“Tell Me,” Rosemary Demanded. Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright

“Tell Me,” Rosemary Demanded.

“Name some stars for me, Willis.”

“Okay,” he replied. But something in his voice sounded a bit strained. “Like... like Beta Pictoris, for example,” he told her. “Or...or Regulus. Aldebaran. Arcturus.”

The heat inside Rosemary began to churn as he rattled off the unfamiliar words, until it swirled into a seething mass of turmoil, spilling into her heart, her hands, her head. And suddenly she remembered something. She remembered that she had always been completely turned on—yes, by Willis Random, whenever he started talking like a scientist.

Because even at fifteen she had always been utterly aroused by boys who could talk intellectual talk. Mathematical talk. Scientific talk. Boys who could split atoms in their basements after dinner. And there had been only one boy at Endicott Central who could do all that.

Willis Random.

Dear Reader,

Where do you read Silhouette Desire? Sitting in your favorite chair? How about standing in line at the market or swinging in the sunporch hammock? Or do you hold out the entire day, waiting for all your distractions to dissolve around you, only to open a Desire novel once you’re in a relaxing bath or resting against your softest pillow.. ? Wherever you indulge in Silhouette Desire, we know you do so with anticipation, and that’s why we bring you the absolute best in romance fiction.

This month, look forward to talented Jennifer Greene’s A Baby in His In-Box, where a sexy tutor gives March’s MAN OF THE MONTH private lessons on sudden fatherhood And in the second adorable tale of Elizabeth Bevarly’s BLAME IT ON BOB series, Beauty and the Brain, a lady discovers she’s still starry-eyed over her secret high school crush. Next, Susan Crosby takes readers on The Great Wife Search in Bride Candidate #9.

And don’t miss a single kiss delivered by these delectable men: a roguish rancher in Amy J. Fetzer’s The Unlikely Bodyguard; the strong, silent corporate hunk in the latest book in the RIGHT BRIDE, WRONG GROOM series, Switched at the Altar, by Metsy Hingle; and Eileen Wilks’s mouthwatering honorable Texas hero in Just a Little Bit Pregnant.

So, no matter where you read, I know what you’ll be reading—all six of March’s irresistible Silhouette Desire love stories!

Regards,

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Beauty and the Brain

Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BEVARLY is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend’s thirty-five-foot sailboat across the Bermuda Triangle. “I really love to travel,” says this self-avowed beach bum. “To me, it’s the best education a person can give to herself.” Her dream is to one day have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two footer, and to enjoy the freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has a lot in common with the characters she creates, people who know love and life go hand in hand. And she’s getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as well—she and her husband have a three-year-old son.

For Laurie, Debbie,

Gina and Tina,

my best buds at

Seneca High School.

Thanks for the memories.

Prologue

“I hate him. I despise him. I’m going to kill him.”

Fifteen-year-old Rosemary March glared at the auburnhaired, bespectacled, orthodontically decorated boy on the other side of the school gymnasium and frowned.

“That pizza-faced little twerp,” she said, continuing with her verbal assault. “Just who does he think he is?”

“Calm down, Rosemary,” Kirby Connaught, one of her best friends, told her. “By now, nothing Willis Random does or says to you should surprise you. You guys have been mortal enemies since school started.”

“Yeah,” her other friend, Angie Ellison, agreed. “Just because he called you a ‘simpleminded, slack-brained know-nothing’ in chemistry class today. I mean, he’s called you lots worse things before.”

Rosemary turned her venomous gaze toward her friend in silent warning not to remind her. Angie immediately fell quiet and returned her attention to the delicate gardenia corsage that hugged her wrist.

“Yeah,” Kirby concurred after a noisy slurp of her diet soda that sucked the beverage dry. “You ought to be used to it by now. And he’s going to be your lab partner for the rest of the year, so you also better get used to just ignoring him.”

“Oh, thanks a lot, you two,” Rosemary grumbled. “You’re no help at all. I only wish I could ignore him. But he makes my life miserable. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t make me feel like...like...”

“Like a simpleminded, slack-brained know-nothing?” Angie supplied helpfully.

Rosemary frowned harder. Yeah, she thought. Exactly like that.

The three friends were taking a break from the dancing couples who crowded the floor of the high school gymnasium. The Welcome Back Bob Comet Festival was in full swing, and the gym doors had been thrown open wide to invite in the general public and the balmy September night for the traditional Comet Stomp Dance. Rosemary’s and Angie’s dates had gone in search of refreshment and left the three girls to talk among themselves on the bleachers. Kirby’s date...well, Kirby’s date was sort of nonexistent, Rosemary knew, which was all the more reason for her to remain with her friends.

The Welcome Back Bob Comet Festival was an event that occurred in the small southern Indiana town of Endicott every decade and a half, and, as always, the community had turned out in numbers to celebrate. Comet Bob had actually made his peak appearance in the skies over town the night before, but he would be visible to the naked eye for another few days, and within telescope range for another two weeks. The Comet Festival generally ran for the entirety of Bob’s appearance, for the most part constituting the whole month of September.

The festival belonged to Endicott and took place with such regularity because, for whatever reason, the comet returned to the planet like clockwork during the third week of every fifteenth September. And when it did, it always—always—made its closest pass at the coordinates that were exactly—exactly —directly above Endicott.

Bob’s punctuality and preference for such specific coordinates had frustrated the studies of many a scientist since the comet’s discovery nearly two centuries ago. Every fifteen years, scores of experts in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology—and hundreds of amateurs, too—descended on southern Indiana in an effort to explain the unexplainable. And every fifteen years, those experts returned home again with notebooks full of data that defied analysis, and prescriptions for migraines that simply would not go away.

And because no one had been able to explain exactly what caused Bob’s constancy or his affection for Endicott, the comet’s celebrity had grown and grown, and the residents of the little Indiana town had come to claim the comet as their own.

Comet Bob actually had a much more formal name, but virtually no one could pronounce it correctly—no one but Willis Random, Rosemary thought to herself with much irritation. Because Bob was named after an eastern European scientist who had few vowels, and even fewer recognizable consonants, in his name, and who had been dead for more than a hundred years anyway, the general consensus seemed to be, What difference does it make?

Comet Bob was Comet Bob, and in addition to his mystery and celebrity—or perhaps, more accurately, because of it—myth and legend had grown up around his regular visits over the years. Anyone in Endicott who’d been around for more than one appearance of Bob knew full well that he was responsible for creating all kinds of mischief.

Virtually everyone was of the opinion that Bob was responsible for cosmic disturbances that caused the local citizens to behave very strangely whenever he came around. Waitresses confused restaurant orders. People got lost on their way to jobs they had been performing for years. Children cleaned their rooms and finished their homework in a timely fashion. And people who would normally never give each other the time of day fell utterly and irrevocably in love.

And, of course, there were the wishes.

It was widely believed by the townsfolk of Endicott that natives born in the small town in a year of the comet’s appearance were blessed in a way no one else was. Simply put, if someone was born in the year of the comet, and if that someone made a wish the year Bob returned, while the comet was making its pass directly overhead, then that someone’s wish would come true the next time Bob paid a visit.

Rosemary, Kirby and Angie had all been born the last time Bob came around. And the night before the dance, as the three girls had lain in Angie’s backyard while the comet passed directly overhead, each of them had made a wish.

Angie had wished that just once, something or someone exciting would happen to the small southern Indiana town. Which, of course, Rosemary was certain now, blew any chance for the myth of the wishes to come true, because nothing exciting ever happened in Endicott.

Kirby had wished for a forever-after kind of love, the kind normally found only in books and movies. Another longshot, as far as Rosemary was concerned. Not only did Rosemary not believe in that kind of love, but Kirby hadn’t ever even been on a date, let alone had anything even remotely resembling a boyfriend. All she did was go to school and take care of her invalid mother. All the boys in Endicott just thought Kirby was too sweet and too nice for any of them to ever want to take her out for romantic reasons. Not that Kirby hadn’t tried.

And Rosemary... She sighed with much satisfaction now when she recalled her own wish. Rosemary had wished that that pizza-faced little twerp Willis Random would get what was coming to him someday. And that, she thought, was a wish with some potential. Even if she had to be the one administering justice herself, she’d see to it that somehow, some way, someday, Willis would get his.

Oh, yeah, Rosemary thought smugly as she noted again the pizza-faced little twerp standing in the corner of the gym all by himself. Someday—say fifteen years from now—Willis Random was going to pay for the way he had treated her in high school. He’d get his. She knew he would.

After all, she had Bob on her side.

One

He had been hoping Rosemary March would age badly. Even though he knew she was only thirty now, he had been praying that when he saw her again, she would be gray-haired, haggard-looking, stoop-shouldered, wrinkled and flabby. She was, after all, two years older than he was. Unfortunately, from the looks of her, Rosemary had only improved with age.

When Willis Random had rounded her kitchen doorway only seconds before and seen her for the first time in thirteen years, he had halted in his tracks, unable to say a word because his mouth and throat had suddenly gone dry. Common courtesy dictated that he should say something to make her aware of his presence in her home. Their past history together demanded that he feel defensive about it, even though he was here at her mother’s invitation. But once he got a load of Rosemary standing there, he simply could not utter a sound.

Bent at the waist, she leaned lazily forward with her elbows propped on the kitchen counter. Her gaze was fixed on the dark liquid dripping methodically from the coffeemaker, her heavy-lidded eyes indicating she was clearly still half-asleep. As if that hadn’t been enough, Willis noted further with a gasp that got stuck somewhere in his throat, her attire—what little there was of it—upheld her not-quite-awake status.

Flowered cotton bikini panties hugged extremely wellrounded hips, and a cropped white undershirt revealed an expanse of creamy skin most men saw only in glossy centerfolds. She was wearing white kneesocks, too, one having fallen halfway down her calf, the other scrunched down around her ankle. Her hair was a tousle of dark brown, chin-length curls, rumpled from sleep and the fact that she had a fistful bunched in one hand.

She was a vision straight out of a thirteen-year-old boy’s fantasies. And Willis should know. He’d fantasized about Rosemary March a lot when he was thirteen years old. Unfortunately, he’d never been more to her than a pizza-faced little twerp.

She must have somehow sensed his presence, because she glanced idly over at the kitchen doorway, then back at the coffeemaker again. A quick double take brought her attention back to him, and only then did Willis fully appreciate their situation.

He hadn’t anticipated that their first reunion since high school graduation would play out quite like this. She was in her underwear, after all, and he was fully dressed in khaki shorts, a navy blue polo and heavy hiking boots. And although his experience with women wasn’t extensive, Willis felt it was probably pretty safe to assume that most women didn’t take kindly to being caught by surprise in their underthings. Particularly when the catcher wasn’t reduced to his own Skivvies, and especially when the catcher was someone the woman had despised for more than a decade.

His suspicions were fairly well reinforced when Rosemary straightened and opened her mouth wide to emit a bloodchilling scream at the top of her lungs. He waited until she was finished, until she was staring at him silently with wide, terrified eyes, then he cleared his throat indelicately.

“Hi,” he said, pretending he noticed neither her state of dishabille nor her state of distress. “I don’t know if you remember me.” He stuck out his hand in as matter-of-fact a gesture as he could manage and added, “I’m Willis Random. We used to go to school together.”

In response to his reintroduction, Rosemary opened her mouth wide again and let out another, even more piercing, screech of horror.

Willis forced a nervous smile and dropped his hand back to his side. “Ah. I see you do remember me. And I’m flattered, Rosemary. Truly... flattered.”

The second scream brought around Willis’s companion—the mayor of Endicott, Indiana, who also happened to be Rosemary’s mother—and Mrs. March joined him at the kitchen doorway.

“Rosemary, for God’s sake,” her mother said. “Try to be a bit more polite. I know you and Willis never got along in high school, but the least you could do is try to start off on the right foot.” Mrs. March noted her daughter’s attire then and made a soft tsking noise. “And do put some clothes on, darling. You have a guest in your house.”

Then Mrs. March spun around with a quick “This way, Willis—I’ll show you your room,” and Willis and Rosemary were left alone again.

He scrunched up his shoulders awkwardly, then let them fall. “Good to see you again, Rosemary.” As he spun around, he couldn’t resist throwing over his shoulder, “All of you.”

He hurried to catch up with Mrs. March before Rosemary had a chance to respond with a hastily hurled pot of coffee. A wild rush of heat that he hadn’t felt in thirteen years sped through his body, but he recognized all too well. It was the feeling that had always assaulted him whenever he’d had to go toe-to-toe with Rosemary. And that had happened nearly every day when he was in the tenth grade.

The two of them had been lab partners in chemistry for an entire school year. Nine months of hell, Willis recalled now. And, he had to concede, stifling a wistful sigh that threatened, nine months of heaven, too.

He’d been the brainy geek who was skipped a couple of grades, two years younger and six inches shorter than every other guy in his class. Come to think of it, he’d also been shorter than Rosemary, and she’d doubtless outweighed him then. He’d been the proverbial ninety-seven-pound weakling until he’d taken up weight lifting in college. Of course, that second puberty he’d gone through toward the end of his sixteenth year had probably helped a lot, too.

And now he was back in Endicott, armed with five degrees—two of them doctorates—an assignment from MIT, where he currently taught astrophysics, and a high-powered telescope of his own design. He’d come back for the Comet Festival for which his hometown was famous, back for the answers that Bobrzynyckolonycki had refused to give him fifteen years before.

This time, when Willis studied the comet, he would do so with far greater knowledge and insight than he’d had when he was thirteen, the last time Bobrzynyckolonycki had come around. This time, when he collected and analyzed all of his data, it would be with infinitely more patience and attention than a teenage boy had been able to manage. This time, Willis promised himself, he was going to get the truth out of that damned comet, or he was going to die trying.

Thinking back on the vision of Rosemary and her scantily covered flesh, he bit back a groan. He’d always figured she would be the death of him someday. But he’d always assumed it would be her scathing words and utter contempt for him that finally did him in, and not his undying carnal desire for her. All of a sudden, he felt as if he was thirteen years old again.

And that was the last thing Willis needed. Rosemary March had made his life miserable when he was in high school. Alternately he’d hated and adored her, one minute wanting to cut her to the quick, the next minute wanting to cop a feel. She’d tied his pubescent libido in knots, something he’d never been able to understand.

Simply put, Rosemary had been an idiot, completely incapable of understanding even the most elementary scientific equation. How on earth he could have lusted after a girl who knew nothing about science, Willis had never been able to figure out. Oh, sure, she’d had a pretty face and a great body and all that, but she’d had no brain at all. How could he ever have been attracted to her? Even at thirteen, he should have been above that.

The sight of her standing half-undressed with her socks falling down around her ankles erupted in his brain again, and Willis felt himself jumping to life with a lack of control reminiscent of a thirteen-year-old boy. He clamped his teeth together tight and willed his body and libido to behave themselves. Evidently, he was still susceptible to pretty faces and great bodies, regardless of the brains that topped them.

Dammit.

Bobrzynyckolonycki, he reminded himself. The only heavenly body you’re here to study is the comet. Don’t forget that.

“Willis?” he heard Mrs. March call out some ways ahead of him. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mrs. March,” he called back, hurrying his step to catch up with her.

And Rosemary or no Rosemary, I’m not going home until I have the answers I demand.

Rosemary March stood open-mouthed and dumbfounded in her kitchen and tried to tell herself that what she had just seen was not Willis Random, but an hallucination brought on by yet another late night in front of the TV, with no other companion than The Zombies of Mora Tau and a pint of double-chocolate-chunk fudge ice cream.

There was no way she’d believe that the big hunk of manhood lounging in her kitchen doorway moments ago—however startling his appearance had been—could have begun his life as that pizza-faced little twerp who had made Rosemary’s life miserable when she was a teenager. Uh-uh. No way. No how.

The last time she’d seen Willis, he’d been giving his valedictorian speech at graduation. The class had congregated on the football field on an especially moody spring day, and Willis had literally been blown over by a good, stiff wind. Right off the podium, in front of the entire class of ’85, most of whom had hooted with laughter as a result.

The man who had just left her kitchen, on the other hand...

Rosemary shook her head hard in an effort to clear it. Okay, the guy’s glasses coincided with Willis’s myopia, but instead of the Scotch-taped earpiece that had marked the spectacles Willis wore, this guy’s were Ralph Lauren chic. And okay, the blue eyes behind the glasses were the same midnight blue that Willis’s had been. She’d always marveled that such a geek should have such gorgeous eyes. And yes, the man’s deep brown hair had been kissed with reddish gold highlights reminiscent of the auburn, unruly thatch that Willis had never quite been able to tame.

Other than that, there was nothing about the man who had just called himself Willis Random that even remotely resembled the obnoxious little jerk she remembered.

There was only one way to proceed with this thing, she told herself. She was going to have to follow that particular vision—and the other specter that had borne an uncanny resemblance to her own mother—and demand to know just what the hell was going on.

After she got dressed, she amended, glancing down at her attire. And after she’d poured herself a cup of coffee, she added, hearing the coffeemaker wheeze out a last gasp.

Armed with an oversize mug full of black coffee, Rosemary peeked out the kitchen doorway in an effort to discover which way her assailants had gone. Hearing nothing, she took a few silent steps toward the living room, and paused at the staircase. Muffled voices told her that her two visitors were upstairs, but she couldn’t tell which room. So she padded quickly up the hardwood steps, her movements silent thanks to her stocking feet.

When she rounded the stairway landing, she saw that the attic door at the top of the staircase was agape, its collapsible steps extended down to the hallway floor. Her mother’s voice carried through the opening, and Rosemary heard her saying something about the spectacular view.

Hastily, Rosemary ducked into her bedroom and closed the door behind herself. For a moment, all she could do was lean against it, trying to steady her breathing and figure out why her mother was here with a man who claimed to be Willis. True, her mother technically still owned the house that Rosemary called home, even if Janet March wasn’t living here. But Rosemary had come to think of the rambling old English stucco as her own place, having lived there by herself for the last three years.

Originally, it had belonged to her maternal grandmother, who had left it to Rosemary’s mother when she passed away. But Janet March had never expressed an interest in living in the hulking old house. Since the death of Rosemary’s father five years ago, Janet had preferred to live in a condominium in downtown Endicott, explaining that the move would put her closer to her job, and at the heart of all the civic activities her position as mayor demanded she attend.

So her mother had offered use of the big stone-and-stucco to Rosemary if she paid the insurance and taxes, and Rosemary had jumped at the chance to live there. She’d always adored the place, and associated with it nothing but good times and warm feelings. At least, she had until she’d glanced up this morning to find a man claiming to be Willis Random haunting it.

The memory jolted her into action, and she went to her closet to tug her work uniform off its hangers. She set down her coffee long enough to throw on her straight, navy blue skirt and crisp white blouse, embroidered discreetly above the pocket Jet-Set Travels. She was still buttoning up the latter when she ducked out her bedroom door and into the hallway and ran right into Willis Random.

Or rather, into Willis Random’s chest. Then again, seeing as how his chest had grown to roughly the size of Montana since she’d last seen him, it was kind of hard for her to miss it.

“Whoa,” he said as he reached out an arm to steady her. “Where’s the fire?”

She glanced up to find herself staring into midnight-blue eyes she remembered way too well for her own good, and she immediately identified the source of the fire he asked about. It was where it had always been whenever she’d had to deal with Willis, and she didn’t like the realization of that now any better than she had fifteen years ago.

Oh, God, it really was Willis, she thought. He was back. And he was beautiful.

“Oh, God,” she muttered aloud this time.

“Rosemary, please,” her mother said. “Be nice to Willis. He’s going to be a guest in your house for the next few weeks.”

It took a moment for that to sink in, a moment Rosemary spent drinking in the sight of the man who had been her high school nemesis. The last time she’d seen Willis, he’d still stood eye-to-eye with her, in spite of his having shot up some in their junior year. His face had been a road map of state capitals, and he’d always reeked of Clearasil and Lavoris. But this Willis was so...so...so...

Wow.

He was huge. Huge. A good four inches taller than her own five-eight, and broad enough to block the sunlight streaming into the hallway from the door across the way. His skin was flawless now, deeply tanned and creased with sun-etched lines around his eyes and mouth. And what a mouth. She’d never noticed before just what beautifully formed features Willis had. And instead of Clearasil and Lavoris, he smelled of the great outdoors. Like pine trees and thunderstorms and life.

“Willis?” she finally said, her voice emerging as little more than a squeak.

“I’m baaaaack,” he sang out with a smile that was completely lacking in humor. “Didja miss me?”

Even the sound of him was different, she thought, feeling as if she were descending into some kind of weird trance. His voice had deepened and grown rough over the years, just as everything else about him had seemed to do. For a moment, Rosemary could do nothing but stare at him. She simply could not believe he was the same boy who had tormented her so throughout high school. Although the potential for torment was still there, she knew without question that, these days, it would be of a decidedly less adolescent nature.

“Rosemary?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh.” But she couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.

Willis twisted his lips into an expression she recognized all too well. “I see you still have that vast, scintillating vocabulary I remember so well,” he muttered sarcastically.

That brought her up short, and she frowned back at him. So the first shot had been fired, had it? That meant war. Willis might have changed completely on the outside, but inside, he was still the same vicious little cretin who was always putting her down and trying—usually with success—to make her feel like a fool.

Rosemary straightened, pushing herself back until she was more than an arm’s length away from him. “And I see you’re still Mr. Know-It-All,” she countered.

She groaned inwardly. Was that the best she could do for a put-down? Dammit, Willis had always made her feel like an empty-headed, unimportant, inconsequential little gnat. Somehow, her mind had always ceased functioning whenever he was around, and not only could she never think of anything even moderately interesting to say, but she could never come up with a good comeback to his numerous assaults on her intelligence. It had just reinforced his argument that she was, quite simply, really, really stupid.

And now, here Willis stood, in her own home no less, making her feel really, really stupid all over again. It was almost more than she could bear.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. Instead of waiting for an answer, she turned to her mother. “Mom, what’s he doing here?”

Her mother smiled that soothing, complacent smile that had always made Rosemary feel anything but soothed or complacent.

“Willis is here for the Comet Festival, darling.”

“I’m here to study Bobrzynyckolonycki,” he announced shortly at the same time.

Rosemary blinked at the eight-syllable word that rolled so effortlessly off his tongue. “You’re here to study what?” she asked. “Bobra...Bobriz...” She gave up and asked, instead, “Is that something in the water we should know about?”

Willis frowned at her again. She remembered now that he had always frowned at her, and that she’d actually wondered a time or two what he would look like if he had smiled just once, even with the sunlight glinting off his braces.

“Bob,” he clarified through gritted teeth, as if he couldn’t stand the sound of the word. “Bobrzynyckolonycki is ‘Bob’ to members of the laity, like you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t sure what he meant by “laity,” but his tone of voice indicated that whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t anything good. Before she could question him about it, however, her mother began to speak again.

“Willis is on sabbatical, dear. MIT has sent him back here to figure out why Bob’s appearances are so regular, and why he always makes his closest pass to the planet right above Endicott. Isn’t that nice?”

Rosemary turned back to look at Willis. She should have expected something like this. He’d always been fascinated by that damned comet.

“MIT?” she echoed.

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” he clarified

She frowned at him. “I know what MIT stands for,” she told him.

He arched his brows in surprise.

“I just want to know why you’re here, exactly.”

He nodded. “It’s really very simple, Rosemary. I’ve designed a telescope that will enable me to gauge Bobrzynyckolonycki’s approach to the earth—and, consequently, Endicott—in a rather, shall we say, unorthodox manner. That part—” he added in an offhand tone of voice “—is really much too difficult for someone like you to understand, so I won’t waste my time trying to explain it. Suffice it to say that my study might potentially provide the answers to a number of questions that have puzzled the scientific community for decades.”

Rosemary was too busy steaming at his easy dismissal of her intelligence to respond to his oration. Which was just as well, because evidently, there was a lot more her mother wanted to add.

“Willis has five degrees,” Janet gushed. “Isn’t that amazing? Five, Rosemary. In physics, mathematics, astronomy...” Her voice trailed off and she turned to Willis for help. “What are your other two in, dear?”

“Astrophysical engineering and accounting,” he told her.

Rosemary narrowed her eyes at him again. “Accounting?” she asked, finding that one a trifle out of place.

He smiled, blushing a bit. “For two wild and crazy semesters, I went a little off the deep end and thought about becoming an accountant,” he told her.

She nodded, but refrained from comment.

“There, uh...” he added little sheepishly. “There was a girl involved.”

Rosemary smiled inwardly. His announcement gave her the perfect opportunity to give as good as she was getting. “A girl?” she repeated, punctuating the question with what she hoped was a look of stunned disbelief. “You were actually involved with a girl? Don’t tell me—let me guess. She was an exchange student who couldn’t speak a word of English, from some unreachable little village in the Upper Volta where the average age of the local bachelors was seventy-two.”

Willis eyed her venomously. “Oh, listen to you. You wouldn’t know the Upper Volta from Butternut, Wisconsin.”

Rosemary eyed him back, just as malignantly. “Oh, wouldn’t I?”

Before the argument could escalate, Janet March cut in again. “And here you dropped out of the community college and beauty school, Rosemary.” She punctuated her disappointment with a cluck of regret.

Rosemary bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the floor. More like she’d flunked out of the community college, she recalled. But she’d never tell her mother that, let alone Willis. And beauty school just hadn’t been her thing—there had been too much chemistry involved. Besides, she loved her job as a travel agent. What was the big deal about college anyway?

When she looked up again, Willis was smirking at her. Actually smirking. That pizza-faced little...

Okay, so he was just a twerp now, she amended. His smirk told her that he knew exactly what was going through her head with her little self-evaluation of her failures. It also told her that he agreed more with her mother’s less-than-satisfactory assessment of her.

Rosemary swallowed with some difficulty, reminded herself that she was a thirty-year-old woman with a good job and a full life, and that nobody, not her mother, not even Willis Random, was going to make her feel the way she’d always felt about herself when she was a teenager.

Self-esteem was an insidious thing, very difficult to hold on to. It had taken Rosemary years to build hers up once she’d graduated from high school, and she wasn’t going to let Willis, with his five degrees and his own state-of-the-art engineering feat, tear her down again. She just wasn’t.

“I have a good job, Mom,” she reminded her mother in as level a voice as she could manage.

“You could have been a computer programmer,” her mother reminded her back, “if you’d stayed enrolled at the community college.”

Willis barked out a laugh at that. “You?” he asked Rosemary incredulously. “You were studying computer programming? You’re joking, right? You couldn’t possibly fathom anything as mentally challenging as that.”

Mrs.- March sighed again, this time with even more disappointment. “Yes, I suppose her father and I should have realized when Rosemary started that it wasn’t really the thing for her. But she seemed so intent on it at the time. It was almost as if she were trying to prove something. I just didn’t have the heart to try to talk her out of it.”

Something cold and wet landed hard in the pit of Rosemary’s stomach, but she turned to face Willis fully. “Yeah, me,” she said. “I studied computer programming for a whole semester. Then I realized that you were right about me, Willis. I wasn’t cut out for college. And I certainly wasn’t cut out for science. So I found a job I like just fine. And I’m good at it, too, okay?”

He was silent for a moment, and she wished more than anything in the world that she could understand what that intense expression on his face meant. “So what do you do for a living these days?” he finally asked her.

She almost believed he cared. Almost. “I’m a travel agent,” she replied, telling herself there was no reason for her to feel so defensive.

He nodded. “Then I guess you finally get to visit all those places you used to talk about visiting, hmm?”

Her mother waved her hand airily and smiled. “Oh, Rosemary never goes anywhere, do you, darling? She has a terrible fear of flying, not to mention claustrophobia, and she suffers from violent motion sickness.”

Willis threw Rosemary another odd look at that, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it meant. Instead she cursed him for coming back to Endicott, and wondered at her mother’s assertion that he would be a guest in her house.

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

“I told you, dear,” her mother interjected. “He’s studying the comet.”

Rosemary turned to face her mother. “No, I mean, what’s he doing here—in my house?”

Janet March smiled that unsettling smile again. “He’s going to be staying here at the house with you dunng Bob’s visit.”

Rosemary’s eyebrows shot up at that. “I beg your pardon?”

Her mother opened her mouth to reply, but Willis raised a hand to stop her. “Allow me, Mrs. March.”

He looked down at Rosemary, silently for a moment, as if he were trying to figure out just how to say what he had to say so that an imbecile would understand it. She felt her back go up. Fast.

“Your house is situated perfectly for me to view Bobrzynyckolonycki,” he said. “The trajectory—” He stopped, as if he feared any word with more than two syllables might be too big a challenge for her.

“I know what a trajectory is,” she told him crisply.

He seemed genuinely surprised. “Do you?”

She nodded, but suddenly felt less certain. “I think.”

“Well, let me just put it this way,” he began again. “Your house is situated perfectly for me to observe both the comet’s approach and its departure.”

“Why my house?”

“It’s well outside the city limits and up here on a hill all by itself. There are no lights from downtown Endicott to interfere with my viewing of the night sky. And the chemical reaction from traffic and industry is minimal—thus they won’t interfere with atmospheric conditions. And it’s quiet and secluded, which will be enormously helpful while I’m collecting and analyzing my data. Best of all, your attic windows are almost perfectly aligned with the comet’s path—all we’ll have to do is take out the slats. And with your attic being the massive size that it is, I can set up my telescope with little difficulty.”

“You see?” her mother concluded with a smile, taking each of Rosemary’s hands affectionately in her own. “This is the perfect place for Willis to perform his work. So he’ll be staying here in the house with you for the duration of his study.”

Rosemary looked first at Willis, then at her mother, then back at Willis. “The hell he will,” she said.

Her mother frowned at her. “Rosemary, don’t you dare swear in my presence.”

She felt immediately and properly chastened, and blushed deeply. “I’m sorry, Mom.” However, she quickly recovered enough to add, “But he can’t stay here.”

“Of course he can.”

“No, he can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want him to.”

Janet March’s smile returned, and it grated on Rosemary even more than usual. “Darling, that’s perfectly understandable,” her mother cooed, “given the history the two of you share.” She dropped one of her daughter’s hands and curled her fingers around Willis’s solid arm to include him in the discussion. “But you’re both adults now, and I know you’re above all that adolescent bickering you used to engage in.”

“But, Mom—” Rosemary began.

Janet turned to her and interrupted, “And, Rosemary, darling, not only is Willis working on a very important study for the scientific community, what he’s doing will add beautifully to the festival.”

“But, Mom—”

“Imagine the media coverage. It will be good PR. And you know how important that is to Endicott.”

“But, Mom—”

“The revenue generated during the Comet Festival is what keeps this town afloat. And I don’t have to remind you that we only have the opportunity to take advantage of it every fifteen years.”

“But, Mom—”

“And besides, darling, this is still my house.”

Well, that certainly shut Rosemary up. Her mother had never invoked ownership privilege for anything before.

“And speaking as both mayor and citizen of Endicott, I’m inviting Willis to be a guest in my house for as long as he needs to be.” She fixed her gaze intently on her daughter. “Will that be a problem, Rosemary?”

Rosemary returned her mother’s gaze, feeling a heavy weight descend upon her shoulders. Her mother was right—the house belonged to her. She could invite whomever she pleased to be a guest, and there wouldn’t be a whole lot Rosemary could do about it. Still, it would have been nice if, just once, her mother had taken her daughter’s feelings into consideration over what might be best for the community.

But Janet March was a much better mayor than she had ever been a mother. It’s why she’d spent three consecutive terms in office and would doubtless be elected to another.

It wasn’t bitterness on Rosemary’s part that caused her to draw such a conclusion. It was simply a fact of her life that her mother had never taken as much interest in the wants and needs of her children as she had her own civic activities. Oh, Janet had been a nice enough mother, and even considerate in her own, rather shortsighted way. But she’d never been particularly good at mothering. And, if pressed, even Janet herself would probably laugh and admit that such a thing was true.

Rosemary knew there was no way her mother would bend on the idea of having Willis stay right here in the big English stucco with her. Short of moving out herself, Rosemary was stuck with him as a house guest for the next few weeks, if that was what Mayor Janet March decreed. And there was no way Rosemary would be moving out. Even if she could have afforded to rent something else for that length of time, thanks to the Comet Festival, there wasn’t a room available within a hundred miles of Endicott.

And even though Angie and Kirby would probably open their homes to her, Rosemary couldn’t find it in herself to impose on her friends for that length of time. Angie’s apartment was barely big enough for one. And besides, Angie was way too busy investigating the appearance in town of that lowlife, scumbag, murdering slug Ethan Zorn to want Rosemary bothering her.

And although Kirby had an extra bedroom at her house, Rosemary didn’t want to crimp her friend’s style trying to snag a man. Even though there was little chance that Kirby, the Endicott equivalent to Mother Teresa, was ever going to land herself a local boy, because all the local boys just thought Kirby was far too sweet and far too nice to ever try something like...like...like that with her. Not that Kirby hadn’t tried.

It was a big house, Rosemary told herself. With any luck at all, she and Willis wouldn’t even have to see each other during his stay. With any luck at all, he’d banish himself to the attic with his notebook and his telescope and his scientific equations, which he found infinitely more interesting than he found her anyway. With any luck at all, he’d leave her alone and keep to himself.

And with any luck at all, she thought further with a helpless sigh, she wouldn’t find herself feeling like the know-nothing jerk she’d always been convinced she was whenever she was around Willis.

“Fine,” she capitulated reluctantly. Swallowing a groan, she turned to her old nemesis and added halfheartedly, “Welcome home, Willis. It hasn’t been the same around here without you.”

And with that, she spun around and made her way back downstairs, completely uncaring that her coffee still sat untouched in her bedroom. It was just her first indication that things were only going to get worse.

Two

What had she meant by that? Willis wondered. Why had Rosemary said Endicott hadn’t been the same without him? Was that good? Or was that bad? Surely it must be the former. She’d always hated his guts. Or was she just trying to confuse him, trying to tie him up in knots again, the way she always had when they’d been in school?

God, he hated having to do this. If it wasn’t for the fact that his need to explain the comings and goings of Bobrzynyckolonycki far outweighed any lingering ill will he harbored toward Rosemary March, he’d pick up his bags and his telescope and head back to Cambridge in a heartbeat. But he knew he wouldn’t do that, because the comet had haunted him for fifteen years.

Of course, so had Rosemary March, he reminded himself. But for entirely different reasons. Where Willis had never been able to pinpoint the comet’s motivation for its activities, he’d more than understood Rosemary’s. She had despised him—that was all there was to it. Doubtless she despised him still. Then again, he supposed he had no one but himself to blame for that. He hadn’t exactly made it easy on her all those years ago.

And he wasn’t making it easy on her now, either, he thought, an odd kind of guilt nagging at him. Why had he had to go and shoot his mouth off about her being too stupid to understand something like computer programming? That had been uncalled for, even if it was true. He’d just been smarting from her suggestion that no woman in her right mind would ever take an interest in him, and he’d struck back without thinking.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

He turned to Rosemary’s mother and forced a smile. “Thanks again, Mrs. March, for putting me up this way,” he said. “Especially on such short notice.”

She returned his smile. “You should really be thanking Rosemary, not me. Even though this is my house, I hate pulling rank on her like this. Still, it’s for the good of the community, isn’t it?”

“It’s for the good of the world,” Willis corrected her. “If I can ultimately decipher a reason for why Bobrzynyckolonycki’s movements through the cosmos are what they are, this year’s festival will go down in history.”

And, of course, he thought further with a satisfied smile, so would he. And that ought to show Rosemary March once and for all that he was a lot more than the pizza-faced little twerp she’d always considered him to be.

God, where had that come from? he wondered. What did he care what Rosemary thought of him? Her opinion of him today mattered about as much to him now as it had when he was thirteen years old. So there.

He followed Mrs. March back outside, then bade her goodbye beside his Montero—loaded to the gills with all of his paraphernalia—that he’d parked on the street in front of the house. The parts for his telescope would be arriving the following day, so he had twenty-four hours to unpack, get settled and reacquaint himself with his surroundings. Twenty-four hours to prowl Endicott and remember what his life as a boy had been like all those years ago.

Because his parents had moved to Florida after he graduated from high school and his sister had headed west, Willis hadn’t had any reason to come back to the community where he’d grown up. When he’d left Endicott for MIT thirteen years ago, he’d known he would be returning for the Comet Festival this year. But he’d had no idea he would have such mixed feelings about his return. He had never been particularly fond of his hometown, or of many of its residents. Thanks to his brilliant mind and geek status, he’d just never felt as if he belonged here. The town was too cozy, too comfortable, too set in its ways. And in no way conducive to scientific thought.

He was already looking forward to getting back to Boston, back to the wealth of academic and thought-provoking opportunities available there. That city was teeming with life for people like Willis—people who needed constant mental exercise and continuous cerebral challenge. He felt alive when he was in the city.

Intellectually, at least. What difference did it make if his social life had lain dormant for some time? Who needed romantic entanglements when they had a brain like his? As far as he was concerned, the heart, as an organ, was highly overrated, in spite of its necessity for sustaining life.

After all, what good was living if you couldn’t experience life at its fullest? And how could you experience life at its fullest unless you had the intellectual capacity to appreciate it? Any scientist worth his NaCl would tell you that the head, not the heart, was where the greatest stimulation occurred.

Willis popped open the back door on the Montero and wondered what to unload first—boxes of books, cartons of astronomical charts or stacks of scientific data he’d been collecting for the last fifteen years. So intent was he on his decision that he didn’t hear Rosemary come up behind him. What alerted him to her arrival was the light fragrance of something soft and fresh and sweet, an aroma that immediately carried him backward in time fifteen years.

Whatever Rosemary sprayed on herself now, she’d been using it for at least a decade and a half. And it wreaked all kinds of havoc with both Willis’s olfactory senses and his carnal ones—just as it had when he was a teenager. In spite of the antagonism that had erupted between the two of them whenever they were close, he’d always thought Rosemary March smelled wonderful. When he spun around to face her, he found her shrugging into a navy blue blazer and eyeing him with trepidation.

“Need any help?” she asked, her voice actually civil.

He nodded toward her attire. “You’re not exactly dressed to be unloading boxes.”

She straightened her collar, and again, he was assaulted by her delicate scent. “If you can wait until this afternoon, I can give you a hand with that. I’m only working a half day today.”

He shook his head. “That’s okay. Most of it’s probably too heavy for you.”

She frowned at him. “Oh, so now I’m not only stupid, but I’m weak, too—is that it?”

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, and wondered if there would ever be a time when the two of them could converse without every word being misconstrued as an insult. “No,” he told her. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. These boxes are loaded with books and other instruments that are bulky and heavy. Too heavy for you.” As an afterthought, he added, “Thanks anyway.”

As if she needed to prove something to him, however, she pushed past him and reached for one of the boxes nearest the door. He started to reach for it, too, but something in her posture warned him off. Rosemary hefted the carton into her hands, staggered some under its weight, then moved awkwardly toward the grass.

As she bent to place it on the ground, however, she began to teeter forward. And Willis, recognizing the box as the one holding a number of glass lenses that were irreplaceable—at least in Endicott—quickly moved to her side to take it from her. She glared at him when he did, but he set it effortlessly on the ground.

“It’s very expensive, very specialized, very scientific equipment,” he told her.

Her eyes widened in obviously feigned admiration. “Ooo, very scientific, huh? Like what? Like Magic Rocks and Sea Monkeys and stuff?”

He ignored the question. “It’s equipment I wouldn’t be able to replace with a simple trip down to Buck’s hardware store.”

“Fine,” she bit out. “Forget I offered. Jeez, Willis, I was just trying to be nice. But don’t worry—I won’t be stupid enough to do that again.”

She started to stalk off, and impulsively, he followed her, reaching out to snag her wrist with loosely curled fingers before he even realized what he was doing. Rosemary spun around with the force of a cyclone and jerked her hand back, cradling it in her other as if she had been burned. The look in her eyes when she met his gaze very nearly overwhelmed him, so brimming with anger and sadness was it, that Willis took a step backward in defense.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she told him, backing away from him as she did.

“What?” he asked, genuinely confused. “All I did was take your hand.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“But—”

“Just stay away from me, Willis,” she said, backing up a few more steps.

“What, you can’t even stand my touch?” he snarled. He shook his head in confusion, his own anger swelling to life now. “Hey, you were the one who came up to me, not the other way around,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, and it was a pretty dumb thing to do, too.” She took another step backward, her eyes clouding even more.

“Rosemary...” he began, taking an experimental step forward.

Why he bothered he couldn’t imagine. He’d never made an effort to smooth out the feathers he ruffled on her before. But there was something in her eyes now that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago when he’d challenged her. Back in high school, Rosemary had always fought him with every ounce of indignation she possessed. Now, however, it was almost as if she were giving up when the battle hadn’t even begun.

And before he could say whatever it was he had intended to tell her—which, frankly, he couldn’t remember now—she turned her back on him and began stalking once more toward her garage.

“I have to go to work,” she announced stiffly.

As he stood there watching her mutely, she unfolded the doors on the aged garage and, in no time at all, was backing out of the driveway in a shiny red convertible that Willis found in no way surprising. That was Rosemary. All flash, no substance. Great body, but no head at all. Impulsive, spontaneous, breezy, fun-loving. Everything he wasn’t. Everything he tried to avoid.

Yet everything he’d always ended up looking for in another woman, and had never been able to find.

Dammit.

Rosemary March had ruined him for other women, and he hadn’t even had the opportunity to experience her. In spite of the fact that she was the last kind of female he should be attracted to, she’d been the first one he’d had a crush on, the first one he’d lusted after, however stupid it had been for him to want her.

And somehow, that had defined his taste in women for the rest of his life. Although he’d tried to establish relationships with good, solid, intelligent women—attractive women at that, and women who appreciated what he had to offer intellectually, women who likewise challenged his own IQ—he suddenly realized that he was doomed to want spirit and fluff, instead. Like Rosemary March.

As he watched the little red sports car with the gorgeous brunette at the wheel disappear around the corner with far more speed than was prudent, Willis realized something else, too. It wasn’t that he was destined to spend his life wanting women like Rosemary March. No, he was condemned to spend his life wanting her. Specifically. Ironically. Erotically. Eternally.

Dammit.

A woman who had nothing to offer him beyond the physical, who would challenge him in none of the intellectual ways he wanted and needed to be challenged. A woman he could certainly be satisfied with sexually, but who would do nothing to fulfill his other, metaphysical, needs. A woman who would make his daily life hell because he would constantly be tied in knots wanting more than she could ever hope to give him.

A woman who would never even like him, let alone love him, he reminded himself. So what was he getting all worked up about anyway? It wasn’t like Rosemary would ever return any overture he might make. Thanks to some of the things he’d said and done to her fifteen years ago, she would despise him for the rest of her life. Worrying about a future with her was pointless, because he didn’t have a hope in hell of having a future with her. Not that he truly wanted one anyway.

He expelled a restless breath and scrubbed a hand viciously through his hair, then turned back to the task at hand. He had a lot of unloading to do, he reminded himself, and a lot of unpacking, too. And not just of the material things he’d brought with him on this particular journey, either. Willis was carrying around a lot more baggage than he’d realized, and he’d brought it all back home to Endicott. Yeah, he had a lot of sorting and unpacking to do while he was in town. And a good bit of it was in no way scientific.

For an intelligent man, he thought to himself, he sure did do some stupid things.

Rosemary pulled into her driveway after work and sat in her car with the motor off, staring at her front door. She was actually dreading to enter the house she’d loved all her life, fearful of what she would find inside. Visions of the new-and-improved Willis had assailed her all day while she was at work, making her lose her place and forget what she was doing. She’d done nothing but make mistakes—dumb mistakes—the whole time she was working. And she’d felt like an idiot as a result.

Because all she’d been able to do, instead, was daydream about Willis. Willis draped over her sofa with the Sunday sports page. Willis sharing a cup of coffee with her in the morning before she left for work. Willis mowing the grass in the backyard. Or changing a spark plug on her car. Or lifting a baby high above his head with a laugh. Or leaving the bathroom amid a puff of steam, wearing nothing but a loose towel wrapped around his waist.

She squeezed her eyes shut as that last scene unfolded in her brain. Boy, was she desperate. The first guy that wandered into her house, she had him nailed down for husband-and-father material.

Rosemary would have been lying if she said she didn’t want to settle down with the right man. But she just hadn’t met the right man. Most of the boys she’d gone to high school with had left town to go to college, and they’d either stayed gone or come back with wives or fiancées. And the few single newcomers who had managed to wander into Endicott just hadn’t been her type. She would have loved to be married and raising kids by now, had she found someone who wanted to share such a future with her.

But this was Willis she was fantasizing about now, she reminded herself ruthlessly. Willis, for God’s sake. Willis!

Willis who hated her guts and made her feel like an imbecile. Who dismissed her with all the consideration of a mosquito about to be squashed. Who would do nothing but make her feel like less and less of a functional human being if she was ever stupid enough to get involved with him.

Not that he had offered her any indication that he wanted any kind of involvement, she reminded herself. Oh, no. On the contrary, he’d made it clear from the get-go that he thought she was still the simpleminded, slack-brained know-nothing he’d pegged her as back in tenth grade. And considering the idiocy of her daydreams at work, she wasn’t entirely sure she could disagree with him at the moment.

Of course, there could be a perfectly logical explanation for her fantasies, she reminded herself hopefully. Comet Bob was looming out there on the horizon, and everyone in Endicott knew that Bob was responsible for creating a cosmic interference that wreaked all kinds of havoc with the townsfolk, not the least of which was driving together romantically two people who were normally at polar opposites.

Yeah, that was it, she told herself. The comet might just be within range enough now to be putting everyone under its cosmic influence, herself included. It was entirely possible that Rosemary was simply succumbing to a galactic disturbance over which she had absolutely no control whatsoever. The reason she suddenly found Willis at the center of her romantic fantasies wasn’t that she was honestly attracted to him, but that she’d simply been pulled into the sphere of Bob’s influence.

Yeah, that was it, she thought again. Maybe she could just blame the whole thing on Bob.

Then again, maybe Bob had nothing to do with it, she thought irritably. Then again, maybe she was just developing a big ol’ whopping crush on Willis Random.

She leaned forward until her forehead rested on the steering wheel, then slowly and methodically began to beat her head against it in an attempt to pound some sense into her brain. The only person on earth who genuinely despised her, and she might just have a crush on him. Surely there were twelve-step programs for women like her. Maybe she should look in the Yellow Pages.

She stopped bashing her head against the steering wheel and looked up again, only to find that Willis was standing on her front porch watching her. She closed her eyes again, wondering if he’d witnessed her attempted self-inflicted lobotomy, then decided that the way things were going, he must have. Could her life possibly get any worse?

It had to be Bob, she told herself, meeting his gaze as levelly as she could. Yeah, sure, Willis was a prime physical specimen of manhood these days, but he was still a big jerk. There was no way she would normally feel affection for such a man. No way would she fall in love with someone who would always make her feel small.

Inhaling a fortifying breath, she opened her car door and unfolded herself from the front seat, then reached back in behind herself for her blazer. The September afternoon was warm, the sun hung high in the sky and Willis was looking at her with something truly hot and smoldering in his eyes. That look, more than anything else, she decided, was what caused the perspiration that suddenly seemed to be dampening her shirt.

He was angry at her already, she thought. And she hadn’t even walked in the front door yet.

“We have a problem,” he said by way of a greeting as she stepped up onto the front porch.

He was just now realizing that? she wondered. Gee, she’d had that one figured out way back in tenth grade. Some genius he was. But aloud, she only said, “Oh? What’s that?”

In response to her question, he frowned and jabbed a thumb angrily over his shoulder, toward the front door. Gingerly, Rosemary preceded him through it. Inside, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Sunlight filtered through the lace curtains on the bay windows, scattering rampant shadows over her grandmother’s hooked flowered rug and the antique furniture that was arranged exactly as it had been when Rosemary was a girl. Her cat, Ska, was curled up on the window seat in the shape of a Christmas ham, just as she always was this time of day, her silver-and-gray-and-black striped fur sleek and shiny.

“What?” Rosemary asked when she saw nothing amiss.

Willis pointed to the cat. “That.”

Puzzled, she asked, “Are you allergic to cats?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“She is. She’s a bully.”

Rosemary couldn’t help the ripple of laughter that escaped her. “Ska? A bully? Don’t be silly. She’s the sweetest creature on the face of the earth.”

“Her name is Ska?” he asked, arching one brow in disbelief.

As always, after two minutes in Willis’s presence, Rosemary zoomed from defensive to combative in a nanosecond. “Yeah. Her name is Ska. You wanna make something of it?”

He shook his head. “I should have known. That was what you called that strange music you always listened to in high school.”

She took a step forward and settled her hands on her hips in challenge. “I still listen to Ska bands. All the time. They’re coming back now, you know. You wanna make something of it?”

Willis, too, advanced toward her, crowding her space. “No, I just want you to tell that animal to be a little nicer.”

As if realizing she was the topic of the conversation, Ska woke up and blinked her eyes at the couple, then stood and stretched. With a final flexing of her claws, she leaped down to the floor, then sauntered over to Rosemary, entwining herself around her mistress’s legs with much affection. Rosemary picked her up and scratched her behind the ears, and Ska settled into a contented, rumbling purr.

“I can’t believe you’re afraid of a sweet little kitty-cat,” she told Willis.

Willis frowned at her. “I’m not afraid of her. He is.” He gestured behind himself, toward a ventilated cat carrier surrounded by some of the boxes that had come out of his big...his big...truck thing.

“Who is?” she asked.

“Isosceles.”

Rosemary narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

He expelled an impatient sigh, then strode over to the carrier in question, flipped open the door and withdrew a huge, hulking white cat that claimed a gorgeous, sleek coat of fur. “This,” he told her, clutching the monstrous beast to his chest, “is Isosceles. My cat.”

Now it was Rosemary’s turn to go on the offensive. “What the hell kind of name is ‘Isosceles’ for a cat? Don’t you realize that’s just asking all the other cats in the neighborhood to beat him up after school every day?”

“It’s a perfectly appropriate name,” Willis countered. “Every time he sits down, he forms an exact isosceles triangle.”

Rosemary arched her brows. “What did you do? Take out your compass and protractor and measure him yourself?”

Willis gritted his teeth. “You don’t use a compass for measuring triangles,” he told her. “They’re for drawing accurate circles.”

Rosemary felt her face flame, though whether in embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t have said. “So what?” she bit out defensively.

He shook his head in annoyance. “So that...that...that bully you call a sweet little kitty-cat has been after Isosceles ever since I brought him inside the house.”

“Well, duh,” Rosemary said. “Of course she has. This is Ska’s turf. She’s not going to just sit back and let some interloper overrun the place.” Unlike her gutless mistress, she thought further to herself.

“Well, just tell her to back off and give Isosceles a chance, all right?”

Rosemary gazed down at Ska, who looked back at her with a contented little smile. “Good girl,” she told the cat. “Don’t let that invading, know-it-all tomcat take over the ground you worked so hard to gain. Now go out there and make me proud.”

With a quick kiss to the cat’s muzzle, she settled her back on the floor and returned her attention to Willis. “There. That ought to take care of it,” she said as Ska trotted happily toward the dining room, tail held high.

Willis glowered at her, then held Isosceles aloft, meeting the white cat’s blue-eyed gaze levelly. “You do whatever you have to do to make her come around and treat you like the good guy you are,” he coached the animal emphatically. “You’re a guest here, not to mention smarter than the average cat. Don’t let her treat you like dirt.” He ruffled the cat’s ears affectionately before settling him, too, on the floor, and immediately, Isosceles skittered off in the same direction as Ska.

A moment of silence descended where Rosemary and Willis eyed each other warily, both of them clearly aware that there had been a lot more to those little feline pep talks than either had let on. Then a crash, followed by the angry whining and hissing of two cats, caused them both to race toward the kitchen.

Ska had Isosceles treed on top of the refrigerator, and both animals were batting wildly at each other with claws unsheathed despite the distance that separated them.

“He just better stay away from her kibble,” Rosemary muttered. “You mess with Ska’s kibble, you pay. Big-time.”

“Believe me,” Willis countered, “he wants nothing to do with her plebeian kibble. He’s on the Science Diet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I should have guessed.”

Knowing Ska would be fine on her own, Rosemary pushed herself off the kitchen doorjamb and made her way toward the stairs. More than anything, she wanted to slip out of her work uniform and into something comfortable. Then she reminded herself that as long as Willis Random was living under her roof, she wasn’t likely to find comfort in much of anything.

“Rosemary,” he called out just as her foot touched the bottom step.

She turned around to find him standing framed by the arch separating dining room from living room. Boy, he had great legs, she thought, letting her gaze travel from his boot-clad ankles to the muscular thighs extending from the brief khaki shorts.

“Hmmm...?” she asked distractedly.

“She won’t...hurt him. Will she?”

Rosemary tried to smile with some reassurance, but she only felt oddly melancholy. “Ska wouldn’t hurt anybody,” she promised. “She might mess with his head a little—just to keep things level—but she won’t hurt him.”

Willis nodded, but still didn’t seem quite convinced.

“How about Isosceles?” she asked.

He seemed stumped by the question. “What about him?”

“He won’t hurt Ska, will he?”

The expression Willis gave her was incredulous. “Are you serious? Do you honestly think he has it in him to do harm to her?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I do. He’s a lot bigger than she is. And you said yourself that he’s smarter than the average cat.”

“He may be smart, but he’s not mean,” Willis assured her. “He won’t hurt Ska. Don’t give it another thought.”

She nodded, but still felt unsettled for some reason. “Will you be around for dinner?” she asked.

His expression indicated he was genuinely surprised by her question—maybe as surprised as she was to hear herself making the offer. “I...I guess so,” he replied. “I mean, if you want me to be.”

“Oh, no,” she countered quickly, wanting to dissuade him of that idea as quickly as possible. Even if it was true, she realized morosely. “It’s not that. Just... if you’re going to be here... I mean...”

Well, just what did she mean? she asked herself. She inhaled a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t know what you and my mom worked out with meals and all, but... What I mean is... I don’t usually go to a lot of trouble, but if you want to join me for dinner while you’re staying here, I...I guess I won’t mind.”

“Thanks,” he said, his expression revealing nothing of what he might actually be thinking. “I honestly hadn’t thought too much about where I’d be eating. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to take advantage of your invitation, but I appreciate it your extending it”

“It wasn’t an invitation,” she felt it necessary to clarify, feeling both stung that he hadn’t leaped on the opportunity and puzzled as to why she should care. “It just doesn’t make sense for you to drive all the way into town to eat, when there’s a perfectly good kitchen right here.”

“Okay,” he said. “It’s not an invitation. I still appreciate the offer.”

“It wasn’t an offer, either.”

He expelled an exasperated sound. “Well, whatever it was, thank you, all right?”

She nibbled her lip a little anxiously. “You’re welcome. Just let me know when you’ll be home.”

His lips curled into something of a smile, however stiff. “I think I can probably make it tonight.”

She nodded, her stomach clutching nervously for some reason. “Okay. I usually eat about six. If you’re here, fine. If you’re not here, that’s fine, too.”

“Fine.”

Silence hovered between them until it began to grow awkward. Then another loud thump from the kitchen, followed by an even louder feline wail, sliced through the room. Willis bolted toward it, while Rosemary stood at the foot of the stairs in bemusement, watching him go. She didn’t understand why she’d asked Willis to join her for dinner while he was staying with her. But there was one thing she did understand—too well.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

Three

At 6:30 that evening, a quickly cooling casserole was sitting on the stove, Rosemary was seated at the head of her recently dusted dining-room table, Ska was supping noisily from her bowl in the kitchen, Isosceles was still atop the refrigerator—and Willis was nowhere to be found. He’d left shortly after Rosemary had arrived home, without even telling her goodbye, and she had no idea where he was now. Obviously, someplace infinitely more important than where she was herself, she thought. But then, was that really such a surprise?

She stood and snuffed out the candles she felt foolish now for ever having retrieved from the china cabinet, and replaced them where they always sat, unused. She cleared the table of the colorful pottery dinner plates and crackled cranberry glassware she normally saved for special occasions, returning them, too, to their generally neglected kitchen cupboard. Then she swept the recently ironed tablecloth from the dining-room table and stuffed it back into the drawer where it had lain unused since the last time Rosemary had invited someone over for dinner—Kirby and Angie, four months earlier.

She sighed as she set the kitchen table—for one—with her usual plain white dishes and discount-store glassware on a plastic place mat. She wondered who she thought she’d been kidding, thinking dinner with Willis would be a special occasion. He hadn’t even considered it a big enough deal to call her and tell her he wouldn’t be there when he’d changed his mind.

And she’d actually prepared something. Something that hadn’t come out of a cardboard box or a plastic bag. Something with ingredients, for God’s sake Ingredients she’d had to drive to the grocery store to buy, because who in her right mind actually kept things like garlic and onions and cream of mushroom soup on hand?

Well, come to think of it, probably a lot of people, she realized. People who cooked their food instead of microwaving it, people who cared about the flavor of what they ate, people who spent more than four to six minutes boiling something for dinner. People who didn’t live alone.

She plopped a generous helping of the casserole messily onto her plate, slapped some greens into her salad bowl and splashed some iced tea into her glass. Except for Ska’s crunching, the house was unnervingly quiet, so Rosemary switched on the radio before she sat down. Mellow jazz music filled the kitchen, and a soft breeze rattled the loosely hooked screen door. But it was still too quiet. Funny, she’d never noticed that about her house before.

She’d stashed the leftovers, washed her dishes and placed bowls of food and water on top of the refrigerator for Isosceles—leaving the Little Friskies box up there with the cat, because doubtless he liked to read the nutrition information while he was eating—when she heard the rumble of Willis’s big truck thing outside. Tamping down the irritation that flared, she forced herself to remain cool and collected.

Indifferent. That’s what she wanted him to think she was. That’s what she wished she could actually feel. Totally and completely unaffected by his return to her life. Hey, what did she care whether or not he ate his dinner with her? What difference did it make if he had found something better to do than spend time with her? What did it matter if he thought so little of her that he hadn’t even called her to let her know he wouldn’t be there?

It didn’t matter at all, she reminded herself. None of it mattered. She and Willis had been sworn enemies for half their lives. Had she really expected that to change just because they were older and allegedly more mature now? Just because there was some distance between the past and the present? Just because the two of them had been separated for a long time?

Hadn’t they both reverted immediately to childish behavior the moment they’d encountered each other? she asked herself further. She supposed there were just some things in life that were simply too difficult to be completely overcome. And being constantly belittled and dismissed by someone for years was obviously one of them.

Rosemary knew she and Willis were equally guilty for saying and doing unkind things to each other when they were kids. But hurts like that, when one was so young, cut deep into a person’s spirit, a person’s soul. And she supposed it would take a bigger person than she—or Willis—was to simply put those differences aside and be friends.

Therefore, she knew she had no right to blame him for standing her up. Had the situation been reversed, had she told him she would join him for dinner and then found something—or someone—more interesting to occupy her time, then she probably would have stood him up, too.

So why was she so angry? she wondered. Why did she feel so insulted? Why, dammit, were her feelings so hurt?

The front door opened, so Rosemary didn’t have time to find an answer for those questions. Instead, she put a rush order on her emotions to get ahold of themselves. Willis rounded the kitchen doorway just as she finally settled her pulse rate to a manageable level, and the huge grin that split his face immediately disappeared when he saw her.

For just the briefest of moments, while that smile had been in place, Willis had looked so handsome he’d nearly taken her breath away. She’d never seen him smile like that when they were kids—certainly not at her. Whoever he’d spent his evening with had obviously been someone special. And why on earth did it open up a big, gaping hole inside her to realize that?

She must not have been very successful in hiding her feelings, because he took one look at her face and said, “You were expecting me for dinner, weren’t you?”

She shrugged, hoping the gesture looked nonchalant, when nonchalant was the last thing she felt. “Why would I be expecting you for dinner? Just because you told me you’d be here? That’s no reason, is it?”

She cursed herself for the brittleness of her response, but yes, she had been expecting him. And it hurt that he hadn’t even had enough consideration for her to pick up the phone and tell her he wouldn’t be there, even if such a thing should come as no surprise at all.

“I didn’t tell you for sure that I’d be here,” he reminded her.

She shrugged again, the gesture feeling awkward enough that she knew it was in no way convincing. “Fine. You didn’t tell me for sure. My mistake. I stand corrected.”

“It’s just that I was in town, having a look around, and I ran into Mr. Jamiolkowski, the physics teacher at Central—remember him?” Before Rosemary had a chance to respond, Willis quickly interjected, “Oh, no, of course you don’t. You didn’t take physics, did you? You had to be in the advanced program to enroll.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor. As if she needed to be reminded of that. “No,” she said softly. “I took senior foods, instead. I learned my lesson with chemistry not to take on more than I could handle.”

“Well, anyway,” Willis continued, obviously oblivious to her discomfort, “he and I became fairly close while I was a student—we even corresponded during my first two years at MIT—and it was just so good to see him again that we wound up having dinner together.”

“Fine,” Rosemary repeated.

“He’s working on an amazing project,” Willis went on, “something that’s truly revolutionary. But he’s only able to carry out his research during summer vacation. I don’t know why he bothers to teach high school. He has so much to bring to the scientific community. It’s terrible to see such a brilliant mind wasted like that.”

Rosemary snapped her head back up at Willis’s dismissive tone of voice. “You think teaching kids is a waste of time?” she asked.

His expression was the same as it would have been if she had just asked him to swallow hemlock. “Well, of course it is, when one is clearly more suited to scientific research.”

“Maybe Mr. Jamiolkowski feels he’s more useful as a guide for young minds than he would be locked up in some think tank somewhere.”

Willis shook his head and chuckled. “What an absurd suggestion.”

“Maybe he likes teaching, Willis. Maybe he thinks it’s more important to contribute to the education of kids than it is to work in some sterile laboratory for his own satisfaction, or because eggheads like you think he should. Maybe teaching is what brings him satisfaction. Not scientific research.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Willis told her. “Why would a brilliant man waste his time on something other than research?”

She shook her head in wonder. “Boy, you really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

She watched him in silence for a moment, then sighed. “Never mind. For a guy with a high IQ, you really have a lot to learn.”

“Oh, and coming from you, that’s an admonition that has me so concerned,” he retorted.

She wanted to ask him what an admonition was, but she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction. Besides, his sarcastic tone of voice told her everything she really needed to know about his statement.

Making a mental note to look the word up later, she told him, “You know, if you stopped long enough to notice, you might realize that people aren’t necessarily as dumb as you think they are. Just because you can’t be bothered with simple pleasures doesn’t mean simple pleasures have nothing to offer.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s your point?”

She glared back at him. “Just...just...”

Just what was her point? she wondered. She expelled a restless puff of air that blew her bangs out of her eyes, then lifted a hand to point an accusatory finger at him. “Just that I bet Mr. Jamiolkowski called Mrs. Jamiolkowski to tell her he’d run into an old friend, and not to expect him for dinner.”

Willis hesitated only a second before telling her, “For one thing, that segue makes no sense at all. For another thing ..” He sighed heavily. “For another thing, you’re not my wife, Rosemary.”

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.