Now That You're Here. Lynnette Kent

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      “I made a phone call. The music did the rest.”

      She glanced at him, moved a step closer. “You must know some very influential people in the recording business.”

      Easing back, he shrugged. “I played drums for a year or so with a band that wasn’t very good. After we broke up, one of the guys went back to the family business…which happens to be producing and recording. I let him know when something sounds good, he comes out from L.A. and we have a few drinks together while he listens. Not a big deal.”

      The band moved into a slow number, showcasing the piano’s heavy chords and the sax’s sweet wail. Two couples at a nearby table got up to dance. Emma stirred, swayed slightly to the beat.

      No. Jimmy threw himself a mental punch. The last thing you want to do is dance. Get a drink, tell a joke. Just walk off.

      But he found himself looking at her when she turned his way. “Want to dance, Emma?” As soon as the words were out, he cursed himself for a fool.

      She stared at him with caution in her eyes. Damned if he did or if he didn’t at this point, Jimmy grinned. “No strings. Just a friendly employer-employee conference…out on the floor.”

      “Will it bother your hip?”

      He took her hand and pulled her with him onto the small parquet square in front of the stage. “No.” Only a minor lie. He could handle anything from Emma Garrett except pity. “Let’s dance.”

      Graceful they weren’t. His stiff hip threw their rhythm off. After one brush with Emma’s knees and thighs and breasts, Jimmy kept air between their bodies. His reaction to her softness was an echo of urges twenty years past.

      And yet…completely in the present. Emma at eighteen had been a tall, thin, pale-skinned girl with unruly red hair, totally different from anyone he’d ever known. That uniqueness alone had been fascinating.

      Emma at thirty-eight was a full-bodied temptress whose creamy skin and gold-red hair glowed, even under the harsh fluorescent lights in the kitchen. He’d met enough women in the past twenty years to make comparisons—she was still unique. And still fascinating.

      Holding her away from him allowed them to talk. Jimmy went with the flow of his thoughts. “So what’s happened to you in two decades, Emma? You got your degree. And then?”

      “Another degree. And another. Academic life is addictive.”

      “If you say so.” High school had been more than he could take, though he’d stayed in long enough to graduate. Because Emma had wanted him to. “What’d you study?”

      “History—British colonial history, actually, with an emphasis on relations between the Crown and the indigenous peoples of America.”

      “Indians, you mean?” He grinned at her raised eyebrow. “I don’t have to be politically correct. You said you taught college. In England?”

      “At Cambridge, yes, then Edinburgh and Toronto. I spent two years at Harvard on a fellowship.”

      That hit him in the chest. “I’ve got a Harvard professor cooking in my kitchen?”

      She looked away, toward the band. “An ex-professor.” Her freckles darkened over a sweet rose blush. “I…um…was sacked about six months ago. Dismissed.” The rose deepened to a splotched red.

      His mind took a second to catch up. “You mean fired?” Emma nodded. “Why?”

      With a soft glissando on the piano, the music ended. The bandleader said good-night, and the couples around them began to leave. Emma stepped back, needing to get away. Needing to avoid Jimmy’s very reasonable, completely unanswerable question.

      He kept hold of her arms, drawing her close again. “Why did you get fired, Emma? Too many parties? You couldn’t get up in time for your eight-o’clock classes?”

      Without looking at him, she pushed against his chest, against the solid muscles under a deceptively soft black shirt. His hands retained their strong grip on her elbows.

      “I wrote a paper,” she said softly, desperately. “Had it accepted for publication in a major journal, was getting ready to be promoted to department head at an exclusive New England school. Just before I was to present the findings at a conference, the truth came out.”

      “Truth?”

      “The central conclusions of my paper, the most important parts of the entire project, were based on a recently recovered set of letters, written from the colonies to England in the eighteenth century. I’d been reading for information about native cooperation with the English, but I discovered a remarkable peripheral thread.”

      “Yeah?”

      “The letters revealed a traitor on the English military staff during the French and Indian war. The spy kept the opposing armies apprised of the movements of English troops. The fact that he was connected to some very highly placed figures in the governments of England and France widened the conspiracy. Or so I thought. The truly vital letters were found to be…to be…” She dragged in a breath. “Forged.”

      After a few moments of silence, Jimmy’s hands softened. “Who did it?”

      She threw her head back to stare at him. “The presumption is that I did, of course.”

      His grin was cynical, knowing. “Sure. But who really did the forging?”

      Now she couldn’t look at him at all. “That’s the truly pitiful part. The forgery was discovered by Eric Jeffries, my…my colleague on th-the project. And…” Her voice did not want to work. “And my fiancé.”

      Jimmy muttered something under his breath.

      When she pulled this time, he let her go. “It doesn’t really matter who forged the letters. As a historian, I should have been certain of the evidence and its provenance. I didn’t check deeply enough, and for that mistake alone I deserved to lose my post.”

      He followed her into the kitchen. “Everybody makes a mistake once in a while. Some of us make more than one.”

      Emma stood at the sink, staring down at the marred stainless steel. “Better not to do it when there is…are people standing at your shoulder, ready to take your place. I doubt I’ll ever be accepted as a serious historian again.”

      “You think Jeffries planted the letters? So he could get the glory?”

      “I…yes.”

      Jimmy’s warm hands closed on her shoulders and turned her around. Unwillingly she looked into his lean dark face, into eyes as black as the night sky over the desert.

      “You might have lost one round, Emma.” His thumbs stroked across her collarbones just above the neck of her shirt. “But you’re not a loser. Give yourself some time. You’ll be back where you belong.”

      The touch of his skin, light as it was, set her to trembling. Emma looked at his mouth, remembered his flavor as if they’d kissed only yesterday. Did he still taste the same?

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