“I can’t know what you and my son know. I can’t see what you both see. I will never be able to fit into your world.”

Jeremy absorbed the pain that came from Abby’s admission, even as he felt the shock that he could still be hurt.

“But in some ways your life isn’t so different from what I faced,” she continued. “I was the prettiest girl in school, the one everyone wanted to date, the one everyone wanted to be seen with.”

“Is that your argument for identifying with my life?”

“Maybe not, but my point is that nobody ever really took the time to get to know me. They never bothered to look deeper, to find out if there was something more than a pretty shell. So I can understand how it might have felt for you when they didn’t bother to look deeper than how you think. I think there’s more to you than a brilliant reclusive outcast.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “That’s exactly what I am.”

Dear Reader,

We have some incredibly fun and romantic Silhouette Romance titles for you this July. But as excited as we are about them, we also want to hear from you! Drop us a note—or visit www.eHarlequin.com—and tell us which stories you enjoyed the most, and what you’d like to see from us in the future.

We know you love emotion-packed romances, so don’t miss Cara Colter’s CROWN AND GLORY cross-line series installment, Her Royal Husband. Jordan Ashbury had no idea the man who’d fathered her child was a prince—until she reported for duty at his palace! Carla Cassidy spins an enchanting yarn in More Than Meets the Eye, the first of our A TALE OF THE SEA, the must-read Silhouette Romance miniseries about four very special siblings.

The temperature’s rising not just outdoors, but also in Susan Meier’s Married in the Morning. If the ring on her finger and the Vegas hotel room were any clue, Gina Martin was now the wife of Gerrick Green! Then jump into Lilian Darcy’s tender Pregnant and Protected, about a fiery heiress who falls for her bodyguard.…

Rounding out the month, Gail Martin crafts a fun, lighthearted tale about two former high school enemies in Let’s Pretend…. And we’re especially delighted to welcome new author Betsy Eliot’s The Brain & the Beauty, about a young mother who braves a grumpy recluse in his dark tower.

Happy reading—and please keep in touch!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

The Brain & the Beauty
Betsy Eliot

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Diane Eliot.

You told me you wanted to be the best mother-in-law in the world and you succeeded. I thank you for that and for so much more, but mostly, I thank you for Peter.

BETSY ELIOT

As a teenager, Betsy Eliot’s theme song was “I Am Woman (Hear Me Roar).” She’s roaring still, now as the author of romance novels. Married to her childhood sweetheart, Peter, she has two wonderful children, Peter and Marie, who have believed in her since they were too young to know better.

Betsy has won several writing awards, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart Award. She served as the president of the New England Chapter of RWA and received the Goldrick Service Award for service to the chapter. She has published two books under the name Elizabeth Eliot. She hopes Helen Reddy would be proud.

You may write to Betsy at P.O. Box 1237, Dedham, MA 02027 or visit her Web site at www.betsyeliot.com.

Dear Reader,

Like all romance readers and writers, I believe in happy endings. For me, this book is proof that they really can come true.

The path to get here wasn’t without a few challenges— what would a romance novel be without them? But along the way, I have also had some thrilling moments that I will always remember: winning RWA’s Golden Heart Contest, finding an amazing agent willing to take a chance on an unpublished writer, sharing each victory and defeat with a sisterhood of fellow writers and knowing I had the support of my family through it all. Finally, getting the news that Silhouette wanted to publish my book. This is something I’ve dreamed about for a long time.

So, thank you for sharing this moment with me. I hope you enjoy my first Silhouette Romance and that there will be many more to come. You see, I also believe in happy beginnings.

Best wishes,

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 One

It sounded as if there was something being buried out behind the house.

Abby Melrose ignored the sound and pushed the doorbell, hearing the low-toned gong echo through the house. She waited for a servant or perhaps a butler named Igor to answer, but when there was no answer, she rang again. Then a third time, even knowing it was rude. Surely in a house this size there must be cooks or housekeepers, or at least a mad scientist or two.

She looked up at the dark stone exterior of the building and repressed a shiver. It wasn’t a castle, exactly, although it looked like something out of one of the spooky gothic novels she used to read before Robbie was born. She didn’t have time anymore to read about unsuspecting visitors held in spearing towers or innocent girls wandering through twisted halls.

But this wasn’t a chilling mystery novel and there was nothing she’d read about Dr. Jeremy Waters to suggest he had secret homicidal tendencies. Although the fact that he’d been certified as a genius at the age of seven was reason enough to make her jittery. After all, nobody had ever accused her of being too smart—as shown by her presence here today.

Dr. Waters hadn’t responded to any of her letters or phone calls, hadn’t indicated any interest in helping them. She’d driven over five hundred miles without any guarantee that he would even see them. If she could have come up with any better ideas, she’d have eagerly followed them. That was the problem. She was out of answers and nearly out of time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who are you?” he demanded finally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

“I’m the only one here.”

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

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

“Ever?”

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

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

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

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

“Time can’t be given away.”

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

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

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

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

“Well, no, but—”

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

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

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

Her son, Abby thought, as she turned to look at him crossing the yard, saw the world a little differently than most five-year-olds. She felt the swell of pride as well as the ever-present shock that she’d managed to produce such a remarkable child. Physically she knew he resembled her, his blond hair curling around his head like a bobbing halo, his eyes bright with curiosity and intelligence that no jewel could hold. For her, those looks had been what made her special, but for Robbie they were barely a consideration. She often wondered what hiccup in her gene pool had made him her son.

She stepped closer, automatically drawing him to her side and placing a hand on his shoulder. She wasn’t even aware of the protective action until she saw the way the man observed her, coldly eyeing them both as if they were the ones who posed a threat.

“Honey, I told you to stay in the car,” she admonished gently. She didn’t want to expose Robbie to yet another disappointment and she’d already come to the conclusion that this man had no intention of helping them.

“I was bored.”

She couldn’t claim to be surprised. He’d flown through the collections of puzzles and brainteasers she’d painstakingly gathered for the trip in the first hour. Despite having the mind of a brilliant adult, he was still a little boy.

“Hello,” Robbie greeted the man with a maturity that would have made her doubt his youth if she hadn’t actually been a participant in his birth.

“Hello.”

Thankfully Abby noted the hostility was missing from the man’s voice. Without it, the deep, husky rumble sounded a touch more accessible—and somehow vastly more dangerous.

“My name is Robbie Melrose. We’ve come to see Dr. Jeremy Waters.”

“What do you want him for?” the man asked.

Robbie thought about the question for a moment, while meeting the man’s gaze. “I’m not completely certain. My mother has chosen to keep her reasoning undisclosed from me.”

So much for secrets, Abby thought. She should have known she shouldn’t try to outsmart her son.

“I’m sure, whatever her reasons, she’s doing the right thing. My mother always knows what’s best.”

Abby’s eyes widened at the compliment. But then again, she was his mom. He had no idea how overwhelmed she was. And she intended to keep it that way. She would never allow her son to think he was a burden. She was all he had—heaven help him—and she wouldn’t let him down.

“However, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve chosen this area of the Berkshires for our vacation,” Robbie continued. “Although it’s certainly a beautiful place, I have a feeling that the appeal has more to do with the intelligence quotient of Dr. Waters. He’s got an IQ over two hundred, the highest ever recorded. Mine is only in the one-eighty range.”

The man looked at him blankly.

Abby felt the need to defend the claims. “I’ve got test scores and evaluations. He really is an extraordinary child.”

He frowned, appearing almost angry. “Those numbers mean nothing to me.”

Robbie nodded. “They’re subjective, it’s true. But at least they give the testers something to do.”

She could have sworn she saw the man’s lips twitch into something resembling a smile before his face settled back into a vacant stare. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. But I wish you the best of luck finding whatever you’re looking for.”

“Thank you,” Robbie answered, missing the obvious brush-off.

Abby didn’t miss it, but she chose to consider her decision to retreat a tactical maneuver rather than a defeat. She wasn’t finished yet.

She didn’t bother with goodbyes as she took her son’s hand and turned back toward the car. Once she had settled Robbie in the back seat, she began the next leg of her trip into the town that would be their home for the summer, struggling now to manage the fatigue that seemed to have finally caught up with her. It was almost as if the stranger had had some dangerous power after all, with the ability to somehow sap her of the rest of her energy.

“Are we going back to Pittsburgh, Mom?” Robbie asked tentatively.

Abby took a moment to make sure her voice would be calm when she answered. “I’m not going to give up on our summer plans so easily.” Or her own. “There will be another chance to talk to the famous doctor sometime in the future.”

Robbie paused, digesting her answer before following with another. “Dr. Waters didn’t seem too willing to help us this time.”

Abby nodded in agreement. She wasn’t surprised that her son had also figured out who they’d been talking to. He often saw things that other people missed.

“Well, if he thinks we’re just going to go away then he’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” she vowed.

Jeremy Waters listened to the car pull away and dropped the hoe on the ground. So that was the annoying Mrs. Melrose. She’d been pestering him with letters for months, describing how unusual her son was, how different, how extraordinary.

He’d heard it all before.

Not once had she mentioned whether or not he liked baseball or if he collected stamps. It was always the same, as if the child was one big brain with no other traits of importance.

He’d been expecting the pushy Mrs. Melrose to show up eventually, but he had to admit that her physical appearance had caught him completely by surprise. He’d been expecting the academic world’s equivalent of a stage mother, not a fairy princess. She’d been younger than he’d anticipated, probably in her mid-twenties assuming she hadn’t had a child when she was a baby herself. Her luminous eyes were fringed with dark lashes. And that stunning blond hair of hers, floating like a cloud around her face—he’d had to restrain himself from asking her to turn around so he could see whether it grew all the way down her back. Then, when she’d turned to leave, he couldn’t suppress a glimpse that had given him his answer in the affirmative. As always, it was the quest for knowledge that led to his downfall.

And the boy. Looking at him had been like looking in a mirror. Of course there was very little physical resemblance from the odd little minicomputer he’d been as a child, but the eyes had been the same, wide and inquisitive, taking in everything, thirsty for knowledge. His face was alive with intelligence, forever branding him as different from other “normal” little boys. He recognized the defensive angle of his shoulders, as if the boy could somehow protect himself.

Jeremy knew what it was like to be tested and probed, to be put on display. He’d given up being the main attraction in the freak show of life.

He didn’t want people around, especially a woman who looked like Abby Melrose. Although he didn’t care to admit it, he couldn’t deny that she’d induced a physical reaction from him. It was a conditioned response, he knew, programmed into his DNA to help propagate the species. But knowing the biology of his reaction didn’t make him feel it any less.

He supposed, in a way, it was fortunate that he would be unable to help her. Not only would it save his sanity, but it would protect both of them.

Because he would never again involve himself with a young person who had so much potential.

There was too much at stake if he failed. Again.

Chapter Two

Two days later, when she returned to Spooky Mansion, as she’d come to think of Dr. Waters’s home, it took five long and annoying rings of the doorbell before it was finally answered—although answered was a tame description of the way he threw open the door and sent it crashing against the wall. Abby got the impression she might have interrupted something by the way he was dressed: rubber gloves reaching nearly to his elbows, a multicolor-spattered rubber smock and plastic goggles covering his eyes.

What could he possibly be doing, dressed like that? Conjuring up the cure to cancer, perhaps, or on the brink of some messy scientific breakthrough? Abby didn’t ask. First, because he didn’t look in the mood for idle chatter and second because she was certain the details would be beyond her comprehension. It was hard enough keeping up with her five-year-old son. She couldn’t imagine what went on in the head of a man who, at age ten, had solved one of the mathematic equations previously thought to be unsolvable.

One thing was for certain. If he hoped to give the appearance of a mad scientist, he was succeeding.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

A maaad scientist.

“I came to talk to you.”

Beneath the goggles, his eyebrows lifted comically. She couldn’t be sure if he was surprised that she’d dared to return or by the stupidity of her answer.

“You don’t take a hint, do you?”

“You mean the hint I got from the gardener?”

“So you figured it out,” he sneered. “That doesn’t make you a rocket scientist.”

He wasn’t the first to point out that fact. He was right, of course. She didn’t have a fraction of the intelligence he had been born with. “But Robbie might be. A rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or heaven knows what else.”

“That’s not my problem.” He ripped the gloves from his hands and yanked off the goggles.

Abby could only stare as she got a closer look at the man who had been called a human computer. He certainly didn’t fit her image of a brainy nerd. His face was creased with ragged lines and planes, his mouth wide and sensual, though it twisted now in a snarl. But it was his eyes that really drew her attention. Standing this near, she could see their color, a soft, gentle brown. They made her want to step closer instead of away, as if they held some secret that was vital for her to understand. Remembering the picture of him as a child with oversize glasses, she concluded that it must be contact lenses that gave him the impression of vulnerability.

Certainly nothing about him fit her image of a super-genius, though even as that thought registered, she realized how narrow-minded it was. How many people had unthinkingly said the same thing about Robbie, as if brain function was somehow related to hair color and weak vision?

She supposed it was just some misguided attempt to explain her unusual physical reaction to him. Her palms were sweating and her heart was beating a little faster, and her reaction had nothing to do with the visual daggers Dr. Waters was throwing at her. Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, her response to Dr. Waters the other day was the real reason she’d run away rather than confronting him about his identity. She was sure he’d be amused by her reaction if he knew, but she had no intention of letting him in on the secret. She couldn’t afford the contempt that was sure to follow her foolishness. She had to convince this man to help her.

“Dr. Waters, I have to talk to you about my son, Robbie. As I wrote to you in my letters, he’s a certified child genius. His IQ is off the charts. When he started preschool, his teachers thought he had a learning disability until they figured out that he was so far advanced. They gave him a slew of tests and each one came back with more startling results than the last.”

“Mrs. Melrose…”

Abby didn’t give him a chance to continue with the brush-off she knew was coming. “Toward the end of the school year, I got called in to a meeting with the principal of the elementary school Robbie was supposed to attend next year. I figured they might want to have him skip a few grades since he’s pretty much mastered the alphabet and counting to ten.” She could tell the sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Instead he told me that Robbie might be better off if he looked elsewhere for his education.”

She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop herself now that the words had begun to flow. “The school said that according to his scores, he might be able to skip elementary or even high school all together if he passed a few tests. Can you imagine him in college? He’s not even allowed to go to the store by himself.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a glimpse of sympathy through his gruff exterior.

“They suggested home schooling as an alternative.” She laughed harshly at the thought of trying to teach Robbie herself, then paused for breath and to control the tears that threatened. “Although they used all these fancy words to explain their decision, the bottom line is that they don’t have any programs challenging enough for him. I haven’t told Robbie. He’d be crushed if he knew. He’s been looking forward to going to a real school since he could walk.”

She barely caught the wince he tried to hide. “There’s nothing I can do for him here, either.”

“That’s not true. Most of the higher level schools I’ve contacted have policies against taking students as young as Robbie and the lower level ones are worried that he’d be smarter than most of their teachers, not to mention the students. Then I read an article about your school and I knew you’d faced this kind of situation before.”

“What did it say?” he snapped, his eyes blazing.

“It was a story about Still Waters and the kind of kids who went there. I think it was written right after you’d opened.” He seemed to relax and she wondered at the cause, but didn’t pause to consider the reason. She had to make him understand. “Robbie would have fit right in. He is different from other children. He has different needs, a different future ahead of him.”

His face hardened before her eyes and she’d been so sure it had already been formed out of granite. “How terrible for you to have to deal with such a burden.”

She gasped, horrified that he’d gotten the wrong idea. “It’s not a burden.” Or if, secretly, it was occasionally almost too much to handle, it was a burden she carried with pride. “I’ll do whatever I can to help Robbie. He’s such an amazing child. He’s brilliant, yes, but he’s also got this wonderful sense of adventure and mischief. He’s a sensitive kid, worried about the future of everyone on the entire planet, and he asks the most thoughtful questions. Unfortunately I don’t have the answers for him.”

“What makes you think I do?”

“There are a lot of similarities between you and Robbie. You were both very young when your…gift was discovered.” Although she was certain both of them would sometimes consider it a curse. “You both have extremely high IQs.” She paused, searching for the right words. “You know what it’s like to be different from everybody else.”

At her words, he froze and she wondered what she’d said to put that look on his face. Then he smiled with malicious satisfaction as if she’d stepped into a trap. “Let me put this in a way you can understand,” he said, speaking slowly. “Go back to Pittsburgh. I can’t help you.”

Abby bristled at the familiar condescending tone, but strangely it was just the bolster she needed. Just because he was smarter than she was, didn’t mean he should underestimate her.

She’d been acting under the assumption that he hadn’t known about Robbie, but if he recalled where they came from, he must have read the letters she’d sent him. He undoubtedly knew everything. He’d probably known from the beginning. And she’d been wasting her time giving him background information he’d been aware of all along.

“I’m not going back until I figure out what to do with Robbie in the fall,” she told him. “We’re staying here in Wharton for the summer, so you might as well get used to it.”

The brush-off he’d appeared ready to give her halted as he stared at her. She could practically see his mind processing this new information. “You came five hundred miles without a backup plan if I didn’t agree to help you?”

“Five hundred and sixty-three miles,” she corrected, thinking of Robbie’s calculations.

His brows furled as if trying to figure out a particularly perplexing problem.

“We’re staying at the Sunshine Lodge.”

Those same brows lifted with surprise. “Edith Crawley’s place? And you still came back here? You must either be very determined or very stupid.”

The well-aimed jab should have been expected but it still hurt. She tried not to let it get to her. What he thought of her was unimportant.

It was true that when she’d mentioned contacting him, Mrs. Crawley had entertained her with a number of horror stories accusing him of everything from brainwashing babies to running a cult. Abby preferred to make her own decisions, but so far, everything her new landlord said seemed a possibility.

“We are not going back. Robbie’s going to have to make a change anyway, in the fall,” she explained. Even if she hadn’t figured out exactly where they’d be going, one thing was for certain—she wasn’t going to abandon her son. Wherever they went, they’d be together. “I’ve got money saved, enough to hold us for a while.”

He appeared on the verge of arguing with her before he caught himself. “I don’t care what you do. Just as long as you don’t do it here. Now go away.”

“I’m not leaving until you hear what I have to say.”

“I don’t care what you have to say,” he growled.

For Robbie’s sake, she couldn’t accept that answer. “But you used to be a teacher. Your school—”

“The school’s closed. I don’t do that anymore.”

If Abby hadn’t been standing close enough to keep him from closing the door on her, she’d have missed the flash of pain in his eyes. She’d never found out why he had closed his school, she realized. After meeting him, she figured he’d simply scared his students away with all his growls and grumblings, but now she wondered if there wasn’t some deeper reason.

From inside the house, a kitchen timer went off. Dr. Waters began to tug his gloves back on and turned to go. Discussion over.

“Wait! You don’t understand…” Without thinking, she grabbed his arm.

Slowly, and with great curiosity, he looked down at her hand, considering it as if deciding whether or not to chew it off. He didn’t pull away, however.

“On the contrary, Mrs. Melrose. I believe it is you who does not completely comprehend the situation.”

She tipped her chin up, refusing to be intimidated. “You haven’t even listened to all the facts before making your decision!” she challenged. “What kind of genius are you?”

To her surprise, he burst out laughing. At first she thought he was laughing at her, but then she realized there was no humor in the sound. “That’s the first time my intellect has been questioned since I was old enough to walk.”

She swallowed and pulled her gaze away from his powerful smile. It was nearly as bright as his mind. “Well, maybe it’s about time.”

He didn’t respond right away, deliberating with great care. For once, Abby remained quiet. She might not have the intelligence to match this man but she’d always been good at reading people. Her best shot now was to let him decide on his own. Then if he made the wrong decision, she’d figure out some other way to push him. It would be no more difficult than budging your average mountain.

“If I listen to what you have to say,” he asked finally, “will you leave me alone?”

“Yes,” she lied.

He stepped back, throwing his face into the shadows and making himself appear even more menacing. “Then by all means, please come in.”

Abby took a deep breath and told herself it was relief humming through her bloodstream. She couldn’t run now, though every ounce of common sense she possessed told her to do just that. She reminded herself that he was just a man. But somehow that made her feel even worse. She pictured her son, trying to understand why the kids his age made fun of him, quietly facing the adjustments that had come after a series of tests, looking to her—to her!—to figure out what happened next.

Abby lifted her chin and stepped through the doorway into the world of a genius. Even with every bit of her own intellect on alert, she didn’t have a clue about what to do next.

Jeremy analyzed his decision to allow her even this brief opening into his life. Contemplating it from every facet, he concluded he was simply out of his mind.

Actually that wasn’t far from the truth. Whenever he looked at the tenacious Mrs. Melrose, he seemed to lose his renowned ability to reason.

He glanced over his shoulder to see if she was still following or if she’d run screaming from the house. No such luck. She was peering with curiosity into each of the rooms they passed. What did she expect to see? he wondered. Caged animals prepared for scientific experiments? Food in pouches, served on petri dishes?

“Do you live here all alone?” she asked.

“Yes. There’s no one around for miles.” He leered menacingly but she gave no indication that it had the desired effect.

“It’s a big house for one person. Did you design it purposely to scare people away?” she asked bluntly.

Jeremy was caught so unprepared by her candor that he answered with equal honesty. “That’s just a side benefit. The house was built by an old Hollywood horror film star. It suited my purpose.”

“You mean for your school, Still Waters?”

“The school is not up for discussion.” His angry voice echoed through the empty rooms.

Abby’s eyes widened and he saw a glimmer of fear that she attempted to hide. Still, she continued to follow him. Jeremy didn’t know if it was stubbornness or foolishness that made her do so. Although he couldn’t be sure of her reasons, at least he had managed to figure out his own. He concluded that allowing her into his home, his sanctuary, was a form of self-torture. Having her around made him recall how different he still was.

He could see every emotion that passed through her mind and knew that she saw him as some kind of freak. Her biggest fear was that her son would end up like him, alone and bitter, unable to relate to normal people. Like the rest of the outside world, she looked at him and wondered what kind of weird and twisted thoughts went on in his head.

He didn’t think she’d want to know.

Because despite what she might think, he was a man, capable of reacting to her extraordinary beauty. He’d noticed the shapely figure beneath the simple peach sundress and the way the color of the material made her skin appear even more flawless. He’d seen the beseeching look in those amazing eyes and imagined her looking at him like that for other, much more personal reasons. Yet, he’d also noticed that she hadn’t capitalized on her looks as he might have expected. Though she wanted something from him, she hadn’t done anything to play on her appearance for the purposes of getting what she wanted.

His inquisitive mind still had a few other questions. Such as why she was persisting in this hopeless undertaking? Comprehending the motives of his students’ parents had always been difficult for him. They wanted him to make their kids normal, or worse, to make them even more extraordinary. Abby seemed to want what was best for her son. He was almost certain of that. But if she had rightly concluded that Jeremy was a deviant specimen, unable to live among those society had deemed normal, why would she want to subject her son to his obvious flaws?

“Where’s the boy?” Jeremy asked without turning around. There was no use practicing his social graces. She wouldn’t be around long enough for it to matter.

“Robbie went to camp today. Since we’ll be sticking around, I thought I’d enroll him in the summer program down by the lake.”

He stopped suddenly, almost causing her to plow into him. “That’s not a program for gifted children.”

“I know, but they have swimming and boating. It will be good for him to spend some time outdoors.”

He didn’t comment, preferring to process the information in silence.

Naturally she didn’t allow the omission. “Why? Is there something wrong with the camp? It had a good rating in the travel book of this area.”

He was sure it did. They catered to the wealthy who vacationed in the area and their clients were afforded the best in everything. Several years ago, as part of an enrichment program they’d offered, Jeremy and some of his students had been asked to perform complex mathematic calculations for the group. Perform. It was a good enough word for what they’d been asked to do.

“I spoke to the owner myself. A man named Drew Danforth. He seems very nice. He gave me a huge discount because they happened to have an opening at the last minute.”

When not running his camp in the summer, Danforth, the town’s golden boy, was a three-sport coach at the local high school and the area’s most eligible bachelor. And he’d taken one look at Abby Melrose and discovered a last-minute opening at one of the most exclusive day camps in the area? What a coincidence!

Abby was beginning to look panicked at the thought of leaving her son someplace that wasn’t safe.

“There’s nothing wrong with the camp,” Jeremy acknowledged and she sighed with relief. He didn’t bother to explain that there would be a much greater danger from himself if he were to help her. He wasn’t going to get involved. No matter how persuasive she tried to be.

They reached the kitchen, where the project he’d been working on before he was interrupted covered the wide expanse of counter. He’d opened the windows, but an odd, pungent odor still hung in the air. At least there was ample room; the kitchen had been designed to allow lavish parties. Jeremy could recall when the school had been open and everyone’s responsibilities had included pitching in to prepare the meals. Occasionally the behavior of some of the smartest young people in the world could have been mistaken for frat house antics.

Ruthlessly he banished the image from his mind.

“Sit over there,” he commanded, pointing to an empty chair halfway across the room. “This substance is caustic if it touches the skin or is inhaled.”

Her eyes widened with alarm and curiosity as she did as he asked. After protecting his own eyes with the oversize goggles and replacing the rubber gloves, he picked up a thermometer hooked on the side of an enamel pot on the stove and checked the temperature of the steaming liquid inside.

Although he didn’t look at her, he knew she watched his every move.

As he took a long, plastic spoon and began to stir the mixture, it occurred to him that he should have used a metal spoon so that he could watch her eyes when it disintegrated. Next, he approached a second container on the counter, this one an ordinary pitcher that might have been used to serve lemonade. The poisonous contents of the scalding liquid were also being monitored. In order for a successful mix of the solutions, the timing had to be exact.

“Where’s Robbie’s father?” Even as he asked the question, Jeremy realized he’d asked it for himself. She hadn’t mentioned a husband in her letters and he didn’t think the omission was accidental, but whether or not Abby had a man in the picture was irrelevant.

Again the chin tipped up. “We’re divorced. He left us when Robbie was little. He couldn’t handle…”

Revealing more than she’d intended to, she stopped herself, but not before Jeremy filled in the blanks. The boy’s father hadn’t been able to deal with the freakish nature of his own son. What a fool.

“Doesn’t he have anything to say about Robbie’s future?” he asked. He would have preferred trying to reason with someone who didn’t stare at him with those remarkable eyes.

“He had opinions about everything, as a matter of fact,” she said, “and as luck would have it, they were always right. I’m sure he’d be the first to agree with you that I’m making a mistake, but he hasn’t been involved with Robbie since the day he left. I’m all Robbie has. There is nobody else.”

As far as he could see, the boy could do worse than having her as a supporter. He was certain that after he disabused her of the notion of gaining his cooperation, she’d soon find a better candidate to help her. Someone who wouldn’t end up hurting her son instead of helping him.

“You see, Dr. Waters, that’s why I need you.”

Jeremy dropped the spoon into the mixture where it hissed and sizzled. “Stop calling me Dr. Waters,” he snapped. “You make me sound like I’m about to operate on you without anesthesia.” Even as he said the words, he wondered why he had removed that barrier. He should be building up walls, not tearing them down.

“The thought occurred to me,” she responded dryly.

Jeremy’s lips twitched, and he turned his back on her. “All right. You’re here. Now tell me what you want so you can leave.”

“Well, at least you’re keeping an open mind,” she mumbled. Taking a deep breath, she continued, “You’ve met Robbie. He’s an exceptional child.”

He brought the pitcher to the stove and poured the contents into the enamel pot. The mixture gurgled satisfactorily. “So what’s the problem, Mrs. Melrose?”

“Abby. You can call me Abby if I’m going to call you…Jeremy?”

Though she attempted a smile, his name sounded awkward on her lips, as if he shouldn’t have such a normal name. He shrugged. It wasn’t going to matter what they called each other.

“If Robbie is such a great kid, what’s wrong?” he prompted, knowing the answer.

This time, rather than describing her son according to his test scores, she began to give accounts of Robbie’s childhood. She described the problems he had with other kids, making friends, fitting in. Jeremy rubbed absently at the scar on his chin, the result of a very juvenile disagreement about the gravity of the moon. He knew how the little guy felt. It wasn’t easy being different.

“Because he’s so smart,” she explained, “he tends to want to be around adults, but he doesn’t fit in with them, either.”

Jeremy could have told her that age didn’t help the misfit phenomenon, but he didn’t think it was what she wanted to hear.

As she continued to describe the problems Robbie had faced in his young life, Jeremy’s anger grew. Yes, there were issues that other children didn’t face but there could be joys, too, in seeing things other people missed, in finding the solutions to complex problems. Like most people, all she saw were the differences.

There was no doubt that her son was remarkable. From the information she’d sent him, he knew Robbie had a mind that came along once in a lifetime. There was a time when Jeremy might have wondered what it would be like to help him explore his potential, to aid in his discovery of a universe most people never got to experience. That time had passed.

He looked up to find her watching him intently. He was used to being stared at but there was something about the way she examined him as if she could see into his mind. Then the look vanished and she edged closer to watch him as he measured a combination of herbs and oils and added it to the mixture.

“I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about,” she continued, in a different, almost conversational voice. “What was your childhood like? Was it difficult to be different from everybody else?”

The personal question startled him so much he sloshed the liquid he was stirring. It spattered with a sizzle onto the newspaper-covered counter. Her eyes widened and she stepped back.

Jeremy grinned, pleased with her reaction. “I told you to stay away.”

“I don’t take orders very well.”

“No kidding?” He didn’t have to be a genius to figure that out.

It was unusual for anyone to have the nerve—or the interest—to ask him such personal questions. Usually people saw what they wanted to see. “I don’t think my childhood is any of your business.”

“It is if you’re thinking about helping me with Robbie.”

“I’m not thinking about helping you with Robbie,” he pointed out.

She ignored his point, and continued with her own. “I read an article about when you were eight years old. You had just won a ‘War of the Brains’ competition against people twice your age.”

He remembered the day well. The reporters, the doubting professors, all wanting a look at the freak of nature.

She shook her head. “I couldn’t even understand the question they asked you.”

“Physics isn’t an easy subject.”

“Especially for an eight-year-old.”

He thought he caught a glimpse of sympathy in her eyes.

“I would think it would be difficult to be put on display like that at such a young age.”

“It was fine.” If you considered it fine to be a lab rat.

“I haven’t subjected Robbie to any of that kind of publicity. I’ve tried to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible.”

He could commend her for that, at least. Allowing privacy to be one’s self had been one of the principles his school had been founded on. “So you understand the need for solitude?” As long, he thought, as it didn’t conflict with her own desires.

“Of course,” she agreed. “Especially since others might get the wrong idea about someone with your abilities.”

“The wrong idea?”

“They might find it strange, even weird, I suppose.”

“Is that right?” he managed to say, the rein on his temper straining. “And what about you, Abby? What do you think about me?”

She’d been intently watching his proceedings, but now she looked away, appearing faintly embarrassed. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Her actions and words declared otherwise. She looked at him and saw the freak, the mutant. Her next comment confirmed it.

“I would think that someone who’s lived through the kind of experiences you have would want to give something back instead of just wasting that knowledge.”

Control snapped like the leash on a monster. He dropped the spoon which sank beneath the mixture and ripped the goggles from his eyes to stare at her. “What do you know about it? You couldn’t understand what it’s like!”

She didn’t jump back. Or run screaming from his home. Instead she looked straight at him for the first time since they’d entered the house. He saw satisfaction, not revulsion, in those startling eyes.

“That’s exactly my point,” she said. “How could I? My childhood was filled with dolls and dress-up, not mathematic calculations. It’s impossible for me to understand what it’s like for my son—or for you. That’s why I need your help.”

It took an amazingly long time for Jeremy to realize he’d been conned. She’d been leading him to this conclusion all along. He had to respect the ingenuity. It was a sign of gifted intelligence to look at problems with originality and resourcefulness. Perhaps her son wasn’t as different from her as she thought.

Because she was beginning to intrigue him, he filled his voice with firmness and finality. “I can’t help you.”

To his amazement, she looked shocked at his answer, as if she’d really expected him to change his mind. “Can’t or won’t?” she challenged.

“Can’t and won’t. I can suggest someone, a counselor,” he said when she finally took a breath. “Maybe the two of you can see him together.”

“I don’t want a counselor,” she insisted. “I want you.”

Even knowing what she meant, her words lanced through him. “You don’t understand what you’re asking. Didn’t you hear that I eat small children for breakfast?”

“That’s not what some of your former students said.”

He couldn’t believe it. She’d shocked him again. “You contacted my students? What right do you have to…?”

“The rights of a mother. Do you think I would come all this way if I hadn’t checked you out? My son’s future is at stake!”

“Look, let’s get this thing settled once and for all. I am not going to teach your son or any other child.”

Abby frowned and Jeremy wondered if he had finally gotten through to her.

“I didn’t ask you to,” she responded. “I want you to teach me.”

Chapter Three

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “You’re not a genius.”

Abby felt the heat rise on her face as he bluntly stated the obvious. “That’s the point.”

“What’s the point?” he asked, obviously confused. “I thought you wanted me to enroll Robbie in my program?”

“That was never my intent. I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure you’d be a good influence on him.” The last thing Robbie needed in his life right now was a twisted and scarred recluse as a role model.

He appeared stunned. “Then what do you want?”

“As I said, I want you to work with me.” Although it galled her to confess it to this man, she knew he would accept nothing less than the truth. “I’m not smart enough to do this myself.”

“To do what?”

“Decide Robbie’s future. He can’t attend a normal elementary school and the higher level schools won’t take him. Obviously you’ll agree that home schooling is not an option. How can I know what’s best for my son? I don’t have a Ph.D. or any of those other letters you have tacked on behind your name. I never even went to college, for heaven’s sake.”

“What has college got to do with anything?”

He sounded truly perplexed and she couldn’t help wondering if it was a new experience for him. Join the club. “I didn’t pay much attention in school,” she admitted. “I was always too busy going to parties or hanging around with my friends to bother with anything as boring as studying.”

“Do you think that if you’d paid attention in algebra, you’d have been prepared for someone with Robbie’s intellect?”

She shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’d be a step closer. I was so sure that there’d be plenty of time to get serious.” She took a deep breath and continued, determined to get it all out. “I met Robbie’s father when I was only sixteen. He was older than me, already finishing college with top grades and expectations for a fast track to success. When he said we looked good together, I thought he meant we belonged together. We were married when I was just eighteen.”

Jeremy listened to her story without expression. She wasn’t even sure if he was actually listening, or if his mind had wandered off the way Robbie’s sometimes did, until he responded. “Didn’t your parents have anything to say about that?”

“We eloped. My parents were killed in an accident when I was young. I lived with my grandmother. Ted convinced me he had everything figured out and I believed him. Turns out, I was wrong.”

“You were young. It’s called immaturity. Most kids are like that.”

The fact that he was defending her made her feel worse. “Were you?”

He shook his head. “Hardly.”

Of course not. She tried to picture him skipping classes to go to the beach or spending his time studying the fine art of flirting, but she failed.

His eyes focused on a spot beyond her head and she could tell he was looking into the past. It didn’t appear to be a comfortable place. “I’d have given just about anything to be able to have a normal, carefree childhood.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he appeared shocked to have said them.

She got a mental picture of a young Jeremy, with his awkward clothes and remarkable brain. Had no one seen beyond those things, to the person inside? Was that how Robbie felt? It made her even more determined to figure out what he needed to be happy.

“At first everything was fine,” she said. “Ted went to graduate school while I worked. He was smart and ambitious.” And he’d made it clear that she shouldn’t bother trying to understand the complicated life he’d mapped out for them. “Then Robbie came along and everything changed. We could see right from the beginning that he was different. At first Ted treated him like a trophy to be trotted out and placed on the mantel for friends to see, but then it started to become clear that Robbie’s abilities far outmeasured Ted’s and he began to see his own son as a threat. Ted just didn’t seem to know what to do with him.” It had been a shock to discover there wasn’t much substance behind her husband’s confident exterior.

“But you did?”

She laughed at the notion. “Sometimes I felt as helpless as if I was the infant, only there was no one to give me the answers or take care of me. I’ve been struggling to stay one step ahead of him ever since.” Without meaning to, she stepped closer. “He’s my own son and I can’t even understand what he’s saying half the time. I’ve got two months to figure out what’s best for his future and I’ll do whatever it takes to help him.”

“You must be desperate if you’ve decided to center your plan around me.”

“I am.” She didn’t think she’d realized just how much was at risk before she’d met him.

Abby had expected him to be different. But dealing with Robbie had made her believe that she could deal with different. She’d known she would be asking a lot of a man whose solitary life wasn’t exactly a secret, but for her son’s sake she’d been willing to try.

But this awareness of him had caught her completely by surprise. She told herself it was a result of her attempts to find out about the man behind the brain, but there seemed to be something more basic, more dangerous, about her reaction to him. And she was very much afraid it had nothing to do with his mind.

Abby might not know much, but she knew anything deeper between them was out of the question. She had enough problems without allowing another superhuman into a life that was already too far from ordinary. Besides, if her husband had thought she was stupid, she could only imagine what Jeremy would think of her.

He’d turned to tend the mysterious concoction he was brewing, remaining silent for a long stretch of time before responding. “For the sake of argument, let’s just say that your frivolous teen years did contribute, marginally, to the difficulties you’re facing now. Exactly what are you hoping to learn? Calculus for beginners? Quantum physics in twelve easy lessons?”

“I want to find out about you.”

His head bolted up. “You want to study me? What kind of aberration do you think I am?”

She stepped closer, only the counter separating them. “I think you’re a man who looks at a rainbow and sees sunlight reflecting through little drops of water.”

“Refracting,” he corrected.

Abby shrugged, conceding the point, believing her own had just been made. “I see a spray of reds and blues and greens floating across the sky. I wonder what I’d do with a pot full of gold.”

He looked bewildered by her response.

“I bet you fall asleep by adding columns of numbers in your head,” she challenged.

“If I’m lucky.”

Abby wondered what kinds of problems and anguish would keep a man like him awake. If they were anything like the nightmares that sometimes woke Robbie, they must be doozies. “You have experienced the kind of things Robbie is going through. You understand things I will never comprehend.”

Jeremy stared deep into the murky brown liquid in front of him, no longer seeing the mixture’s progress. Dear heaven, it was worse than he’d imagined. She did see him as a freak. Maybe they should put him in a cage and let children throw candy at his head.

Worse yet, when he looked across his kitchen at the stunningly beautiful woman observing him, his thoughts weren’t the least bit cerebral. Desire was strong and real, and completely unacceptable.

“So you’d like to make me into your own personal guinea pig?”

“Of course not. I just want to ask you some questions, see what makes you happy, what you would have done differently if you’d had the chance.”

She wanted to know what he would have done differently? He thought of the series of accidents and mistakes that had shaped his life. But the past didn’t matter. Not even the most brilliant minds in the world had figured out a way to turn back time.

However, the future still waited for Robbie and others like him. Jeremy had once thought he could make a difference. He’d been wrong.

She seemed to mistake his brooding silence as a sign to continue. “If I’m going to enroll Robbie in the fall, I haven’t got much time, so it wouldn’t require much of a commitment from you,” she explained, clearly having thought this out completely. “You wouldn’t have to do anything, really, just be yourself and tell me what it’s like.”

“Is that all?” he asked dryly.

“Well, I suppose it might be a bit of an inconvenience from time to time. I figured, with all I have to learn, that I might have to be here quite a bit.”

A bit of an inconvenience? He supposed that was one way of looking at things. “What possible reason would I have to agree to such an undertaking?”

“I understand that I’m asking a lot of you, but I’m not asking you to do it for free.”

“You’re planning to offer me a stipend for invading my life and dissecting it into little pieces?”

“Well, actually, I wouldn’t be able to pay you, but I would be willing to trade services. Your talents in exchange for mine.”

Because she was beginning to intrigue him, he made his expression purposely leering. “That’s an interesting proposition. What exactly are your special talents?”

She gave no indication that she noticed his double meaning. “I’ll clean your house for you.”

“You’ll do what?” he blurted. Her offer was the last thing he expected—or maybe the second to the last. The thought of her cleaning was almost too incredulous to be true. With those delicate features, dainty hands? “Sure you will.”

“That’s what I do. After my husband left, I discovered I didn’t have the schooling to get a job good enough to support us. I was a waitress for a while. You’d be surprised by the kind of money you can make just serving people food.”

Looking at her, Jeremy wasn’t surprised at all. He imagined people would throw money at her to keep her coming back.

“But waitressing caused me to be away from Robbie too long and too late. So now I clean people’s houses. It’s the perfect solution. I can make my own hours and be around for Robbie. I can work anywhere, there’s always somebody who needs help, and I’m good at what I do.”

He could see that she’d given it a lot of thought, but he couldn’t believe she’d chosen a path others would consider subservient. “What about your husband? Didn’t he provide support?”

“I didn’t want the strings he attached. He wanted me to send Robbie to boarding school, said he had the right to make the decisions if he was going to pay. I wasn’t going to send my son away.” She seemed to dare him to disagree. “We’re doing fine on our own. I started out with only a few houses, but the business grew so much that I hired a whole fleet of other women to work with me. One of them is taking care of the company until I get back. If I have to leave Pittsburgh permanently because of Robbie, she wants to buy it from me.”

She was serious. She was offering to do menial labor in exchange for his opening his life to her prying eyes. She had to know that if he had required domestic assistance he would have arranged it, yet she’d made the suggestion anyway, obstinately going after what she wanted in a way he could almost admire. He pictured the way she had examined his house so curiously before and realized her interest might have been more professional than personal, but that didn’t change the facts. Like the rest of the world, she saw him as nothing more than a mutant specimen.

“Why me?” he couldn’t help but ask. “There are a lot of smart people in the world. Most of them are better-adjusted than I am.”

“You worked with kids. I figure you saw what worked, what made them fulfilled and happy.”

“Not always,” he answered, his voice grim as he thought about the past.

“But sometimes? Even if you’ve only discovered what doesn’t work, you’ve already got a head start on everything I have to learn. You’ve been there. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like.”

“You might not want to know.”

“I have to find out. Robbie’s whole life depends on it. What if I make a mistake? What if I’m responsible for ruining his life because I made the wrong decision?”

The memory of one young face in particular swam across the swirl inside the pot. Leonard had been young when he’d first come to Jeremy’s attention. Not much older than Abby’s son was now. “You’d have to learn to live with it,” he answered finally.

“I’m not willing to take that chance. He’s my son. I have to do the right thing. He deserves that much at least.”

Jeremy felt himself weakening. What she was asking was unthinkable, but if he agreed to be the subject in her little pet project he might actually be able to make a difference in one life. The potential of helping those whose intelligence made them different from others was what had prompted him to open Still Waters in the first place. He’d naively hoped to give those special children a place where they could feel normal, where they could explore their minds without drawing attention to their differences.

Eventually, he knew, her amazingly intelligent child would grow up to be nothing more than an extremely intelligent adult. But whether he survived the journey and thrived was still in question. She was giving Jeremy a chance to help without the risks that he would harm instead.

He reminded himself that was not his problem. But the part of him that had once thought that wisdom brought responsibility made him irate.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been with a woman?” he asked abruptly.

She swallowed audibly. “No.”

“It has been a very long time. If you’d like I could tell you down to the hours and minutes.” He couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to talk her out of the bizarre scheme, or himself.

“I don’t think that’s the issue here.”

“Which just goes to show what you know.”

Trying to maintain his eroding common sense, he checked the mixture and found it ready. He strode past her, catching a hint of her scent, something clean and clear. It caused him to slam open the cabinet door where he’d stored a collection of odd-shaped boxes, pots and containers for this project. He lined the selection of items up along the counter, catching her bewildered expression from the corner of his eye.

“Do you understand what you’re asking?” he asked. “You want to invade my life, pick it apart and use it to guide your son to a life completely different from my own?”

“Yes,” she agreed, as if satisfied that he’d grasped the concept. He saw regret and perhaps pain in her gaze, but that didn’t stop her. “I’m not giving up, no matter what you say. This is too important.”

“And what if—when—I decline your offer?”

“Not even then. I’m planning to stick around whether you agree or not. I figure I can find out enough about you by asking around. I don’t know what else to do.”

Jeremy took a deep breath and searched for logic. Whatever she lacked in higher intelligence—if anything—she certainly made up for in stubbornness. Of course, determination alone wouldn’t be enough to sway him. He’d been known to go up against the entire academic community for something he believed in. Something like his students, for instance.

He believed her when she said she’d stick around until she got what she wanted. She’d hound him whether he agreed or not, making a nuisance of herself, reminding him of everything he could never have, and digging up a past that should remain buried.

Or he could chase her away the easiest way possible, by giving her what she wanted—a glimpse into the life of a brilliant misfit. She wouldn’t last long.

If she truly wanted to help her son, she’d take what she saw and dedicate herself to making sure he turned out differently. In a roundabout way, maybe he could help the boy.

Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to hurt him.

“If I agree…”

She actually gave a little jump of joy into the air, causing Jeremy to regret his decision even before he’d finished making it. Who actually leaped for joy? he wondered. There’d be no more leaping if he had anything to say about it.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “If I agree, there will be certain guidelines that have to be adhered to.”

“Absolutely. Whatever you say. You won’t be sorry.”

He was already sorry. She was a beautiful woman under the worst of circumstances, but happiness actually made her glow. He was going to have to make sure that this association didn’t last long. “The first, and most important rule, is that there are no children allowed. I will not work with your son, teach him, talk to him, or see him. Is that understood?”

“Hmm. I think I got the message.”

He refused to be amused. “I hope so.”

She managed to control her smile, a fact for which Jeremy was absurdly grateful. “Secondly, you may ask any questions you wish, but I may choose not to answer. Certain areas are off-limits. If you push, I will refuse any association in the future.”

She nodded eagerly. “That sounds fair.”

For some reason, he didn’t believe her. But she’d find out he was serious soon enough if she tried to cross that line. Whatever problems Abby and her son faced, they weren’t nearly as important to him as protecting his past mistakes from prying eyes.

Jeremy returned to the pan and observed the mixture inside. “It is time for me to continue with the next step of my project. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave now.”

“Sure. No problem.” Now that she’d gotten what she’d come for, she seemed equally eager to depart. She’d headed toward the door, steps away from Jeremy’s returned peace of mind, when she stopped suddenly. “Can I ask you one more thing before I leave?”

Jeremy sighed. “Why not?”

Apparently missing his sarcasm, she pointed to the pan he’d been tending all morning. “What are you making there, anyway?”

He’d been so sure she wouldn’t ask. The fact that he’d miscalculated once again didn’t bode well for their limited future together. “I am making soap,” he admitted finally.

“Really?” She scanned the necessary chemicals, tools and molds, bewilderment and apprehension once again returning to her face. “I know you’re a supergenius and all, but you know you can buy that stuff at the store, right?”

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