Sweet Escapes: Romance Story Boxed Set (10 page)

His brow furrowed. “So you're just going to sit here until it’s time to go?”

He looked so horrified by the idea, Abby laughed. “It's working so far.”

Ian suddenly felt bad for talking her into coming tonight. Really bad. He couldn't have known she didn't dance, but he would never have thought she'd hide herself in the corner all evening.

“You sure you don't want to dance?”

Abby nodded, a self-deprecating smile twisting her lips. “Trust me, I'm doing you a favor. If I were to go out on that dance floor, the whole place would clear and you'd probably get a few hundred people laughing at you for picking me as your dancing partner.”

Ian couldn't help but laugh at the image her words evoked. He was about to suggest he take her home when the low, melodic beat of a slow song broke over the speakers. He stood and held his hand out to her.

“Come dance with me.”

She tried to refuse, but he would hear none of it.

“Come on, Abby, it's a slow song. No one can mess those up,” he teased.

“One dance and then I'll take you home,” he promised. “It's getting late anyway and we do have an early flight to catch tomorrow.”

“All right,” she finally agreed. “
One
dance, Professor McQuinlan. I apologize in advance if I kill your toes.”

Ian laughed again. “My toes accept your apology in advance. Now get your butt out of that booth, and let's go.”

She did, grumbling beneath her breath all the way to the center of the dance floor.

Ian grinned and pulled her close … but not
too
close.

She smelled good, he thought. Not like the designer perfumes many of the students wore at University but a more natural scent. Jasmine and gardenia after a hard summer rain, he decided, and leaned closer to inhale the fragrance more deeply. “I'm glad you decided to come tonight, Abby.”

Chapter 2

Abby was quiet on the drive home.

She blamed her silence on being in such close proximity to Ian. It might also have had something to do with the fact she was selfishly reliving those few minutes she'd been in his arms tonight as they'd danced.

She could still smell his cologne and the deeper, darker scent that was all his. It created a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach that put her at ease and made her a bundle of nerves at the same time.

“You okay?”

She snatched her head around so fast, a muscle pulled in the side of her neck. She winced. “Yes,” she said with a grimace, rubbing her neck. “I'm fine.”

Ian slid her a sideways glance that clearly said he wasn't convinced, but he didn't press her for details.

A few minutes later, he pulled up to her apartment complex, killed the engine, and opened his door. “I'll walk you up.”

“I can manage just fine on my own, Professor. I'm a grown woman.”

He gave her a look of male appreciation that said he wholeheartedly agreed with her assessment. “And that's precisely why I'm walking you to your door, Abby. You might not have noticed lately, but you're a very attractive young woman and there are those who would not hesitate to take advantage of that.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, Abby blushed. Her stomach knotted. He found her attractive? The knowledge spread through her like a warm glow.

“Right,” she mumbled. “I wasn't thinking.”

Ian muttered something noncommittal, got out of the car, and walked around to her side where she was already stepping out. He took her hand, and Abby hoped he couldn't feel it tremble.

The walk up to her apartment took less than three minutes, yet it seemed to stretch on forever.

“This is me,” Abby said, pointing at her door the instant they reached it. She couldn't quite make herself lift her head to meet his gaze. “Thanks for taking me along tonight, Professor McQuinlan. I had fun, believe it or not.”

“I'm glad.”

“Well, then, I guess I'll see you tomorrow … .”

He leaned in before she could tell him goodnight, and the feel of his lips brushing softly against hers was such a shock, Abby forgot how to properly react.

He pulled away slightly, letting his fingers brush slowly along her cheek, around the curve of her jaw and down to her chin.

His gaze burned, and then shuttered.

Confused by the sudden all-male interest in his eyes, Abby forgot she was supposed to be going inside.

“Goodnight, Abby,” he said finally and walked away, leaving her there in front of her door, wanting more but hesitant to call him back.

Abby stood there for a long moment, surprise at his unexpected kiss keeping her rooted to the spot. She shook her head to clear her confusion.

The sound of the engine starting up jolted her from her thoughts and she hurriedly dug inside her purse for the key to her apartment, jammed it into the lock, and let herself inside.

Ian McQuinlan had kissed her goodnight.

The realization struck her like a ton of bricks.
Oh, God
. Her archaeology professor, the same professor she'd been crushing on since Fall had
kissed
her. A
real
kiss. A man-woman kiss. Her fingers came up to her lips in wonder. What did it mean?

She was still turning the question over in her mind when her head hit the pillow hours later.

* * *

The hotel conference room where their classroom lectures would be held for the duration of their visit here in Luxor was big and open and there was windows and carpet and a table. Big table.

Abby slid into a chair, her knees still a bit shaky.  She never imagined that she would have such a great opportunity when she enrolled in the Archeology program at Bellworth University.  But here she was, in Egypt, on a school sponsored archeological dig.  It was a dream come true and had cost her almost all of the small sum her mother had left her.

She had breathed a silent prayer of thanks that she'd made it to Egypt alive as soon as her plane touched down, and she was thinking nearly the exact same thing when Professors McQuinlan, Donovan, and Warren made their way to the front of the conference room a few minutes later.

Seated at her immediate left, Laurie nudged her. “Are you feeling okay, Abby? You look … pale.”

“Nerves,” Abby whispered back. “Never been on a plane before. Quite frankly I am astounded to have made it across alive.”

Laurie laughed. “Your first time on a plane?”

At Abby's nod, she promised, “You'll get used to it.”

Abby reserved agreement. If her shaky limbs and knotted stomach were any indication of her getting used to it, air travel would not be her favored mode of transportation for a very long time.

Professor McQuinlan stepped up to the podium at the front of the room and Abby promptly forgot her anxieties about the flight.

“Good afternoon, students. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Professor McQuinlan, from Bellworth University and these are my colleagues, Professor James Donovan and Professor Stella Warren …”

With every word after his introduction, his voice seemed to fade – or maybe it was simply her attention wandering? Abby watched his lips move, remembering the feel of them fleetingly pressed against her own.

Her thoughts on anything but archaeology, her gaze sought his, searching for even a hint of acknowledgment, of remembered attraction, but found none. She noted the sharp, angular plane of his jaw and wondered how it would feel beneath her fingertips.

Eric must have noticed her wandering gaze because he kicked covertly at the legs of her chair, bringing her attention back to the room at large. He nodded toward the woman at the front of the class, then wiggled his eyebrows comically.

Abby quickly took in the woman's physiology, her smart outfit, and bit back a laugh, knowing Eric had probably noticed very little beyond the professor's breasts.

She shook her head, and told herself to pay attention when Professor Warren took Ian's place at the podium and started speaking.

It didn't last long.

Her gaze kept wandering to Ian, who was exchanging quiet words with Professor Donovan.

Despite her inattention, the lecture was soon over, and Abby gathered her meager notes, glancing surreptitiously at Professor Warren from beneath the cover of her bangs.

Her nose crinkled with distaste at the way the older, obviously more experienced woman clung to Ian while he looked over the papers Professor Donovan had handed him before leaving the conference room.

Ian didn't appear to be adverse to her advances either, Abby concluded sullenly. In fact, the two of them looked downright cozy together.

Her ease and familiarity with him made it glaringly apparent to Abby that he and Stella must have been in some form of a relationship once, which meant the two of them had a past. An intimate one, she guessed.

The thought made her feel a bit silly for her preoccupation with Ian. Obviously, the kiss he'd shared with her before their trip meant nothing to him, and so should mean doubly nothing for her.

He was her teacher, for heaven's sake, and she his student. She was here to learn, she reminded herself. Not fawn over Ian like some lovesick schoolgirl.

Chapter 3

Their first morning on-site, Ian watched Abby make her way around the excavation. For long moments, she would simply stop what she was doing, study the area pensively, and then start writing.

Curious, he joined her on the opposite side of the shallow pit.

“Fascinating, isn't it?” he asked, inclining his head toward the three-meter area where the other students were immersed in their work, wielding hand trowels and brushes to carefully unearth bits of history which had lain quietly beneath the sand for ages.

She glanced up from her notes. “It is … ”

“But?” He urged her to continue.

She scribbled a last point in her notebook, closed it, and shook her head. “Can you imagine what their life must have been like?”

Gesturing toward the area the University of Bellworth's archaeology department had been given special permission to excavate, then to the recovered bits of life lived by an ancient civilization seemingly so unlike today, she said, “Truthfully, that is all we can do. Imagine. We make educated guesses by studying artifacts and their positions in relation to each other, but we can never truly know how they really lived.”

Ian watched her eyes as she spoke, finding himself more fascinated by her reaction to life here  and now than any 'educated guesses' he might make about the people who'd lived here in a time long past.

“A mystery waiting to be solved,” he agreed. But he wasn't talking about the dig. His gaze darted to her lips, pale and peach-colored, and he remembered the feel of them beneath his own.

Soft and pliant.

Warm and … he thought he'd much rather be exploring them and various other places on her body than standing here in the baking sun, digging in the sand.

Abby moved to the work tent where row after row of satellite pictures lay arranged in their protective sleeves. “Yes, a mystery – one filled with red herrings and still missing the one essential ingredient needed for a satisfying ending.”

“Ian, can you help?” Professor Warren called from the pit. “There's something here and I can't seem to dislodge it.”

Ian glanced at Stella and the others working below him, a bit surprised to realize his passion for unearthing the secrets of ancient history had paled in comparison with this new-found desire to explore Abby Shaw.

“Your greater, manly strength is needed,” Stella teased.

Seeing no evidence Abby even remembered their kiss, Ian chided himself for dwelling on it. Still, he wondered whether she would be up to repeating the experience, only this time would be a lot less sweet and contain a great deal more fire.

“I'll be right there.”

Stella watched him descend the ladder, her gaze noting how his muscles bunched and gave beneath the cotton of his loose fitting shirt. A spark of remembered passion took her thoughts back to a time when Ian had cared.

Had it really been so long ago?

Now, however, he wasn't interested – at least not in her.

She had seen him talking to the girl with ashe blond hair more than a few times since their arrival, saw the way his eyes followed her everywhere, and felt a quick stab of regret.

Her gaze slid back to the girl, and her eyes narrowed while Ian knelt beside her on the sandy floor and took the trowel from her hand. “Careful, Stella. You have to loosen it more before attempting to pry it free. Otherwise it will break, and be of no use.”

She smiled and swatted playfully at his shoulder, then let her hand linger for a moment against his hard bicep. “We could always patch it up, Ian. Not everything that breaks has to remain broken.”

He ignored the hint in her words, just as she had suspected he would, the same as he had done since their breakup over a year ago. She saw his glance stray back to the girl, and thought something had to be done about his unprofessional fascination with his student.

Her smile became a smirk, a plan already forming in her mind.

* * *

Abby hurried ahead of her classmates to the excavation.

Over the past few days she'd noticed Ian had a habit of working without his shirt when he thought none of them were around, and her fascination with the play of hard muscle under sun-darkened skin fueled her steps this morning.

Reaching the work tent, she slowed her pace, not wanting to alert him to their arrival because as soon as he realized they were there, he would don his shirt and go back to work, depriving her of the view.

Preoccupied with her obsession for watching Ian in various states of undress, she failed to notice Professor Warren ahead of her. She stopped an instant before collision.

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, her focus still mostly on Ian, shirtless and completely oblivious to his audience of admirers. Briefly, she noticed Stella had twisted her sable hair into an intricate knot at her nape and was fanning her face with her hand though the action was wholly ineffective against the heat.