No one else’s.
It wasn’t the way she’d planned to have a family.
But it was the way it had to be.
JOSH TANNER SAT in the second row of his Community Psychology class and watched his professor, Dr. Rachel Livesay, rub the small of her back. It was a subtle movement done with her left hand, hardly noticeable considering the way her right hand flitted through the air with the grace of an exotic dancer, emphasizing each point she made as she lectured.
He liked watching her mouth, too. Her lips were tinted with a frosty neutral shade of lipstick. They were full and sensual, and moved with the same fascinating grace as her hand, in spite of all the technical jargon and graphic examples that flowed between them. Her eyes were green and almond-shaped, a perfect foil for her dark-brown hair. As rich as a sable pelt, it fell thick and straight to her shoulders in a boxy cut that swung back and forth each time she lifted her face to look at the students sitting behind him, near the top of the banked, theater-style lecture hall.
But the best thing about her was her breasts. Ripe. Full. Sensuous treasures that could fill a man’s hands and spill over into his fantasies.
With the cold of winter, she wore smooth-knit tunic sweaters that emphasized the shape and size and beauty of her breasts.
Josh breathed in deeply, slowly, silently. Savoring the gentle course of heat that raised his body temperature by several scintillating degrees.
His psych professor was a hottie.
A very pregnant, and very off-limits, hottie. Despite the fact she wasn’t wearing a ring on her left hand. He wondered about that last observation. He’d heard that pregnancy drew couples closer together. But Rachel Livesay seemed to be conspicuously alone.
His own sister-in-law had given birth just a few months ago, and Mitch Taylor, his cousin and boss—whom Josh considered his eldest brother—had mellowed considerably. Sure, falling in love in the first place had changed Mitch from a hard-ass workaholic into a much more grounded—though no less tough—precinct commander.
But with the baby… Hell, Mitch and his wife, Casey, had been downright frisky at the family’s Christmas get-together. Always touching. Holding hands. Sneaking kisses. Cooing over their newborn and each other.
Where was Dr. Livesay’s attentive mate? Was her pregnancy the accident of a misguided affair? The leftover burden of a messy divorce? The last memory of a deceased husband?
Why was a woman that beautiful and that smart walking around unattached? He couldn’t imagine any sane man not staking a possessive claim on the mother of his child.
Or those luscious breasts. Those eloquent hands. Those beautiful green eyes. Those come-kiss-me lips.
Stupid bastard.
“Mr. Tanner.”
Josh’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of his alias, as if he’d been caught condemning the unknown father out loud. But no, the professor wasn’t telepathic. And he hadn’t been broadcasting his appreciation with an admiring glance.
Had he?
It still took him a split second to assume the Josh Tanner persona and make himself think like a coed, even after a month and a half of campus life. But without allowing more than a smile of acknowledgment to crease his face, he pulled himself from the politically incorrect yet inevitable trail of his thoughts to listen to Dr. Livesay’s question.
“What do you think?”
Though he’d just turned twenty-eight, he knew a moment of juvenile panic. He broadened his smile until it dimpled on either side, buying himself some time to think. Technically, he’d been paying attention. He just hadn’t been listening to what she was saying. But he was getting better at covering his mistakes. He rolled the dice and gambled that he could fake his way through this.
“I agree with you.”
His answer earned a few snickers from his classmates.
Dr. Livesay shushed them with an upraised hand. Oh, great. What had he just agreed to?
She stepped closer, moving her hand from the small of her back to the curve of her belly. “You think training in classical music and the arts is a way to help young, displaced teens stay away from gangs?”
Josh shifted in his chair, straightening from his slouch. Lady Luck was with him today. He could do more than catch up with the discussion. He took the topic and ran with it.
“Sure. If the arts is something that interests him or her, that’s the way to go. For others it’s sports.” Like the group of teens he volunteered with at his neighborhood youth center. “Some do well helping out younger kids as a mentor or tutor. They like that sense of responsibility.” He braced his elbows on the tiny piece of Formica that passed for a desk and leaned forward. She’d touched on an issue near and dear to his heart. One that had put him in this seat in her classroom in the first place. “There’s no one way to reach every kid. But something clicks with each of them. It’s a matter of finding the time and the patience and the funding to discover and supply that thing that clicks.”
He began to move his hands in the same fluid way she had. “If they have nothing to live for or work toward, then the gangs and the drugs are there waiting for them. They all want to connect with something positive. Unfortunately, the trouble is usually easier to find.”
Too easy, he thought, remembering his other life. The life before this one. The one in which one teenage boy could lie lifeless in his arms and another could damn him for saving his sorry hide. Such a waste. He clenched his gesturing hand into a fist and silently consumed his anger. The grim memories threatened to steal his ability to even fake a smile.
Such a waste.
A smattering of applause and a couple of appreciative whistles gave Josh the opportunity to look around the room. He nodded at the blond girl sitting two desks over. Kelly, he thought she’d said. Nine years younger than he, though she seemed to think he was eligible material—judging by the hooded sweep of her bright-blue eyes. Josh grinned and she giggled.
He looked beyond her, at the end of the aisle, two rows back. Joey King. A long-haired loner who wore his thick nylon parka to class every day.
To Josh’s left, he glanced at David Brown, king of the class, surrounded by two thick-necked jocks, a nerdy-looking accounting major and a changing variety of pretty girls. Today there was a redhead. On Friday, his conquest had been a brunette.
Behind him, probably dozing in the top row, he’d find Larry, Moe and Curly. Okay, so he knew they were really Nathan, Rod and Isaac. But the nicknames fit them only too well.
He was watching them all. Slowly but surely getting to know each student. There were others in the class. He recognized every face. Knew them each by name. But those were the ones he wanted to know better.
One of them he wanted to get to know better than he knew himself.
Because one of them could lead him to a killer.
But not today.
Today he’d do well to keep his cover intact.
“I don’t think I can top that speech.”
