of tawny lipstick had finished her up a mere fifteen minutes before the beginning of the meet-and-greet when she’d left home and come across to the campus.

Maybe not model material, Cassie decided, but she knew she looked better than she had Sunday evening. And that made her feel better about herself—which was her goal tonight, even though she was sure it was obvious that she was dressed to impress. To impress Joshua Cantrell.

Not for any personal reason, of course, she insisted to herself. She simply wanted to put her best foot forward for the sake of the school and the town.

Because if she was going to be forced to represent them both with Mr. Megabucks—whether she liked it or not—she was going to do it at the top of her game. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’d gone home last night and dug through her boxes until she’d found a magazine she’d recalled packing, searching for pictures of him. When she’d discovered one—of him pre-woolly-mammoth stage at some benefit with a drop-dead gorgeous underwear model on his arm—she’d torn out his half of the photograph and spent much too much time looking at it.

Paying special attention to her hair, makeup and clothes tonight didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’d gone to bed thinking about him being right here in town. A block and a half away in the chancellor’s cottage.

It didn’t have anything to do with imagining how she was going to spend the coming week squiring him around. Getting to know him. Getting to see if he was everything he was touted to be when it came to charm and charisma and intelligence and sexiness. Getting to be the woman on his arm, so to speak…

No, none of that was the cause for making sure she felt good and comfortable and confident about her appearance today.

Where was he, anyway?

She scanned the auditorium, locating Alyssa Cantrell sitting about six rows back. But Alyssa wasn’t with her brother. She had a girlfriend and the girlfriend’s parents to one side of her, and a male friend and his father to the other.

Had Joshua Cantrell left Northbridge before the week had even begun? Cassie wondered.

He could have. He could have been called away on business. Or someone could have recognized him and he might have decided to leave before the media got wind of his being here. Or he—or someone he knew or was related to—could have become ill.

Or he could have hated Cassie on the spot and fled before he had to spend another minute with her.

Cassie shied from that notion because it was too demoralizing to consider. Besides, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words last night, and the time they had spent together hadn’t seemed to go that badly.

But even if she didn’t allow herself to take any kind of blame, the idea that Joshua Cantrell might have left Northbridge made her feel as if she’d been let down.

Had he left town? she kept wondering as she continued to search for a sign of him in the audience while the chancellor gave the school’s mission statement and outlined its goals. Had Joshua Cantrell found a mere matter of hours in Northbridge and minutes with her to be too tedious, too pedestrian, too provincial to tolerate?

He wouldn’t be the first man….

But just when that letdown feeling was really taking over, Cassie spotted him.

He was sitting in the very last row, in the very last seat to the left of the stage. Alone.

And that one sight of him lifted her dejection and replaced it with relief and something Cassie didn’t want to believe was excitement.

He was sitting off, away from everyone, so she had an unobstructed view of him. For the most part, at any rate—because he was seated, his lower half was hidden. But he had one foot on the armrest of the seat in front of him, causing an upraised knee to be within view where it braced his arm propped on top of it. She could also see that, unlike her, he hadn’t gone to any lengths to dress up for this evening. The leg that poked into the air was encased in denim and it occurred to her that it was possible he was wearing the same butt-hugging pair of jeans that he’d had on when he’d arrived in town yesterday.

He had changed what he was wearing on top, though. He had on a tan sport coat over a rust-colored shirt with the top collar button casually unfastened.

Cassie also noted that he was still clean shaven and that his black-as-night hair, while in slight disarray on top, was in an artful disarray that she thought he might have put some small effort into.

Basically, he just looked good. Relaxed. Rested. Sure of himself. And the very essence of cool.

Everything she felt less of now that she’d laid eyes on him again.

But she wasn’t going to let him do this to her, she lectured herself with what she’d decided through an entire night and day of thinking about him. She wasn’t going to be a basket case around him just because he was some kind of great-looking, sexy celebrity. She was going to remember that she was a well-educated, respected person in her own right, and that he was nothing more than a tennis shoe manufacturer, regardless of how successful a tennis shoe manufacturer he might be.

Still, the reminder didn’t keep her heart from beating faster when he seemed to meet her eyes from the distance. It didn’t keep her from looking away in a hurry. And it didn’t keep her from thinking that this was going to be one very difficult week to get through…

The chancellor wrapped up his speech then. The dean took the podium to read from the handout that everyone had been given as they’d entered the auditorium, outlining the week’s events. Once he’d finished that, he invited the audience to have cookies and coffee or tea in the auditorium’s lobby.

If Cassie had had any thoughts whatsoever about delaying her second encounter with Joshua Cantrell, it was nixed when the dean’s return from the podium brought him directly to her.

“Do you see him?” the dean asked in a confidential voice.

Cassie knew exactly who him was, and didn’t bother playing dumb. “Yes, I see him.”

“Don’t leave him cooling his heels. He’s important to us,” the dean told her needlessly.

“I know, I know,” Cassie said, standing with everyone else and following her coworkers off the auditorium stage.

A few people were waiting to talk to someone on the stage as they descended, but most of the parents, friends and family were filing out to the lobby. Joshua Cantrell, on the other hand, had left his seat to stand behind it, but didn’t seem intent on going anywhere else, not even to be with his sister. And his eyes were honed in on Cassie as she made her way from the stage to the rear of the room.

“Hi,” she greeted as she joined him, sounding somewhat reserved to her own ears and regretting it.

Joshua Cantrell responded by giving her the once-over from head to toe and then smiling with only a single side of his mouth. “I see we didn’t pull you away from moving today,” he said with appreciation in his voice.

“Monday is a workday,” she countered, wanting him to believe she dressed like that every day rather than realize that she would ordinarily have done herself up with such meticulous care only for something much bigger than a Parents’ Week meet-and-greet. But she regretted that her reaction to what had been a subtle compliment made it seem as if she were reminding him that being with him was only her job.

Which, of course, was the truth. She just didn’t want to offend him by almost blatantly saying that if that wasn’t the case, she wouldn’t have gone within ten miles of him. So she added, “And you know, tonight is the kickoff to Parents’ Week, so we want to make a good impression.”

“Done!” he decreed, apparently not having taken offense.

Cassie didn’t know what to say to that and opted for moving on. She glanced in the direction his sister had been sitting and said, “Alyssa was over there. Were you late getting here and missed connecting before the chancellor’s speech started?”

Cantrell shook his head and Cassie tried not to notice how knock-’em-dead terrific his facial features were. “I wanted to get the lay of the land first, see if anyone seems to know who I am, before people start to associate her with me,” he said in a voice that was soft enough for Cassie alone to hear.

“And if someone does realize who you are?” Cassie asked equally quietly, recalling one of the thoughts she’d had when she’d wondered if he’d disappeared suddenly.

“I’ll take off and hope I get out before too many people have put us together.”

“Ah,” Cassie said. Then, because he seemed in no hurry to go out to the lobby to mingle, she ventured the question that had been on her mind since the dean had made his comment about there having been distractions arranged to keep reporters and photographers from knowing where Alyssa was. “Is the haircut and shave part of throwing people off track, too?”

As if just a low tone might not be enough if they were going to say more about this, Joshua glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to hear them. No one was. They were in the far rear corner of the auditorium where no one else had even been seated. And the place was quickly emptying anyway.

But only when he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard did he answer her question. “It’s something I’ve done in the past—although not to the extent I’ve done it this time. We’ve been planning this since last January when we decided Northbridge might be a place where Alyssa could have the chance to be a normal college kid. I let my hair and beard grow—”

“So the mountain man thing I’ve been seeing in pictures of you was on purpose?”

He smiled with both sides of his mouth this time. “Kind of gross, wasn’t it? There were actually rumors that I was turning into Howard Hughes.”

Rumors that had apparently amused him.

“Anyway,” he went on, “Alyssa put off cutting her hair when she wanted to, too. Then we registered her at a high-security private finishing school in Switzerland and I paid the school to put her name on reports and rosters to confirm that she’s secluded there. I also have someone inside who’s leaking information about her to make it look good. Then, occasionally—this week for sure—I’ll pay a guy who resembles me and grew out his hair and beard, to go to the Swiss village near the school. I have a house rented there and we did a whole clandestine arrival the way I would if I were trying to sneak into town. The guy will mostly stay holed up there except to appear in public periodically to go to the school—dodging the photographers and press the whole time to keep them convinced he’s me—”

“And in the meantime, while everyone is looking for a guy with long hair and a beard, and his long-haired sister, you shaved and cut your hair, Alyssa cut hers, and you’re calling yourselves the Johansens,” Cassie finished for him.

His smile became a grin she couldn’t help mirroring as she added, “And you’re really getting a kick out of it all.”

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “You have to make the best of things.”

“Even if the best of things is complicated and expensive?”

“Yep. Whatever it takes. If you can’t make light of it as much as possible, it gets to you.”

That last part had a more serious overtone to it that Cassie didn’t understand. But she couldn’t very well question him about it, so she glanced around at the now-empty auditorium and said, “Well, shall we go out and test your disguise?”

“Sure. But first, I had a thought last night that might aid the cause, if you’re game. A cover story for you and me.”

“You and me?”

“Consider it sleight of hand—if we keep people’s focus on the two of us, they’ll tend to pay less attention to the connection between Alyssa and me. You know, if I can make you look at this hand—” He raised his right hand in the air and wiggled his fingers. “You’re missing what’s going on with this hand.” He used the index finger of his other hand to brush her hair away from her face.

Cassie understood what he was demonstrating, but if he thought for a minute that touching her—even lightly—was going to be the thing she paid the least attention to, he was so wrong. Especially when the bare hint of his fingertip against her face set off little sparks in response.

She pretended that wasn’t the case, however, and got back to the point of this. “What kind of cover story did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking we could invent something that put the two of us together—like maybe we were college sweethearts.”

“I went to college right here. And this is a small town. More than half the people on the street could probably tell you my shoe size. They definitely know about all my former sweethearts.”

“Okay. How about if we say we sort of hooked up on your last vacation?”

“Last year in Disneyland?” Cassie said as if that seemed unbelievable.

Joshua grinned at her again. “You went to Disneyland?”

“I’d never been, so, yes, a friend and I went to Disneyland because we wanted to see it,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin.

He laughed. “Okay. We can say we met waiting to get on a ride, got to talking, spent some time together, you told me about the college and since seeing you again came in the bargain, I persuaded my sister to come here for her higher education.”

“You don’t have any idea what a small town would do with a story like that, do you?”

“Run with it, I’m hoping. And in the process, keep their eyes on us, gossip about me as Joe Regular Guy who just might be the new suitor of One Of Their Own, and leave Alyssa just an inconsequential afterthought. Like I said, sleight of hand.”

“Yes, but at my expense. And I have to go on living here. Answering the questions about you and why you didn’t stick around and when you’ll be back and if we’re serious and on and on and on.”

“If I apologize in advance, will you do it anyway? For Alyssa’s sake? I really want this to work out for her. Something happened a while back that rocked her—that rocked us both, to be honest—and I want her to have whatever sane time I can give her.”

Cassie’s students and her own family were important to her. A plea that hit both of those hot buttons in her wasn’t one she could turn down.

Still, she was smart enough not to agree blindly. “How, exactly, would this cover story come out?”

His smile this time was softer, grateful. “We don’t want anything that seems forced. But, for instance, when you introduce me to someone you know, if the opportunity arises, one of us can work the cover story into the conversation. It will also make it seem more understandable for us to be together as much as I’m sure we will be this week. Plus I might lean over and whisper to you now and then—”

He demonstrated that as he said it, too, and the feel of his warm breath against her skin caused more of those sparks his finger had set off moments before.

“Or I might touch you a little,” he continued. “Innocently. Like here…”

He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Or here…”

He moved that hand to her arm.

“Or here…”

It went to the small of her back…

And with each split second of contact Cassie found it more difficult to breathe.

“Nothing big,” he finished. “Just enough to make us look friendly, explain why we’re together a lot, and let Alyssa be just one of the kids around here.”

Air in, air out, Cassie told herself, consciously breathing and hoping he hadn’t noticed that she had been affected by the whisper and the mock caresses.

He might have, though, because then he put that breath-stealing hand in his jean pocket and added, “But if it bothers you, we can stick with the status quo. It’s your call.”

She didn’t want him to know she could be unnerved by anything so small—which was ordinarily not true. She didn’t understand why she had been unnerved by something so small when it had come from him. So without much delay, she said, “No, it’s okay. It’s probably a good idea, even,” she admitted, keeping her fingers crossed that when his pretend attentions didn’t come unexpectedly she would be impervious to them.

“And actually,” she continued, “the story might help appease my family, too. We’re very close and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain to them why I needed to concentrate on you this week when they know I planned to duck out of as many Parents’ Week activities as I could to unpack and set up the house.”

“Great!” Joshua said without further ado, making her think he was accustomed to being granted his wishes and whims, no matter what they were. “Then I feel better about going out into the fray.”

“So now you are ready to test the disguise?” she asked to be certain.

“To test the disguise and the cover story, if we can work it in somewhere,” he reminded.

He took a step backward and motioned with one arm for her to take the lead, clearly intending to stay as much in the background as possible right from the get-go.

Even though she had no idea what he’d been referring to when he’d mentioned something rocking both Alyssa and himself, Cassie assumed it had left him serious about blending in. She accepted the role of decoy and left the auditorium with him following close behind.

The lobby was considerably less spacious and with everyone there now, it made for cramped quarters. Still, Alyssa must have been watching for her brother because not long after Cassie and Joshua got there, his sister found them and urged them through the crowd to meet the students and parents she’d been sitting with.

Cassie noted that Joshua was introduced as Joshua Johansen and she watched for signs of recognition in the faces of the other people. But there wasn’t a single indication that any of them doubted Joshua was who he’d been presented as.

That proved to be the case through the entire meet-and-greet and Cassie hoped for his and Alyssa’s sake that that had set the course for the remainder of the week, as well.

After about an hour and a half people began to drift out, ending the opening of Parents’ Week. Alyssa announced that she needed to read three chapters of biology for her next day’s class and when Joshua encouraged her to go back to the dorm to do that, she bid her brother good-night.

Which once more left Cassie alone with Joshua Cantrell.

It wasn’t quite nine o’clock by then—not late by big city standards but not early by Northbridge standards, either, so Cassie debated whether to simply usher Joshua to the chancellor’s cottage or offer to extend the evening.

In the end, she decided to leave it to him.

“Would you like to get back to the cottage or—”

“Or,” he said, jumping at the option before she’d actually given him one.

“Okay. Northbridge doesn’t have a bustling nightlife but we could take a walking tour of the town.” Which was the only thing she could come up with on the spur of the moment. It might also appease the mayor if he accused her of not doing the promotions he wanted. “How would that be?”

“I’d like it,” he said. “It seems like a small-town thing to do. Unless I’d be keeping you from someone— I asked Alyssa if she knew if playing diplomatic envoy with me was driving a wedge between you and a husband or a fiancé or a boyfriend, but she didn’t know.”

He’d asked his sister about her? Cassie thought, mentally stalling on that tidbit. Had he asked only to make sure he wasn’t interfering or because he wanted to know if there was a man in her life?

Not that it mattered, Cassie told herself.

And yet it did matter to her a little. Deep down. She couldn’t deny it.

Was it really possible that he had tried to find out if she was single? That the illustrious Joshua Cantrell, man of the world, escort of ladies extraordinaire, was even curious about whether or not the playing field was open with Cassie?

Even the possibility—slight though she was sure it was—boosted her ego.

Still, she tried not to pay too much attention to it and said simply, “You’re not keeping me from anyone, no.”

“I already know I’m keeping you from something—unpacking—but if I’m not going to have an angry man tracking me down to do me bodily harm, I’ll take you up on that walk.”

“No, no one will track you down to do bodily harm,” she assured. “There’s no husband, fiancé or boyfriend.”

Joshua Cantrell’s handsome face erupted into a wide grin that gave a second boost to her ego, because it looked nothing but pleased to hear that. “Then by all means, give me the grand tour.”

“Tour maybe, I don’t know how grand it will be,” Cassie said, working as they left the building to contain what almost felt like a hint of glee at the lingering notion that this man—of all men—had wondered if she were free.

And had been happy to learn that she was…

Chapter Five

When Cassie and Joshua left the campus, Cassie led them toward the town square that stood between the college to the west and, to the east, the school compound that educated Northbridge’s kindergartners to twelfth graders and offered the town’s only sports field.

“Wrought-iron pole lamps that look like they came from Victorian England, and a gazebo. Huh,” Joshua mused as he glanced around at the town square’s lighting and the gazebo at its heart. “Do you have band concerts here in the summertime?”

Was he making fun? She couldn’t be sure. She also couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of her voice when she answered.

“As a matter of fact, we do. Along with a lot of other activities year-round. The square is one of my favorite parts of Northbridge. I love the big trees and the gazebo— I think it’s beautiful with its redbrick base and the railing and pillars painted white, and that pointy red roof with the cupola. It’s all part of what says home to me.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” he told her, apparently having picked up on her defensiveness. “I think your town square is great. I like it, too. It’s quaint.”

Cassie wasn’t sure if quaint really was a good thing to someone like Joshua Cantrell, but she wasn’t going to take issue with him.

Instead, as they crossed South Street to the east side of Main, she said, “Quaint. Well, that will describe most of what you’re about to see.”

Not all of it, however. Part of that first block nearest to the square had a few more boxy, contemporary-looking buildings and storefronts housing the ice cream parlor and Ling’s Chinese Palace—the new restaurant. Plus the government building/police station had a more modern feel to it.

But from the northwest corner of that block, where the old four-story, redbrick former mercantile had been turned into the medical facility, all the rest of the way up Main, the buildings were pretty quaint, Cassie had to admit.

Quaint in the best sense of the word, though, she thought as she pointed out businesses, shops and stores that occupied the two-and three-storied, primarily brick structures that gave Northbridge an old-fashioned, country-town feel. Quaint in the best sense of the word when it came to the awnings and overhangs and farreaching eaves that provided shade and character to most of the edifices. Quaint in the best sense when it came to more of those same town square pole lights lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street, each of them circled with flower boxes that were decorated for the season—planted with white and yellow mums now for autumn—lending that homey, small-town feeling.

Cassie and Joshua weren’t the only post-meet-and-greet attendees to graduate to the stroll along Main Street. Several other faces from the college’s Parents’ Week orientation were out and about, too, to mingle with a few Northbridgers.

Smiles and greetings were exchanged along the way but no one seemed to think any more about Joshua’s real identity now than they had earlier, and so Cassie and Joshua were able to take their walk without incident.

They did, however, encounter Roy Webber, the local Mr. Fix-it, and one of the town’s biggest busybodies, and in introducing Joshua to him, Cassie included the cover story she’d agreed to.

It clearly pleased Joshua, who nudged her with his shoulder once Roy Webber had moved on and said, “Thanks for getting that out there.”

“By tomorrow noon, the whole town will have heard it,” she informed Joshua. “Roy Webber is a bigger gossip than any woman I’ve ever met.”

“Perfect,” Joshua said with satisfaction. “I owe you.”

“Yes, you do,” Cassie said from atop her high horse as they made a U-turn at the northernmost end of Main.

They’d gone up an incline to reach what was the formal entrance to Northbridge and as they crossed from the gas station to the bus station, Joshua paused halfway between the two to peer down at the view of nearly the entire town from that vantage point.

“This is nice,” he mused.

“Quaint,” she repeated a bit facetiously.

“I like quaint. I don’t know what made you think that was an insult,” he insisted.

Cassie knew she could be overly sensitive when it came to things like that. She admitted to herself that she was probably being harder on Joshua than he deserved for something that was a part of her own baggage. So she tried to get out of the course she’d set with some semblance of aplomb.

“Okay, I’m sorry if I misunderstood.”

“Apology accepted,” he decreed as if something about her amused him.

They finished to cross the street but Joshua continued to look out at the town, this time focusing on Adz, which stood in the center of the block at the base of the hill.

“Did you say that that Adz place belongs to your brother?”

“I did,” Cassie confirmed as they went on at a leisurely pace.

“And it’s a pub and restaurant?”

“Right.” Cassie briefly considered asking Joshua if he wanted to cross back again and go in for a drink, but the idea of introducing him to Ad and having to explain why she was with Joshua in a social situation wasn’t something she was eager to do. So she didn’t make the suggestion.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.