Marie D’Ancanto jammed hard on the clutch of her Jeep Grand Charokee and shifted down into second gear. The machinery groaned and complained, even though it was only a year old.

Fitting that the car wanted to be here as little as she did. Yet here they were, inching up the side of a mountain at what was surely an eighty-five-degree angle. Worse, the top of the mountain—for she was determined to get to the top—promised no relief from stress.

No, at the top of the mountain was a person who didn’t have the decency to respond to repeated requests by telephone, U.S. mail, or e-mail.

This man promised to be a louse extraordinaire. Marie frowned. Brain, she said to her brain, no-body uses the word ‘louse’ anymore. “Louses,” not to be confused with lice, went out with the what—fifties? Her friend Jubilee would laugh at her. Jubilee teased her affectionately about how unhip she was, how her mind remained mired in the nineteenth century instead of acknowledging the fact that it lived in the twenty-first. But then Jubilee had a belly ring, and Marie had a Ph.D. in art history. She’d written her dissertation on Rodin, to whom her friend referred as “that rodent guy.”

Brain! You’re wandering again. Must get back to the business at hand. Namely what she was going to say to Logan Howlett-Xavier, the man on top of the bloody mountain she was scaling. “Mr. Xavier,” she’d say, “the faces of the unforgiving look remarkably like sphincters as they age.”

No, no, no! That was not an opening calculated to persuade the louse to do what his grandmother wanted. And she had to persuade him, for Miss Amelia’s sake.

Marie wrapped the Jeep around another curve, keeping so close to the side of the mountain that she almost scraped the paint off. If she arrived at the top with deep gouges in her gorgeous shimmer of green, she’d sue the louse for criminal elusiveness. It sounded good, anyway.

She inhaled the crisp scents of pine and heather, and the danker smells of moss and loam. Though it was August, the temperature for the past week had been balmy; in the lower-to-mid seventies. The higher she went up the mountain, the cooler the air became, raising slight goose bumps on her bare arms.

With a last corkscrew turn and groan from her usually purring car, Marie emerged from the rough trail and pulled into a clearing. In front of her sprawled a rustic cabin with a shingled roof, and upon the roof was a… dear God. Upon the roof was a… well. Upon the roof was the louse.

But what a glorious, glorious, glorious louse. Booted, demined, and shirtless, he stood tall on the apex of the little house, swinging a hammer and glistening copper in the sun.

Marie pushed her hair out of her face and closed the mouth she hadn’t been aware was open. She got out of the car, still staring.

The louse set his hammer down and ran a big hand through his mane of dirty brown hair. He picked up a large insulated cup, took several gulps, then sluiced a good amount of water from it down his back and chest.

Marie swallowed hard as the rivulets rushed, without foreplay, between his shoulder blades and down his spine into the waistband of his jeans, where they dampened the whole seat. The fabric molded instantly to his buttocks and thighs.

Oh, yes, he was a glorious louse. He had the arms of Atlas, with shoulders like… uh, boulders, and those buns were of truly mythical quality. He seemed to sense eyes upon him, if not salacious drool, and he turned on his heel to face her.

His eyes were a piercing hazelnut, even from the roof. They were also cool, critical, and downright crotchety. “Whoever you are,” he said, “go away.”

His attitude was enough to dry her drool on the spot. Marie gaped at him, caught off guard. Then she put her hands on her hips, and said, “No.”

He shot her an annoyed look. “Why not?”

The man had nerve! “Because, Mr. Xavier, I’ve gone to great lengths to talk to you, and I’m not leaving until I’ve done so.”

He shrugged. “Mr. Xavier was my grandfather.”

Yes, he was. And that was the reason she’d inched her way up his antisocial mountain. They stared at each other for a long moment, during which she didn’t move a muscle. She felt like an idiot in her pale green linen suit and stockings, and she glanced down to find a wayward ant scaling her leg much as she’d scaled the mountain.

She broke the mutual glare first, to flick the insect gently back onto the grass, where it hightailed away from her cream sandals and the panty hose she’d hatched fresh from the package that morning.

“If you’re not leaving—“ he sighed--- “then call me Logan. And it’s Howlett, by the way. I don’t go by the other.”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Xa—Ho--- uh, Logan, it’s your grandfather I’ve come to discuss.”

His brown eyes flashed from cool to frozen. “I don’t discuss my family with anyone.”

Well, wasn’t Miss Amelia’s Little Logan an affable guy. But the old lady’s troubled face swam into her memory, reminding Marie that she was here with a serious purpose. She sighed, and tried for a smile. “I’m Marie D’Ancanto. I teach at West Point College, about half an hour southeast of here.”

Logan eyed her quizzically and folded his delicious arms across his scrumptious chest. “And you came to see me on your way home from church?”

She flushed, feeling even sillier that she’d worn a suit. She’d donned it like armor, to protect her and help her feel professional. In the face of the louse and his cabin, the suit was ridiculous, like wearing pearls into a reggae bar.

“I’ve been doing research on your late grandfather’s paintings for the past eight months, and in the process have become friends with your grandmother. I’m here at her request, and I’d like to talk with you.”

“No.” Logan turned away and reached for a roll of tar paper, dismissing her.

Louse. No, think 2010—ass hole. “Look, I’ve driven a long way. I’ve tried to contact you by mail and phone---“

He pivoted on one heel, holding the roll of tar paper at an angle. She could see through the long, dark tunnel of it to a small circle of blue sky. “Which part of ‘no’ did you not understand?”

Marie clamped her mouth shut and thought about snarling. This guy was not only arrogant, but rude. She counted to three and decided she wasn’t going to let him run her off. But she had to get up to eye level with him. As it was, she felt like a pale green grasshopper at the feet of Zeus. She spied his ladder on the left side of the cabin, and prayed that he was fresh out of thunderbolts. She’d come up a mountain, so why not a ladder? It was a vertical kind of day.

“Fine,” she said, and walked to the ladder. “However, I need to have a frank discussion with you, and I don’t suppose you can work effectively with her fingers in your ears, so I regret that you may actually hear what I’m going to say. And it does, unfortunately, concern your family.”

He’d turned away again. She set the ball of one sandaled foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, and found that in order to make it up to the next rung with her other foot, she was going to have to hike up her skirt. She slid the lousy thing over her knees and scrambled up.

As she got to the top rung and teetered out onto the roof on all fours, Logan was on his knees. He needed to assume that position more often.

She watched him slice through the tar paper with a utility knife and anchor the far side of it to the roof with a staple gun. Then he turned his head and stared incredulously at her. “What in the hell are you doing?”

She tilted her chin at him. Any minute now they were going to circle each other like strange dogs squaring off over a lawn. She figured they’d get straight to the growling, without any preliminary butt-sniffing.

“What are you doing?” he repeated.

“I told you. You may not want to listen, but I’m going to talk anyway.” She gingerly straddled the roof’s apex, keeping her knees bent.

“You’re more likely to fall off the roof.”

This was true, but she didn’t feel like admitting it.

“Take off those shoes. They’re slick on the bottom.”

That was true also, but her panty hose were fresh from the package.

As if he’d read her mind, he told her, “Your life is worth more than four bucks at the supermarket. Take ‘em off.”

She sighed and did so. She’d probably have ripped them anyway, and it only brought her total lifelong expenditure on stockings from $8,233.00 to $8,237.00 and change. “I could help you hold that paper stuff down while you staple it.”

He shook his head at her. “Stubborn woman.” An unexpected flash of humor appeared for an instant in those startling eyes. “I hope you brought up a cold beer.”

A beer? “Excuse me? Just who do you think you are?”

“You’ve informed me that I’m Logan Howlett-Xavier. If it’s up for debate, and I can assume some other identity, then I don’t have to listen to what you’re determined to tell me.” A ray of hope crossed his face, and it gave him away.

True ass holes didn’t express hope; they blocked it out like the sun. The guy would listen to her, not push her off the roof. “Xavier,” she began.

“Smith,” he corrected. “Bob Smith.”

“Try again,” Marie said.

“Jones, Bridget?”

“Not falling for it.”

“Damn.” He accompanied the epithet with a wry grin.

So there was a sense of humor buried under the avalanche of attitude and muscle. Marie took a couple of wobbly steps onto the roof, which was hot under her feet, and he put out a long, lean hand to steady her. Hmmm. Maybe he’s even partially human.

“Sit there,” he ordered, pointing at a spot near the chimney.

She narrowed her eyes. Maybe not.

“It’s the safest place. You can lean back against the chimney.”

Okay, borderline human. She made her way there and released his hand, which was wired with bad boy arrows that fired at all her neurons. Her hormones clucked like a gaggle of hysterical hens, which was humiliating. Good thing he didn’t know.

She took a moment to slam the door to the chicken coop, only to look up at those damned hazelnut eyes of his and sense a fox sniffing around the blasted birds. This was bad, very bad. Badder than LeRoy Brown. Speak, Marie. And not about Jube’s favorite retro song.

“So…” prompted Logan, his mane of hair wild in the rooftop wind.

“So!” Tell him why you’re here, you lunatic. Her smile was too bright. She opened her mouth only to have it filled immediately with her own hair. She pulled it out and twisted it back into a knot at the nape of her neck, then squashed the mass between her neck and the rough brick of the chimney.

“Even if you only read the first lines of the letter you ignored, you know that you’re grandmother Amelia is drawing up her will.”

Logan rocked back on his heels. Impressive, given the fact that he was squatting. “I think my silence has indicated that I’m not interested in it.”

“Point made. But Miss Amelia wants you to know exactly what you’re turning up your nose at. Your grandfather’s paintings, as a collection, are now worth upwards of 2.6 million dollars.”

Logan rocked forward again and whistled. “So, the old coot turned his yellow ocher to green.” Next came a careless shrug. “It still has nothing to do with me.”

Marie, still choking at hearing the great Charles Xavier called an ‘old coot,’ said, “It has everything to do with you. You’re the last of the Xavier line. You’ll ultimately decide whether or not the paintings stay together as a collection or are sold piece by piece. You have an obligation to educate yourself about them, and a duty to pass on that education to the public.” Aaack. Now didn’t that sound stuffy and righteous.

Logan let out a short, unamused bark of laughter. “Obligation and duty aren’t concepts I entertain much, lady. And I don’t feel the faintest desire to carry on either my grandfather’s legacy or his seed. He was a stubborn old bastard who had some talent with a brush. So what?”

“Have some respect! Have some heart, for heaven’s sake.” The words flew out of her mouth before Marie could recall them. Her skills as negotiator had shredded faster than her stockings. What was wrong with her?

Logan leaned forward and grabbed her arm, his eyes dangerous. “Careful, Miz D’Ancanto.” His fingers dug into her flesh, and she pulled away. “You really don’t know what you’re dealing with here. Have some respect, you say? Have some respect for a man who didn’t bother to respect the truth? Have some heart? Charles Xavier pulled it barehanded right out of my chest twelve years ago. Then he spit all on it.”

He took a long, measured lungful of mountain air. “So you see, lady. I don’t give a rat’s ass for the great Charles Xavier or his heritage.”

She blinked.

“And I don’t give a damn about what it’s worth, either.”

You’re nuts, but I think I might respect that about you.

“You’re wasting your time.” He bent over the tar paper again and added punctuation to his words with the stapler. Kathunk. Kathunk. Kathunk.

Good, Marie. Now how are you going to change his mind? She needed to go buy a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. And read it fast. Miss Amelia was expecting better than this.

She thought of the old lady, clutching her multi-colored sweater around her bony shoulders. “I want to see him,” She said wistfully. “But that may be too much to hope for. Charles—we both—hurt him so badly. And now it’s been so long. So many wasted years.”

Miss Amelia hadn’t seemed to want to talk about it, and Marie didn’t like to pry, so she still didn’t know what had happened. All she knew was that twelve years was a long time to hold a grudge against a sweet little old lady.

She looked for some kind of family resemblance between Logan and his grandmother, but could find none. Miss Amelia was tiny—birdlike—with a cloud of perfectly white hair that had once been dark, like her eyes. Her nose was straight except for the very tip, which age and gravity had pulled down a bit. And one of the most endearing things about Amelia Xavier was that her small ears flared from the sides of her head. Instead of trying to pull her hair forward to hide them, she wore dangling silver earrings that only accentuated them.

Logan was at least six-foot-two-inches, and sported a tapering nose that on anyone else might have been ugly. His ears were barely visible under all that hair. He looked like a Viking on a raid. She was picturing him in a horned cap when she realized that he was speaking to her.

“Pardon?”

“I asked if you’d pass me that box of staples.”

She did so. “You don’t look like either of your grandparents.” From pictures, she’d seen that Charles Xavier had also been dark-haired in his youth, though he’d had blue eyes.

“Nope. They used to call me the Throwback.” His mouth twisted slightly.

“The Throwback?”

“Nordic ancestors. On the Howlett side, actually. I’m the only one in the family who got the recessive genes.”

They don’t look at all recessive on you.

“Not my father, not Sco—“ he shut his mouth, jamming staples into the gun with more force than necessary.

Sco---? Scott? His uncle? His brother? One glance at the jumping muscle in his jaw told her it would be useless to ask. There was quite a mystery behind the rift in this family.

But anyway, the horned cap wasn’t too far off the mark. Come to think of it, Logan would look very fine in the horned cap and his Timberlands and absolutely nothing else. Oh no. Jubilee is having way too much influence over me these days…

“Logan,” She said, focusing again on the task at hand. “You may not care about the money, and you may have hated your grandfather, but---“

“I didn’t hate him.” Logan put the stapler aside. “I loved that old bastard.”

“All right.” She absorbed this. “The fact is that your grandmother loves you. And she’d like to see you.”

“That’s not going to happen. She made her choice twelve years ago.”

“What do you mean? A choice between you and her husband? That’s awful. She wouldn’t have been able to win either way.”

Logan shrugged.

“She’d like to discuss the will in person.”

“No. End of discussion. Tell her to leave the damn paintings to someone else.”

“She’s considering that, but she’d rather leave them to you.”

Logan shook his head. Then he turned his back on her and reached for the roll of tar paper again.

“She’s very ill,” Marie said quietly. “Colon cancer.”

His arm froze in midair, then fell to his side. He faced her again, and the hollows under his eyes suddenly looked pronounced. “What’s the prognosis?”

“I don’t know the specifics, except that they’re taking immediate action. After that, it’s a question mark. As her next of kin, you’d be entitled to the results and further details.”

The pupils at the centers of his remarkable eyes widened, then contracted to pinpoints. The brown of his irises deepened. And Marie decided that Logan Howlett-Xavier was, indeed human—just trying hard not to be.

She put her hand on his arm. “Why don’t you drive down with me? I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Thanks,” Logan said. “But when I go, I’ll go alone.”

He could see only the top of her chocolate head, the part slightly crooked, as she descended his ladder with her sandals hooked over one thumb. Well, he could also see the slim, creamy expanse of half of each thigh, punctuated by very cute knees, since she had to ruck up her skirt slightly to reach each rung. And if he leaned just a few degrees to the left, he could peer out beyond her head and that intriguing part line to the roundness of her sweet little ass.

It was that ass, and the crooked side part, that saved Marie from looking like a tall, thin, slightly awkward stick of celery. Even the timber of her voice indicated that she was made of rigid, stringy stuff. He wondered if she’d be crunchy spread with peanut butter, and cast the image aside before it got too exciting.

He’d just been accosted by strong moral fiber on his own roof. Strong moral fiber with disturbing news and unwelcome opinions.

She got to the bottom of the ladder and pulled her skirt down over her knees, which was a damned shame. Miss Celery had nice stems. She held on to the ladder with one hand while she slipped her sandals back on with the other, and picked her way through the grass to the Jeep.

Straighten that part and pull it right down the center of her head, add some length to her skirt and a white ruffle to her collar, and she could step into a cameo pin. One with a jade background. Her suit was fussy but the ever-so-slight zigzag on top of her head indicated that perhaps Miss D’Ancanto wasn’t as precise and rigid as she seemed.

Her sales skills were none existent, but she certainly seemed to care about his grandmother. At the thought of Amelia, he frowned. Slowly he collected the miscellaneous tools from the roof and made his own way down the ladder as Marie’s vehicle disappeared from view.

Logan tossed his tools into the small shed behind the cabin, wiped his face on the T-shirt he’d discarded, and went inside.

The little house was musty, as usual, and he left the door wide open to let the fresh air in. He knew he’d regret it later because of the mosquitoes and flies, but the moldy, stuffy air had to be chased away, like unpleasant memories.

He went to the little porcelain sink and filled a mason jar with water before flopping on the daybed he’d spread with a Navajo blanket. He drank half the water while staring at the ridiculous chair the previous occupant had left behind. It had once been a rocker, but one of the runners had been replaced by two Shaker legs, so that the chair neither rocked nor sat entirely steady. It was the most peculiar repair job Logan had ever seen, but it was barely functional , like the rest of the cabin.

The place had been built in defiance of any construction code. Neither a beam nor a rafter was level; not a single cabinet door hung straight; the rough-hewn mantel was six inches wider on the left side than the right. Everything was off-kilter, but the cabin possessed an odd charm.

Granted, the charm did little to replace the stove burner (one of two) that didn’t work, or the freezer (part of a dorm-sized refrigerator) than ran a steady temperature of thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, but Logan didn’t much care. It kept four beers at a time reasonably chilled. He’d owned the place for two months now, and hadn’t gotten around to buying new equipment. All of his time and cash went into his latest venture.

Logan was in the business of encouraging people to defy their mortality. It didn’t sit well with him to contemplate terminal illness, just as it didn’t sit well with him to relive the past.

He spent his days teaching witless thrill-seekers to sky-dive. There was nothing like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to remind you that your life was your own. You were free as a bird, reminded of your humanity only by the skin of your face flapping and the tiny kernel of uncertainty that this time you might not make it.

The earth spread out below you like a funky patchwork quilt, and it was yours. You might be flying by the seat of your pants, but you were King of the Wind. And you were free-falling, and the rush was enormous… and then you pulled the cord that sent your ‘chute billowing out behind. You knew in an instant of exultation that you were going to make it, and rode that high for a few moments longer. Then that bitch, gravity, pulled you back to earth.

The birds, damn it all, still had it better. A bird could escape the clutches of gravity simply by dipping and lifting its wings. A bird could float on the currents, drifting for hours, not simply minutes. And a bird could skim close to the ground, dropping ammunition on the hapless without guilt.

Human beings will always be bound by gravity and guilt, Logan thought. The two inescapable forces. Funny how guilt functioned as mental gravity.

Here he was, twelve years later, still bound by guilt. For he didn’t like to think of Grandmother Amelia frail and helpless in the grip of some terminal disease. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see her—hell, he knew he didn’t want to see her like that. How could you maintain hurt and anger in the face of helplessness? How useless, how small, emotion seemed beside the permanence of looming death.

She wants to see you. Marie’s voice echoed in his mind.

Does she? What does she expect to see? The face of the boy who ran? The bitterness of twelve years ago? Grief? Or impassivity. Or greed?

Perhaps she thinks I’ll visit her out of sheer greed. Logan’s mouth twisted.

He wasn’t sure why Marie had chosen to get involved in all of this. She claimed to have become friends with Amelia during the past eight months. But why would his grandmother have sent her out here? Surely a courier could have delivered the same message. What was her story?

He drained most of the water from the mason jar and gripped the cool glass in both hands, hanging it between his knees. He stared at his won fingers, brown from the sun and callused from both work and play. They were magnified through the glass of the jar, as his grandfather’s brushes had been. Yellow ocher, cadmium blue, vermillion red. The smell of turpentine.

Logan raised the jar to gulp down the rest of the water when his arm froze. Charles Xavier had kept his artist’s brushes in mason jars. “Ah, hell!”

He threw the jar and its contents into the fireplace.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




“You look like a human scoop of pistachio ice cream,” Jubilee said, as she slid a calorie-laden iced café mocha in front of Marie.

“Thanks.”

Jubes wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans and leaned on the bar of her coffee shop. “Or an upside-down carrot.”

“Stop it with the compliments already,” Marie told her.

“It’s just so… Talbot’s. Yeesh.”

“I know you’re secretly conniving to borrow it.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Jubes had shortblack hair cut in a hip, sexy, uneven shag. She knew exactly how to wear a short, tight T-shirt so that it showed off her silver belly ring to perfection. Marie didn’t envy her the belly ring; just the blasé attitude it required to sport such a thing.

Jubilee took a gulp of her own iced coffee, and left a screaming red lip print on her tall paper cup. Lip print number seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine.

Marie had once witnessed a man pay for one of Jubilee’s empty, lip-printed cups. He had actually forked over five dollars for it, since the print in question was so perfect and luscious. He was a complete fool, but Jubes had that effect on men.

“So,” her friend asked, “how did your trek up the mountain go?”

“I’m not sure. He’s… quite something.”

“What do you mean by that? Is the jerk going to visit his poor grandmother?”

“Yes, I think he will. And he’s not a jerk, exactly. But he’s not not one, either.”

Jubilee stared at her. “Either he is or he isn’t.”

“Okay, then. He’s not.”

“So he’s just a really, really nice guy who won’t return phone calls or answer letters or e-mail.”

“There’s some mysterious family rift,” Marie told her. “Something terrible happened twelve years ago that he hasn’t gotten over.”

“Ah. A really, really nice guy who holds a grudge and won’t return phone calls or answer letters or e-mail. And you’re defending him, so…”

“I’m not defending him—“

“…he must be incredibly hot.”

“Jubes! I—he—“

“Yes or no?”

“He’s not hard to look at.

“I knew it!”

“But that wouldn’t change my opinion of him.”

“Oh, of course not.”

Marie glared at Jubilee as she excused herself to take a customer’s order for a large no-fat vanilla cappuccino. The woman was a trip. And an amazingly quick study of people; a trick learned from having lived on her own since she was thirteen.

She’d met her while coming here to get her nightly caffeine fixes, necessary for preparing her lectures and grading painfully boring student papers and exams. They had nothing in common besides a certain cynicism and a love of coffee, which freed them up to talk about anything and everything. Neither could imagine living her life as the other did, but Jubilee was fascinated by what she thought of as the highfalutin’ intellectual life.

Marie, on the other hand, sometimes thought wistfully of what it would be like to live unencumbered by academia and its inherent infrastructure of criticism. No pressure, no publish-or-perish mania, no endless committees on this or that. What heaven!

“The people-watching is great,” Jubes had admitted. “But the financial pressure is hell. Gotta make your rent, gotta pay your employees, gotta meet the electric bill. There’ve been months where I live on Top Ramen and peanut butter and jelly. Didn’t seem totally fair, given that my customers were getting real cream and imported Sri Lankan cinnamon… but hey, you do what you have to.”

Marie sipped her iced mocha and thought about the comfort of a regular paycheck. The problem was that for an assistant professor without tenure, the regular paycheck wasn’t guaranteed to last. And tenure was depended upon publishing a book and passing the gauntlet of the promotions and tenure committee.

The good news was that Princeton University Press had shown interest in her Charles Xavier book. The bad news was---

“Why, Miss Marie, what a pleasant surprise.”

The bad news was suddenly standing in front of her: Erik Lehnsherr, chair of the Fine Arts Department. Marie dredged up a smile. “Mr. Lehnsherr. How are you?”

“Well. Preparing for the fall semester, as I’m sure you are.” He spoke imperiously to Jubilee—“A double latter”—as if she were no-account help.

Marie resisted the urge to add “please,” for him, and murmured that she was indeed busy.

“I noticed that your Rodin seminar is short two members. I don’t know if we’ll be able to offer it, my dear.”

Your pre-Raphaelite course only has six students signed up. But you wouldn’t dream of canceling that, you old windbag. “Oh, well, I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that we get two more signed up in the next few days,” she chirped.

“Always a good attitude, dear.”

Why, you patronizing s.o.b. She half expected him to pat her head.

“So, Marie, have you had a chance to broach that little matter I spoke to you about?”

“Mrs. Xavier has been in the hospital for the past six weeks, Mr. Lehnsherr. It didn’t seem appropriate…”

“Yes, yes, very sad. Not to be unfeeling, but time may be of the essence in this case.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again, before she said anything too pithy and honest.

“I realize your feelings are delicate in regard to this matter, so perhaps it would be best if I were to accompany you in a friendly visit to Mrs. Xavier, whereupon I could plant the seed of generosity in her mind.”

“I—I—“

“Is tomorrow convenient for you? Shall we say eleven?”

You unspeakable slime. You testament to beastliness. You grasping, grunting warthog. “Eleven,” Marie agreed faintly. He was the chair, and she was an assistant professor.

“Wonderful. I’ll pick you up outside the slide library.” Erik Lehnsherr accepted his latte from Jubilee with a supercilious nod and no tip, and departed the shop.

“Asshole,” Jubes muttered. “Gee, I wonder how that laxative tablet got in his coffee?”

“Jubilee, you didn’t!”

“I damn sure thought about it. So the scumbag wants your old lady to donate those paintings to the college?”

Marie nodded, miserable.

“And he’s going to use your relationship with her, then take the credit. I see why you climbed the mountain today.”

“Yes. And if the jerk doesn’t come down soon, I’ll climb it again.”

“Mrs. Xavier, may I introduce Mr. Erik Lehnsherr, chair of Fine Arts of West Point College.” Marie got the words out in polite tones.

“Mr. Lehnsherr. How nice of you to visit.” Amelia extended a thin hand, which looked as if it had been covered in wrinkled parchment paper.

“Enchanted to meet you.” Erik lifted it to his lips. “Our dear Marie has spoken nonstop of you around the department.”

What a whopper. She’d done nothing of the sort.

Miss Amelia assessed him instantly and lowered her sparse lashes over a coy smile. “Has she?”

“Yes, indeed. You’ve been so helpful with the research for her book.”

True. Okay, he was one for one now.

“She’s a lovely person. How could I not help?”

Amelia Xavier’s skin might be as pale as the hospital sheets, but her personality made up for it. Marie repressed a chuckle when she saw that the cheesy mallard print of two days ago now had a caricature taped over it. It was rapidly drawn on computer paper, and depicted a doctor hanging from a noose. The noose was formed by his stethoscope, and he hung from a peg on the door of his office. A patient looked at him with revenge in her eye, and the caption read, “say ‘ah’.”

Amelia had also had someone supply her with a portable CD system, which was playing big band tunes from the forties. She lay propped against at least five pillows, and in her lap was a large basket with knitting spilling out of it.

As she and Erik exchanged small talk, Marie eyed the basket with curiosity. In the eight months she’d known Amelia, she’d never once seen her knit. Come to think of it, she hadn’t once seen even an afghan lying over a sofa in her home, and the multicolored sweater she was so fond of had been made for her as a gift by a friend.

“Your late husband’s work is marvelous, both as a monument to American painting itself and as an inspiration to the young artists and students of art history today…”

Erik wound up for his preliminary pitch. Miss Amelia’s face reflected serenity as she placed her hands on her knitting. She took the long needles into her right hand and twiddled them like a pair of chopsticks, while her left hand dug under the wool.

Marie had never seen a true knitter handle the needles like that. Something was just a little off here.

“…his skill with not only the brush, but the palette knife…” Erik droned, and then said a hasty “Excuse me!” before he let out a bellow of a sneeze.

“Bless you, dear,” exclaimed Amelia. And then her basket sprouted a couple of whiskers.

Marie covered her mouth with her hand and tried to repress the sudden shake of her shoulders. The old lady shot her a glance positively dewy with innocence.

Erik scrubbed rather violently at his nose. “As I said, these paintings are quite a legacy---“ Haaah—Choo! “---to American painting---“ HaChoo…

Marie squashed her laughter, but then Amelia’s knitting basket sprouted the tip of a tail, and she had to fake a coughing fit.

How had the old lady managed to smuggle her cat into the hospital? The nurses would have a coronary if they found out. Not that Marie would tell. First of all, she understood the need for Amelia to see her pet. And second, Erik richly deserved to be punished this way.

His adenoids obviously inflamed, he forged on in his quest for the collection, doing his dishonorable best to be subtle.”Bissus Ezavor, have you thought about the future of the paintings?”

Cat dander notwithstanding, she was going to make him sweat. “Why, what do you mean, Mr. Lehnsherr?”

“Ahh—choo. Beg pardon. We all know that saying about art imitating life. That is very true. And for the most part, it’s a poor second. Yet art does have one advantage over fleeting existence…”

“And that would be--?” Miss Amelia continued to play dumb. She simply cocked her head and looked at him askance.

“Its permanence. Its ability to commudicate to later generations the transient dature of a moment, caught in tibe.”

“I see. You mean that my late husband’s paintings aren’t subject to mortality, as I am. That they can’t be eaten up by… shall we just say it? Cancer. As I am.” Amelia smiled gently, but her eyes had turned flat, like a shark’s. “And I imagine you have some sort of eloquent recommendation to make concerning my husband’s work. Out with it, then.”

Marie almost felt sorry for Erik, who’d turned the exact shade of the petunias in her window box.

“I merely thought that you might wish to consider----“ he interrupted himself with another violent sneeze.

The old lady regarded him sweet-faced, while her hand moved furiously under the knitting, sending a fresh batch of cat dander into the air.

“West Point College, as I’b sure you know, has a very fine museub. In the light of the work Biss Mree has dud on your husbad, what better institution to leave the collegtion to?”

Marie wanted to die of shame. She sent a silent look of apology toward Miss Amelia, and strode to the window, mentally propelling herself out of it.

“I do have a grandson, Mr. Lehnsherr.”

“Blahchoo! You do?”

“Yes, she does.” A deep, grim voice came from the doorway.

Marie whirled to find Logan leaning against the wall, eying her as if she were cockroach dung. Judging by his expression, he didn’t find Erik even that valuable.

Oh God. Oh, no. Now he’ll think I’m part of this.

He wore dry jeans today, with an ash blue shirt that did little disguise his solid torso. She could see each ridge of muscle along his flat stomach, and though he wore no cologne, he simply reeked of machismo.

Your average male with a shaggy brown mane would look like an overgrown beach boy, but Logan looked like a wild, testosterone-driven legend. The legend of her fall.

Her hormones clucked again, nervously flapping their wings. Why did they have to do the Funky Chicken every time this guy showed up?

His expression softened when he turned his gaze to Miss Amelia. “Been a while, huh?”

Her mouth trembled. “Oh, Logan, yes it has.”

He stood a bit awkwardly in the doorway for a moment, then moved to her bedside. He covered her hand with his own and bent to kiss her cheek. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Too much dancin’?”

“Always, my dear. I’ll never learn to behave.” Two tears rolled down her papery cheeks.

Marie forgot her own mortification as tangible emotion arced between the two: love dipped and wheeled there like a gull on the shoreline, yet it remained a silhouette on the horizon. Waves of regret pounded the sand, yet couldn’t wash away every particle of anger and misunderstanding.

What was this whole rift about? Why hadn’t they just sat down and talked it through? She didn’t understand the concept of a twelve-year silence between two people who had obvious love and respect for each other.

Amelia had closed her eyes, but more tears squeezed past her lids and rolled down her cheeks. Logan kept her hand in his and sat next to her on the white hospital blankets. He took a tissue from a box on the nightstand and dabbed at her face.

After twelve years, they deserved some privacy, especially from the likes of Erik, who looked as if he were about to introduce himself. “Blaaachoo!” He said instead.

“We were just on our way out!” Marie grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him to the door.

“Yeah. I’ll bet you were,” said Logan, not turning his head.

His grandmother opened her eyes. “Oh, dear. I’m forgetting myself. Logan, meet Mr. Erik. Lehnsherr, chair of Fine Arts at West Point College. And I believe you met Marie yesterday.”

Erik raised his brows at her. Great. Now she was going to have to explain her actions to him, as well as to Logan. The day was shaping up even better than she’d originally thought.

Logan raked his eyes over Erik with an almost imperceptible nod, then skewered Marie in his next glance. Any humor or tolerance from the day before vanished, leaving his brown eyes cool, suspicious, and protective of his grandmother. “Yeah, we’ve met. And believe me, we’re going to meet again.”



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




“Grandma, why does your knitting basket have a tail?” Logan asked with a chuckle.

“Why, all the better to wag at you, to show you how glad I am that you’ve come.” His grandmother stuffed the telltale tail back inside.

“Uh-huh. And why does it have a paw pokin’ out the far left corner?”

She tilted her chin. “Why, all the better to greet you with.” She poked gently at the paw, and it disappeared.

“Right. And why did your basket just meow?”

She raised her liquid brown eyes to his in a silent plea. “Why, that will just have to be our little secret, won’t it?”

He sighed. “Your secret’s not exactly hygienic, you know.”

“Pooh. Who cares?”

“This is a hospital.”

“It’s a horror shop where they do beastly things to one. Allow me my small pleasures.”

“How did your small pleasure get here?”

“With my friend Mabel. She’s gone to the library to get me the latest saucy romances, but she’ll be back soon, and then my knitting will depart with her.”

“Does your knitting have a name?”

“Lancelot.”

Logan’s lips twitched. “Does he hang out on a round table?”

“No,” said Amelia. “He lances me a lot.”

Logan laughed. He’d forgotten how entertaining his grandmother could be. “You could have the thing declawed.”

“Absolutely not. Then he wouldn’t be able to frighten the maid with half-eaten birds. He’d lose all sense of purpose and identity, and go into a terrible depression.” She plucked at the white cotton blankets covering her ribs and absently tossed a tuft of fuzz to the floor.

Logan had a feeling she wasn’t talking about her cat any longer. He cursed himself for a bastard. How could he not have visited for so long?

“Amelia,” he said, “you haven’t lost your claws. Not by a long shot.”

Her head jerked. “Keep your observations to yourself, Logan.” But she smiled anyhow. “Or you’d better be wary of what I bring home to scare you with.”

He grinned. “I don’t scare easily.”

Her eyes danced. “Is that so? Let’s see… what could I hunt down that would frazzle you?” She thought for a moment. “Oh, yes. I believe I have it.”

Logan raised his eyebrows at her.

“I’m thinking of a very dangerous animal, one that pretends to be domesticated, but actually functions mostly on instinct and sheer intelligence. With sleek, long legs, smooth hair, and polished claws. It only bites occasionally, but when it does--- watch out.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I give up.”

“A woman! Ha—when you snap your brows together like that, you look like an angry lion.”

“Yeah, well, I’m definitely not on the hunt for a woman.”

“Told you it would horrify you.” Amelia grinned.

Logan knew that all this lighthearted banter flowed between them to disguise deeper currents. The ones with an ugly undertow that might pull them down into painful topics. But it was no use avoiding them forever.

“Amelia,” he murmured, taking her hand again. “I’m sorry I stayed away so long.”

Her lips flattened, but in regret, not anger. “I thought you’d at least come for your grandfather’s funeral.”

“I moved, and your letter didn’t get forwarded for weeks. By the time I got it, a month had passed. Then I left the country.”

“I got your damned flowers and tried to trace you through them. But you’d paid cash.” She removed her hand from his and raked it through her hair.

“Then I hired a detective, but fired him just as fast. I told myself that you had every right to your privacy, that you’d show up when you were good and ready.” Her mouth trembled again. “That was the hardest thing I’ve had to do since Charles died.”

He closed his eyes. Damn it. “I always thought it’d be easy for you to locate me if you wanted to. And took it as a sign when no guy in a trench coat ever showed up on my various doorsteps. I knew you had the money to hire someone…” he met her gaze levelly. “I just thought it was lack of interest.”

Amelia balled her hand into a weak fist and brought it down on his jeans-clad knee. For the first time, she looked angry. “You were a stupid, stupid boy! I was a silly old bat, but that doesn’t excuse you. I’ve loved you ever since your pointed head emerged into this world, and you were a homely little critter.”

He choked on an unexpected laugh. “Are you sayin’ I was an ugly baby?”

She nodded. “Like a red, squalling human raisin. I fell in love with you immediately. Your mother took one look at you and said you obviously weren’t done cooking yet. She told them to put you back in.”

Logan stared at her, his mouth working.

“She was kidding, of course.” Amelia reassured him. “Never lost her sense of humor, that woman.”

At least not until she and his father had died together in a tribal uprising in Mali. Logan and his brother Scott had been too young to understand where Mali was, much less what their parents were doing there or why they’d been involved in the Peace Corp. Their grandparents had raised them ever since.

“Don’t worry,” Amelia reassured him. “Scott was an ugly baby, too.”

Mr. Clean Cut? No way.

“He was just as raisinlike, but not as loud as you were. I remember him blowing a lot of silent spit bubbles. You howled.”

Logan shook his head. “Grandma…”

“At least you boys began to get cute after a week or so. Your father, bless him, looked like an enraged shar-pei for the first six months of his life.”

“You know, people tend to be a little sensitive about babies. I hope you don’t go around describin’ other folk’s children like this.”

“It’s far too late in life for me to learn tact, Logan. Don’t even bother.”

On that note, a nurse came in to check his grandmother’s vitals. Logan paced the room, uncomfortable with the fact that they needed to be checked. Once she’d left, Amelia patted the edge of the bed again. “Makes you antsy, ‘eh? Dials and needles and hoses. Disease, mortality. That’s why you came, isn’t it? You didn’t want to read about my funeral in a forwarded letter. You’re not here because of any damn will, are you, Logan?”

He shook his head.

“Eloquent, like your father, I see. Except that you’re stronger in some ways. You’ve got the same stiff neck, but you’re capable of bending yours. I never heard him apologize to anyone his entire life. It simply wasn’t in him. It’s not really in you, either, yet you told me you were sorry.” Her bony chest rose and fell.

“Charles would have apologized, my dear. He searched the whole rest of his life for the chance to do it, but the thoughts and words stuck in his craw. In the end, the only way he could express himself was through the brush. You’ll find his message to you in those paintings, Logan. He said what he could, in the single solitary way he could say it. I know you don’t care about the money. But please, study the work.”

The neck Logan had bent just for her stiffened again. “Grandma, I don’t know the first thing about squiggles on canvas, and I don’t want to. How can you say his apology lies in the paintings?”

“Because I knew him. We were married for forty-seven years, and after that amount of time I could read him like the morning paper. I knew his secret visual alphabet like nobody else.”

“That doesn’t mean I know it—or want to know it.”

“He mourned you both, my dear. I don’t know how to make you believe that. Both of you. Not just Scott. Oh, he could always talk to Scott more easily, since they had the art in common. But he didn’t love you any less. Just didn’t know quite what to do with you…

“You were larger than life, and full of adventures you hadn’t yet undertaken. You challenged him instead of worshipping him, and he didn’t know what to do with that. He’d been worshipped for so damned long!”

Logan shook his head. “I don’t think—“

His grandmother cut him off, as desperate to say these words as she was to continue breathing. She’d probably had them stored up for years. “There you were, four inches taller and with every bit as much heart and soul, but in his eyes, you were misusing them. He didn’t understand that your version of painting was to make marks in God’s landscape, that your version of music was the libretto of a mountain stream. I tried to explain it to him…” she wiped her eyes. “But then the accident occurred, and he said those things, and you were gone. Gone for good.”

Logan rolled his stiff neck around his shoulders. It was getting stiffer by the second, and he didn’t know what to say to her.

For some reason, he found himself thinking about Marie.

“Logan,” his grandmother said. “If Charles could have shot those words clean out of the air before they reached your ears, he would have. He didn’t mean them. They were said in shock and anger and pain. You have to believe that. You have to look at the paintings. Study them as a series. Please.”

He rolled his shoulders, since he didn’t think he could move his neck another millimeter. It ached, sending shooting pains to the back of his cortex.

He walked to Amelia’s bed again, took her hand, and kissed it. “I’ll think about it.”

Marie kept her hands clenched in her lap so that she wouldn’t punch Erik Lehnsherr in his pompous face. They glided up Main Street in his navy Cadillac, and she stared out the passenger-side window, tuning out the purplish drone of his voice.

West Point College was nestled in a valley at the west end of town and populated by female students only. It was one of the last of the dying tradition of women’s colleges, and could afford to remain single sex only by virtue of its massive endowment.

The college had a somewhat odd relationship with the rest of town. On the one hand, it kept the town alive economically: three thousand students and a staff of around four hundred supplied a great deal of business.

On the other hand, the townspeople resented what they saw as the elitism of the school, whether intellectual, social, or financial.

Erik Lehnsherr was a staff member who didn’t help this image. “…ergo,” he puffed at her, “I perceive a conflict of interest.”

Ergo? For God’s sake, she might not be exactly hip, but at least she didn’t use the word ‘ergo’.

“Mr. Lehnsherr,” she said, “Mrs. Xavier asked me, as a special favor, to persuade her grandson to visit her. How could I refuse? Especially in light of all the help she’s given me on the book?”

“I simply don’t understand how you failed to mention the grandson to me.”

“I… didn’t see the point. They hadn’t even spoken for twelve years, until yesterday.”

“He’s very inconvenient.”

Oh, well, don’t let a human life get in your way. She said nothing aloud.

“If we were living a dramatic novel,” Erik said, “this would be the precise chapter in which he’d be killed off.”

Her mouth fell open.

“Only joking, of course.”

Of course. Mwahh ha ha ha. She shivered, even more appalled than usual at Erik.

“What I need to know, my dear, is where your loyalty lies.”

“My loyalty?”

He nodded and stroked his chin. “Mrs. Xavier was very helpful with your book. Naturally you wish to repay the favor. But West Point College is your employer, and would greatly benefit from acquiring the Xavier Collection.”

Unbelievable. He might as well drag her into a dark alley with a sharp scrap of metal and scrape the message across her throat. If she didn’t know so many Ph.D’s who were waiting tables, she’d quit then and there.

Aloud she said, “Mr. Lehnsherr, the decision rests entirely with Mrs. Xavier, and though we’ve become friends, I have no influence over her. What I can tell you is that her grandson has no interest in even seeing the paintings. He’s made that clear.”

She dug her nails into her palms and kept her thumbs firmly locked over her fingers, which were itching to rip off his navy blue glasses and smack his well-fed face. Yeesh. She was going to have to attend an anger management class.

“Excellent. Looks like an unreliable runabout, doesn’t he? With all that unkempt hair.”

Depends on what you want to rely on him for. “Umm,” she said. Thank God they were approaching the Fine Arts Building, where she could escape into the slide library.

The chair pulled the fat Caddy into his designated parking spot and cut the engine. “We’ll need to meet again over the next few days to discuss tactics,” he told her.

Tactics. Oh, nice. “I’m going to be awfully busy with course preparation and all…”

“Classes don’t start for two weeks. I’m sure you can spare an hour here and there.”

Sigh. “Of course.” She hitched her tan nylon bag over her shoulder and walked crisply away from the baddy and his Caddy. The sinus headache from hell was settling in behind her eyeballs, squeezing them with a vengeance. She’d dump her bag in her office, grab a couple of ibuprofen, and retreat to the blessed darkness of one of the viewing rooms in the slide library.

She arrived at the smoked glass door of the Fine Arts Building, tugged it open, and stepped onto the mint green tiles of the hallway. She bent her head and opened the flat of her nylon bag, fishing for her keys. Retrieving them, she pulled her head out just in time to miss colliding with a solid chest in an ash-blue shirt. The chest belonged to Logan, and he was blocking her office door.

She backed up a step, but not before inhaling his scent. A potent mix of warm skin, laundry detergent, and eau de muscle, it knocked her off-balance. Oh, God. What is he doing here?

“Hello Miss D’Ancanto.”

Frozen courtesy didn’t sit well on him. She preferred his blatant rudeness of the day before. “If I have to call you Logan, you can call me Marie.”

“Marie, I’d like to know exactly what kind of game you’re playin’ at.”

“Ibuprofen,” she said, as she unlocked the door.

“Excuse me?”

She beckoned him in, dumped her bag on a chair, and went straight to the desk drawer she kept medications in. She grabbed the white plastic bottle, tapped three tablets into her hand, and swallowed them with a few gulps of the bottled water she always kept in her office.

She set the bottle down, leaned against her desk, and folded her arms. “I’m not playing any game.”

Logan loomed over her, his mouth set in a straight line. He towered over her bookcases, and could probably tell that the plants sitting in the dust on top were fakes. Great. He’d never trust a woman with fake plants, but she couldn’t keep real ones alive, just as she couldn’t make a dessert that didn’t end in disaster.

What did these things say about her? Probably that she’d done the right thing by becoming a scholar.

“Then explain to me,” demanded Logan, “why one day you’re up at my cabin urging me to take responsibility for my heritage, and the next you’re trying to brainwash my grandmother into leaving the collection to your college.”

Maybe it was his tone of voice, or the headache, or the fact that she’d just been badgered by Erik, but for some reason, she got angry.

“I resent the implications of that statement! And if you think your grandmother can be brainwashed into anything, you sorely underestimate her.”

“My grandmother is vulnerable at this point in her life, and I don’t want her taken advantage of.”

“Well, then,” said Marie before she could stop herself. “Maybe you should visit her a little more often to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Logan looked as if she’d struck him. His brown eyes blazed with resentment, a muscle jumped in his jaw, and though he didn’t move at all, he seemed to harden into marble. “I plan to.”

They glared at each other for a long moment, and heat bloomed on her skin. She told herself it was because she hated confrontations. The truth was that he made her itchy.

“I want to know what you think you’re up to.”

It infuriated her that he thought she was playing some kind of double game. That he thought she would have any part of manipulating a little old lady. She dodged the niggling fear that by not telling Erik to go to hell, she was doing just that. “I don’t have to explain myself or my actions to you.”

“It would be quite a feather in your cap, wouldn’t it, to acquire the Charles Xavier Collection for West Point College. The perfect follow-up to your book. You might even get a nice promotion out of it. Are you tenured yet, Marie?”

She looked daggers at him.

“I didn’t think so. Yeah, I’m beginning to understand.” His lip curled.

“You understand nothing,” she told him. “If all this were true, why would I have gone to find you? Why would I have tried to get you interested?”

“Well, now, I’ve been asking myself that same question. And finally it came to me why you had such bad sales skills. You took one look at me and knew I’d run like hell from words like ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ and ‘legacy’. So you used them, every single one, sure of how I’d respond. Am I right, Marie?”

She stared at him, horrified. “No!”

“Uh-huh.”

This was worse than anything she’d expected. How could she reveal that her pitch had been so rotten because he’d unnerved her? That she’d been focusing on his pecs, his chest, his ass-- instead of her own words?

How could she admit that she’d been picturing him in a horned cap and boots and nothing in between?

“Look,” she said. “I really had nothing to do with Erik Lehnsherr’s position this morning.”

If anything, his sneer became more pronounced. “You brought him. You can’t deny that you’d benefit from the acquisition.”

“I brought him because he pretty much commanded me to. He’s my boss.”

“Oh, so now you’re the victim here.”

Her temper flared again. “I’m not claiming to be a victim! I’m trying to be straight with you. But since you’re not going to believe a single word I say, why don’t we just end this conversation?”

“Then you’ll agree to stay away from my grandmother.”

“What? She’s my friend.”

The look on the man’s face said it all.

“She’s my friend, and she’s in the hospital, and she needs all the cheering up she can get. No, I’m not going to stay away from her. You’re outrageous!”

“Mighty convenient friendship.”

Marie felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “How dare you!”

“How dare you?”

Their faces were inches from each other, and she could see each angry pore of his skin. Pugilistic bristles emerged in rough patches like platoons, and the nostrils at the end of his nose were flared. The pupils of his eyes moved over her face like searchlights.

She refused to back up, even when his eyes dilated even more, and he looked as if he were going to kiss her.

Kiss her? Who was she kidding? The guy would sooner bite her. She’d been studying art in the dark for way too long, and her imagination was running away with her.

The room was full. Miss Amelia and her hospital bed occupied the whole of one end, and the rest of them sat in an awkward half square around her, in miserably uncomfortable metal folding chairs. Three lawyers formed a clump on the left side, Erik and Marie sat on the right side, and Logan sat in the middle, looking once again as if he were armed with thunderbolts.

He’d dressed for the occasion in a pair of jeans, a deep green shirt, and His Manliness actually sported a belt today, though no socks.

Marie found herself unaccountably fascination with the way a light sprinkling of dark hair curled at his ankles.

Miss Amelia’s precious wallaby eyes were bright, and though her knitting basket was conspicuously absent this morning, she twirled her IV cord in her right hand. This made Marie nervous; she kept expecting it to fly out of the old lady’s arm and thwack somebody in the face.

Miss Amelia had come to some mysterious decision and called them all here with her attorneys, the youngest of who had just passed out Styrofoam cups of coffee from Joe to Go.

Marie hid a smile as he dunked the end of his ice blue silk tie in his own java while reaching for a packet of sugar. He wrung it out under the disapproving gaze of the senior suits.

She took a sip of her own coffee as Miss Amelia got down to business. “Thank you all for coming here this morning. I’ve reached a decision over the past few days regarding my late husband’s collection of paintings. As you all know, they are now worth a great deal of money, and I don’t take their disposition lightly.”

Erik Lehnsherr folded his hands across his lap and pursed his smug lips.

“These gentlemen,” Miss Amelia indicated the clump of attorneys, “are from the law firm I retain, Smith and Drake.”

They nodded. “Gifford Smith,” said the most senior of them, a man with a gaunt face and bushy gray eyebrows.

“Andrew Gillespie,” the middle one stated. He possessed square, forgettable features and sported gold mallard cuff links.

“Bobby Drake,” said the youngest one, he of the caffeinated tie. His blue eyes held a twinkle to which Marie couldn’t help but respond.

“The Third,” added Smith. “Robert Drake III.”

Drake shrugged and sipped his coffee.

Amelia turned her head in Logan’s direction, and he introduced himself. He didn’t go out of his way to avoid eye contact with Marie, but when he glanced her way his expression was cool and dismissive.

Erik was next. “Honored to be in attendance,” he declared, in a voice like plum jam.

“I’m sure,” the old lady murmured. “Gentlemen,” she turned toward the lawyers, “why don’t we begin.”

Gifford Smith retrieved a sheaf of papers from his briefcase, stood, and buttoned his jacket.

“It is Mrs. Xavier’s fondest wish that the collection of paintings by her late husband, Charles Xavier, be cared for properly and not simply sold at auction to the highest bidder. The collection has great historical and educational value, and she wishes it to remain intact.” Smith cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee before continuing.

“Mrs. Xavier’s logical direct heir is her grandson, Mr. Logan Howlett Xavier, and it was her original intention to leave the paintings to him. However—“ he looked up with a puzzled frown at Logan. “Mr. Logan Howlett Xavier has indicated a lack of interest in this inheritance, which causes her concern.”

Logan met the attorney’s gaze with one of supreme indifference, and it was Smith who looked away first.

“Mrs. Xavier recognizes that her grandson has every right to dismiss her wishes…”

Now it was Logan’s turn to frown, and the lawyer’s to look bland.

“…but does ask the he educate himself about the collection before he makes his final decision. To this end, since representatives of West Point College have indicated great interest in acquiring the Xavier paintings, our client asks that all parties present consider the following proposal.”

He took another sip of coffee and looked at Marie now. “Professor Marie D’Ancanto is in the process of completing a definitive treatise on the life and work of the late Charles Xavier. She is, in Mrs. Xavier’s opinion, an expert on his paintings.”

A feeling of foreboding stole over Marie, and a sidelong glace at Logan found his eyes narrowed and darker than an angry animal’s.

“Professor D’Ancanto is offering a seminar on the work of Charles Xavier this semester at West Point College. It is Mrs. Xavier’s suggestion that her grandson be given special dispensation by the college to enroll in this course.”

Logan made a strangled sound, and Marie opened her mouth to protest, but the lawyer held up his hand. “Please allow me to finish before voicing any objections.”

“If Logan Howlett Xavier applies himself to his studies, and makes an ‘A’ in the course, then he will still inherit. If he does not choose to take the course seriously, and makes a ‘B’ or below, then the collection will be turned over to the West Point College Museum of Fine Arts, along with a stipend for its care.”

Smith cleared his throat. “The reasoning behind Mrs. Xavier’s plan in simple. Logan will be exposed to the full body of the work in form and content, but it will be his decision and his alone as to whether or not he works hard enough to keep it. If he does not, at least he will know what it is he’s giving away.

“Mrs. Xavier has worked with Professor D’Ancanto extensively over the past few months, and judges her to be a young woman of integrity and fairness. She trusts her not to allow the college’s interests to sway her objectivity in grading.”

Smith straightened his papers and his lips, and sat down again. For a long moment, nobody said a word.

Marie searched for a tactful approach to express her shock and discomfort with the entire situation.

Logan, take her seminar? Logan and his invisible friend, machismo, unnerving her every other day in the classroom? Miss Amelia had to be kidding. But one look at the old lady’s sweetly determined face told Marie she wasn’t. In fact, she looked pretty pleased with herself.

Marie glanced at Erik, whose formerly pursed lips had widened into a delighted smirk. Uh-oh.

She started to open her mouth to say something, anything to put a stop to this gruesome proposition, but hadn’t even gotten a word out when Logan began to laugh.

Rich, hearty, and completely unamused echoes of his mirth filled the room.

She herself was leaning more toward tears, but she couldn’t really blame him. This was a situation so unbelievable, and so somehow gothic, that extreme reactions were warranted.

Yet his laughter also seemed disrespectful, not only to his grandmother and her wishes, but to Marie herself. He obviously doubted her ability to be objective, and found the idea of taking her class ridiculous.

Well, when she thought about the oversize Logan and his attitude, squished into one of those chairs with the mini desktops attached, it was funny. Especially since he’d be surrounded by twenty-year-old college girls--- oh, heaven help her. She’d have to teach on an ark to survive the buckets of drool. No, it was out of the question!

“Logan,” said Miss Amelia in sweet tones, “you find my proposal amusing?”

He looked her in the eye. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“And why is that?”

“First of all, it’s fiendish.”

She grinned. “Why, thank you.”

“Second, I have serious doubts about that woman’s objectivity, and third, I have no desire to take her course.”

Marie stood. “This woman has a name, and I resent your comment on my objectivity!”

“You’re wrong, Logan,” said his grandmother. “I’ve been around many more years than you, and I’m an excellent judge of character. As for your desire to study… I know you’ve never been bookish, my dear. But”---and she seemed to shrink and pull helplessness over her like a quilt—“I’m asking you please, to do this as a favor to me. Look at it as… my last request.”

“Amelia!” Logan exploded. He cast a glance of sheer frustration at her.

But in his eyes, Marie saw love and regret—and guilt. Oh, this was bad. If Logan folded, there was no way she’d get out of it gracefully.

She had to wave a red flag in front of the bull now, or shed be stuck facing his horns every day. And she’d rather teach hara-kiri with a rusty razor blade than art history to Logan.

Ignoring Erik’s kick at her ankle, she said, “I don’t feel comfortable with this situation, Miss Amelia. The teacher-student relationship can be adversarial enough. Starting it with reluctance and suspicion is just not a good idea.”

“Nonsense,” Erik broke in. “That doesn’t have to be the case. And Marie is a fine, up-standing young woman. I, too, object to any aspersions being cast on her character…”

Well, that’s certainly ironic, since you’re a walking aspersion yourself. Marie wanted to kick him right back, but maintained her dignity.

The chair looked smug and that bothered her. What was the old warthog up to now?

Logan remained silent, so it was time to get back to the flag-waving. “The problem, as I see it, lies more in Logan’s attitude toward me and my class.”

He turned those caramel eyes on her, and she raised her chin. “I don’t need or want to contend with hostility and disinterest from a student on a daily basis.”

“I understand your concern, dear,” said Miss Amelia. “But my Logan will behave himself, won’t he?” She cast a sharp glace at him.

“Marie,” added Erik, “surely you’re not calling your own excellent teaching skills into question?” He folded his hands over his lap again. “Besides, the boy looks fairly harmless underneath all that hair. It’s not as if he’s going to bite, after all.”

‘The boy’ slowly turned his head toward the chair and bared his teeth.

An alarmed look crossed Erik’s face, and he sat up a little straighter in his chair.

“Looks as if we’re boxed in, don’t it, darlin’?” said Logan.

She folded her arms and met his wicked gaze. “I suppose so.” But what will remain of the box when we’re finished?

Robert Drake III managed to ditch his senior partners, Smith and Gillespie, by telling them he had a meeting in town with an old college buddy. The college buddy was conveniently going to pick him up right here on Main Street.

It was an outright lie, but he had no intention of riding back to Connecticut with them in the firm’s black Lincoln Continental. Smith and Gillespie gave him the hives. In his nightmares, he looked into a mirror and found himself wearing plaid boxer shorts, one of Smith’s club ties, and Gillespie’s mallard cuff links.

Bobby stopped going by Robert because that name stood for several million dollars, which embarrassed him. His surname, Drake, he pretty much had to live with, but he shunned the “III” because he felt that those three numerals stood for pomposity, not simple birth order.

Bobby just wanted to be a regular guy, which was hard when your family owned a third of the state. He’d really rather have been born a member of Aerosmith than a member of the Blue Book, and it seriously got in his way when it came to women.

Bobby had been chased by herds of coltish debutantes all his life, and found this frustrating in the extreme, since they usually had all the sex appeal of a hitching post. He was completely unembarrassed to admit that he was a big fan of the Sleazy Nasty Babe. But your average Sleazy Nasty Babe took one look at his Gucci loafers and careful side part and laughed her ass off before running in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t Bobby’s fault that he hadn’t owned a pair of blue jeans until he was a sophomore in college. Like most guys, he just wore what he found in his closet, and he’d never found such an item there.

Like most guys, he stripped in front of the shower and threw his clothes on the floor. He had no concept of what happened to them next—they just disappeared into that mysteriously ether populated by the laundry fairies, who returned the clothes to his closet once they were clean.

It wasn’t Bobby’s fault that he’d only just learned to fill his own car with gas. The tank just always got magically topped off, so there had been no need for him to learn.

Bobby was a regular guy who just happened to have grown up in irregular circumstances, but nobody else would acknowledge that. He hated being called ‘sir’ by men twice his age. It made him feel like a phony. He hated being fawned over because of his surname. Most of all, he hated working for his father’s law firm, but it was a family responsibility, and Drake’s didn’t shirk those.

Since Bobby had worked thirty-six hours on Saturday and Sunday, he decided that he was taking the rest of this sunny Monday off. He wanted to enjoy the scenery of beautiful downtown. He’d just amble down Main Street and sniff around the flora, since the foxy fauna in Joe to Go had already caught his eye.

The foxy fauna had a belly ring that triggered the most feverish and unholy thoughts in him. It had glinted behind the Danishes, winking and teasing, beckoning to him across the cinnamon swirl coffee cake. Above the belly ring was a tiny cotton T-shirt, black as sin, and that holstered two magnificent mouthfuls of lovin’.

Below the belly ring was a delicious expanse of creamy skin snugged into low-riding boot-cut jeans. And when he’d found an excuse to go to the trash can on the far wall, he saw those chunky dominatrix-heeled boots. Those had him throwing away his sugar packets and dumping only the torn top edges into his coffee. He’d had to fish them out, and during the process had burned his finger while staring at her mouth.

Those red, plump lips were curved into a mocking grin, and it took him a moment more of finger-sucking to realize that she was laughing at him.

This was bad. This indicated that his chances of a date with her were about as likely as the survival of an ice sculpture at Satan’s wedding.

He kept on looking at her anyway, during the process of getting replacement packets of sugar and putting them into his coffee.

She had huge dark eyes that turned up slightly at the outside corners, and a perfectly sculpted nose. Tanned skin and sexy, wispy chin-length hair proved a further study in contrasts.

“Did you want anything else?” Shed asked the question with no inflection.

Bobby blinked. Why, yes. You, bent over the Danish case. “Um…no, thank you.” He’d taken the tray of six Styrofoam cups out to the car, and they’d gone to Miss Amelia’s meeting. But he thought about her the whole way, while Smith and Gillespie were chastising him for not making the chauffeur go in for the coffee.

Now he walked down Main Street, hands in his pockets, and thought about how to get his chosen Sleazy Nasty Babe to talk to him. God, was she hot!

He wanted more than ever to be just a regular guy, and wished he had a fairy godmother to give him a pair of glass loafers for the ball. Truth be told, they sounded damned uncomfortable, not to mention dangerous, but if they ‘d get him a date, he’d risk ‘em.

Since he’d scoped out the fauna already, he turned into The Rose, Main Street’s florist shop. There he took his time hand-selecting a dozen different exotic flowers and having them arranged in a crystal vase.

When it came time to fill out the delivery information, he asked for help.

“I don’t know her name,” he said to the plump man with glasses behind the counter “But she works across the street, in---“

“Joe to Go,” the guy finished for him.

Bobby stared at him. “How did you know?”

“Buddy, you ain’t the first to fall for Jubilee, and you won’t be the last. We get at least a couple of poor slobs in here every week with the same idea.”

Bobby didn’t know whether he was more irritated at being called a ‘poor slob’, or at not being original. “I see,” he said. He supposed it was too late to cancel his order, since it was staring him in the face, tied with a huge red bow. He’d signed the card simply, “An Admirer.”

If Jubilee—he brightened, since he now knew her name—got flowers at least twice a week, he wondered what she did with them. He decided to hang out and watch.

“Would you mind delivering them for me now?” he asked politely.

“Sure. And I bet you wanna stay right here in the shop so you can see her inhale the scent of them and clasp them to her chest, then read your romantic card and dance around her shop. Ain’t gonna happen, I’m tellin’ you. But okay. I’ll go schlep them to her now.”

“Thank you.” Bobby watched as the man crossed the street with his offering and pulled open the door to the coffee shop.

He went up to the counter, exchanged a few words with Jubilee, and handed her the flowers.

The first thing she did was untie the bow and give it back to him. Interesting. Then she yelled something into the back of the shop, and whipped the whole bouquet out of the vase. She laid it on the counter, poured the water out of the crystal, and gave it back to the florist as well.

They chatted for a few moments while she dismantled the arrangement, pulling the flowers apart and putting each into separate glass bud vases an employee brought her.

Jubilee placed one of these on top of each of her twelve café tables, tossed the greenery, and that was that.

The florist waved good-bye and walked back across the street with the vase and the bow. “She always gives me back the vases and the bows for reuse,” he said cheerfully, as he came back into his store. “A real sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” said Bobby. A real sweetheart. “Well, I appreciate it.”

“No problem. See ya.”

Bobby thought about demanding the vase, since he’d just paid 120 dollars to decorate Jubilee’s tabletops, but what would he do with it anyway?

Disconsolate, he left the shop. He’d have to come up with an entirely different plan. Where the hell was your fairy godmother when you needed one?





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Marie burst through the door of Joe to Go, her hair flying wildly behind her in her rush.

“Hoo boy,” Jubes said. “What’s the matter?”

Marie’s hands shook as she put them on the counter. “I need protein to stave off an attack of hypoglycemia, and then anything decaffeinated with lots of chocolate in it. I’ve had a really bad day.”

“I’m sorry. Sit down and tell me all about it.” Jubilee put a ham-and-cheese croissant on a plate for her and passed it over. Then she pumped chocolate syrup into a tall cup, started the espresso machine, and got some crushed ice ready in another tall cup.

“I’m going to be stuck with the Mountain Jerk in my class! I got steamrolled this morning by one old lady, three lawyers, and Lehnsherr. Miss Amelia drew up a diabolical proposal…”

“Lawyers,” muttered Jubilee. “That’s where the suit with the hangdog eyes came from.”

“What?”

“Sorry. I had another psycho guy send me flowers from The Rose today.”

Marie sighed. “You know, if I didn’t adore you, I’d have to detest you. At least you don’t walk around with a fake Swedish accent, saying ‘Don’t hate me because I’m bee-yu-ti-ful.”

Jubilee made a face at her. “I’m not going to dress in a potato sack and wear a bag over my head because of wacko men.”

“Of course not. And hey, look on the bright side: Your tables have never been lovelier. Is that a bird of paradise?” Marie gasped. “And look at those orchids. This guy spent a fortune.”

“Yep, and it gave me the creeps immediately. They all do—that’s why I dismember the arrangements. Sending flowers to someone you don’t know is just weird.”

“Some women would describe it as charming, Jubes.”

“Nope. It’s an entirely unoriginal way of saying, ‘Hey, baby, I wanna get in your pants.’”

Marie blew out her breath. “You personify the word cynical.”

“Come on! What else could it mean?”

“Maybe that the guy would like to get to know you better.”

“Yeah. Meaning take me to dinner, liquor me up, and then get into my pants. My pants are size four for a reason: I don’t want anyone in them but me.”

“Jubes, there’s a seven-letter word missing from your vocabulary, and I think you should look it up in the dictionary. It’s r-o-m-a-n-c-e.”

“Haven’t you heard? Romance was invented to fool women into a lifetime of slavery.”

Marie stared at her. “Whoever got to you sure did a job of messing you up.”

Jubilee finished blending the iced mocha she’d created for her friend, poured it into a plastic cup, and snapped a lid on it. She pushed it across the counter. “I am not,” she said, “messed up. I’m practical, and I call it like I see it. That’s all. So tell me why you’re stuck with the jerk in your class.”

Marie pushed a straw through the lid of the cup and took a long, grateful swallow of mocha. She slid her left hand across the surface of the table and with her right, she smoothed back her hair. Then she explained just how neatly Amelia Xavier had boxed them in.

“Ha!” said Jubilee. “So she’s having a great time pulling all your strings. She’s a helluva puppeteer.”

“I can’t teach with that louse in my classroom,” Marie wailed.

“Sure you can. All you need is a few tips from me. Cruelty to Men 101—it’s my specialty.” Jubes wiped down the counter for the fiftieth time that day. “Where’d this ‘louse’ word come from? My great-aunt doesn’t even say that.”

Marie grimaced. “Louse,” she repeated. “You know, like cad, or heel, or scoundrel—but worse, because it’s a pestilent insect.”

Affectionate laughter bubbled up in Jubilee’s throat. “You’re something else. Like you’re stuck in an eighteenth-century novel. Repeat after me: jerk, dickhead, asshole, or bastard.

Her friend made a face at her. “Louse,” she said again. “What’s so outdated about that? They still exist.”

“I know. My brother caught ‘em at school. But nobody uses that as an insult these days. Trust me. I’m up on the hip insults. So repeat after me: dickhead. Come one, you can do it.”

Marie shuddered. “Now there’s an image. I’m not saying that! Jerk or bastard I can handle, but that’s it.”

Jubilee nodded. “It’s a start.”

“Are you done improving me for the day? Is it my turn? I’ll bet anything that velvet Elvis is still on your wall.”

“Hey! That’s a classic.”

“And the seventies platform waterbed? Is that a classic, too?”

“It’s comfortable. I like sloshing to sleep every night.”

“Enough said. I’ll update my speech patterns when you update your tacky décor.”

Jubilee laughed “Deal.”

Marie fell silent while she sucked down the confection of caffeine, sugar, and fat. Jubilee frowned at each of the exotic blooms on her café tables. Every single flower was different, and had been carefully chosen. Their fragrance had melded with the overriding aromas of freshly grown coffee beans, steamed milk, and the dizzying array of baked goods.

She stared, bellicose, at a lovely hibiscus the shade of new love, tinged with joyous yellow. The petals were generous, open and vulnerable, glowing in the afternoon sunlight. The golden-tipped stamens extended foolishly, tiny hopeful male stalks for which Jubilee had little patience. Yet the sheer beauty of these particular flowers seemed to get to her.

Marie suppressed a smile. “What planet are you on?” She asked.

“Huh?” Jubes blinked. “Oh—just spacing out. Long day.”

“Hmm. Well, I think you should give the Flower Man a chance.”

Jubilee rolled her eyes. “I don’t go out with men who wear suits. Or fancy loafers with miniature horses’ bits attached to them. Where would you even go with a person like that? The opera? I’m not about to listen to some cat-strangling diva vibrate my belly ring right out of its hole.”

Marie had to laugh, but she eyed Jubes with concern. She hadn’t dated anyone since she’d met her. Why not? Marie sensed a well of pain behind Jubilee’s blasé attitude, but her friend had never confided in her.

It was the first day of the fall semester, and Marie rolled, with trepidation, out of what felt like the wrong side of the bed. She’d slept with her arms over her head, embracing her pillow as if it contained all her knowledge and competence, and it might sneak away in the dark of the night.

The pillow was still there when she woke, though squashed into impossible bumps and bulges. Her protective arms—and hands—were asleep. They buzzed with what felt like ten thousand ants apiece, and she could barely control her fingers.

She stood in front of the window doing circles with her arms, then flapped them like some ungainly bird. It was a gray, sticky day beyond the curtains of her bedroom.

Logan would be invading her classroom today, laying siege to her nerves and hormones. She pictured him approaching the Fine Arts Building stealthily in a longboat, a horned cap, fierce brown eyes, and leather weskit.

Marie blinked at her fanciful imagination and wanted to smack herself. She stumbled blearily into the bathroom, snatched her toothbrush from the ceramic cup where she kept it, and squeezed toothpaste onto the bristles. She spied a robin in the branches of the pear tree outside her window, and his tiny beak, bright eyes, and quick movements reminded her of Miss Amelia.

Marie stuck the toothbrush into her mouth. A bitter, nasty chemical flavor spread across her tongue. Blek! It most definitely was not toothpaste she’d spread on her brush.

She gagged, spit into the sink, and pawed water into her mouth with both hands, dropping the brush into the basin. Eeeuuwwwww—nasty. She recognized the smell as hair gel.

Logan had her brushing her teeth with hair gel, curse him, and class hadn’t even begun. This didn’t bode well for the coming week—not to mention the rest of the semester.

She climbed into the shower with a scowl, soaped her silly self, and shampooed her hair. Whilst she waited the couple of minutes required for her conditioner to soak in, she let the hot water drum over her shoulders and neck, welcoming the rhythm and pressure. Ignoring the rest of her body, which made her uncomfortable, she looked down the length of her legs and noticed that her toenails were scraggly and wore only half of the polish she’d applied a couple of weeks ago.

It was going to be too hot for closed shoes, so she’d have to do something about it. For some unknown reason, the idea of facing Logan with scruffy toes was intolerable.

Marie emerged from the shower, wrapped her hair in a towel, and stuck one foot up on the side of the tub. She’d painted three toes with Persimmon Pleasure when the phone rang. Trying not to growl, she hopped to her bedside table and answered it.

“Hello my young progeny.”

She smiled in spite of the inconvenience. “Hi, Daddy. How are you?”

“I am in superior health this fine morning, thank you. But that is not why I called. I simply wanted to wish you luck with the upcoming semester.”

Her father was the most considerate man she’d ever known. “Thanks, Daddy.” You have no idea how badly I need that luck. “I hope you have a good group of students yourself.” He’d taught biophysics at Boston University for as long as she could remember.

“Yes, as do I. I was quite fortunate enough to have such marvelous classes last spring.” He paused, but stayed on the phone. She could hear him stirring sugar into his coffee. “Yes, well, I presume you must be expedite if you wish to attend your classes in a prompt fashion.”

Marie could tell he was lonely, but as usual, he had a hard time discussing anything which didn’t pertain to work. “Oh, no,” she lied. “I have plenty of time.” She didn’t tell him that she was shivering under the vent in her bedroom. Always uncomfortable in the buff, she foraged for underwear and a big T-shirt. She felt odd without panties… vulnerable, exposed, almost dirty.

“Ah. Well, I, okay then,” he rumbled. And then stalled once more.

“Daddy? What’s on your mind?”

“Er, you see... rather do you, uhm…” she heard him gulp down some coffee.

“Just say it.”

“There’s a new assistant in the department.”

“Okay,” Marie said, puzzled. “Is this a problem? Is she a bad typist? Can she not spell?”

“No,” replied her father. “That isn’t quite it.”

She waited.

“She’s grammatically irreproachable…”

“Do you need to speak to her about something in particular?” When he didn’t answer, Marie waited some more, utterly in the dark.

“She has the most exquisite legs.”

“Exquisite legs,” Marie repeated, stunned .”Oh. I see. Daddy, are you trying to tell me you’re dating somebody? Because that’s… wonderful.” She’d better be nice. If she hurts him, I’ll kill her. “Do I get to meet her?”

“Why yes, of course. Of course you shall. Soon.”

“Okay. I… look forward to that. Thanks for telling me. And good for you, Daddy.” Marie hung up the phone, bemused.

Daddy, after all these years of solitude, was poking his head out of his shell of a lab to risk dating again? It was so out of character for a man who’d destroyed or hidden away every last picture of her mother and told Marie silly stories about how he’d had to lasso the stork that brought her to him.

She sat down on her bed, pulling the covers around her. How old had she been? Five? Six? One Christmas years ago, full of hot, cinnamon spiced apple cider, and candy canes and truth. She’d learned the words to “Oh, Tannenbaum” in German, the significance of mistletoe, and the meaning of shame.

Aunt Moira and Aunt Irene, believing her asleep had discussed a mysterious packet that she’d seen arrive in the mail. The envelope displayed a foreign return address, strange stamps, and unfamiliar handwriting. It upset everyone in the household, her father most of all. He’d left the house to walk alone in the darkness, and no one would tell her what was going on. The evil packet disappeared.

“Shameless hussy!” Aunt Moira spat. “How could she?”

They’d showered Marie with hugs and kisses and cookies, as if somebody had died, and tucked her into bed with not one but two bedtime stories.

She lay awake in bed and worried about Daddy, trudging around in the dark and snow, while her aunts hissed and squawked downstairs in the kitchen. If no one would tell her what was going on, she’d have to find out herself.

She slid out of bed and tiptoed to the top of the stairs, where she sat, drawing her knees up and pulling her nightgown over them. She then tucked it under her cold toes and cocked her head.

Her aunts’ voices were audible from the kitchen, just around the corner.

“I knew no good would come of it,” Irene declared.

“She was bad news from the start,” said Moira. “Shaking her bosom, twitching those hips, flipping that hippie hair around. She thought she was something special, all right.”

“So did Henry. He’d never seen anything like her before, poor boy.”

Henry was Daddy, Marie knew that. But who was the shameless hussy?

“She sucked the life out of him and moved on, leaving him like some poor dead insect in her web.” Aunt Moira slammed something—a mug?--- onto the table.

“Women like that should be sterilized,” Aunt Irene snapped. “How could she leave him with a two-year-old? How could she leave her own child?”

Marie hugged her knees to her chin. The shameless hussy was her mother? A chill shot through her, and her stomach rolled. She wasn’t even sure what a hussy was, but it had to be bad, from the sound of things.

“And now,” continued Aunt Moira, “she has the unmitigated gall to send pictures after all these years. Pictures of herself and that German Lover of hers. As if we’d show our poor darling…”

Marie hadn’t found the packet for years afterward, but she’d disentangled her knees from her nightgown that evening and gone upstairs immediately to look up the word ‘hussy’ in her father’s dictionary. ‘A lewd or brazen woman,’ it told her. ‘Lewd’ proved to mean evil or wicked, but the first entry for ‘brazen’ simply meant ‘made of brass’.

So her mother was a shameless evil woman made of brass… the discovery confused her. Did that mean she, Marie, was shameless and evil, too? If she tried really, really hard to be good instead, would it work?

Since Santa didn’t put coal in her stocking that year, her efforts must have meant something and she’d try even harder next year…

Marie pulled herself out of the past and shrieked as she looked at the clock. She’d forgotten that she needed to run off the course syllabus before class.

She pulled off the T-shit and twined a braw around her torso, trying to fasten it and apply deodorant at the same time. She dived into linen slacks and a top, shoved her feet into sandals, and grabbed a short sleeved jacket.

Next she ran into the bathroom, ripped the towel off her head, and aimed the hair dryer, full blast, at her head for a couple of minutes. Then she twisted the mass of her hair into a knot and secured it with a pair of Japanese hair-sticks.

A quick slash of lipstick completed her toilette, and she ran down the hallway to her office to gather the papers and notes she’d need for today. Stuffing these into her nylon satchel, she leapt down the stairs and out the door, only to rush back in again when she realized she’d forgotten her keys.

Then she burned rubber to the college and the art building, squealing the Jeep into a parking place that she suspected wasn’t entirely legal.

She dashed into the department office and pulled the syllabus from her bag, eying the copy machine warily. It was her nemesis. If something could go wrong with it while under her hands, it would.

“Nice copier,” Marie said, patting the dirty beige plastic lid. “Good boy.” It loomed, menacing, in its corner, and certainly didn’t wag its power cord. Well, what did she expect?

She flipped open the lid and placed the first page of the syllabus inside, not trusting the machine enough to load it from the top and let it collate for her. She set her teeth and pushed ‘start’.

Amazing! The technology gods were with her, and the thing began to slide, flash, and whir. She closed the lid thankfully. Twenty copies emerged obediently into the output slot.

She opened the lid and exchanged the first page for the second page of her syllabus, programmed the machine for a second twenty copies, and pressed ‘start’ once again. One, two, three… Marie looked at her watch, just as the copier emitted a thwack and a groan. No!.

The ting glowed evilly at her, igniting the ‘paper jam’ button. No, no, no!

She opened it and managed to tear out a piece of paper stuck in its hidden roller. She closed it. She pressed the ‘start’ button again.

Whirr, kathunk, kathunk. It reset itself and spit out all of two more pages before thwacking and groaning again. This time, she swore she heard fiendish laughter emanating from its bowels.

“You piece of---“ she opened it again, wondering savagely why the department secretary wasn’t there. Kitty would know what to do. Kitty and technology had no problems, since Kitty lived in the twenty-first century, unlike Marie.

She ripped out the jammed paper once again, and slammed the machine closed. This time, three copies emerged before the diabolical thing spattered and died.

Marie took a long, slow breath and counted to three. Her gaze fastened on the fire extinguisher to the left of the copier. She had a vision of seizing it and beating the Xerox machine into shards of plastic wreckage. But if she did that, then she’d not only have to explain to her class—and Logan—why she was late, but also why her next lecture would be videotaped from a psycho ward.

She began again, and only had to unjam the machine six more times before she had all twenty copies. Kitty tripped in blithely as Marie removed the last two.

“Good morning!” she trilled. “Oh, sorry I wasn’t here to run those for you.

“Not a problem,” Marie said, trying to wipe the serial killer expression off her face. The machine’s hiccups really weren’t Kitty’s fault. And she should have run the copies on her printer the previous day… “Got to fly! Late!”

She waved good-bye to Kitty as she dodged into the hallway.

Run, run, run! She popped frenetically in and out of the slide library, grabbing the slide carousels she’d need for her lecture. Then it was run, run, run again to her seminar room.

She blew in two minutes late, puffing like a first-day freshman, and painted what was surely an insane grin on her face. Fourteen junior and senior women stared at her, analyzing her inch by inch while she unloaded her materials and caught her breath.

Logan was nowhere to be seen. Marie didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated. Mostly she was just on edge. What was wrong with her? She was normally prepared to a fault, but just the thought of Logan in her classroom had her completely askew. She needed to get her act together, now, before walking on stage.

After her bout with the copier, she eyed the slide projectors even more warily than usual. She knew her carousels were in order, and that she’d put in each slide correctly. But that didn’t mean that the projectors were easy to position, or that a bulb wouldn’t burn out mid-lecture, or that some mechanism wouldn’t malfunction, popping a slide in the air like a tiny pictorial piece of toast.

She pulled down the large screen in the front of the seminar room, then walked back to fiddle with the projectors to get them elevated to the right height and positioned at the correct distance and focus.

She’d clicked the first sequence of slides into place and was making minor adjustments when a hulking shadow appeared across the screen, blocking the light. The twin barrels suddenly illuminated Logan’s fab abs, the best of his chest, and his impeccable pecs.

A collective, appreciative murmur rippled through the ranks of young women, and Marie groaned silently.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Back to school. Logan had never felt more ridiculous in his life. He shielded his eyes from the projector lights and made his way beyond them, looking for a seat. Christ Almighty, was he going to have to sit in one of those tiny chairs with the miniscule writing desks attached?

Appalled, he searched the room for any other viable option, and found none. A pert brunette scrambled to pull her backpack off the seat next to hers and all but leered at him.

Reluctantly, he walked to the seat and nodded at her briefly before squeezing into it. The freaking thing was like a medieval torture device: far too low and narrow, so that it was impossible for him to bend his knees and sit comfortably. Instead, he had to extend his legs straight out ahead of him, his feet straddling another student’s seat.

The back of the chair hit him at an agonizing place along his spine, so that he had to straighten and arch to avoid it, throwing out his chest like an angry ape. No way in hell was he going to sit in one of these things all semester. He’d be lucky to make it through the next hour.

Marie walked to the light switch and illuminated the room—and the barely disguised lust of his fellow classmates. Every single one of them seemed to be eyeing him covertly or overtly, and it took a superhuman effort on his part not to blush.

He sighed in relief as he spotted one girl with a crew cut and a silver ring through her nose, glaring at him with open hostility. Hatred was preferable to salacious stud fantasies. He smiled and nodded at her. Her brows drew together, and she looked as if she’d gladly put his most precious part through a salad shooter.

“Good morning, everyone,” said Marie in that southern voice of hers. “I’m Dr. Marie D’Ancanto, and this is History of Art 367, Charles Xavier and the American Scene. Is everyone in the right place?”

No, thought Logan. I’m in an alternate universe.

She looked at him severely, as if he’d said the words aloud.

He met her eyes with a bland stare, then let his gaze run over the rest of her. She’d covered up her legs entirely today, to his regret. He had to fill those in from memory: svelte, creamy, and shapely. Trim, tailored ankles, disciplined long, supple calves, and those knees. Suffice it to say that those knees had been made to be nudged apart.

He’d better stop there, he thought, trying without much luck to x-ray through her pale linen slacks. So he began again at her neck, where he detected an uneasy flush, and found himself speculating about her breasts. They’d been far too well disguised the other times he’d met her, but he had a feeling they were small, high, and proud under that sexless little jacket.

Her waist nipped in so neatly, and he found himself approaching that forbidden zone again and had to distract himself.

Up, eyes, up! Up to that gorgeous knot of chocolate hair. The flush at her neck rose until her face was bright pink, and the brown eyes she narrowed at him were deliciously stormy.

Marie broke eye contact with him, and he realized he’d been giving her quite the randy once-over. She strode to a corner of the room and retrieved a long wooden pointer, which she held like a weapon now in front of her. Oh, spank me! Logan thought, and grinned.

His grin triggered a new expression on her face: her nostrils flared, and she pursed her mouth in insult.

Aw, don’t do that, Professor. Let those pretty lips spread wide, now. Show us those lovely, even teeth, and the mysterious depths of your mouth…

He knew he was making her uncomfortable and didn’t much care.

Play a double game with my grandmother, will you, darlin’? Then you’ll deal with me on the offensive line.

Her hands tightened on the pointer and went white-knuckled. Maybe she’d raise it aloft like a spear and skewer him right here in her classroom. Hey, now there was a nice new image. Marie, clad only in a scrap of animal skin, and maybe some green paint, running after him with a spear.

Her voice interrupted this pleasing fantasy. “We’ll go through the attendance sheet, and then we’ll start with an overview of the work of Charles Xavier, whose paintings and prints are a fascinating study of American city life before and after World War II. We’ll look at how his work changes over the years, and analyze why.”

Marie’s voice was smooth, professional, and calm. But her fierce grip on the pointer, that telltale flush, and other signals belied her crisp enunciation. He noticed when she turned her head that her hair was still damp. She wore no eye makeup, and her lipstick was slightly askew. She’d gotten ready in a hurry this morning.

“We’re very… lucky… to be joined by Charles Xavier’s grandson this semester,” she said.

Logan felt sixteen pairs of female eyes upon him and resisted the urge to squirm. Instead he pulled his mouth into a grin and continued to take inventory of Marie.

His gaze swept down to her toes, clad in brown sandals. His grin widened: only three toes on her left foot sported polish. The remaining seven were bare.

Her glance followed his, and he choked back laughter as the flush at her neck rose again up her cheeks to suffuse her whole face. It remained as she finished calling the role. “…Jennifer Schmidt, Tanya Ullman, and Deidre Weinberg.”

She put down her pencil and the class roster, took a deep breath, and eyed the slide projectors warily, as if they were raptors escaped from Jurassic Park. Then his professor turned off the lights and flashed two images on a wide white screen.

Logan looked up at them and froze. On the left side, his grandfather’s wrinkled face stared out at him from under a beetled brow. On the right side was the old Victorian house in which Miss Amelia still lived.

His throat closed, and he was unable to breathe for several seconds. It was one thing to remember the old man’s face, and another to be confronted with a two-foot-by-three-foot mug shot. Six square feet of unforgiving judgment. Six square feet of hard-bitten reproach. Six square feet that were six feet under, yet jarred him with the force of a blow.

Meanwhile, the mellow Victorian, once a childhood haven, mocked him on the right. The sight of its cheerful gingerbread trim caused bile to rise in his throat.

Logan knew the urge to bolt, to throw his ridiculous chair right through the screen and smash the twin projectors to the floor.

He did none of those things. Instead he turned and narrowed his eyes at Marie, who returned his gaze evenly. Without a word, and in the space of perhaps five minutes, they’d gone a silent round in the ring. And the damnedest thing was that though he’d had her breathless against the ropes, off-balance, and on the defensive, she’d won with a single gesture.

Marie sat in her office, her mouth on her knuckles, elbows planted on her desk. She stared at her wall calendar, seeing not the photo of the French countryside, but Logan’s neck stiffening as she’d flashed the first set of slides onto the projector screen.

Yes, the back of his neck had stiffened, and when she’d gone to the front of the room to get her notes from her desk, she’d noticed more. His jaw jutted pugnaciously toward the older Xavier’s image, and the tendons under that stern jaw line had corded. His lips flattened, instead of curving in their normal mocking sensuality.

Projecting his grandfather’s image on that screen had definitely either provoked or upset him, and she wasn’t sure she was interested in awakening any sleeping demons in Logan’s past.

Yet somehow Miss Amelia had outfitted her for the job, and it was all the more disturbing that Logan was one hot, sexy guy. However, he’d better keep his libido to himself.

He’d used his disturbing sexuality to harass her silently until the slides went up. She was still furious about it, but curious about that turning point. Those first two slides had disarmed Logan, made him forget about squaring off with her, and focus on… what? Some long-ago rift with his grandfather. Logan was not only fighting her, fighting the situation, but fighting the past.

She thought about it some more. For heaven’s sake, the man taught sky-diving for a living. He had a battle going on with gravity itself. While eventually the laws of nature won, bringing him down to earth, he still defied them on a daily basis.

The only person who’d made him lay down his weapons was Miss Amelia. He wasn’t savage enough to disregard her. But even she was throwing him back into a wrestling match with his grandfather.

Marie recalled what had happened after the first set of slides. When she’d launched into a presentation of Xavier’s work, Logan’s posture relaxed and his eyes hooded with deliberate boredom. He crossed one ankle over the other.

So he wasn’t intimidated by his grandfather’s creativity or talent. He was just angry at the man himself. That was an important distinction. But by blocking out the elder Xavier’s raison d’etre, he was refusing to engage with him. He was rejecting the man’s form of communication with the world.

How was she, as a teacher, going to reach him? Marie continued to consider the problem, while trying desperately not to consider him naked.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Logan entered her classroom the next Tuesday carrying a folding lawn chair and an insulated quart-sized cup that rattled with ice.

She put her hands on her hips as he slid a couple of desks aside to make room for his lounger. As he bent at the waist to do so, three of her female students shamelessly glued their eyes to his glutes.

Marie herself couldn’t help noticing the muscular, tanned forearms emerging from the rolled sleeves of his flannel shirt. Dark hair dusted those arms, glinting under the fluorescent lighting, and she had an uncomfortable flashback to his naked chest gleaming sweaty in the sunlight.

A spark of heat ignited in her belly, and she grabbed for the Diet Coke on her desk. She’d drown the embers before they could flare up. What was wrong with her?

Irritated, she said to Logan, “This isn’t a beach, you know.”

Caramel eyes challenged hers as he settled into the chair, leaning back with his knees spread.

Classic gorilla-man mode.

“What a shame,” he said, quirking an eyebrow. “And here I was, hoping you’d teach today in a bikini.” Ignoring the gasps of her other students, the horrid man looked her up and down. He didn’t miss anything, not even her toes. Doubtless he was checking to see if she’d painted the other seven yet. She had.

She gritted her teeth. So Logan liked to jump out of planes voluntarily? She was beginning to have fantasies of pushing him out.

Unconcerned and unaware that his professor’s mind was straying to homicide, Logan scooped his quart-sixed cup from the floor. The ice rattled noisily, and he drank.

The liquid poured down his sexy gullet, and she watched his throat master each swallow. In some insane corner f her mind, she wanted to be that liquid, wanted Logan to suck her through a straw.

The spark in her belly licked into a bona fide flame now, and she told herself it was anger.

She was positive it was anger when his even white teeth grinned at her around the straw. He released it, but then flicked at the tip with his tongue. Horrid, horrid man!

Marie turned on her heel, marched to the door, and flipped off the lights without even calling roll. The blessed darkness hid her mortification.

How dare he? Had she somehow inherited her mother’s shameless hussy genes? Was she ending the bastard siren signals? Surely not. She didn’t wear shrink-wrapped clothing, or bare provocative body parts. She hadn’t even let a drop of drool escape her.

If he didn’t keep that lizard tongue between his teeth, she’d poke it right back into his mouth with her pointer, by God she would.

For the rest of the class, she was hyperconscious of his presence, lousy with testosterone.

She could feel her own heartbeat in her throat and had difficulty coming up with adjectives to describe the images projected on the screen. She knew she was losing her mind when she used the word ‘compelling’ for the fourth time. And what the blazes did that mean? It was one of the most useless modifiers she’d ever encountered.

Logan creaked every so often in his lawn chair and rattled his ice or cracked his knuckles.

The sixteen young women in her class all sat in various pretzel-like contortions to make sure they had a good view of him. She tried not to take it personally, but it was hard.

Chopped liver. I am chopped liver in my own classroom, while that man is filet mignon.

The whole atmosphere of the class had changed because of Logan. On the first day she’d been in command of a small battalion of earnest, studious, young female achievers. They were dressed conservatively, in baggy unisex clothing, and half of them wore glasses.

By the second class, bare legs and short skirts were in abundance, as were spandex and small T-shirts. The young women had swapped their eyeglasses for mascara, and it was simply amazing how much their posture had improved. Sixteen pairs of breasts now followed Logan’s every movement. Disgusting.

West Point College women had the reputation of being intelligent, articulate, and self-possessed. Tanya Ullman, for example, was the senior class president and had spent her junior year in Hamburg studying economics. But when Marie asked her a simple question about Charles Xavier’s educational background, Tanya looked blank, then giggled.

“I really couldn’t say, Miss D’Ancanto.”

“Maybe Logan knows the answer to that question,” offered Jennifer Schmidt, turning toward him and actually batting her eyelashes.

Logan returned her eager smile with bone-melting ease, and she looked as if she wanted to throw herself naked on his chest. Marie blanched.

“Chuck attended the Ecole Des Beaux Arts, I believe, from 1923 to 1925. He traveled for a few months after that, and then returned to the States in early 1926.”

“When did he meet your grandmother?” Deirdre Weinburg cooed the question, almost falling out of her scoop-necked top.

Marie was horrified. She’d never seen Deirdre in anything but oversize turtlenecks, and she was attending West Point College on a chemistry scholarship. Yet another Brain was metamorphosing into a Bimbo under her eyes.

“They met in ’29,” Logan told her. “And married two years later. He got jobs with the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, and she taught piano lessons to help make ends meet until he was more established.”

His voice mesmerized them all, while Marie’s did not. Of course, her voice didn’t resound with masterful gravel. It didn’t ooze masculinity, or echo with the timbre of testosterone. Her voice didn’t purr like a jungle cat’s, edgy and dangerous and sexy as hell… Marie blinked.

Please God! Just smack me. Just deliver me from the force of this awful attraction to the Jerk. This Pied Piper and his peter-power are driving us all insane.

After class Marie retreated, miserable and ruffled, to the student union for a greasy burger. Nothing like chomping on something high calorie to put you in a happier frame of mind. Even if you knew each mouthful bypassed your stomach entirely and zipped right down to your thighs. There you could feel it making an evil ‘splat,’ and leaving another dimpled crater. She waved the disconcerting thoughts away: a greasy burger she would have.

She pulled open the heavy doors and clicked in her heels down the hall that led to the food service area. She could taste the burger already, made just the way she liked it, with no pickles, no mayo, and no giggles.

Giggles weren’t dignified, weren’t appropriate, weren’t characteristic of West Point College. So why could she still hear them?

She rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of Logan ensconced in a booth, sharing platters of French fries with Tanya, Jennifer, and Deirdre. Not content with rendering her students brainless in class, he was teasing and flirting with them outside of class!

She glowered at him. Jerk.

What kind of thirty-five-year-old man flirted with nineteen-year-old girls? This didn’t say much for his character.

He relaxed against the vinyl padding of the booth. She knew it was only her imagination, but even the damned cushion seemed to gasp with pleasure at having his masculine thighs pressed into it. Aarrggh.

The gaggle of formerly brilliant and accomplished West Point girls hung all over him, practically crawling into his lap. If she didn’t block her throat with that burger soon, she was going to throw up.

And if she didn’t establish her authority over the situation immediately, she’d never gain control over her seminar again.

“Logan,” she said, thinking of hot beef, “When you’re finished, I need to talk to you.”

He raised a thick eyebrow at her. “Why, Miz D’Ancanto, are you holding me after class?”

No, I’m holding you in contempt. “Something like that.” She flashed a crisp smile at the group.

The girls straightened self-consciously and picked at their fries. Logan continued to lounge, the picture of virile indolence.

She walked past them to order her burger from Tracy, a former student who worked this shift.

“Hey, Miss D’Ancanto. How’re you?”

“Fine, thanks. How was your summer?”

Tracy shrugged. “Okay, I guess. What can I get for you?”

Peace of mind. A steady pulse. “A cheeseburger, please. Ketchup, mustard, lettuce—but hold the pickle and mayo.” Not to mention the giggles.

“No problem. Fries?”

Marie shook her head. “Thanks.”

“Drink?”

Yes, I could use a stiff one. “Diet Coke.”

“So who’s that guy over there?” Tracy asked as she took her ten-dollar bill.

Marie didn’t have to ask which one. “Charles Xavier’s grandson. He’s taking my seminar.”

“Cool,” said Tracy. “I might have to come audit.”




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Logan joined her as Tracy forked over her bag of sin. “Why don’t you walk back to my office with me?”

“That sounds like more of a command than a request.” But he fell into step with her.

Jennifer, Tanya, and Deirdre gazed longingly at him as they passed the booth. Ugh.

They followed the narrow walkway from the student union back to the art building. Lined with trees and flower beds, the path pulsed with the beginnings of autumn color: riots of gold, pumpkin, scarlet, and bronze.

Marie was tempted to shove her face into the paper sack, like a horse with a feed bag, so she wouldn’t have to say anything to Logan.

What was she going to say? How could she phrase things so that she didn’t come off as a sour old biddy? Was she a sour old biddy? The thought made her want to pull the entire burger bag over her head.

Nonsense! She wasn’t a biddy. She had the right not to be visually stripped in her own classroom.

But would bringing it up and confronting him with it only worsen the situation? Shouldn’t she just rise above it? Or was that cowardice talking?

Logan hadn’t said a word as they walked along the path. His hair gleamed in the sunlight, and she noticed strands of mahogany underlying hair so dark it was almost black. He turned his head, saw her studying him, and raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t flirting with those girls. It’s important that you know that. We happened to meet up again at the student union, and they invaded my booth with military precision.”

She didn’t reply.

“Understand? I don’t hit on teenage girls.”

Marie nodded. She’d seen them in action in her seminar.

“It’s not the most comfortable situation for me, either. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” His brown eyes held rueful amusement.

She looked quickly away, put the straw of her cup to her lips, and took a long swallow of Diet Coke. Then she thought of him back in her classroom, teasing his own straw with his tongue.

She choked on the sexual image, sending cold liquid down her windpipe. Her lungs protested, sending it right back up, and suddenly she was spitting Diet Coke onto the autumn leaves by the path. It dribbled onto her chin, and her pale linen jacket. Her humiliation was complete.

Logan thumped her between the shoulder blades. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she wheezed. She looked up, sure his Viking face would be suffused with laughter, but saw none.

His caramel eyes searched her own, and only when he seemed certain she was okay did they crinkle at the corners. “If just plain soda did that to you, I’d hate to see what a shot of tequila does.”

“You’ll never have the chance,” she assured him.

He looked speculative.

They reached the art building, then her office, where the first thing she did was grab a tissue, wet it with bottled water, and dab at her jacket.

He watched her for a moment and folded his arms. “So what is it, then, that you wanted to talk to me about?”

Okay, time to stop procrastinating and bring up the subject. She cleared her throat and threw the tissue in the wastebasket. Then she tossed her dignity after it.

“I can’t have you… doing what you’re doing to me in the seminar.”

He folded his arms, and the gold in his eyes intensified. He filled the whole office with his presence, and the walls seemed to close in on her.

“Doing what I’m doing,” he repeated. The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “And what exactly is that?”

“You know very well.”

“No, I don’t. Tell me.” He moved closer to her.

She wanted to step back, but held her ground. Her damned hormones started fussing and clucking again, hopping nervously and bopping their heads.

“Don’t play games, Logan.”

He took another step toward her. “What if I’m very, very good at certain games, darlin’?”

His voice was low and husky, and her blood began to pound. Her palms heated. Bok! Bok! said the hormone-chickens.

“What if I could teach you a whole new set of rules?” Logan continued.

Oh, that voice. Deep and musical and full of the promise of tangled sheets. Her whole body vibrated in response to it.

“Rules that don’t have anything to do with boxy jackets, or slide projectors, or academics?”

Cluck. Squawk. Shut up, hormones! Tyson, she thought. Butterball. Campbell’s. She was a professional and this man was all but harassing her. So why was her blood pounding? Why was her stomach doing back flips? Why did her conscience seem to have passed out, like a bum on the street?

She kicked it, hoping to revive it.

“I don’t want to learn your game,” Marie said. “And I think you make up the rules as you go along.”

His white teeth flashed at her, then disappeared again. Two steps closer, and he was inches away from her body.

She inhaled his scent—the detergent of his shirt, the faint traces of deodorant, and the more primal, indescribable machismo to which language couldn’t do justice. How could bad news smell this good?

And Logan was most definitely bad news, a male headline in 120-point bold type that screamed, “Run for your life!”

The problem was, she had little room for running at the moment, and even less inclination for it. When Logan reached one of his large, beautifully shaped hands toward her and traced the Diet Coke stain on her jacket with his index finger, all she could do was swallow. Something in her trembled, but not in fear, in anticipation.

The horrid hormones actively pecked at her now, with sharp little beaks. Go away! she hissed. Chic-fil-A. McDonald’s… but these were fierce, fightin’ poultry. Pullets with an attitude.

Logan’s index finger moved to her lips, and gently traced the shape of them. And then he settled that finger in the middle of her bottom lip and slowly slid it inside about half an inch. She couldn’t help but close her mouth over it and taste the flavor of it, of salt and man. She could feel the tiny ridges and whorls with her tongue, and had the insane impulse to take the whole finger into her mouth and suckle it.

But he withdrew it and placed his lips on hers instead.

Marie felt a shock flow through her, down to her toes.

Liquid heat followed the shock in ripples. She tilted her head and leaned into the kiss, exploring his lips with her own. She heard his quick intake of breath, felt his body close the gap between them and press hard against her.

Never had a kiss been this intense, not ever.

Logan explored her mouth with his tongue now, and she began to do the same, touching her own tongue to the edge of his teeth, then venturing beyond.

Heat continued to pulse through her, intensifying in embarrassing private places. She stiffened, and his response was to place his hands on either side of her jaw. He delicately stroked her skin and her ears with feather-light touches, ending his invasion of her mouth with a gentle nip at her lower lip that sent another flash of heat through her.

He dropped his hands, took a step backward, and stared at her, his breathing ragged.

She stared back warily. Dear God.

Outside the closed door, two T.A.’s walked by, deep in conversation. She didn’t hear their words, only the warning of their presence. It was a reminder that she and Logan were in her office, her professional workplace, behaving in an utterly unprofessional way.

Shame suffused her face as she recalled that she’d hauled him here to put him in his place, to ensure that he stop his silent harassment of her.

She’d meant to talk to him about his flirtation with her students, and here she was behaving worse than any of them. She was hot and bothered and damp and panting. She closed her eyes. She was teetering on the verge of shameless hussydom.

Had she smacked the man for sheer nerve? No. Had she told him to get the hell out of her office? No. Had she threatened to report him to the college? No. Instead, she’d encouraged him and kissed him back!

What in the blazes was wrong with her? When he’d touched her clothing, she should have socked him one in the jaw. When he’d popped that finger in her mouth, she should have bitten it off.

But no. She was obviously sex-starved enough to fall for his innuendos and the cheap thrill of his… okay, so it wasn’t cheap. It was a thrill of the finest quality.

Her own behavior was cheap, however. Sleazy. It was just plain sleazy for her to be making out with a student in her office with the door closed. What did that make her? How could she have responded to him like that?

She was deeply ashamed. She’d been brought up to be a decent, honorable, upright person. Not the sort of woman who skulked around campus, preying on her students and climbing them like trees.

Her behavior had always been unimpeachable. She was stable and conscientious— not the type to be blinded by lust. Yet here she stood, with mussed hair and throbbing lips.

“Marie,” Logan said, quietly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t look at him. “I think you should go.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” He moved toward the door. “We’ll just forget this ever happened, all right? And from now on, I’ll… behave myself in class.”

Logan smacked himself repeatedly in the forehead with the heel of his hand. Lip-locking with Miss Celery had not, not, not been a good idea.

Yes, he found himself inexplicably attracted to her. Yes, he’d been guilty of deliberately making her uncomfortable in the seminar. But it had backhanded on him in a most unexpected way. He’d noticed that the more hot and bothered she became, the more aroused he got himself.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be firmly in control, not uncontrollably firm.

And why was he interested in kissing someone who was using and double-crossing his grandmother? That was the part he really didn’t get. Because he just didn’t buy her story about not being involved on the college’s behalf.

Logan told himself to put her out of his mind. What he needed to focus on at the moment was his job, and his job today was to be a competent tandem-master to the overweight, green-faced kid who sat next to him.

Bart Olson, nineteen years old, was about to make his first jump ever, strapped securely to Logan’s back.

He’d explained it to Bart: Once the plane got to a level of 12,500 feet, their pilot, Mike, would circle the drop zone and give the okay. They’d open the door and brace themselves for the onslaught of freezing air.

Then the group of five who were practicing the formation would jump, one at a time, in five-second intervals. After they’d gone, the individual parachute would go.

Finally, Logan and Bart would make their leap. Tandem jumpers always went last.

Logan took a look at his student’s face and shook his head, suppressing a smile. The poor kid’s teeth were chattering in fear, and his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists.

The group of formation jumpers grinned in sympathy. “Hey, kid,” one of them shouted, “you’ll be fine. You’ve got the best instructor I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah?” warbled Bart. “Have you ever made a bad jump?” he asked Logan.

“Had a bad spill once, but it was my first jump and that was a long time ago. Ten years, okay?”

Bart’s green face drained to white. “So… did you break anything?”

“The tib and fib of one leg. My hands took most of the damage. Snapped a couple of bones that popped through the skin. Looked like damn bone claws until the doc got to work.”

Bart swallowed convulsively.

Logan shrugged. “Not tryin’ to scare ya, kid. Just being honest. Never have broken anything since. I was stupid. I flared too early, tried to run it out, and then tripped and fell. Tried to break my fall with my wrists, snapped them, and then fell on my face.”

The kid’s eyes were now wild.

Logan clapped him on the shoulder, and told him, “You’re not gonna do that. First of all, you’re with me for the next ten jumps, and I’m not gunna let that happen to either one of us—I’m a lot more skilled now. Second, I’m gonna train you better than I was trained. And third, you’re a better listener than I was at your age. I was fearless, and that’s just dumb.”

The kid nodded.

“You, on the other hand,” Logan continued, “I can smell your fear. And it’s going to make you smart. You’re going to remember what I tell you.”

Bart’s eyes remained wide, and his stomach quivered. Logan wondered if he was going to back out at the last minute. It had happened before—a full-grown man had screamed like a colicky baby and beat on his shoulders until he’d backed both of them away from the door. It was rare—most people who didn’t have the guts wouldn’t even get on the plane—but it did happen.

The other thing that happened occasionally was a nice case of the hurls. Logan really, really didn’t want to get puked on today, but as he looked at the kid, with his green face and quivering stomach, he had to admit it was a possibility. Ugh.

The plane touched altitude, and they watched the others make their jumps without further conversation. When the last individual had gone, dropping down and away into the prop blast, it was their turn.

Logan gave Bart the signal, and they moved to the door, Logan gripping the bar immediately inside it. The kid didn’t shriek or pound on him, so Logan released the bar and leaned out. As they dropped, he immediately turned toward the front of the plane, riding the prop blast. Then he turned them into position for a tandem fall: belly-to-earth.

God, he loved the adrenaline rush, the exhilaration of it, and he exulted in it for a brief couple of seconds, until he felt the kid’s puke soaking into his neck. Aw, hell.

Then they were enveloped by the familiar feeling of weightlessness. As Logan had tried to explain to Bart, you really didn’t feel as if you were falling, you just… floated.

Though you were whizzing through the air at approximately 120 mph in a free fall, you had nothing to judge your speed by, so you couldn’t tell.

After sixty seconds, Logan checked the altimeter on his wrist and signaled to the video guy with a wave-off that he was about to pull the cord for the pilot chute, the smaller chute that would stabilize them before he opened the main canopy. Done.

And now Big Bertha. Done.

For the next three minutes, courtesy of gravity, Logan and Bart floated down to the earth. Logan steered them in expertly, pulling the brake toggles down toward his knees with perfect timing. They hit the ground, skipped a few steps in the grass, and felt the drag of the parachute landing behind them.

“That was sooo cooool!” Bart shouted in his ear. But after they’d unhooked from each other, he had a hard time looking Logan in the eyes. He was obviously remembering his stomach’s midair rebellion.

Logan could smell it on himself now, but refused to let his face register any disgust. The poor kid didn’t need to see it. He grinned at his student, instead. “So, you liked it, huh?”

Bart nodded, his face red but his eyes glowing. “Uh…” he began. “I’m really sorry—“

“Happens all the time, bub. Don’t give it another thought.” He put an arm around the kid’s shoulders and gave him a man-to-man slap on the back. “Let’s get the chute packed.”



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Logan dragged his lawn chair into the seminar room and shrugged apologetically at Marie. “Sorry, I’m not tryin’ to be obnoxious or anything, but I ain’t sittin’ in one of those torture devices the college supplies as desks.”

Marie looked at one of them, then back at him, and nodded. She made his mouth water today, dressed in a long royal blue skirt that hugged her slender curves. It had a slit in the back of it, so that her legs played peekaboo when she walked.

The snug sweater she’d paired it with was really very modest, but clung to her willowy torso in a most appealing way. He discerned the ridges of her bra under it…oh, damn! He was doing it again, giving her the one-eyed once-over, when he’d promised not to.

Her brown eyes flashed at him and those perfectly formed pink lips compressed. Two spots of color accentuated the freckles high on her cheeks.

Okay. He’d sworn to behave himself, and behave he would. It was just that he could remember exactly how she’d tasted. Like sweet vanilla, with a touch of nutmeg. She’d been delicious, and hesitant, then passionate.

What bothered him was the shame he’d seen on her face afterward. Had he put it there, or was it something she carried around inside?

Was it due to professional or personal reasons? He wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t forget the taste of her, or the texture of the fine, delicate skin on her cheeks, or the tremor that had rippled through her when he stroked the shell of her ear with feather-light touches.

He forbade himself to look at her body any longer, and was soon distracted by more slides of his grandfather’s work. Today, instead of lonely cityscapes, Marie was projecting a series of nudes with unbound hair. They assumed odd positions, not sexual, but private.

Naked, he thought, not nude. Natural, not idealized. They were pale and vulnerable against dark interiors, and always gazed, faces unseen, at an open window. The women had a peculiar dignity, in spite of their lack of clothing, but neither the rooms nor the suggested view outside their windows held any warmth or promise.

They were alienated figures, figures trapped in their circumstances, not resigned, but not desperate, either. They were lonely. Achingly lonely, and drawn against architecture and wide spaces that seemed far more important than they.

Marie put one nude in juxtaposition with the male figure.

The woman was inside, but leaned toward the wind billowing past her curtains. She crouched on an unmade bed as if she were slipping out of it, stirred by the forces of nature.

The man sat outside, on the stoop of a commercial building that was nameless, as if the business done inside didn’t really matter. He was fully clothed, but had folded his arms across his body in a gesture of self-solace.

They both looked as if they wished to escape the mundane, the daily grind of their lives.

But whereas the woman looked toward nature, the man simply turned his back on commercial culture. He seemed hopeless; she seemed mesmerized.

When Marie turned the lights on, she suggested that all the students pull their desks into a circle. It was only then that Logan began to understand he was in trouble. Tanya, Jennifer, and Deirdre had all given him saucy greetings before class had started, but he’d been too busy looking at Marie to notice that he was under siege.

Pushing all thoughts of his grandparents out of his mind, he now recognized that he was in mortal danger.

Tanya wore no bra in the air-conditioning, and had become adept at jiggling her luscious fruit whenever he looked her way.

But shifting his gaze to Jennifer was no better: she’d applied some kind of shiny lip gloss that made her mouth appear wet with juices. Her tongue was much in evidence, too. He averted his eyes.

Deirdre didn’t seem the type to—Mother of God! He squeezed his eyes tightly shut until he was sure she’d crossed her legs again. Sharon Stone had nothing on Deirdre.

Where were their mothers? Their fathers? Their keepers?

Desperately, he looked elsewhere in the room, praying for innocence or chastity. What met his eyes was not reassuring.

A blonde in a squeaky-tight pink sweater took her time slowly peeling and eating a banana, while the girl next to her wore sprayed-on black leather pants and sat with her legs splayed open, stroking her own thighs.

Alarmed, Logan blinked hard and swiveled his head to find the wholesome, preppy girl who always wore her short bobbed hair in a plaid headband. Damn! His eyes scurried away from her, too, when he got a load of the tiniest tennis skirt ever manufactured. Her long, tanned legs looked ready to strike and wrap around their prey: him.

He felt like a helpless bunny surrounded by wolverines. These women wanted to hold him down and have their wicked way with him. His mind shied away from an image of himself, missing for days, found by the law, naked and bruised and handcuffed to a dorm-room radiator.

There had to be someone in this room who wasn’t ready to take a bite out of him… his eyes fell, with supreme relief, on the girl with the buzz cut and the nose ring. He’d never seen such a beautiful sight in all his life, even though she’d added a safety pin to her left eyebrow and was cleaning her black-painted nails with a Swiss army knife.

He shot her what he thought of as his most appealing grin.

Her eyes darkened with hostility, and she clamped the knife between her teeth to send him an international gesture. Then she went back to cleaning her nails.

Logan took a chance and slid his gaze to Marie, who kept her expression carefully deadpan and repeated her question about the differences and similarities of the two paintings she’d shown last.

When the room remained silent, she sighed. “Do I need to turn the lights off and show the two slides again?”

Logan shook his head vigorously. He was suddenly more afraid of the dark than a four year old. There was danger in the dark—no telling what these teenage sexual predators would do.

“Logan? You have a comment? An insight?”

He thought fast. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I do…”

Marie waited patiently. “And that would be…?”

“Uh--- well, the architecture overwhelms the people in both paintings.”

She nodded. “So what does that tell you?”

He stared at her, helplessly. He really hated this psychological art shit. But anything to keep the lights on, or he’d have to crawl into the guerrilla feminist’s lap for protection from the other women.

“Are you seeing any close-ups of the people’s faces?” Marie prodded.

He shook his head.

“Okay, so even though the woman on the left was naked, it’s not an intimate portrait of her, right? You can’t even see her face. And the guy on the right—do you see any real individualizing characteristics in his face?”

“Nope.”

She waited for him to expand on that.

Silence.

She got up and walked ominously to the wall switch.

“No! Wait—he wasn’t a social guy, my grandfather. All he wanted to do was paint. And you can see that in both of those slides. The people aren’t as important as the whadyoucallit—the composition itself.”

Marie’s smile was brilliant, and he basked in the glow for a moment. She really reminded him of autumn, his favorite time of year. It was in her coloring: afternoon sunshine, red and golden leaves, the creamy skin under the sweet freckles like the promise of snow to come.

Autumn was in her whole demeanor, too—crisp and cool, with a cloudless cerulean intellect.

Logan blinked. He was an outdoors kind of guy, but this was a little ridiculous. He needed to get a grip on himself.

“The people weren’t as important as the composition,” Marie repeated. “Exactly. So why do you think they’re there at all? If he didn’t care about them, why put them in?”

Logan objected to this. “It wasn’t that he didn’t care about people. He did. He just couldn’t escape his own alienation. I think he felt trapped, saw people all around him caught fast in the circumstances of their own lives, unable to change anything.”

Marie was radiating some emotion--- pride? And looking at him as if he were a toddler who had just formed his first complete sentence.

“So what you’re saying,” she murmured, “is that he cared very much for others. The alienation we’re seeing in the paintings isn’t out of disinterest, but comes from empathy.”

This was getting a little too intense for Logan. “Uh, yeah. Whatever.”

A frown crossed her face but then disappeared, like a cloud chased by a stiff breeze. She seemed satisfied, for she nodded and moved on to discuss the formal composition of the two paintings and the significance of the window motifs in each.

Logan yawned, trying to hide it behind his hand, but his ennui evaporated as Marie turned off the lights once again. Uh-oh.

Tense, he sat bolt upright for a good ten minutes, and then told himself not to be stupid. Like any of these girls would really try to molest him in class--- “aaahcck! What the hell?”

A hot, sweaty hand had gripped his upper thigh without warning. He knocked it off.

“Logan? Is there a problem? “Marie’s voice inquired.

“No, no. No problem.”

She continued to discuss the angles and planes of the new paintings.

A different hand gave a healthy squeeze to his right buttock. Logan leapt up, knocking over his lawn chair. “Damn it!”

“What is going on?” Marie snapped the question this time.

“Nothing,” he muttered, shooting the woman next to him a glance full of suppressed violence.

She simply gave him a bland stare.

Logan righted his chair, moved it back about two feet, and sat again. Aw, hell. Where had his pen gone? Trying not to creak or cause any further disturbance, he leaned forward and felt along the industrial carpet for the runaway Bic.

He should have been ready for it, should have blocked it like a man, but the vixen got him. Out of the shadows came another set of fingers, and this one flicked his nipple.

“That’s it!” Logan yelled. “Back off, you god damned perverted private-school princesses!”

Marie flipped on the lights, and stood glaring at him, her hands on her hips. “If you don’t stop interrupting my class—“

“I’m in danger of being gang-raped by this gaggle of nymphomaniacs!”

“Logan, I realize you have an inflated ego, but that is ridiculous.”

“Oh, yeah? One of these lovely young ladies just flicked my nipple in the dark. Another one grabbed my ass! How would you react? I’m done with it! I’m done and I’m gone.” Logan slammed his notebook shut and stalked out of the room.

The rest of the class erupted into howls of laughter, while Marie stood stunned in the doorway.

“Miss Amelia, this just isn’t working out,” said Marie. “We’ve got to find an alternative solution.”

She sat in a folding metal chair next to the old lady’s hospital bed.

“Why? Is my Logan not behaving himself?”

Marie recalled the scene in her last seminar and struggled for words that would do it justice. “Noooo,” she said cautiously. “That’s not exactly it.” She picked at her cuticles, managing to create a nasty hangnail on her left thumb. “It has more to do with my other students’ reaction to him.”

Miss Amelia grinned. “Logan is one hot hunk of burning love, isn’t he?”

Marie choked.

The old lady reached out a bony index finger and poked her playfully in the ribs. “Aha!”

“There’s no ‘aha’ about it.”

“Ha! The ‘aha’ shows in your blush, girl, so don’t try the ‘huh-uh’ business with me.”

“Huh? I mean, what?”

“You find my Logan very attractive, don’t you?”

Marie opened and closed her mouth like a fish. “He’s handsome, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Miss Amelia shook her head, as if clearing memories, and clucked her tongue. “Those quads,” she said, dreamily. “His grandfather’s were the same before the wheelchair. Thick, and meaty and muscular. A man’s stamina is all in the thighs and buttocks.”

“I—uh—can I get you some water? “Marie asked, bolting into the old lady’s private bathroom. She fanned flaming cheeks.

“Charles was good for an hour, at least…”

Marie knocked both faucets on, trying to drown out Amelia’s mischievous voice, but it continued inexorably, at a higher volume. “…all the Xavier men are very well hung. I haven’t seen Logan nude since he was about seven, but judging proportionally…”

Marie splashed water onto her face and stuck her index fingers in her ears. Aghast, she looked into the mirror to find that her freckles had all run together, the dots connected by a blanket of scarlet.

Water dripped down her forearms, soaking into the sleeves of her sweater and pooling at the inside of her bent elbows.

“Are you all right in there, dear?”

“Yes,” she croaked.

“I’m a dirty old woman, aren’t I?”

“Uhm, no. Not at all.”

“Liar,” said Miss Amelia cheerfully. “Come on out of there. I promise I’ll stop.”

Marie mopped at her face with a wad of paper towels, and tried to blot the worst of the water from her sweater sleeves. Then she emerged.

The old lady cackled. “I had no idea you were uptight about these things. It’s usually old birds of my generation that I shock into pathos.”

“I’m not uptight,” Marie said.

“Yes, you are, dear. But that’s all right. It’s very sweet.”

“I’m not sweet, either.”

“Right. You’re a regular old sourpuss, a nail-spitter. An absolute ghoul.”

“That’s me. Now, about this teaching situation.” Marie cleared her throat. “It’s not so much Logan that’s the problem. It’s the young women.”

“Flirting desperately with him, eh?”

That was one way of putting it. She nodded. Even though the old lady probably wouldn’t bat an eye, she didn’t feel like telling her about the nipple-flicking incident. “Their attention certainly isn’t on the subject matter I’d like to teach them.”

“I’m a little surprised that the liberated women of West Point College would pay much attention to my grandson, good-looking though he may be.”

“Women today know what they want.” Marie searched for a tactful way to put things. “And they’re not… shy… about going after it anymore. In other words, we’ve come a long way, baby.

Miss Amelia lapsed into thought for a moment. “Fine. I’m sure that you’d like to have order back in your class, and I certainly understand that. So, there’s nothing else for you to do but tutor Logan privately.” Her eyes gleamed.

Tutor Logan one on one? Marie’s blood ran cold, then hot. Then it just ran, draining out of her face entirely. She could feel it. “That’s really not a good idea,” she managed.

“It’s an excellent idea,” maintained Miss Amelia. “It solves your problem.”

Yes, but it creates an entirely new one. Once again, Marie opened her mouth, then closed it. How could she tell the old lady that she and Logan had, uh, embraced in her office?

Jubilee’s voice suddenly mocked her. Embraced? Nuh-uh. You did not embrace that man. You sucked face, you mashed with him, and you all but got down in a horizontal boogie.

“I don’t think he likes or trusts me, Miss Amelia. I’m probably not the right teacher for him.”

Hah, Jubilee would say. You’re just afraid he’ll make you bark like a dog.

Marie’s eyes popped, and she chased all thoughts of her friend out of her head. Dear God, it was true, though. Logan was the type of man who could elicit barnyard animal noises from a nun. And she was no nun. In fact, she seemed to be developing all the characteristics of her mother, the shameless hussy of yesteryear.

“Logan doesn’t like or trust most people. So don’t feel that he’s discriminating against you, my dear Marie.”

She was outrageous. “I’m afraid you don’t understand. Logan thinks that I’m in league with the chair, and that I’m only using you in order to get my paws—or the college’s paws—on your paintings. He’s very protective of you.”

Miss Amelia broke into peals of laughter. “Poor boy. He’s without a clue, isn’t he? He has no idea that I was using you, both for Charles’s sake and for my own. You’re not only a top scholar and evocative writer, but excellent company for a lonely old bird.”

Marie shook her head at her, unable to suppress a smile.

“Now,” added the old lady, “I should make it clear that the usage ended when I discovered how much I liked you.”

“Thank you. The feeling is mutual. But I still don’t think I’m the right teacher for Logan.”

Miss Amelia had looked fairly healthy and robust until this comment. Now she adopted a helpless expression, sinking lower into her bank of pillows. “Oh, but you promised, my dear. And,” she paused, “then there’s the tiny matter of that binding legal document. Not that I would be so crass as to throw that in your face.”

She was something else. “Of course not.”

“Regardless of how you may feel at the moment, you’re good for Logan.”

Marie blinked rapidly and said nothing. What could she say to this lovable, lipsticked locomotive?

“You’re getting him to confront the past, battle his demons.”

“Miss Amelia, perhaps you could tell me more about these demons? It might help me get through to him. What happened with Logan and your husband?”

The old lady went completely still and closed her eyes.

Marie waited, assuming she was contemplating how to phrase things. But as the moments stretched on, it became clear to her that she wasn’t going to phrase anything at all.

A tiny faux snore whistled past her thin magenta lips, and Marie grappled with the knowledge that once again, she’d been outmaneuvered.

Damn that Miss Amelia!