“You’re the one with the hang-ups about our differences, not me.

“You made it such a big deal that you wouldn’t even ask if I would be interested in going out with you.”

“So what would you have said if I had asked?”

Catherine looked at Mike standing there, flushed and rumpled. “I would have said yes.” She moistened her lips and gazed up at him.

Mike returned the gaze. “Well, since I’ve already got so much to apologize for tonight…” he murmured.

And he lowered his head—slowly, his eyes locked with hers, giving her plenty of time to stop him if she wanted to.

But she didn’t stop him. Instead, she lifted her face to his.

Dear Reader,

People often ask if people or events in my stories are based on real life. My answer is always the same. I write fiction, with characters and situations created entirely from my imagination. I play make-believe for a living, and I love it. But there are times when I am inspired by real-life events. My two daughters make especially good research subjects, to their resignation. Both in their twenties and pursuing challenging careers, they fit the profile of many of the women I write about. Is it any wonder I’m tempted at times to follow them around with a notepad and pen?

Several years ago, a young, hungry stray cat showed up on our doorstep with three kittens. After doing our part to control the pet population by having them all sterilized, we found homes for the kittens, but no one wanted the mother. She moved in with us—and promptly became the queen of the household. Never has there been a more spoiled or beloved feline, nor (in my unbiased opinion) a smarter or better behaved cat than our Isabeau.

So, just to make it clear… Catherine, the heroine of my story Love Lessons, is not actually based on either of my beautiful scientist daughters. And Norman, Catherine’s intelligent, headstrong cat, is not Isabeau. But it is entirely possible that my always-active imagination found inspiration in real life as I played make-believe with Catherine, her cat and her hunky handyman hero.

I hope you enjoy their story.

Gina Wilkins

Love Lessons
Gina Wilkins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GINA WILKINS

is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy books for Harlequin and Silhouette. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms. Wilkins sold her first book to Harlequin in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

With thanks to my two scientist daughters for their

input and to my son for his sample AP biology tests.

They got their math and science skills from their dad!

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

Norman, the sleek, black-and-white cat, sat expectantly on the kitchen table across from Catherine Travis’s chair. Her mother would be horrified to see a cat on the table, but Catherine merely shrugged in response to that thought. Her parents were in China, enjoying each other’s company, while she was stuck here alone in Little Rock, Arkansas. Since Norman was the only one available on this September Sunday evening to help Catherine celebrate her thirtieth birthday, he could pretty much sit anywhere he liked, as far as she was concerned.

He watched intently as she lit the single candle topping a chocolate-frosted cupcake. She sat back to admire the flickering flame, noting the way it reflected in Norman’s big, golden eyes. She couldn’t help but smile at his expression as he looked from her to the candle and then back again.

“You look as though you know exactly what we’re doing,” she remarked to the nine-month-old cat who had made his home with her for the past six months. “I half expect you to start singing the happy birthday song to me now.”

Norman meowed obligingly. The sound was actually rather musical, Catherine decided. “Thank you. That was lovely.”

She leaned forward to blow out the candle but then stopped herself. “Oh, wait. If I’m going to throw myself a birthday party, I should do it right. I’m supposed to make a wish before I blow out the candle, aren’t I?”

Norman’s ears flicked in interest. Curling his tail around his white feet, he sat up straighter, looking at her encouragingly. Although she knew darned well that he was waiting for the cat treat she was holding for him, she indulged herself with the pretense that he was actually interested in what she had to say.

“Okay, here’s my wish. I wish I had someone with whom to share occasions like this. Birthdays, holidays, other special events. As much as I appreciate your companionship, Normie, it would be nice to have a human male in my life.”

She blew out the candle. She and Norman both watched the thin line of white smoke drift from the blackened wick to dissipate above the table. Only then did she set the salmon-flavored treat in front of her cat. “There you go, pal. Enjoy.”

He sniffed at the treat, took an experimental lick, then began to nibble delicately, his tail twitching with pleasure. Catherine peeled the paper from the sides of the cupcake and took a bite, letting the rich chocolate frosting dissolve slowly on her tongue. “Mmm. Good.”

Norman responded with a muted, whirring noise that might have been agreement.

She reached out to stroke his silky back, and he arched into her touch. If only people were as easy to understand as her cat, she mused wistfully. Men, especially.

She had a couple of advanced degrees, was quite successful in her career as a biomedical researcher, had a few good friends and a nice apartment, but she had never really learned the art of dating. As far as she knew, there were no classes in flirtation, and she had never picked up the talent in her science labs.

She had been focused so single-mindedly on her education and her career that she had missed out on learning how to play. She just wasn’t a “fun” person, she thought with a sigh. The only men who had asked her out during the past couple of years had bored her half-senseless. She seemed destined to be alone with her work and her cat.

To distract herself from her mounting self-pity, she reached for the small stack of presents she had saved to open all at once. Her friend Karen Kupperman from work had given her a tin of herbal tea and a scented candle in a pretty cobalt glass holder. Practical and yet slightly self-indulgent—just the sort of gift Karen would appreciate herself.

Karen was in Europe now, on a two-week trip with her husband, Wayne. They had combined a vacation with a science conference in Geneva, and Karen had been looking forward to the excursion for months.

Catherine’s other friend, Julia, a public attorney, had given her another practical, but elegant, present—a pair of soft brown leather gloves lined with cashmere. Lovely, she thought, trying them on to admire the perfect fit. Typical of Julia—who was currently in New York City at a convention of lawyers.

A couple of Catherine’s graduate students had gone in together to buy her an emerald-green cashmere scarf. Rubbing it against her cheek, she murmured her appreciation of the luxuriously soft feel. She would enjoy this when the weather turned cold. Since it was almost the end of September now, it wouldn’t be much longer until the temperatures began to drop.

Finally there was the package from her parents, both academics currently teaching at a university in China. They had sent her a beautiful silk blouse and a check. The blouse pleased her; the check made her frown.

She wished she could convince them that she was doing fine financially. An only child born to them rather late in life, she had been overprotected and indulged, gently pushed to follow in their academic footsteps, raised in a sheltered, Ivy-League environment that hadn’t exactly prepared her for modern dating and socializing. And now, despite her career and her friends and her financial security—she was lonely on her birthday.

Biting her lip, she set the gifts aside and picked up her pet, snuggling into his neck. His purr vibrated against her cheek as she murmured, “I know wishes don’t really come true, Norman, but just this once I’ll try to believe….”

The day after Catherine’s birthday was a Monday, and it started out with a minor frustration. After she had showered and dressed for work, she walked into the kitchen to prepare her breakfast, only to find one of the knobs from her stove broken off and lying on the linoleum floor.

“Great,” she muttered, bending to pick it up. The knob had been loose for weeks—something she had meant to report but kept forgetting. She couldn’t imagine how it had broken off by itself during the night, but here it was.

Shaking her head, she stepped over the cat winding himself around her ankles and picked up the phone to call the rental office. As it happened, the new maintenance guy had just stepped into the office, she was told, and he could come right then if it was convenient for her. It would take him only a couple of minutes to repair the knob.

She agreed, then called her lab to let them know she would be a little late. Fortunately, her schedule was flexible that day, so she didn’t have to rush in. If something had to break, it seemed it had happened at a convenient time, she mused, walking toward the front door in anticipation of the maintenance man’s arrival. While she was accustomed to prompt responses from the management of her upscale apartment complex, this was even faster than usual.

Three quick raps announced his arrival, and she opened her door. Then very nearly dropped her jaw.

The last maintenance man who had repaired something in her apartment had been sixtyish, beer-bellied, balding and borderline surly. This guy looked somewhere in his mid-to late-twenties, athletically built, handsome in a blond, blue-eyed way, and flashed a hundred white teeth in a melt-your-spine smile.

All semblance of her usual intelligence and composure leaked right out of her brain. “Er…uh…”

“I’m Mike Clancy,” he said, tapping the ID badge he wore on the pocket of a blue denim work shirt. He held a toolbox in his left hand. “Lucille said you’ve got a broken knob on your stove?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Moving awkwardly out of the doorway, she motioned toward the kitchen. “It’s in there.”

Brilliant, she thought with a slight wince. Where else would the stove be? The bathroom?

But he merely nodded and walked into the living room, casting a quick glance around at her carefully put-together green, burgundy and cream decor. “I like the way you’ve decorated. It looks real comfortable.”

“Thank you.” Since comfort had been the primary criterion for each piece she had selected, she was pleased by the adjective.

“Well, hello.” Mike bent to offer a friendly hand to Norman, who sniffed him, then promptly rolled onto his back in a shameless bid for a belly scratch. Chuckling, Mike obliged, generating a rumbling purr that Catherine could hear from where she stood.

“He likes you,” she commented unnecessarily. “He usually hides from strangers.”

“He can probably tell that I like cats. What’s his name?”

Watching that capable-looking, nicely shaped hand stroking the cat’s fur, and unable to miss noticing how Mike’s jeans strained against his crouching thighs, Catherine had to take a moment to come up with the answer. “Norman. His name is Norman.”

“Hey, there, Norman.” He scratched just under Norman’s pointy black chin, causing the silly cat to go into a frenzy of purring and wriggling. And then he straightened, to the disappointment of both cat and owner. “Okay. Where’s the knob?”

Doubting he would appreciate an audience while he worked, Catherine stayed in the living room, but the apartment just happened to be arranged so that she could see him from the couch, where she had settled with the newspaper. She read maybe three words of the lead story, and those only when he glanced her way. The rest of the time, she simply watched him from beneath her eyelashes, struck by the novelty of having such a good-looking man in her kitchen.

Norman wasn’t nearly as circumspect in his staring. He sat in the kitchen doorway, ears perked and nose twitching as he watched Mike work. Occasionally he glanced at Catherine as if to say, “Why are you way over there when your visitor is in here?”

Or maybe she was just projecting.

It took only a few minutes for Mike to repair the stove. He came out of the kitchen all tousled hair and gleaming smile, and her breath caught hard in her throat. “It’s fixed,” he announced. “Anything else you need before I go?”

Maybe a woman who’d learned how to flirt would answer that leading question with a witty comeback. A funny innuendo that would make him laugh, then give her a second look.

Catherine said only, “No, that’s all. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“You’re welcome.” With a last pat for Norman, Mike let himself out, telling her to call again if she needed any other repairs.

Catherine closed and locked the door behind him, then sagged against it. She wasn’t usually the type to notice such things, but Mike Clancy had one fine, tight butt encased in those soft denim jeans. She wasn’t sure whether to be more dismayed or relieved that she had noticed this time.

At least it proved she was still in the game, she finally decided—even if only as a quiet spectator.

Late Wednesday afternoon Mike tapped on the door of apartment 906. If no one was home, he was authorized to let himself in and handle the repair job he’d been assigned, but he heard someone stirring inside. He smiled when the attractive brunette who had let him in only a couple of days earlier opened the door to him again. “I understand you have a broken window blind.”

Her cheeks were pink, her expression chagrined when she nodded. “I haven’t needed maintenance in almost a year, and now I’ve had two problems in one week. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Had it been anyone else, he might have suspected ulterior motives. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been called to a woman’s apartment on a trumped-up excuse. But he would bet this woman was different.

For one thing, Catherine Travis—Dr. Catherine Travis, he reminded himself, having been told a little about this tenant by the rather gossipy apartment office manager—seemed genuinely put out that she’d had to request his services again. For another—well, get real. This woman was class from her neat brown bob to her sensibly shod feet. Hardly the type to angle for a quick fling with the maintenance man.

In this case he could almost be disappointed, he thought.

The living room window she led him to gave her a view of the parking lot and the swimming pool on the other side of the compound. A sliding glass door on another wall of the living room led onto a small balcony shaded by a big oak tree, which grew right at the corner of her end apartment. The balcony, too, overlooked the parking lot, except for the little patch of grass and bushes that lined the sidewalk leading to her steps.

The view from the large, back bedroom was better, he knew, though he hadn’t been into that particular room in this two-bedroom apartment. From there she would be able to see the Arkansas River beyond the levee that protected the complex from flooding.

Catherine motioned toward the crookedly hanging window blind, the gesture emphasizing the gracefulness he had noted about her before. Slender and just slightly above average in height, she looked as though she could have been a model or a glamorous actress, rather than the scientist he knew her to be.

Her face was a perfect oval, framed by glossy brown hair shot with golden highlights that looked natural. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown, her nose small and straight, her lips softly curved. Even dressed in a casual red knit top and comfortable-looking black slacks with black flats, she had a sort of classic poise about her that he would bet his sisters would openly envy.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, her voice low and rich. “When I tried to open the blinds this morning to let in some sunlight, they just broke in my hand.”

“That happens sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “Especially with these plastic brackets. I’ve brought another blind with me. It won’t take but a few minutes to replace it.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Feeling something brushing against his leg, he glanced down and grinned. “Well, hello, Norman. Nice to see you again.”

The cat meowed a greeting, then arched and purred when Mike reached down to stroke his soft fur.

“He seems to remember you,” Catherine remarked, watching them. “You really do have a way with cats.”

“I grew up with them. At one time my sisters had four in the house with us, one cat for each sister. I had a pet snake at the time, just as a way to assert my masculinity.”

“You have four sisters?”

He chuckled and straightened away from her cat. “All older. There are a few people who might tell you I was just a bit spoiled growing up.”

Her smile transformed her face in a way that made his pulse jump in instinctive male reaction. It added warmth and personality to her cool expression and drew his attention again to her perfectly shaped lips. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Actually, it’s absolutely true,” he admitted with a laugh. “I was shamelessly indulged.”

Whatever she might have said in response was interrupted by the ring of her telephone. Her smile vanished. “Excuse me,” she said, and turned to pick up the cordless extension that had been lying on the glass-topped wood coffee table.

He concentrated on his work as she carried the phone into the kitchen. While Norman lay at his feet begging for attention, he unscrewed the broken blind from the window casing. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on Catherine’s conversation, but he couldn’t help overhearing a few snatches of what she was saying. Not that it mattered. Though she was speaking English, she might as well have been talking in a foreign language.

Obviously, the caller was someone from her work. She seemed to be giving instructions to whoever it was on how to do some sort of procedure that apparently involved a lot of steps and many multisyllabic terms that Mike had never heard.

He’d been told that some men were intimidated by brainy women. He, on the other hand, had nothing but respect for intelligent women, having been raised in a house full of them.

As for himself, he was smart enough to read the signs when a woman was interested in him, and he wasn’t getting any of those signals from Catherine Travis. So, despite his respect for her body and her brains, he would keep things strictly professional while he was here.

He glanced at the coffee table as he set the broken blind on the floor and reached for the new one he’d brought with him. A stack of science journals and notebooks teetered at one end of the table, looking as though she’d been reading through them when he’d arrived. A workaholic? Seemed to be in character with his first impressions of her.

By the time she had finished her call, he had just completed the installation of the new blind. He opened and closed it a couple of times, raised and lowered the slats to assure himself that everything was working correctly, then he closed his toolbox. “All done,” he said as Catherine came back into the room. “I told you it wouldn’t take long.”

She nodded. “I appreciate it. I’ll tell Lucille how much I’ve appreciated your quick responses this week.”

He shrugged. “It’s been a pretty slow week. You seem to be one of the few tenants having breakdowns at the moment.”

To his pleasure, the smile he had admired before returned. “I got lucky, I guess,” she said.

Before he could decide if there was even a hint of flirtation in her response, her expression grew serious again and she reached for the door. “Thank you again,” she said, her tone now politely dismissive.

“You’re welcome.” He stepped outside and glanced back at her. “Have a nice…”

The door closed in his face.

“…day,” he finished wryly. Shaking his head, he turned to leave. He had a class to get to that evening. He didn’t have time to stand around mooning over a pretty, but decidedly distant, scientist.

“So, you’ve really had a lousy week,” Julia observed, reaching for a tortilla chip to dip into the salsa that sat on the restaurant table in front of her. “First you spent your birthday alone, and then everything in your apartment broke. Not to mention a difficult week at work.”

Catherine took a sip of her punch and set the plastic tumbler back down on the table before replying to her friend of almost two years. “It wasn’t so bad, really. I received some lovely gifts for my birthday. Thank you again for the gloves, by the way. They’re gorgeous.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just sorry I had to be away on that business trip and couldn’t celebrate with you. A girl shouldn’t be by herself on her thirtieth birthday.”

“Norman and I had a very nice little private party.”

“The cat doesn’t count.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Catherine advised with a smile. “Norman is very sensitive, you know. And as for things breaking in my apartment, that turned out okay, too. The management responded very quickly each time, having the repairs done the very day I reported the problems.”

“Wow. That is efficient. I hope you didn’t have to deal with gripey old Luther again.”

Catherine concentrated on scooping a tortilla chip into white cheese dip, keeping her voice casual when she replied, “Actually, no. There’s a new maintenance guy now. His name’s Mike.”

“Really. Nice guy?”

“Yes, he seems very nice.”

A sudden, rather loaded silence from the other side of the table made Catherine look up. “What?”

“How did he look?”

She started to give a vaguely generic answer, but then she sighed and said, “Like he just stepped off a surfboard. Or—since we’re a ten-hour drive from the nearest beach—a skateboard, maybe.”

“Young guy, huh?”

“I’m not very good at guessing ages, but I’d say twenty-five. Maybe a year or two older.”

“And you say he’s nice looking?”

“Like someone you would see on the cover of one of those teen magazines my mother would never let me buy,” she replied with an exaggerated sigh. “Blond, blue-eyed, athletic build, beautiful smile. Nice teeth. And enough charm to sell sand in a desert.”

Julia shuddered. “Sounds like one of those guys who are about as deep as a rain puddle.”

Julia had a well-known aversion to handsome, shallow men, having been hurt very badly by one in her younger, more trusting days.

“He seemed quite nice, actually. But—as always happens when I’m in the presence of a good-looking guy—I displayed the wit and personality of petrified wood.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “I doubt it was quite that bad.”

“Trust me,” she said with a groan. “I couldn’t even remember poor Norman’s name. All I could do was just sit there, staring at the guy. He probably thinks I’m the most boring tenant in the entire complex.”

“Oh well, it isn’t as if you’d be interested in boffing the maintenance stud, anyway,” Julia said with a shrug. “You’ve got more common sense than that.”

“No, of course I wouldn’t be interested in anything like that,” Catherine agreed with a laugh that sounded a bit hollow to her own ears.

“And he hardly sounds like the kind of man you’d want to date for any other purpose. A young maintenance man? What on earth would you have in common with him?”

Julia, bless her, was pretty much as clueless as Catherine when it came to men. A natural blonde who defied all the stereotypes, she was a fiercely focused and ambitious dynamo in a deceptively fragile-looking package. Unlike Catherine, Julia was frequently the target of passes from prowling males, few of them interested in her mind. Her experiences with the opposite sex had left her decidedly cynical when it came to romance.

Losing interest in the subject of buff young men—and totally oblivious to the man who was openly ogling her from a table nearby—Julia launched into a discussion of a workshop she had attended at the conference in New York. Catherine was quite sure her friend had rarely, if ever, left the conference hotel to enjoy all the wonderfully exciting things to do in the “Big Apple.” For Julia, nothing in the city was as interesting and challenging as scholarly discussions of the law.

Hopeless, Catherine thought with a slight shake of her head. Both of them.

Settling in for an evening of spicy Mexican food and stimulating conversation, she pushed the lingering thoughts of Mike Clancy to the back of her mind. She knew full well those thoughts would be there to tease her again later, when she was alone in her apartment.

Friday afternoon Catherine was sitting at her desk behind a mountain of paperwork for an important grant, when she accidentally overheard a couple of graduate students chatting out in the hallway. Maybe they didn’t know she was in her office, or maybe they weren’t aware of how clearly their voices carried through the partially opened door.

“Got big plans for the weekend?”

“Uh-huh. Scott’s taking me to Tunica for a weekend at the casinos. We’re leaving tomorrow morning. I can’t wait.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I know. What are you doing this weekend?”

“Going clubbing tonight with Tommy and Jan and Nick. Tomorrow Tommy and I are driving up to Jonesboro for the football game and staying the night there.”

“Cool.”

“You and Scott want to go clubbing with us tonight?”

“Maybe. I’ll ask him and give you a call.”

There was a momentary pause before one of them said, “What do you think she’s doing this weekend?”

“Dr. Travis? Same thing she does every weekend. Working.”

“Think she ever just cuts loose and has fun?”

A laugh of disbelief was followed by a cynical, “I think fun might be one of the few words missing from her extensive vocabulary. She’s nice and all, but can you imagine her partying?”

“No. The image just won’t form in my mind.”

The voices faded as the unseen speakers moved down the hallway, leaving an echo of laughter behind them. Only after she was sure they were gone did Catherine get up to quietly close her door.

By the time she arrived at home that evening, her steps were dragging. Though it was after seven, it was still light. The days were getting shorter, though, she mused with a sigh, tucking her bulging briefcase beneath her arm. Soon it would be dark when she came home alone. And cold.

Locking her car door, she glanced across the mostly empty parking lot. Most of the other tenants were already home from work, and quite a few of them had probably already headed out for Friday night fun. Someone climbed out of the driver’s side of a small pickup truck, and she recognized Mike, the maintenance man. He seemed to be carrying a stack of books, but he managed to free a hand to give her a quick wave.

She waved back, hoping she looked friendly and casual rather than stiff and self-conscious, and then she turned toward the outside stairs that led up to her second-floor apartment. She smiled when she glanced up and spotted Norman sitting in his favorite spot on the living room windowsill, watching her.

At least someone was glad to welcome her home, she thought, walking a bit faster.

She unlocked her door and pushed it open, thinking that maybe she would throw on some sweats and make an omelet for dinner….

For the first time since she had brought him home six months ago, Norman dashed past her through the open doorway and streaked down the stairs, straight into the parking lot. Terrified that he would run in front of a car, Catherine threw down her bags and raced after him, calling his name. “Norman, stop! Come back here.”

Alerted by her shout, Mike got to Norman first, dropping his books to scoop the cat into his arms. Rather than resisting, Norman butted his head happily against Mike’s chin, as if in greeting.

Her heart still pounding against her ribs, Catherine skidded to a stop in front of them. “I can’t believe he did that. He’s never run out before. Thank you so much for catching him.”

“No problem.” Smiling, Mike transferred her pet into her arms. “Guess you’d better start blocking the door when you open it.”

“I guess so.” Catherine frowned down at Norman, who was purring as if he were quite pleased with himself. “Bad cat. You could have been hurt.”

“So could you, the way you pelted down those stairs,” Mike told her. “You’re lucky you didn’t trip.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t even think about it,” she confessed. “I was so afraid he would run in front of a car.”

As if to emphasize what could have happened, an SUV passed them at that moment, the driver nodding to Mike in recognition. Mike waved back, then turned again to Catherine. “So, how’s it going—other than escaping cats? Everything in working order in your apartment?”

“Yes, thank you.” She glanced down at the three hardcover books scattered at their feet. “I hope none of your books are damaged. If so, I’ll certainly pay for replacements.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. They’re just textbooks, and I bought them used, anyway.” He crouched to gather them, and Catherine couldn’t help but notice the titles.

“Biology and American history. You’re taking classes?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she cursed her own stupidity. Of course he was taking classes—why else would he be carrying textbooks?

But he merely nodded as he straightened. “I’m taking a couple of classes at UALR.” He pronounced it “you-ler,” as many locals did.

She wasn’t sure what to say, except, “Are they going well?”

He started to nod, then stopped himself with a grimace. “History’s fine. Biology’s kicking my butt.”

“Really? Anything in particular?”

“We’re having a test on glycolysis Monday, and to be honest, it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. I’m going to try to study this weekend, but I have a sinking suspicion it isn’t going to help much. I can’t make heads or tails of this stuff.”

She would never know what impulse made her open her mouth and blurt, “I’ll help you.”

He looked at her with a curiously lifted eyebrow. “Um—what?”

She told herself that it would make her look even more foolish to take her words back now. And why should she, really? After all, he’d done the favor of helping her rescue Norman. And this was certainly something she was qualified to offer him in return.

“I’ll help you study for the test…if you’re interested. My undergraduate degree was in biology. So if there’s anything I can do to help you prepare—”

“Hey, I’m not too proud to beg for help,” he said with a devastatingly attractive, crooked grin. “If you’re sure you have the time, and it isn’t too much trouble, I would be grateful for any help you can give me. I really want to pass this test.”

She nodded. “It’s no trouble at all. When would you like to come by?”

“Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”

“I have some things to do at work in the morning, but I should be home by about two. Shall we make it three o’clock?”

“I’ll be there. And, hey, thanks, Dr. Travis. I really appreciate this.”

She glanced down at the cat dozing contentedly in her arms, purring like a chain saw. “It’s the least I can do. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Eager now to get away before she said something incredibly dumb, she carried Norman up the stairs to her apartment. When she glanced down from her front door, she noticed that Mike was already gone.

Chapter Two

“Hey, Mike! Heads up.”

He turned just in time to snatch the basketball out of the air, spin and sink it into a basket above his head. Nothing but net.

Three male voices groaned loudly. Two others cheered. Mike’s three-on-three teammates slapped him on the back and offered upraised hands for high fives.

“And that would be…game!” Bob Sharp performed an embarrassingly dorky dance of victory, his near-shoulder-length red hair flying around his square-jawed face.

“Dude.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Chill.”

“Seriously.” Black-haired, green-eyed Brandon Williams, the third member of the winning team, tossed a sweaty towel at Bob. “You’re making us look bad.”

Still joking around with his teammates and opponents—also all friends—Mike moved to a bench at one side of the park basketball court and rooted in his gym bag for his watch. He groaned when he found it. He had lost track of time during the game and now he had ten minutes to shower, change, grab his books and make it to Catherine Travis’s apartment by three o’clock.

He was going to be late.

“Hey, Mike. Wanna go have a beer and watch a game or two?”

“Can’t,” he replied to Bob’s suggestion. “Gotta study.”

Typically, Bob brushed off the excuse. “C’mon, man, you can study later. It’s not like you’ll be grounded if you don’t get an A.”

He laughed heartily at his own joke. Bob still couldn’t understand why Mike had decided to go back to school almost ten years after dropping out of his first attempt at higher education. Bob was perfectly happy driving a delivery truck and stocking snack machines in local businesses, spending his leisure hours hanging with friends and chasing women.

Until a few months ago, Mike had been pretty much content with that lifestyle himself. Now that he had decided he wanted more, some of his friends seemed determined to try to talk him out of it.

“C’mon, Mike, have a beer with us,” Brandon seconded. “It’s too nice a day to study.”

“Sorry, guys. Can’t. I’m supposed to meet someone at three for a study session, and I’m already running late.”

“Oh, ho.” Bob gave a sudden, knowing grin. “That explains your hurry to hit the books. So who is she?”

“Just someone who offered to help me get ready for a test Monday. And I’ve really got to go, guys. See you later, okay?”

“You’re holding out on us, Clancy,” Bob called after him. “We want to meet this chick.”

As he jumped into his pickup and threw it into gear, Mike wondered how Dr. Travis would feel about having herself referred to as a “chick.” He wouldn’t think she’d care for it much.

Dr. Travis. It felt sort of odd to refer to her that way. Made her sound like one of his stuffy professors, rather than the attractive young woman she was.

Glancing at the dashboard clock, he saw that it was almost straight-up three o’clock. He was definitely going to be late.

He had been criticized quite often for his rather fluid concept of time. His friends had pretty much gotten used to never knowing when to expect him. He hoped Dr. Travis wasn’t one of those clock-watching types who got upset about that sort of thing.

But when she opened her door for him at twenty minutes after three, she didn’t look at all annoyed. In fact, strangely enough, she seemed almost apologetic.

“It occurred to me a few minutes ago that I never gave you my phone number,” she said, motioning him inside. “There was no way for you to let me know you’d been held up. I hope you didn’t have to rush too hard to get here because of my oversight.”

She really was blaming herself because he was late. Interesting. “It’s my fault for letting time get away from me,” he assured her. “I hope it didn’t cause you any inconvenience.”

“No. I don’t have any other plans for the afternoon.” She motioned toward her small, rectangular dining table. “I thought we could spread your books and notes on the table. Can I get you a glass of fresh lemonade before we get started?”

“That sounds great, Dr. Travis. If it’s no trouble.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’d like a glass, myself. And please call me Catherine.”

He watched surreptitiously as she moved into the kitchen. Wearing an olive-green camp shirt open over a khaki-colored pullover and khaki slacks, she looked even younger than she had the last time he’d seen her. He still couldn’t really guess her age, though he would bet she wasn’t more than a couple of years on either side of thirty. Very close to his own age.

She must have earned her doctorate at a young age. One of those brainy, ambitious, superfocused types, apparently. But not an intellectual snob. She wasn’t giving off any vibes that suggested she considered herself superior to a twenty-eight-year-old maintenance man with only a few hours of college credit behind him.

Remembering a recent, painful encounter with a woman who had made no secret of her disdain for his current status, he winced.

Something touched his leg. He glanced down just as Catherine’s cat meowed a greeting. “Well, hello, Norman. I wondered where you were hiding.”

Returning to the table with two glasses of lemonade and a plate of brownies, Catherine slid into the chair beside him. “He’s been asleep on my bed. He has to have at least ten naps a day or he gets cranky.”

Chuckling, Mike scratched Norman’s ears, eliciting a loud purr of approval. He stopped scratching to reach for his lemonade. “This looks great. Homemade brownies?”

Catherine shrugged. “Just the box-mix kind. I was having a snack attack earlier.”

Judging by her slender frame, she didn’t give in to “snack attacks” that often. But since he didn’t feel quite right about checking out her figure when she was offering to help him study, he pulled his gaze away from her and snagged a brownie from the platter.

Catherine motioned toward the textbook and notebook he had tossed on the table. “You said you’re studying for a test on glycolysis?”

He nodded and turned his thoughts to business. “Yeah. I brought my study sheets and the practice test the professor gave us. I tried to take the practice test yesterday, but I didn’t get very far with it.”

“Let me look at the test and your notes and I’ll see if I can help you understand it better.” She gave a self-deprecating little smile that almost took him back to noticing-how-attractive-she-was territory. “Of course, it’s been a few years since I’ve been tested on this stuff, so I might have to refresh myself a bit.”

Norman leaped onto Mike’s knees and head-butted his chin. Mike patted him absently.

“Just set him down if he’s bugging you,” Catherine advised. “He takes a hint fairly well—for a short time, anyway.”

“He’s fine.” Mike opened his notebook. “Here’s the sample test….”

“Okay, see if you can answer this one.” Catherine said almost an hour later. “Regulation of glycolysis takes place by the a, allosteric inhibition of phosphofructokinase by excess ATP, or b, conversion of dihydroxyacetone phosphate to glyceraldehyde phosphate?”

Mike blinked a couple of times, then frowned in concentration. “That would be…the first one, I think. A.”

She smiled at him. “Yes. You’re right.”

He made a production of wiping his brow, his self-satisfied smile so endearing that she had to swallow before asking the next question. “Complete this sentence. When yeast cells metabolize glucose anaerobically, the end product is—?”

“Pyruvic acid.” He must have seen from her expression that he’d given the wrong answer. He corrected it immediately. “Ethyl alcohol.”

She smiled again. “Correct. You’re doing very well, Mike. You should have no problem passing this test. Would you like to practice the essay questions? I can busy myself with something else while you work on them and then give my opinion of your answers when you’ve finished. Of course, you know that essay questions are often graded subjectively, so your professor might judge your responses differently than I would.”

“Hey, I’d really appreciate that, if you’ve got the time. The essay questions really worry me. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve had to write essays, and to be honest, I wasn’t very good at it back then.”

“No problem. I have a couple of journal articles I need to read. I can do that while you write. I’ll let you know when your allotted time is up.”

He nodded and drained the last of his second glass of lemonade, then bent industriously over his notebook.

Catherine studied him for a moment, then stood and moved to the sofa. She picked up one of the journals sitting on the coffee table. Norman padded across the floor to jump into her lap, kneading her thigh while she turned to the article she had marked earlier.

Rubbing the spot between his shoulder blades that always made him arch in bliss, she tried to keep her eyes on the page. It wasn’t easy. Mike just looked so darned good sitting at her table, his blond-streaked hair all tousled, a frown of concentration on his pretty face. She sighed.

He glanced around. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she assured him a bit too heartily. “Norman’s just being a little too enthusiastic with the claws.”

He smiled, then looked back down at his notebook. She turned her own attention firmly to the page in front of her.

She knew she would never be able to concentrate on the complex article with Mike sitting so close by, so she entertained herself by imagining how her cousin Lori, the biggest flirt she knew, would behave with a handsome man in her apartment. Lori would certainly not be sitting on the far side of the room pretending to read a scientific journal, that was for certain!

Because she didn’t know how to be any other way, Catherine was completely honest with her appraisal of Mike’s essay answers. She figured she would be wasting both their time if she didn’t make a genuine effort to help him. She tempered her criticism with praise for the things he had done well, but she made no effort to pander to his ego when she pointed out the areas that would very likely lose him points with his professor.

“This is worded too vaguely,” she said, underlining one weak paragraph. “And here you’ve gotten off topic, which would get points marked off by most professors, since they don’t like wasting grading time. And this statement is simply incorrect. In eukaryotes, the enzymes involved in the Krebs cycle and electron transport are located in the mitochondria, not the cell membranes as you’ve written here. This is a very basic biology class, but that’s something you should be expected to know already.”

Mike winced. Something about his expression made her suspect that he wasn’t accustomed to being corrected so bluntly, and she wondered for a moment if she should have made an effort to be more tactful. But then she reminded herself that he surely wanted her to be honest, or he wouldn’t have wasted a beautiful Saturday afternoon studying in her apartment. He certainly hadn’t come just to spend time with her and Norman.

“Thanks,” he said without much enthusiasm. “I’ll work on those things.”

“I’m sure you’ll do very well on the test,” she said, in case he was becoming discouraged.

“I hope you’re right. It’s been harder going back to school than I expected,” he admitted. “To be honest, I flunked out the first time I tried college almost ten years ago, but I told myself it was because I partied too much and studied too little while I was there. I thought maybe if I actually put a little effort into it this time, I’d be more successful with it.”

“I’m sure you will. It must be difficult learning how to study again after such a long absence.”

“Again?” he repeated with a short laugh. “I never learned how to study. Didn’t have to in school. My mother and sisters gave me so much ‘help’ with my homework that I managed to graduate with a minimally adequate grade point average. I got a baseball scholarship to college, but I lost that when the grades fell. It wasn’t as if I was ever going to make it to the pros, anyway. I was a decent player, but not exactly star quality.”

Catherine wasn’t sure what to say in response to his candidness. “What made you decide to go back now?” she asked, then wondered if that had been too personal a question.

His shrug was more sheepish than offended. “I attended my ten-year high school reunion this summer,” he muttered, as if that were explanation enough.

Apparently he had compared himself to some of his classmates and hadn’t been pleased with what he had seen. She gave him a wry smile. “Perhaps you should have done what I did. I skipped my ten-year reunion altogether.”

“Oh? When was that?” he asked with a casualness that was probably intended to disguise the fact that he was basically asking her age.

“Two years ago. I just turned thirty last Saturday.”

“Then I’ll wish you a belated happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

He leaned back in his chair, slinging one arm over the back. “So why didn’t you go to your reunion? I would think you’d be proud to let everyone know you’d turned out so well.”

Uncomfortable with the new direction the conversation had taken, and suspecting Mike had deliberately directed it away from himself, she shrugged a little before saying, “I don’t have that many fond memories of high school. I wasn’t eager to relive my time there.”

She suppressed a wince as she finished speaking. Had she sounded bitter? No one enjoyed spending time with a complainer. “I’m sure I would have had a good time if I’d gone,” she amended quickly, “but I was at a science convention in London that weekend, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d have a great time at my reunion,” Mike murmured, looking down at the pencil he was twisting slowly in his left hand. “I mean, I had a fantastic time in high school. Played sports, had a lot of friends. Parties every weekend, hanging out by the lake all summer.”

She could almost picture the boy he had been. The jock. One of the popular crowd. Strutting through the halls of his high school with the kind of confidence that most adolescents could only watch and secretly envy. She didn’t want to believe that he had been one of the cruel kids. The ones who mocked and belittled anyone who didn’t fit into their narrow definition of what was acceptable. What was cool.

No, Mike had probably been carelessly nice to everyone. Perhaps a bit oblivious to the ones on the outskirts of the in-crowd. He wouldn’t have been the type to be deliberately cruel to them; he simply hadn’t noticed them very often, she thought with a sigh.

“Catherine?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, realizing she’d been quiet for too long. “Flashback to my own school years, I guess. So, your reunion wasn’t as much fun as you expected?”

He shrugged. “Not quite. Most of my classmates have moved on, left those years behind. The ones who haven’t—who sat around all day drinking and replaying old memories and talking about how high school was the high point of their lives—well, they just seemed sort of pathetic, you know?”

He must have experienced quite an epiphany at that reunion. She was a little surprised that he was being so frank about it now, to her, a virtual stranger.

Perhaps he had also revealed more than he had intended. With a quick, rather irritated shake of his head, he began to gather his books and papers. “So you think I’ll ace this test now, huh?”

“I’m not sure you’ll ace it, exactly, but I’m sure you’ll do very—oh. You were teasing.” And she had responded with a careful earnestness that he must have found equally naive and clueless. She had been accused on more than one occasion of being a bit challenged when it came to a sense of humor.

To give him credit, there was no mockery in his smile. “Yeah, I was teasing. Trust me, I’d be happy with a C.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try to ace it,” she responded, thinking he was selling himself too short. “I’ve always been told that confidence is the greatest part of success.”

Tucking his books beneath one arm, he smiled. “There are plenty of people who would tell you that I’ve never lacked for confidence.”

Somehow she suspected that no matter how many people agreed with him on that point, it wasn’t exactly true—not when it came to certain aspects of his life. But she would bet he was quite adept at camouflaging any insecurities he might have.

It was odd to think of a man like this suffering self-doubts. And rather ironic that their doubts were in such dramatically opposite areas. He was entirely comfortable in social situations; she had never worried about academic pursuits.

He was obviously ready to leave. She moved toward the door. “Good luck with your test, Mike.”

“Thanks. It was really nice of you to help me study.”

“You’re quite welcome,” she said, hating the primness she heard in her own voice.

He bent to scratch her cat’s ears. “See you around, Norman.”

With a smile that included both her and the cat—and didn’t seem to particularly favor either of them, she thought regretfully—he let himself out.

Norman remained in his position for several long moments, staring at the closed door with wide, unblinking eyes. It was only when she realized that she was doing much the same thing that Catherine prodded herself into motion. “Give it up, Norman. He’s not coming back.”

The cat didn’t move. Shaking her head in rueful amusement, Catherine moved to the kitchen to put away the glasses she and Mike had used. Before setting Mike’s glass in the dishwasher, she indulged herself in one moment of fantasy by touching a fingertip to the rim. His lips might have touched just there, she mused. It was only her imagination, of course, that made the glass feel a bit warmer in that spot.

He did have a nicely shaped mouth. His upper lip was sensually curved, and his lower lip was just full enough to be nibble-able. When he smiled, as he did so often and so easily, his teeth flashed white and even, and there was just a hint of a dimple at the right corner of his mouth. When he’d tipped his head back to drink his lemonade, his tanned throat had worked with his swallows, calling her attention to the vee of the nicely fitted knit shirt he’d worn with comfortably loose jeans.

Sighing lightly, she set the glass on the dishwasher rack and shut the door. It was silly for her to be standing here mooning over him like an infatuated schoolgirl. And yet…it felt sort of good. It was nice to know her libido was still in working order, despite the amount of time that had passed since she’d last made use of it.

It had been a pleasant couple of hours. She hadn’t made a fool of herself, and she had managed to uphold her end of the conversation even when they hadn’t been talking about science. She’d even managed to crack a couple of jokes and make him smile a couple of times—not that Mike’s smiles were exactly rare.

Maybe if she’d had a bit more practice at that sort of interaction with attractive men, she wouldn’t have celebrated her birthday with her cat, she thought wistfully.

Chapter Three

Mike couldn’t remember ever feeling so confident leaving a classroom after a test. It was almost as if Catherine had known exactly what his professor was going to ask and had drilled him specifically on those points. He had found himself thinking of her during the exam, hearing her voice explaining the concepts to him as he’d read the questions.

He wasn’t quite cocky enough to believe he’d aced the thing, but he was quite certain he had passed. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to have earned better than an average grade. It was a good feeling. And he had Catherine to thank for it.

He had to stop by the supermarket on his way home. He was out of sodas and frozen waffles, his usual breakfast staples. Impulse made him wander into the florist section while he was there.

Half an hour later he stood outside Catherine’s door, having a few second thoughts about being there at all. He didn’t want her to start thinking of him as a nuisance. Maybe he should just forget about this and…

Her door opened before he had a chance to decide whether to ring the bell. Catherine came very close to barreling straight into him before she stopped herself with a gasp of surprise.

“Oh. Mike,” she said, flustered. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“You’re on your way out,” he commented unnecessarily, suddenly awkward. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to give you these. You know, as a thank-you for helping me with my studying.”

She looked a bit startled when he handed her the inexpensive bouquet of mixed blooms. Was it because she wasn’t accustomed to receiving flowers from her handyman? Was she wondering uncomfortably if there was more to the gesture than simple gratitude?

“It’s no big deal,” he said quickly when she tried to stammer a thank-you. “I was at the supermarket, feeling pretty good about my test, and I saw the flowers and thought I should do something to repay you for your help. Since you wouldn’t take any real pay, I mean.”

She had, in fact, quite firmly rebuffed his offer to pay her for her tutoring services.

Her smile seemed to dim just a bit, but her tone was sincere when she said, “I’m glad to hear the test went well. When will you know your grade?”

“The professor is going to post them on his Web site tomorrow. I really think I did well, Catherine. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got a B. High C at the lowest.”

She smiled up at him. “That’s very good news.”

She really did have pretty eyes. Such a rich, dark brown that he could see his own reflection in them. He lowered his gaze to her mouth. And found himself captured for a moment by the soft curve of her upper lip.

He cleared his throat, using the sound to bring his own wandering thoughts back on track. “I won’t keep you any longer,” he said. “I hope I didn’t cause you to be late.”

Wrinkling her nose a little, she shook her head. “I’m just headed for the lab. I’ve got an experiment going, and I’ll probably be there until after midnight.”

He was a bit surprised. “Don’t you have grad students to handle that sort of thing?”

She smiled again. “I’m only an associate professor, just two years out of my postdoctoral position. I have a grad student assigned to my lab, but she has her own research to do. We have a lab tech, but he can’t handle what I need to do tonight. So…it’s up to me.”

“How many hours a week do you work?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere from forty to eighty hours a week. Research isn’t a nine-to-five, five-day-a-week job. But it also gives me some flexibility with my work hours when I have appointments or errands to run or just need some time away from the lab.”

A hard worker, this one, he thought. Smart, focused, self-sufficient. He admired the heck out of her. And if he were perfectly honest with himself, he would admit that he was just a little intimidated by her. And that was a new experience for him.

“Well…” He took a step backward. “Don’t work too hard.”

“Thank you again for the flowers.”

He noticed that she had her nose buried in the bouquet when she turned away and closed the door. She seemed to really like the flowers. He was glad now that he had given in to his impulse to buy them.

“And I’ve put in almost seventy hours on that one case this week,” Julia announced.

Stabbing her fork into a grilled scallop, Catherine replied with the expected murmur of amazement. Yet she knew her friend wasn’t actually complaining. There was nothing Julia enjoyed more than a challenging legal case.

A burst of laughter from somewhere behind her interrupted their quiet conversation. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. “That group behind me is certainly enjoying the evening,” she commented without looking around.

“Looks like a birthday party or something,” Julia said, glancing past Catherine’s shoulder. “Big group.”

“Must be that redhead’s birthday,” Karen Kupperman remarked from the other side of the table. “Everyone seems to be looking at her.”

“They’d probably be doing that even if it wasn’t her birthday,” Julia replied matter-of-factly. “She’s gorgeous.”

“She is, isn’t she?” chubby, pleasantly plain, thirty-five-year-old Karen agreed without envy. “Love that blouse she’s wearing. I wonder if it comes in my size.”

Because her back was turned to the people in question, Catherine had nothing to add to the conversation. She took a bite of fish, savoring the light seasoning.

“Speaking of birthdays,” Karen went on as if it were a perfectly logical segue, “I’m sorry again I wasn’t here to help you celebrate yours, Catherine.”

“You had an excellent excuse.” Karen had just returned from her two-week trip to Europe, the long-overdue vacation following a science research conference. Catherine had already thanked Karen for the birthday gift and had seen the photos from the European trip.

Karen was obviously eager to talk more about her vacation. Catherine resigned herself to hearing several mildly amusing anecdotes again. She didn’t really mind, since she was pleased that Karen had enjoyed the trip so much. Still, it was yet another reminder that while Catherine had celebrated alone with her cat, other people had been having much more interesting adventures.

As if to underline that thought, another burst of laughter came from behind them.

Julia glanced that way again, then said to Karen, “Has Catherine told you about the maintenance guy she’s been seeing?”

Effectively distracted from her vacation reminiscences—which had probably been Julia’s intention—Karen turned to Catherine with a look that combined equal parts disbelief and intrigue. “No, this is the first I’ve heard of a maintenance guy. What is she talking about, Catherine?”

“She is being ridiculous,” Catherine replied with a chiding look at Julia. “I haven’t been ‘seeing’ anyone.”

“Mmm.” Julia’s expression betrayed her skepticism. “And the flowers he gave you yesterday?”

“Simply a thank-you for helping him study for his test,” Catherine retorted. She hoped her tart tone hid the ripple of pleasure that went through her at the mention of that bouquet. She never should have mentioned the flowers to Julia, of course, but it had been such a nice and completely unexpected gesture that she hadn’t been able to resist sharing it with her friend when Julia had called earlier to set the time for this dinner.

Karen lifted both eyebrows. “None of my students give me flowers for extra tutoring.”

“He isn’t a student,” Julia corrected. “He’s the maintenance man at her apartment complex. And, though I’ve never seen him, I’ve gotten the impression that he is very nice looking.”

“I barely know him,” Catherine said to Karen, who was still eyeing her in question. “He came to fix something in my apartment, and he happened to mention that he was having trouble studying for a college biology test. I offered to help him, and he spent a couple of hours at my apartment Saturday. He brought me a small bouquet yesterday as a way of thanking me because he believed he’d done well on the exam. End of story.”

Karen sighed. “Throw me a crumb here. Is he at least good-looking, as Julia suggested?”

Catherine hesitated, then gave Julia another look before conceding, “Well, yes. He’s very nice looking. Not that it matters, of course.”

Groaning, Karen waved a finger at her. “Have I taught you nothing? Of course it matters.”

Because Wayne Kupperman bore a distinct resemblance to the doughboy character on television commercials, Catherine knew Karen was only teasing about looks being important. She smiled obligingly.

“Still, a college student?” Karen shook her head. “I don’t think you’re quite reduced to cradle robbing.”

“It’s not like that. He’s gone back to school after several years away. He’s twenty-eight. Still a little younger than I am, but…” Realizing what she was saying, Catherine stopped with a sigh. “That doesn’t matter, either. There is absolutely nothing going on, Karen.”

“Let me get this straight. He’s close to your age, good-looking, nice enough to bring you flowers—and you aren’t interested in him?”

Because she couldn’t honestly deny any interest in him, Catherine spoke a bit more tartly than she intended when she said, “Mike and I obviously have absolutely nothing in common. Even if I were interested, nothing’s going to happen.”

“So maybe you aren’t soul mates. You could still enjoy yourself with a harmless flirtation, couldn’t you?”

Julia, who had appeared to be concentrating on her meal, glanced up then. “Catherine doesn’t know how to flirt. She commented about that just the other night.”

“You’re one to talk,” Karen, who had known Julia since college and had been the one to introduce her to Catherine a couple of years earlier, remarked pointedly. “You never even notice when anyone flirts with you.”

“I know,” Julia answered matter-of-factly. “Someone always has to tell me later that I was being hit on.”

“Hopeless,” Karen proclaimed. “The two of you. It isn’t exactly rocket science, girls.”

“Rocket science would be less intimidating to me.” Catherine reached for her water glass. “And, anyway, who are you to give advice on flirting or dating? You’ve hardly ever dated anyone but Wayne. You told me you were college sweethearts from your freshman year and his junior year, for heaven’s sake. You got married while you were both still in graduate school.”

Karen had to concede that point. “If Wayne and I should split up, I wouldn’t have a clue how to get back into the dating scene. I guess I’d better just keep him.”

As if that were even a question. With the exception of her own parents, Catherine had never met any couple more suited than Karen and Wayne.

“They really should offer classes in that sort of thing,” Karen went on thoughtfully. She nodded toward the boisterous group in the back corner of the big dining room. “The birthday redhead there could probably be the professor.”

Though she tried to be subtle about it, Catherine couldn’t resist craning her neck around to get a glimpse of the woman both Julia and Karen had pointed out. She spotted the redhead immediately, and she could see why her friends had noticed her.

The woman really was lovely. Her hair was a rich strawberry blond, cascading in a silky curtain to her shoulders, which were all but bared by the royal-blue, halter-neck dress she wore. Her face was a perfect oval of creamy porcelain, warmed by big, laughing green eyes and a vivid smile.

Just looking at her made Catherine feel dowdy and plain in her tailored white blouse and gray slacks, her own brown hair styled in its usual neat bob. While Julia might be technically as pretty as the redhead, her clothes were much more sedate, her expression more keep-your-distance than come-hither. And Karen… As fond as she was of her, Catherine had to admit that few men would look twice at matronly Karen if that redhead was in the same room. At herself, either, for that matter.

“She really is beautiful.” Again, there wasn’t a trace of envy in Karen’s voice. “And would you look at that guy with her. Is he a perfect specimen or what?”

“Which guy?” Julia asked without much interest. “There are four of them.”

Not wanting to be caught staring, Catherine had turned back around after glancing at the redhead. She hadn’t really noticed any of the men in the birthday party.

“The blond one,” Karen said, gazing openly in that direction. “Green shirt. Looks like he should be on the cover of a magazine.”

“Oh. Him.” Julia’s voice chilled several degrees. “He looks like a jerk. One of those guys who thinks he’s such hot stuff that he can get away with anything.”

Catherine shook her head in exasperation with her friend’s attitude. Julia had no patience for shallow, frivolous people—although she had good reason. She had encountered too many men who had pretended to be interested in her brains and competence, when what they had really wanted was a beautiful blonde to dangle from their arms. A woman who excelled in a field once dominated by men, Julia hated to be patronized, trivialized or underestimated. And she said she was treated that way most often by slick, handsome men.

“Let’s just forget about that other group,” Catherine suggested. “The three of us don’t get that many opportunities to have a leisurely dinner together. We should make the most of it.”

The conversation had just drifted back to Karen’s vacation when the group behind them began to sing the happy birthday song. Julia looked up from her dessert with a slight frown. “They certainly are loud.”

“They’re just having fun,” Karen said, glancing that way with an indulgent smile.

Catherine turned again to look in that direction, as were most of the other diners in the restaurant. They had been right about it being the redhead’s birthday. She was glowing as her friends sang to her.

Remembering Karen and Julia’s earlier conversation, Catherine scanned the group idly for the man who had caused Karen to sigh and Julia to scowl. A blond man, they had said. Sitting close to the…

Her gaze froze, and she felt her smile slide right off her face.

She wasn’t sure what made him look suddenly her way. Simply coincidence, perhaps. But suddenly he spotted her, and recognition dawned instantly on his face. His smile widened, and he gave her a little wave. Catherine waved a bit stiffly in return, then turned quickly back to her dinner companions.

“Catherine, do you know that guy?” Karen asked curiously. “He’s the one Julia and I were talking about.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Really? Someone from work? I don’t recognize him.”

“No. Someone from my apartment complex.”

Karen’s eyes widened comically. “Oh, surely not.”

“Surely not what?” Julia asked, as clueless as ever.

“That’s the one who brought you flowers?” Karen demanded.

Catherine nodded. “How did you guess?”

“Let’s face it. How many men do you know who fit that description?”

“You have a point there.”

“That’s the maintenance guy?” Julia asked, catching up. She looked toward Mike’s table again and shook her head. “I see what you mean, now, about nothing happening between you. He would be totally wrong for you.”

Even though Julia was only repeating what Catherine, herself, had been saying, Catherine was aware of a sudden, sinking feeling inside her. “It’s hardly necessary for you to tell me that.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Karen frowned at Julia. “I think it might be good for Catherine to get out of her rut. She wouldn’t have to marry the guy or anything, but why shouldn’t she have fun?”

“Waste of time,” Julia said dismissively. “Catherine’s a woman with a demanding career. Why would she want to complicate her life even more when she knows it won’t lead anywhere? Guy like that, first time she has to blow him off for job demands, he’ll sulk. Next time it happens, as we all know it will, he’ll take off in search of someone who has nothing better to do than to cater to his ego.”

“You aren’t being fair, Julia. You don’t even know this man.”

“Trust me. I know dozens of this man.”

“You’re so cynical. Even for a lawyer.”

“Yeah, well, it’s easy for you to be all starry-eyed. You married the only Mr. Perfect and left the rest of us with the jerks and the losers.”

“Wayne isn’t perfect.” But then Karen smiled, her plain face suddenly almost pretty. “But I’ll admit that he’s darned close.”

“Just because this Mike guy is pretty and gave her flowers doesn’t mean Catherine should get tangled up with him.”

Catherine cleared her throat rather forcefully. “I am still here, you know. I can hear every word of this totally inane conversation.”

Karen giggled. “We haven’t forgotten about you.”

“Then could we change the subject now, please?” Though she knew it was foolish, she had the unsettling feeling that Mike would somehow know they were talking about him.

Karen looked a bit reluctant, but Julia was more than happy to veer the conversation into a new direction. Very aware of Mike sitting on the other side of the room, but trying to pretend she had forgotten all about him, Catherine focused intently on her friends as they finished their meals.

Catherine spotted Mike across the apartment compound as she climbed out of her car late the next afternoon. A toolbox in his hands, he was chatting with an older man she knew to be a longtime resident. Other tenants were moving around the parking lot, either walking to or away from their vehicles. She noted that several of them called out greetings to Mike, to which he responded with cordial waves.

He had certainly made himself known during his brief time on this job. She had lived here almost two years and knew the names of maybe three of her neighbors.

Finishing his conversation, he turned her way, saw her and lifted his hand in a wave. She paused in the shade of the oak tree next to her apartment building when he indicated that he wanted to speak with her.

“How’s it going?” he asked as he approached her.

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

“Not bad. I just wanted to tell you I got a B on my biology exam. A high B, just two points away from an A. The professor graded off on one of my essay questions,” he added with a charmingly sheepish smile. “Said I was ‘too vague.’”

She returned the smile, feeling safe to tease him a bit since he seemed to have accepted the comments good-naturedly. “Imagine that.”

He chuckled. “You did try to warn me.”

“Still, a high B is an excellent grade. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” He looked genuinely proud of himself.

“When’s your next exam?”

“Friday.”

“Do you feel good about it?”

He hesitated just a moment before smiling a bit too brightly. “Oh, yeah. Piece of cake.”

Tilting her head, she studied him with a frown. “What will it cover?”

“Classification of organisms. You know, prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Real basic stuff that everyone should know by college.”

And yet he didn’t sound at all confident that he did know the material that well. “I’d be happy to quiz you, if you like,” she offered diffidently. “Not that I’m implying you’re not ready, of course, but—”

“You’re sure? Because I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance to you. I really don’t expect you to help me study for every test.”

“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “This is a fairly slow week for me—which is a rarity, actually. I can spare a couple of hours to talk about plantae and such.”

“Eukaryotes, right?”

She smiled again. “Right. When’s a good time for you?”

“I have a class this evening. But I’m free tomorrow evening, if that’s good for you.”

“Yes, fine. I should be home by six.”

“Do you like pizza?”

The non sequitur made her blink, but she nodded. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll bring dinner.” He dug into his shirt pocket, pulled out a card and a pen, and scribbled on the back. “Here’s my cell number, in case something comes up. Don’t feel obligated for this if there’s something else you need to do.”

Even as she gave him her numbers in exchange, she couldn’t imagine anything cropping up that would be more tempting than having pizza and studying with Mike Clancy.

Chapter Four

“Hey, Catherine. You’ll be here this evening, won’t you? Would you mind pulling a couple of plates for me?”

Catherine looked up from her microscope in response to the question the next afternoon. It was from one of the young women she had overheard talking about her last week, commenting about how Catherine never did anything but work, as if she had no life outside the lab.

It gave her great satisfaction to be able to say, “I’m sorry, Brandy, I won’t be here this evening. I have a date.”

“A date?”

Catherine wasn’t flattered by the surprise in the younger woman’s expression. She nodded coolly, feeling little compunction now about misrepresenting her plans for the evening. “You’ll have to ask someone else.”

“Okay…well…have fun.”

“Thank you. I intend to.”

It wasn’t like her to take such pleasure from deliberately misleading someone. But her lips curved into a rather grim smile of satisfaction as she bent back down to her work. It felt good to make it clear that she didn’t actually live here in the lab, with no outside interests of her own.

She really was going to have to start getting out more to make that assertion entirely true.

Catherine usually dressed quite casually—pretty much a necessity for most lab work. Her wardrobe consisted primarily of khakis and camp shirts in muted solids, often worn open over beige or white sleeveless tops. When the weather turned cooler, she swapped the camp shirts for thin sweaters with sleeves that could be pushed up and out of her way.

Occasionally she paired her khakis with more-professional blouses and blazers. When she had to dress up, she wore black slacks with the blazers. She rarely wore jeans or shorts and owned only a few skirts, since bare legs were not usually a good idea in a science lab.

Because her wardrobe was so simple and her choices rather limited, she didn’t spend much time deciding what to wear. She simply reached for a pair of slacks and any of the dozen or so shirts that matched them. She kept her hair in an easy-to-style bob, wore only light touches of makeup and eschewed all jewelry except her functional watch and a couple of pairs of simply styled earrings. She could be ready to leave her apartment in under half an hour.

All of which made it completely out of character for her to dither about her clothing for almost twenty minutes before Mike arrived Thursday evening. She had gotten home from work an hour earlier than she’d expected, giving her plenty of time to freshen up and change before Mike arrived, but for some reason she couldn’t decide what to wear. How silly, considering they wouldn’t be doing anything but studying, and that he wouldn’t notice her clothes, anyway.

She reached for fresh khakis and camp shirt, then paused again. On an impulse, she turned to a shelf on which she kept the two pairs of jeans that she owned. She donned a pair with a snug-fitting yellow T-shirt, then slid her bare feet into a pair of brown leather clogs.

Eyeing her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the back of her closet door, she wondered if she had made the right choice. She looked more casual than usual. Too casual? Did it appear as though she were trying too hard to look younger?

“What do you think, Normie?”

The cat, who had been playing with a jingling toy ball near her feet, looked up and meowed rather impatiently, as if to tell her to stop being silly. Deciding that he was right, she turned off the closet light and left the bedroom.

Mike was late again, but only by fifteen minutes. The large pizza box in his hand looked as though it was still steaming, which probably explained his tardiness, she decided. Maybe he’d had to wait in line to pick it up. They should have just called for delivery.

A backpack was slung over one shoulder of the Hawaiian print shirt he wore over a T-shirt and faded jeans, reminding her of the “surfer dude” nickname she had given him the first time she’d seen him. He greeted her with a broad, beaming smile that elicited quivers of reaction deep inside her. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She moved to one side. “Come in.”

She closed the door behind him as he bent to scratch Norman’s ears. She wondered if anyone had seen him entering her apartment with the pizza, and if any tongues would wag as a result. She wasn’t accustomed to imagining herself at the center of apartment complex chatter, since her life wasn’t exactly fodder for juicy gossip.

“The pizza smells really good,” she said, making a stab at polite chitchat.

“We should probably eat it while it’s still hot, and then study afterward, don’t you think?”

“That sounds good. What would you like to drink?” she asked, waving him toward the table.

“Do you have a cola?”

“Only diet, I’m afraid.”

“That’ll work. It wouldn’t hurt me to cut a few calories.”

She almost suspected him of saying that just to get her to look at his athletically built body. Even if that hadn’t been his intention, it was exactly what she did. Swallowing a comment about how he certainly didn’t have to worry about his weight—or anything else about his appearance, for that matter—she moved into the kitchen to fetch plates, napkins and two canned diet sodas.

Catherine had been a bit concerned that conversation might be awkward between herself and Mike while they ate, but Mike took care of that. He had a talent for making small talk that she could only envy. Somehow she found herself relaxing and responding almost as easily as she might have chatted with Karen and Julia.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” he urged as he reached for a second slice of pizza. “Where did you grow up? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Did you always want to be a scientist?”

She hesitated a moment to organize her thoughts before answering. “I was born in College Station, Texas, but we moved several times during the next dozen years. My parents are college professors, and they taught in Texas and Virginia and Georgia before settling in Florida when I was twelve. They both taught at Florida State University until Dad retired two years ago, and Mom retired last year. They’re spending six months in Beijing now on a cooperative teaching program with the university there. They’ve been there just over a month.”

“How exciting for them.”

“Yes, they were thrilled to have this opportunity.”

“No siblings?”

“No. My parents had given up on having children by the time I came along.” She remembered that he was the youngest of five siblings. She couldn’t imagine being a part of such a large family. Her own childhood had been quiet and orderly. She had never even had a pet before Norman.

“Was it lonely for you?”

“No, not really. I was very close to my parents and they always saw to it that I had playmates. They enrolled me in very good preschool programs and then excellent private schools as I grew older. Needless to say, they were heavily focused on academic enrichment. I spent every summer in educational camps, studying everything from math to science to foreign languages.”

“And you liked that?” he asked a bit dubiously.

“I loved it,” she admitted with a smile. “I always looked forward to my summer programs. I made friends as well as learned a wide variety of subjects.”

“I spent my summers playing ball and working construction jobs for spending money. When I wasn’t at the ballpark or on a job site, I’d be at the pool with my buddies, checking out the girls in bikinis.”

Illustrating once again how very different they were, even from childhood.

“When did you decide you wanted to be a scientist?” he asked.

“I don’t remember, exactly. My parents always encouraged me to pursue academia.” That, of course, was an understatement, since her parents had pretty much mapped out her future from her birth. Fortunately, she had been perfectly willing to go along with their plans, which had suited her temperament well enough. “I suppose I started focusing on the biological sciences as a teenager, when I began to show a particular aptitude for the subject.”

“So you never looked at anything else?”

“I briefly considered pursuing an M.D., but I decided against that because I’m too much of a control freak,” she admitted. “If I couldn’t make the patients do what I suggested, it would make me crazy.”

“And you have more control in research?”

She had to laugh at that. “No. Research is usually two steps forward, one step back. Or as often as not, one step forward and three steps back. There are a zillion little variables that can affect any experiment, many of which the researcher has little to no control over.”

His gaze seemed to focus for a long moment on her smiling mouth. “That doesn’t bother you?”

What bothered her was the look in his eyes just then, an expression she couldn’t begin to interpret. She cleared her throat silently and said, “I get frustrated sometimes, but I enjoy my work for the most part.”

“Lots of pressure to get results and get published, I would imagine.”

“Oh, sure. Add to that the steady dwindling of grant monies for scientific research, and it’s a fairly high-stress job. But I can deal with that.”

His gaze rose to her eyes again. “Something tells me you can handle just about anything.”

No, she thought with a quick ripple of anxiety. There were some things she didn’t know how to handle at all.

“So tell me more about your upcoming test,” she said a bit too hastily. “Do you feel pretty confident about it?”

A third slice of pizza halfway to his mouth, Mike looked a bit surprised by her abrupt change of subject. “Um—yeah, pretty good. There are a couple of things I’m hoping you can explain a little better for me, but I think I have a good chance at doing well.”

Chagrined at her awkwardness, she stuffed a bite of pizza into her mouth and reached grimly for her glass. She had certainly brought that conversation to an abrupt halt.

Maybe she had better just stick to tutoring.

Mike gathered his books and papers and stuffed them into his backpack an hour and a half later. “Once again, you’ve been really helpful, Catherine. I think I’m ready for the test now.”

Catherine stood just a few feet away, watching him prepare to leave. Norman lay bonelessly in her arms, purring so loudly Mike could hear him from where he stood. “You’ve very welcome. Let me know how it goes, okay? I’ll be curious.”

“Yes, I will.” He was rather pleased by her request, since it indicated a willingness on her part for their budding friendship to continue. He’d thought earlier that perhaps he had blown it by asking too many questions about her. It rather surprised him how important it was for him to keep the lines of communication open between them.

It wasn’t because she was helping him study. He liked her. He admired her sharp mind and her generosity. Her cat. And, he had to admit, her chocolatey eyes, sensual mouth and willowy figure.

He hesitated at the door, a bit reluctant to leave. “I forgot to ask, how did you like that new restaurant the other night? I saw you there with your friends.”

“I thought it was quite good. My friends and I try to get together for dinner at least once a month, and we’re always pleased to find someplace new to eat. I noticed that your group seemed to be having a good time.”

He chuckled. “Those were my sister’s friends, actually. It was her birthday, so she chose who to invite. But I had a good time with them.”

“That beautiful redhead is your sister?” Catherine asked in surprise.

Smiling, he nodded. “That’s Laurie. My sister Charlie was also at the table. You might not have seen her because she had her back to you, but she’s another redhead.”

“Do all your sisters have red hair?”

“Three of the four inherited Dad’s red hair. The other sister, the oldest, Gretchen, has the same blond hair that our mother and I have.”

“Are they all as pretty as Laurie?”

“Well, I think so—but I’m not exactly objective.”

“A very handsome family, apparently.”

He couldn’t help wondering if she included him in that description. Vain of him, of course, but he would like to think she found him as attractive as she was to him. “I guess I’d better go. Thanks again, Catherine. I wish there was some way that I could repay you.”

“You’ve brought flowers and pizza. That’s really plenty.”

He couldn’t understand what it was about her that made him uncharacteristically tongue-tied. With any other attractive, intriguing woman, he’d have already made his move. Flirted a little, tested her reaction to see if she might be receptive to going out with him. After that…well, he usually just allowed nature to take its course.

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