hardly any business of hers and she’d not traveled all the way to Austin to have her focus derailed by a man. Even if he was scrumptious eye candy.
He slammed the trunk shut on her baggage and the sound pushed her out of her musings. She quickly opened her handbag and handed several bills to the valet.
The lanky young man thanked her with an appreciative grin, then hurried off with the empty cart.
Savannah looked at the driver. “I was expecting to catch a taxi to my apartment. This is certainly nice of the university to provide me with a ride. Funny, though. I don’t recall giving anyone the arrival time of my flight.”
“It probably just slipped your mind. I think right now, we’d better be on our way. This parking spot is limited to a few minutes.” He cupped a hand beneath her elbow and escorted her around to the passenger side of the car.
After he’d helped her into the plush bucket seat and joined her in the car, Savannah gave him the address of her new apartment.
“If the address isn’t recognizable to you, I have a navigation map on my phone,” she offered as she snapped the seat belt in place.
He quickly belted himself in and merged the car into the slow moving line of traffic exiting the airport. “Thank you, but my car is equipped with a navigational system. I’m familiar with that particular part of the city anyway.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she told him. “I hope I’ll soon learn my way around. Of course, I need to pick up a car of my own before I start trying to navigate the city streets.”
He glanced in her direction and Savannah found herself looking directly into his brown eyes. The connection rattled her for a brief moment before she purposely turned her attention to the traffic in front of them.
“So you’re not familiar with Austin?” he asked.
His voice was slow, and warm, and just rough enough to cause goose bumps to rise along the back of her arms. Or was that the cold air blowing from the vents on the car dash? Either way, her reaction to the man was making her feel more than foolish.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “No. I’m from New Orleans.”
From the corner of her eye, she could see a faint smile touch his lips. “So that’s where that lilting drawl of yours comes from.”
“And yours doesn’t exactly sound Texan. Are you a native Austinite?”
“No. My family is originally from Florida, but in the past several years most of them, including me, have migrated here to Texas.”
“I see. So you and your family obviously like it here,” she said.
“Very much.”
Savannah sighed as thoughts of her father once again drifted through her mind. Since the day of the family meeting, she’d expected him to be fighting her tooth and nail over this Austin trip. Instead, he’d avoided her completely. Even this morning, before she left the Fortune mansion to catch her flight, she expected him to give her a few parting words of warning. Instead, her mother had informed her that Miles had skipped breakfast to make an early downtown business meeting. So much for worrying about her safety, she thought glumly, much less wishing her good luck.
“Is anything wrong?” her driver asked.
Was her state of mind so transparent that a stranger could read her troubled thoughts? She darted a glance at him.
“No. Everything is fine,” she said. “I’ll just be glad to get to my apartment. I’ve never really cared for flying. Once I’m back on solid ground, I always feel drained.”
“Have you done much of it? Flying, that is.”
From the corner of her eye, she could see his left hand resting comfortably on the steering wheel. There was no sign of a wedding band and the fact that she was even bothering to look caused a tinge of embarrassment to warm her cheeks.
What are you thinking, Savannah? Take a closer gander at this guy. You think he got those muscles from relaxing in a recliner in front of the TV? This man is as far from married as a man can get.
Clearing her throat, she pulled her straying thoughts back to his question. “I’ve flown across the country many times, and overseas. I see it as a necessary evil to get to where I’m going. What about you? Do you travel much?”
“I used to. But not since I’ve moved to Austin. I guess you could say I’ve already gotten to where I’m going.”
She smiled at him. “Hmm. That must be nice. To know that you’re in the right place and exactly where you belong.”
By now, they were traveling a busy highway that led deeper into the city. If Savannah had taken a taxi as she’d originally planned, she would’ve been taking note of her surroundings and the city skyline ahead of them. But Chaz Mendoza’s huge masculine presence was distracting her from seeing Austin clearly for the first time.
“Is that why you’ve come to Texas? To figure out where you belong?”
It was a rather personal question to be posed by a stranger, she thought. Especially one who’d been hired to simply drive her from the airport to her apartment. But to be fair, she hadn’t exactly been discussing the weather with him.
“Not really. I know my roots are in New Orleans. I’m here because I’ve been invited to partake in a study group at the university for a few weeks.”
“That sounds very impressive.”
At least someone thinks so, Savannah thought. “I feel honored to be included. It’s something I’ve been wanting and working toward for a long time.”
“What are you studying?”
“Epidemiology.”
“Sorry, you’ll have to explain that a bit more. I’m not a science person.”
She wanted to ask what kind of person he was, but quickly decided that would be too obvious. The last thing she wanted this man to think was that she was flirting with him. For heaven’s sake, she didn’t flirt with anyone. It wasn’t her nature. Besides, she didn’t have time for such nonsense.
“Don’t feel badly. Most people aren’t familiar with the word. It’s a study of diseases. Why people get them and what we can do to prevent them—as in finding the biggest risk factors. There are different fields to study in epidemiology. For instance how certain diseases affect society and the workplace and the cost of caring for such illnesses.”
“And what field are you focusing on?”
No doubt, he was asking just to make polite conversation, Savannah decided. Most men around her age were turned off by the subject. He might be truly interested if she were discussing quarterbacks in the NFL, or point guards in the NBA, but not medical science.
“I’m concentrating on the branch that studies why people get diseases and certain illnesses and what we can do to prevent them.”
“An admirable profession, I’d say.”
“I
