CHAPTER TWO
ARCHER
THE CLOSER I GOT TO MIRROR Lake near the Minnesota border, the worse I felt. My hands sweated inside my leather gloves. My stomach was a ball of nerves. My brain fought a constant battle with my urge to turn the Harley around and fly in the opposite direction.
Back to a bar where I’d found a cool, blonde woman with hot blue eyes. A woman who’d made me forget the dry, empty desert, the smell of gasoline and asphalt, the sun burning a hole in the sky. A woman who had made me forget that my entire life could fit into a beat-up cardboard box.
I clenched my hands on the grips and kept going. She’d made me forget… until this morning when it had all crashed back in. Four days ago, I’d packed my stuff and left the garage and gas station where I’d worked for the past few months. My parents, recently divorced after thirty years of marriage, had sold the California house where I grew up and moved away.
Though my family had always been fractured, now it was broken for good. The only piece still intact was my brother Dean, his wife, and their baby Nicholas.
I’d never met Nicholas. Hadn’t seen Dean or Liv in over a year. I didn’t think they’d even want to see me. And yet here I was, driving over fifteen hundred miles north to Mirror Lake.
I didn’t really want to visit my brother. What for? To dredge up all the crap between us? To prove everything he thought of me was true? But turning tail now like a coward would be worse than enduring this sick feeling.
At least, that was what I’d been telling myself. Time to man up, do the right thing, mend fences. Ignore the realization that I really just had nowhere else to go.
I turned off the interstate. My brother aside, I did want to see Liv again. I’d been an ass to her once, but I’d always known she was decent. Nice. Smart. And she’d pulled herself out of what had seemed like a crappy life before she met Dean.
Liv was the kind of woman Sarah might have been, if Sarah’s life had taken a different path. Maybe even if Sarah hadn’t met me.
A knot pulled at my chest. I drove away from the off-ramp and went left toward the sign pointing me to downtown Mirror Lake.
The lake itself stretched beneath a circle of mountains, the water reflecting the surrounding trees and the clouds overhead. The main street wove along the lake path and was lined with little shops, boutiques, and restaurants that looked like a movie set for a romantic comedy.
After asking for directions at a gas station, I drove through a couple of residential neighborhoods to the hallowed halls of King’s University. I parked in a lot and walked across the quad. I stopped again to ask directions to the history department and was pointed toward an impressive, columned brick building.
My heart pounded harder as I climbed the worn stone steps inside to the fifth floor. Too late, I thought I should’ve checked into the hostel to take a shower and change clothes. But if I left the university now, I’d never come back.
Voices rose in the hushed air. I caught snippets of conversation about course schedules, requirements, a paper about colonization, and a discussion about a war I’d never heard of.
I scanned the nameplates outside the office doors. Dr. Frances Hunter, Professor, American Studies. Dr. Michael London, Assistant Professor, European History. Dr. Amy Delafield, Associate Professor, Ancient Greek and Roman History.
Dr. Dean West, Professor, Medieval Studies.
I stopped. The door was half open. A young man inside was talking about… what else… homework.
“I’ve got the bibliography done, so I’ll send that to you this afternoon,” he said, amidst the sound of rustling papers. “And the archive department has a digitized copy of the codex.”
“Good.” Dean’s voice. “Let me know when you want to discuss it.”
I moved aside when the door opened farther. Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, the student left. There was another rustle of paper, then the sound of Dean coming toward the door.
He glanced into the hall as if looking to see if any other students were waiting. His gaze stopped on me. Silence fell between us like a weight.
I cleared my throat. “Hey.”
“Archer.” Disbelief clouded his expression. “What are you doing here?”
My jaw tightened. “Hello to you, too.”
“Sorry.” Dean shook his head. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I should’ve checked your office hours.” I jerked my chin toward the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Dean stepped back, allowing me to enter his office.
I shifted, too hot inside my leather jacket. Books lined the room, which had a window with a view of the tree-studded quad. Dean’s big desk, covered with books, papers, and a computer, sat in front of the window.
The door clicked shut. A trickle of sweat ran down my back.
“Where did you come in from?” Dean asked.
“Nevada.” I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it on a chair. “Mom called a few days ago. She’s going to live with Paige. I guess the house sale closed. Your stuff is in storage.”
Dean nodded. “You hear from Dad?”
“No, but Mom said he’s in San Francisco. He’s going up to his cabin in Tahoe sometime.”
“That’s what he told me. I talked to him after the divorce was finalized.”
We were both quiet, thinking of our father, former justice on the California Supreme Court, living out his retirement alone.
“Well.” Dean sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “Too bad.”
“When were you last out there?”
“We brought Nicholas to see Mom over the holidays,” Dean said. “Dad had moved out by then, but they were fine.”
“Mom told me you have a kid now. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
Another silence fell. The medieval coin felt like it was burning a hole in my front pocket. It was one of two things I’d salvaged from the box of stuff my mother had sent me a week ago.
While packing up to sell the California house, she’d found a few of my old belongings and sent them to the garage where I was working. The box had included a few old dirt bike magazines, comic books, a lumpy, painted clay pot, a “participation ribbon” for a science fair, and a notebook half-filled with comics I’d drawn.
The facsimile coin had been at the bottom of the box. The size of a silver dollar, it was engraved with Latin phrases and a picture of King Arthur. When we were kids, Dean had liked the King Arthur legends, and our father had helped me find the coin to give my brother as a twelfth birthday present.
I had no idea how the coin ended up in a box of my stuff. I’d thrown most of the contents away, but kept the coin with the vague intention of returning it to Dean.
I shoved my hand into my pocket and closed my fingers around it. I felt Dean studying me, could sense all the assessments shifting through my brother’s brain. I couldn’t bring myself to give him the coin now, suddenly feeling stupid for being nostalgic about anything.
Dean’s cell phone rang. He went around to pick it up from his desk, glancing at the screen before lifting the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Liv.” His voice got all warm and gentle.
I slumped into a chair and watched my brother. Dean looked the same as he had a year and a half ago. Even five years ago. He looked okay for a guy pushing forty. Of course, he was a total starched shirt in his suit and perfectly knotted tie, neat haircut, shiny shoes. Like a kid dressed up for Sunday school.
That was Dean, all right. Responsible, smart, dedicated, play-by-the-rules. Mr. Do The Right Thing. If anyone was destined to be a successful historian, a wealthy investor, and a family man, it was Dean West.
I guessed I should have appreciated the fact that some people never changed. Dean never changed.
Maybe I didn’t either.
That thought was less comforting.
I shifted. My boots scraped against the floor. It took me a minute to realize that Dean had ended the call and was looking at me.
“So when did you get in?” he asked.
“Just now. Stopped to ask where the university was.”
“Did you come to tell me about the house?”
I knew what he was thinking and, truth be told, I didn’t blame him. But I could preempt him.
I forced myself to sit up straighter. To look my brother in the eye. To shove aside the feeling that I was at the principal’s office.
“No,” I said. “I want to talk to you about my inheritance.”
He didn’t look surprised. No wonder. How many times had I demanded the money? How many times had Dean said no?
Dean folded his arms across his chest. Now he wasn’t a principal, but a judge. Like father, like son.
“I still can’t just hand it over,” he said. “Not unless you’ve met all the conditions our grandfather set down—you needed to have a job, finish school, prove you were responsible.”
I didn’t like how he was speaking in past tense, as if it were already too late for me to prove anything. I pushed to my feet just to try and put us on equal ground.
“Look,” I said. “I know you won’t believe this, but I didn’t come here to ask for the money again.”
Dean didn’t respond. I hated this. I had always hated being dependent on my brother for anything, especially my inheritance. And I still hated the idea that I had to prove myself. That only Dean—goddamned Dean—could declare me worthy.
Fuck.
I took a breath, curling my fingers into my palms. “I don’t want the money. That’s not why I’m here.”
I’d also given up on the money a long time ago. And I sure as hell didn’t want to earn it, especially not for Dean’s approval.
“I was just in the area.” I backed up a few steps. “Thought I’d stop in.”
“How long are you staying?” Dean asked.
“Couple of days, I guess.”
“Well, I’d like you to meet Nicholas.”
“Okay.” I took another step away. “Just let me know when’s a good time.”
I turned to the door. I was reaching to open it when the door flew open, smacking me in the forehead. Pain lanced through my skull. I stumbled back.
“Dean, you were supposed to… oh, shit.” A female voice sharpened. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and blinked, my vision coming slowly into focus. A streak of blue. Red lips. A stare that looked like it could penetrate to the core of the earth itself.
The pain faded. I blinked again and found myself looking at a woman.
A woman I’d kissed the night before in the corner booth of a dive bar. A woman who tasted like honey, scotch, and sex.
We stared at each other. Behind her glasses, her blue eyes were wide with shock.
“Archer, this is my friend Kelsey.”
I heard Dean’s voice as if he were speaking from far away.
Kelsey. I wanted to taste her name.
“Kelsey, my brother Archer,” Dean continued. “He just got into town.”
She closed her mouth, her throat rippling with a swallow. “Your brother?”
“Yeah.” Dean shuffled through the papers on his desk. “I told you about him.”
My insides clenched. Dean wouldn’t have told her anything good about me.
Kelsey was still looking at me with disbelief. Because she couldn’t believe I was Dean’s brother or because she couldn’t believe she’d kissed me?
I deliberately let my gaze rake over her, taking in her smooth, shoulder-length blonde hair with the streak of blue and her piercing eyes behind her rimless glasses. She wore a pinstriped suit that would have looked stupid on most other women, but on her looked sexy as hell.
Maybe it was the strapped heels peeking out from beneath the hem of her pants, displaying her painted toenails. Or the shirt unbuttoned one button too many under the tailored blazer, showing the edge of her lacy, purple bra. Or her lips that were parted slightly and red as cherries…
Jesus. I shook my head. Dean was talking again, but I couldn’t make out his words. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to stare at Kelsey again and wonder what she looked like wearing nothing but her glasses.
“So.”
The sound knocked me out of my fantasy. A little. Because even now her voice was as sexy as the rest of her—rich and smooth, with a hint of a rasp that heated my blood.
“You’re Archer,” she said, as if she needed me to confirm that.
You’re Archer. I wasn’t imagining the disdain in her voice. In fact, I should have expected it.
My jaw clenched. I knew that look she was giving me. The one that dawned in the cold light of day when smoky bars and anonymous meetings were a distant memory. She’d made a mistake last night and now she had to face it. Literally.
“I’m Archer.” I extended my hand, grimy and dirty from being encased in a sweaty leather glove all day.
Her gaze flicked to my hand.
“Go ahead,” I invited. “I don’t bite.”
She closed her hand around mine in a firm, warm grip. She met my gaze. When she spoke, her voice was as cool as river water.
“Pity,” she murmured.
Heat jolted through my chest. I tightened my grip on her. She tugged her hand from my grasp and stepped away. She turned her attention to Dean and held out a blue folder and a glasses case.
“Here’s the admissions review paperwork you need to sign. And Liv left her sunglasses in my car yesterday.”
“Thanks.” Dean put the sunglasses in his briefcase and grabbed a pen to sign the papers. “I’ll go drop these in the office.”
He stacked the papers and went past us to the corridor.
We were alone. I stepped closer to Kelsey. She watched me warily, her expression devoid of the heat I’d seen last night.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Visiting my brother.”
“He never said you were coming.”
“He didn’t know. Are you a professor here?”
“Yes. I study tornados.”
“Yeah? Why tornados?”
“So I can predict the unpredictable.”
“Ambitious.”
She nodded. Her gaze flickered over me. There it was. What I’d seen from plenty of women before. She was intrigued, but now she clearly saw that I was lower than her.
“Where did you get in from?” she asked.
“The desert.”
“What do you do in the desert?”
“Get hot.”
She blinked. Good. She needed to be thrown off.
“Ambitious,” she murmured.
The air thickened. Got hot. I pulled my gaze from hers when Dean came back into the office.
“Grace is sending the paperwork back to the chancellor’s office today,” he told Kelsey. “She said they’re finalizing the meeting schedule next week.”
“You were also supposed to send me your recommendations for the honors committee,” Kelsey said, putting her hands on her hips in a school-marm stance.
“I did.” Dean frowned and punched a few buttons on his computer. “No, sorry, it’s still in my drafts folder. Hold on. Okay, sent.”
“Are we on for racquetball tomorrow?” Kelsey asked.
“No, I’m working up at the house. Max Lyons said he’d stop by.”
Kelsey blinked. “Max is back in town?”
“Got back last week, I think,” Dean replied.
I frowned, not liking Kelsey’s reaction. Who the hell was Max Lyons and why did she care that he was back in town? Jealousy scraped my chest.
Kelsey met my glower. She arched an eyebrow, as if she were daring me to make something of the fact that she was talking about another guy.
“So you’re a weather girl, Kelsey?” I asked, deliberately baiting her.
Her mouth compressed with annoyance. “I’m an assistant professor in the Meteorology department.”
She was still standing with her hands on her hips, like she was about to scold me. I thought I might enjoy it if she did.
“Kelsey is up for tenure this year, which would make her a permanent, full professor,” Dean told me. “She’s the one who told me about the job opening in the history department a few years ago. We met in college.”
That meant she’d gone to Yale or Harvard. I’d figured she was educated with her talk about a scientific research project, but now the room was thick with overachievement and brilliance.
I edged toward the door, jerking my thumb at the corridor.
“I’m going to take off.”
“Hold on.” Dean grabbed a pen and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “That’s my cell, home number, and address. Do you have a place to stay?”
I nodded. “Haven’t checked in yet, though.”
“Okay. Give me a call as soon as you’re settled.”
“Yeah.”
I left the room and strode toward the stairs. I was halfway there when the sound of heels clicked behind me. I turned to see Kelsey approaching, the overhead fluorescent lights glowing on her blue-streaked hair.
I stopped. I’d heard a lot of come-ons from women who had followed me in bars, clubs, coffeehouses, even grocery stores. Sometimes they were direct—Can I buy you a drink? Do you have a girlfriend? Other times they tried to get at me another way—Can I borrow your cell phone? Will you walk me to my car? Is this seat taken?
I didn’t care which approach a woman used, not if I found her attractive, which I often did. But last night Kelsey hadn’t needed a hook. All I’d done was turn and see her watching me. I’d thought that if I didn’t approach her, she’d disappear. Just vanish.
I watched her come toward me now. I liked the way she moved. She had a long stride, a go-to-hell walk softened by the sway of her hips. I wanted to watch her walk from behind.
Now that we’d gotten the preliminaries out of the way, she’d be direct in her approach, just a point-blank invitation or—
She walked past me in a rush of cool, good-smelling air.
The click of her heels stopped at the elevators. I turned to where she stood, arms folded, her gaze on the lighted row of numbers above the doors. Ignoring the hell out of me.
“Hey,” I said.
She turned her head.
“What’ve you heard about me?” I asked.
Kelsey shrugged. “Not much.”
“He hasn’t told you anything?”
“Sure he has.” She said it so matter-of-factly, as if Dean had told her I was an insurance salesman. “Every family’s got one like you, right?”
The tone in her voice, like I was nothing special, grated my nerves.
“You mean a fuck-up?” I asked.
“I mean someone who gets off on being a fuck-up,” Kelsey replied, turning on her heel to face me. “Who thinks it’s his life’s work to screw with people and act like the world owes him a favor instead of getting off his ass and doing something.”
“That’s what you think?”
“That’s what I know.”
“You didn’t care last night.”
“That,” she replied coolly, “was last night.”
The elevator pinged, the door slid open. She stepped toward it, her blonde hair swishing behind her.
I moved before I could think, launching myself into the elevator doorway. The three students inside stared at me. I turned to face Kelsey, slamming my hands against the doors to stop them from closing.
“You don’t know jack about me, sweetheart,” I said, lowering my head to look into her eyes, daring her to back away. “Whatever the good professor has told you is bullshit. I’ve seen him twice in five years. He doesn’t know a goddamned thing about my life. And just because I got you hot last night, don’t you think you know me either.”
She didn’t take her eyes from mine, but her face reddened. I could see the pulse beating at the hollow of her throat. The edge of her bra still showed between the unfastened top buttons of her shirt.
“I’m disappointed in you,” I continued, tracking my gaze down to the V of her neck. “I thought you were the kind of woman who’d form your own opinions about things. But if we’re doing this based on second impressions, and if I’m the fuck-up who screws with people, then you must be the controlling bitch who hasn’t gotten laid in years.”
A shocked giggle came from one of the students in the elevator. Kelsey’s flush deepened. She lifted her chin, ice coating her eyes.
“You can move now,” she said coldly.
I stared at her. Unlike last night, today she was wound so fucking tight. I wanted to unwind her, mess up her world, rip that sexy lingerie right off her. I wanted to make her lose control.
“Say please,” I murmured.
Her mouth tightened. Her eyes flashed blue fire at me. For a second, I thought we’d end up in a deadlock.
“Please,” she hissed.
I pushed away from the doors, keeping my hand on one to hold it open for her. She stepped past me into the elevator. The clean, sweet smell of her drifted to my nose again.
I wasn’t done with her. Not by a long shot. In fact, I was just getting started. I looked at her blue eyes again.
“Nice bra,” I said. “I like the lace.”
I pushed away and let the doors slide shut.