He couldn’t possibly be her Good Samaritan! He was too young, too carefree, too cute to be a stodgy old professor.
“I’m sorry,” she said huskily. “Excuse me. I must be in the wrong classroom.”
“Not so fast,” Maxwell Sullivan said easily as she turned to leave. “You’re in the right place…or at least you are if you’re Natalie Bailey. Everyone else answered roll.”
Stunned, she just stared at him. “But you’re supposed to be older!”
It wasn’t until the rest of the class laughed that she realized she’d blurted out her thoughts. Mortified, she wanted to sink right through the floor. Forcing a weak smile, she said, “Excuse me while I take my foot out of my mouth. I just thought—”
“What everyone else in the class thought,” he finished for her with an easy grin. “So, please, don’t apologize. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not your average professor.”
“So just how old are you?” a cocky eighteen-year-old asked him from the front row. “Are you sure you have your Ph.D? You don’t look old enough to shave, dude.”
“You can thank my parents for that,” Max retorted, chuckling. “I’ve got good genes. And yes, I do have my Ph.D. If you don’t believe me—check me out. I didn’t buy any of my degrees on the Internet.”
“But you’ve got to be too young to be a professor,” another student said with a frown. “How old were you when you graduated from high school? Nine?”
“Not quite,” he laughed. “I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen!”
“No way!”
Grinning at the uproar that created, he added, “I got my B.A. when I was nineteen.”
The rest of her classmates found that hard to accept, but Natalie could well believe he’d finished college in three years. She’d read his books—they were complex and detailed and filled with fascinating historical facts. Knowing nothing else about him other than his published work, she’d never doubted that he was anything short of brilliant…which was why she’d been so eager to sign up for his class. She’d never dreamed he’d be a biker with peach fuzz on his cheeks.
Okay, so he wasn’t that young. It was his quick, teasing smile that made him look like a teenager, she decided as her gaze moved to the sensuous lines of his mouth. Boyish dimples flashed with every smile, but it was the self-deprecating twinkle in his eye that charmed her. What woman could resist a man who didn’t take himself seriously? How old was he? Frowning, she tried to do the math. If he graduated from college with his B.A. when he was nineteen, then spent the next four or five years finishing graduate school and his Ph.D., then he had to be at least…
“Twenty-eight,” he said with a quirk of a smile as he looked her right in the eye and read her mind. “I’ve been teaching for five years.”
From across the room, someone asked him when he’d gone on his first dig, but Natalie hardly heard his answer for the pounding of her heart. He gave the other students who asked questions the courtesy of his attention, but it seemed as if his gaze always returned to hers.
You’re imagining it, she told herself. He’s your professor, for heaven’s sake! And a biker who’s footloose and fancy-free. You’re a mother with twins and the only one your boys can depend on to be there for them. The last thing you want or need is a man.
She couldn’t argue with that. Her day started early and ended late, and, thanks to her deadbeat ex, she was not only the sole breadwinner, but also chief cook and bottlewasher, housekeeper, chauffeur, dragon slayer, crises solver, and entertainment director. She didn’t have trouble sleeping at the end of the day—she just collapsed from exhaustion. Even if Derek hadn’t totally put her off ever giving her heart to a man again, she didn’t know how she would have fit one into the crazy days that were her life. There just wasn’t time…especially now that she’d added college student to the many hats she wore.
She’d waited a long time for this day, she reminded herself grimly, as Maxwell Sullivan turned the conversation to the topics he would be covering over the course of the semester, the term paper that would count for twenty-five percent of their grade, and the dig they were all required to go on over the Thanksgiving holiday. The only reason she was here was to get an education.
Quickly grabbing a pen from her purse, she opened a spiral notebook and began taking notes. Diligently, she wrote down every word. She didn’t have to look around to know that she was eighteen years older than the majority of the students, and she readily admitted that she was more than a little intimidated. How was she going to keep up? Most of her classmates had just graduated from high school a few months ago, and their study habits were as fresh in their minds as the memories of their senior prom. She, on the other hand, didn’t even remember how to study. What, she wondered, trying not to panic, was she doing here?
Watching her from the corner of his eye as he discussed some of the well-known historical digs he’d been on, Max reminded himself that he wasn’t the kind of teacher who allowed himself to become interested in his female students. Not only did the administration frown on it, but he didn’t want or need the complication. So why the devil was Natalie Bailey so distracting? It wasn’t as if she was trying to attract his attention. Most of the time her head was bent over her notes. She hardly looked up at all, and when she did, it was obvious that she was totally focused on his lecture. He should have been thankful for that. Instead he found himself wishing she’d look up and smile at him. What was going on here?
Losing his place in his lecture—something that rarely happened—he frowned and quickly got himself back on track…but not for long. He turned to pull down a map of ancient Egypt, and there she was again, right in his line of vision. He hadn’t been lying earlier when he’d told her that her archeology professor was partial to redheads. He was—he readily admitted it. She’d twisted her dark-auburn curls up on her head, exposing the tempting lines of her throat, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She wasn’t the kind of woman he would have called beautiful—with her quick flash of dimples, pert nose, and petite five-foot-two figure, she looked more like the girl next door.
But there was more to her than that. There was that stubborn chin that would challenge a man at every turn and the wariness that peeked out of her midnight-blue eyes. An interesting combination, he thought, intrigued. He’d seen her quick smile, the humor that danced in her eyes…and how quickly she stepped back from that. He would bet there’d been a time in her life when she’d been a lot more spontaneous than she allowed herself to be now. What had happened to change that? When had life taught her to be a more cautious soul? What was her story?
Suddenly realizing where his thoughts had wandered, he swore silently and did some mental backpedaling himself. What the devil was he doing? If she was unusually distracting, it was only because she was so different from the female students he usually dealt with, he reasoned. They were too young and flighty, too eager to fall in love and live happily ever after. There was nothing flighty about the conscientious Ms. Bailey. She had a maturity about her that the rest of her eighteen-year-old classmates lacked, and she had no idea how refreshing that was. How old was she? Thirty? Older? Was she married? Divorced? What had she been doing since high school?
Whatever it was, he sincerely doubted that she’d spent any time in college—otherwise, she would have known it wasn’t necessary for her to write down every word he said. And that could present a problem for her, he realized, frowning. He was a tough teacher—he readily admitted it. His tests were fill-in-the-blank and essays and difficult for students
