He frowned, truly puzzled. "Why not?" He could understand a certain reluctance to follow him home and climb with him into his unmade bed—though there was nothing he'd like more at that moment. But what was so alarming—or intimate, for that matter—about taxes? IRS agents would be going over them pretty carefully and he'd never even met them. Not even once…
"Well…because…surely you don't."
Now probably wasn't the time to ask her out to dinner. "Of course I do. Dean Patterson says you're the best."
She took a full minute to digest that remark. Or at least Kyle figured that was what she was doing while she stood there silently gazing at him. During the brief time he'd known her, she'd been a woman of few words, a woman who kept most of herself locked away. But by the end of that night, he thought he'd been admitted inside—though just inside—the locked corridors of her mind. He'd been looking forward to exploring those corridors much more fully.
And then she'd vanished.
Jamie's next comment had nothing to do with taxes. "You cut your hair."
Ridiculously pleased that she'd given him that much notice, Kyle shrugged. "Made me look
TARA TAYLOR QUINN
older." He'd worn a pony tail the night she'd met him.
"Looking older's important?"
"Maybe not, but when you're in the classroom and you want to discourage any interest from nubile college girls, it can't hurt."
Obviously uncomfortable with his vaguely sexual reference, Jamie simply looked away.
"It would have to be business only."
She'd said the words so softly he barely heard them, but his heart jumped with hope just the same. "Of course. If that's what you want."
Her gaze met his solidly then, filled with strength, with conviction. "That's the way it has to be."
He refused to be disappointed so quickly. "You're married?"
"No."
Then he could wait. "If you say it has to be just business, just business it is," he told her, forcing himself to release her arm as he headed back around his desk. So it was going to take longer than an hour or two to unlock her defenses this time around. He'd waited more than five years. He could be patient.
Holding out his tax file, he said, ' 'It should all be in there. You can reach me here or at home if you have any questions. Both numbers are on the inside jacket."
Nodding, she took the file and flipped it open.
And for the first time since she'd walked back into his life, he caught a glimmer of a smile.
"What?" He was grinning from ear to ear. She'd almost smiled. He was climbing already.
HER SECRET, HIS CHILD
' 'You want me to submit a bunch of maps to the IRS?"
He wouldn't bother telling her what he really wanted. Not yet. At least not until he got as far as a full smile. He handed her the correct folder, instead. And was still grinning as he hurried across campus to his next class. He'd just found the woman he was going to marry.
CHAPTER FOUR
Karen Smith loved her husband. But she didn't want to have his baby. Not again. Not alone.
She didn't think he wanted her to have his baby, either. Which made telling him that she might be pregnant almost impossible.
She paced her living room, where the girls sat watching cartoons, little legs straight out in front. Their closeness comforted her, even if the irritat-ingly high voices on the cartoons did not. Jamie was due any minute. Her appointment with the new client from the university had been more than an hour ago.
Jamie was so damn lucky. She had it all. A career. A home. And Ashley. Oh, and a planner with appointments and meetings written in for practically every day. Karen didn't have enough to keep track of to need a planner.