Since all of her publishing had been done under her maiden name, why in the world was she distancing herself from it?
“What made you give up the publish-or-perish career track to come here? There’s not much challenge for someone who’s had her own lab and grants big enough to support a staff.” He didn’t elaborate that the grants he’d secured so far were much too small to do the research needed. If she had come across those documents, she would have already figured that out. He gave her one of his practiced smiles. “Kick me if I’m being nosy.”
She didn’t respond for several seconds, then carefully said, “I needed a career change. No. More than that. A life change. My sister Rosie lives here, so we came here.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?” She turned face him.
“Everyone sometimes does,” he said with a nod. “Needs a change that is. After a divorce—”
“I’m not divorced.”
“After being fired.” His smile stayed firmly in place. He knew he was prying, and he wondered how long it would be before she told him to back off.
“I wasn’t fired. The university even offered me a bigger lab as an inducement to stay.”
That didn’t surprise him. She had a slew of papers that made his own publishing record look meager. “After rescuing your kid from drugs.”
“Annmarie is only five-years old, for pity’s sake,” she responded. The corners of her eyes crinkled as though she couldn’t decide whether to laugh at him or to be mad at him. “Okay, yes, wanting a good place for her to grow up was part of it. But I’m not so idealistic as to think children in small towns don’t have their problems. I grew up in a small town—”
“Where?”
“Petersburg.”
“Alaska? You’re not a California girl?” From her blond hair, casually secured in some kind of big clip at the back of her head, to the honey tan of her skin, she conjured images of the old Beach Boys’ song about California girls.
Lily shook her head with a chuckle. “Not me, though I lived there for the last ten years.”
“Which explains why you’re cold.” The long red sweater belted around her waist hadn’t kept her from shivering, even while they walked up the slope.
She shivered again, glancing back toward the beach where the children were tagging along behind them. “It’s a nice day.”
Without hesitation, he took off his vest and draped it over her shoulders. She stopped walking and turned around to face him. Since she was higher on the slope, they were eye to eye, and he realized she was petite, her bone structure fine.
A question formed in her eyes. “Are you always this—”
“Inquisitive? Pushy? Nosy?” he finished.
She shook her head, her gaze deeply searching his eyes as though she saw a hero. For an instant he wished he were.
She simply watched him with those dark brown eyes that were unusual in a complexion as fair as hers. He’d been around enough women to recognize the spark of interest in her expression, which was totally at odds with her body language.
Thinking she was way too likable for his peace of mind, he said, “You moved here to escape the scandal of being involved with a student.”
“Outrageous.” She laughed.
“That bad, huh?”
“Your behavior,” she said. “Pushy, maybe. Nosy, absolutely. And definitely outrageous.”
“That’s my stock in trade.” He grinned at her. She hadn’t taken his barbs seriously, and she’d responded with humor. An assistant with a sense of humor was a plus. Double if she was easy on the eye, and she was.
They reached the crest of the slope and she stopped walking so suddenly he nearly ran into her. She glanced at him, then away. “My husband died two years ago—”
“I’m sorry.” Something in her voice made him believe that she wasn’t beyond that. That put her in the do-not-touch category, which was too bad since he’d been thinking she was a woman he’d like to touch. All over.
“—and,” she rushed on, “I had a grant that ran out. So the timing to make a change was good. And I really did want to be closer to family again.”
He figured she was telling him the truth—just not the whole truth. He’d read her curriculum vitae and her papers. Her work was original, brilliant, and represented years of commitment.
“So you’re giving up research?”
“For now,” she said.
A shadow chased through her eyes, and he again wondered what she wasn’t telling him. Beneath her easy laugh and open smile, he sensed a flicker of sadness that he suspected she worked hard to hide. Deliberately teasing, he said, “Now that I know you can file…”
As hoped, she grinned. “I knew there was a down side to this job.”
“I have a theory about how the office got to be such a mess.” He waited a beat before adding, “In the dead of night, the files and papers get together, mate, reproduce and create new piles.”
“A topic for your next paper, hmm?” she returned. “Something you could publish in the Journal of Organizational Science, maybe?”
He laughed. “Maybe.”
Lily watched the kids coming up the trail behind them. She gazed at her daughter as though the child was more precious than life. Nobody had ever looked at Quinn like that, but until now he hadn’t thought it mattered.
The kids came over the crest.
“We made it!” Annmarie exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. “I’m king of the mountain.”
“You can’t be king,” Thad said. “’Cause you’re a girl.”
“I can be anything I want,” she informed him. “My mom said.”
“Okay if we go inside and look at the aquariums?” Thad asked Quinn.
“Sure.”
“Last one there has to eat raw fish eggs,” Annmarie taunted. They took off toward the building at a run.
Quinn grinned. “Now that’s one I’m going to remember.”
By the time the two children reached the door, they were neck and neck. Something had caught Annmarie’s attention, and she pointed.
“Mom!” she shouted, her voice full of fright. “Look out!”
Quinn’s gaze followed the line of her pointing finger. A dark-green vehicle was rolling down the slope, picking up speed…and headed directly toward him and Lily.
Chapter
