In the Midnight Hour (40 page)

Okay, very attractive.

But it wasn’t just the way he looked that had changed. It was everything about him. His walk, the swagger of his hips as he moved in front of the blackboard to write the day’s lesson plan. His movements—the way he held the chalk, shifted his weight. He had a certain confidence, an air of control. Just like …

Impossible
. The wishful, desperate thinking of a heartbroken woman. She shook away the strange thoughts and focused on the blackboard.

“All right!” The cheers went up as Guidry printed in nice, neat letters:
CLASS DISMISSED
! The chalk hit the tray and he dusted off his hands while a buzz went through the lecture hall. Chairs creaked as everyone rushed to clear out before he changed his mind.

“Term papers,” he called out, his voice a bit deeper than usual. With a strange, throaty accent …

Ridiculous. She shook away her damning thoughts and watched the mountain of papers slowly bury his desk. Adding hers to the stack, she hefted her book bag onto her shoulder and turned to leave.

“Miss Parrish. If you’ll grant me a moment, I would like to speak with you.”

Grant me a moment?

The strange phrasing echoed through her head, quickly fading in a wave of dread as he motioned her into a desk near the podium and picked her paper out of the stack.

“I have been waiting a long time for this.”

For the chance to fail her, and she had no doubt he would once he read the very detailed account of Madame X, a woman looking for fulfillment, who found it not in erotic loveplay, but in the deep emotion she felt for a certain man, the longing, the devotion, the love.… Guidry saw everything in scientific, black-and-white, emotionless terms. He would surely laugh at her romantic portrayal of sexual fulfillment—that there is none without love. Love is the last and final step. The ultimate.

A surefire ticket to an F.

Ronnie braced herself as Guidry scanned her paper. Minutes ticked by as he read. Her stomach jumped, but she took deep breaths and fixed her attention on a tiny crack in the desk. She traced it from corner to corner and back before he finally finished. Pages rustled as he put the papers back in order and marked something in red in the top corner.

“What happened to Madame X?” he murmured as he laid the paper on the desk. “There’s no mention of her anywhere here. Wasn’t she your subject?”

“How do you know about Madame X …?” Her words faded as her attention shot to the A+ scribbled on her paper. Her head snapped up and her gaze collided with his.

“I know her … personally. Intimately.” Bright blue eyes twinkled back at her and a smile that was pure charm—pure Val—stopped her broken heart and started the pieces to mend. “I’ve missed you,
Rouqum
.”

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “It
is
you.
You
.” The knowledge sank in, filling her with a warmth that seeped through her body and salved the hurt. “But how?” Even as the question passed her lips, she already knew the answer.

Guidry hadn’t suffered just a concussion. He’d passed on, and somehow, someway, Val had inherited his body.

“I was wronged,
chérie
,” Val explained, “murdered before my time, robbed of so many years. Fate gave me a second chance with your Professor Guidry, here.”

“It really is you.” She reached out, her fingertips trailing over the small bandage at his temple, the curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose. Guidry’s, and yet, when she tried to picture the professor, she didn’t see the man who stood before her. This man with his charming smile and flashing blue eyes was Valentine Tremaine.

“Being a brunet will take some getting used to. I had quite a fright when I woke up in the hospital after sleeping for over twenty-four hours. I took one look in the mirror, let loose a howl, and the nurses came running.” He cupped her face in his warm hands. “I wanted to run straight to you,
chérie
, to tell you, but I couldn’t. The hospital didn’t release me until the doctor gave his approval late yesterday, and I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours trying to adjust to a new body, a new life. I’m no longer Valentine Tremaine.” When she started to shake her head, he added, “I am. Inside where it counts, but it’s the outside that’s giving me a great deal of trouble. Outside, I am Professor Mark Guidry, only child of Doris and John Guidry, both deceased. I’ve got atrocious taste in clothes and I drive the most revolting automobile, a subject we won’t even go into, since I have never driven anything faster than a carriage and the Volvo’s front end is now proof.”

“You had a wreck?”

“On my way home from the hospital, but I’m fine.” I grinned. “More than fine. I’m alive, with a second chance at life, love, children.”

Hope blossomed inside her as the reality of what he was saying hit her. “You mean …?”

“I’ve got a splitting headache, but otherwise, everything else is in perfect working order, or so the doctor assured me. But I am most anxious to put this new body to the test What do you say,
chérie?
Will you help me? Love me? Marry me?”

“Yes, yes, and
yes!
” She threw herself into his arms a held tight. Ronnie wasn’t letting him go ever again.

“You know,” she told him after a long, lingering kiss that curled her toes and melted her insides and made her think of babies. Lots and lots of babies. Maybe even a pair of her very own Hades twins. “There just may be justice in the world, after all.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I can’t think of a better profession for a legendary lover than professor of human sexuality.”

“Neither can I,
mon coeur
. Neither can I.”

Epilogue

“Your friend Danny is awfully cute,” the woman sitting next to Ronnie, an acquaintance from one of her business classes, told her as they watched Danny skirt the bleachers in the Cajun Dome, wave to Ronnie, then sit down next to Delta and Cassius Gibbons, who also smiled and waved.

“I’m having a get-together at my place after graduation. He’ll be there,” Ronnie told the woman. She thought briefly about talking Danny up, mentioning his major and his earning potential as he’d done so many times to her about his friends. But the thing was, he didn’t need it. The woman was interested regardless. A lot of women were interested, and Danny Boudreaux was now having the time of his life. “Why don’t you stop by?” she asked.

The brunette smiled, “I’d love to.”

Ronnie caught Danny’s gaze and gave him a thumbs-up sign as she waited for the dean of the business college to call her name. Her gaze shifted to a nearby row of bleachers where Val sat between her parents and Jenny.

A camera flashed as her mother snapped a picture and beamed. Her father didn’t look as happy. Still, he’d come of his own free will and when she’d hugged him earlier, he’d actually hugged her back for a brief, sweet moment.

Another camera flashed as Jenny snapped a shot, waved wildly, then lowered herself back to her seat, a hand placed protectively on her slightly rounded stomach.

Through the thin black graduation gown, Ronnie felt her own tummy, still flat and soft. But not for long. A grin tugged at her lips. While she didn’t know for sure, she had a feeling, and if there was one thing Valentine Tremaine had taught her, it was to trust her feelings.

She glanced up and caught Val’s gaze, felt the heat of his blue eyes, the love communicated in them, and she said another silent thank you to the Powers That Be for giving him a second chance. For giving them both one.

“Veronica Parrish Guidry,” the dean called out, and Ronnie took her turn walking across the stage, toward the rest of her life. Filled with a career and a husband and a family, and pure bliss.

Who said a woman couldn’t have it all?

“… so we’re thinking about Jackson for a boy and Felice for a girl,” Jenny told Veronica’s mother before her attention shifted back to the stage. “Doesn’t Ronnie look great?” She nudged Veronica’s father, who muttered a grudging agreement.

But great didn’t begin to describe the woman who smiled up at Val from a sea of faces, the woman who stood out and held his eye with a bewitching intensity so he saw no other but her. She was beautiful, exquisite, everything a woman should be and so much more, and he was completely, utterly, hopelessly in love with her.

There was just something about the softness of her skin, the shine of her hair, the warm musky scent that was hers and hers alone, the way she walked and talked and smiled and did other, more
relevant
things.

Ah, yes. This woman. His woman.

She came in only one size and shape; medium height with a delectable bosom not too small, not too large. She was his redheaded temptress, his golden-eyed siren. She could be shy as a summer shower and bold as a clap of thunder, and Val adored her regardless.
Because
.

Yes, Val loved this woman,
his
woman, his wife, and she loved him. And the future looked very bright indeed!

Bestselling author Kimberly Raye started her first novel in high school and has been writing ever since. To date, she’s published more than fifty-eight novels, two of them prestigious RITA Award nominees. She’s also been nominated by Romantic Times BOOK reviews for several Reviewer’s Choice awards, as well as a career achievement award. Her books have been featured in numerous magazines, including Cosmo and Better Homes and Garden. Most recently, her DEAD END DATING series for Ballantine Books was optioned by Disney for a television pilot. Kim is currently writing steamy contemporary reads for Harlequin’s Blaze line. She lives deep in the heart of the Texas Hill Country with her husband and their young children. She’s an avid reader who loves Diet Dr. Pepper, Twitter, chocolate, and alpha males. Kim also loves to hear from readers. You can visit her online at
www.kimberlyraye.com
.