Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead (3 page)

The pictures he’d drawn were all too vivid. She winced. “You’ve
made your point.”

“Good.”

“Back to you,” she said hastily. “Didn’t your dad try to talk
you into going to Wakefield?”

“Sure he did.” He contemplated his beer, the set of his mouth
wry. “I told him I’d rather go to a community college in North Dakota. Why would
I want to stay in the most boring town in America? I wanted excitement. I wanted
to
live
a little.”

Madison chuckled. “Did he understand?”

“Yeah, I think he actually did, which didn’t mean he wasn’t
disappointed.” His face had relaxed. “You get the family pressure, too?”

“My father simply
assumed
I’d be
going to Wakefield. There was never even any discussion. It never occurred to me
to dig in my heels.” She rarely admitted as much to anyone. She was embarrassed
to have been so docile and ashamed when she wondered whether she would still
be.

“A good girl who drives too fast,” Troy mused. He took a
swallow of his beer, his eyes never leaving hers.

“That was a long time ago. I was seventeen when I sent my
application to Wakefield.”
Excuses, excuses.

“Would you tell Daddy, ‘Hell no,’ now?”

“The trouble is, I had a fabulous time during my four years
here. Look at me.” She spread out her arms. She’d worn a snug-fitting,
jewel-necked Wakefield College T tonight. “I loved it so much, I came racing
back as soon as there was a suitable job opening.”

“Yeah, I guess that was an unfair question.” He smiled, his
eyes lingering on the words
Wakefield College
—or
perhaps on her breasts, outlined by the forest-green cotton knit. He looked up,
the smile having become crooked. “Truth is, I was thinking just today that I’m a
little sorry I didn’t stay here for my four years. I had an okay education, but
it might not have been the equal of what I’d have gotten here. I went to UW,” he
told her, “and for an undergrad it’s a completely different experience than a
student gets at a small school.” He grinned. “Dad might have been smarter to
sneer at the idea of me applying to Wakefield. Tell me I couldn’t get in. Or
that I belonged at a state school.”

“A little reverse psychology.”

He laughed. “Teenagers are dumb enough for it to work.”

“True enough.” She couldn’t remember smiling so much, or
feeling such a fizz that never subsided. “You notice I don’t work in Admissions.
I work with adults.”

“I noticed today how young the students look. Maybe we see
ourselves as eternally young, but I couldn’t help realizing I’m not as young as
I used to be.”

He looked so disconcerted, she couldn’t help laughing at him.
“Kind of like finding your first gray hair?”

“Something like that.”

His lips were clean-cut, not too full or too thin. They were
more expressive than his eyes. It was hard not to look at his mouth and imagine
how it would feel covering hers.

Hoping he hadn’t noticed she was staring, she took a hasty sip.
“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two. You?”

“Thirty-one.”

Their meals came, a curry chicken crepe for her, a burger with
bleu cheese for him. Conversation never lagged as they ate. She told him about
grad school at Duke, about her first jobs in college administration.

“I had a student job in Admissions here at Wakefield,” she
said, remembering. “I loved every minute of it. I didn’t realize I’d already
decided what I wanted to do with my life by the time I graduated, but I had. I
started out at Carleton College in Minnesota in Financial Aid. I was so cold all
winter, I started job hunting by spring. After that I worked in Admissions at a
small college in Northern California then moved into Development. Begging for
donations wasn’t quite my thing either, but I was getting warmer.”

His lips quirked. “In more ways than one.”

“No kidding. When I saw the opening here, I knew it was
perfect.” She leaned forward. “I love the idea of helping alumni feel
connected—of giving them opportunities, either here or close to home, to immerse
themselves in the kind of intense educational experience they knew at Wakefield.
And, yes, to help the college by ensuring those same alumni maintain a financial
commitment.”

He nodded as if unsurprised, at which she was able to relax a
little, relieved he hadn’t made a joke out of her passion. She hadn’t intended
to speak so strongly.

Madison made an attempt to prod him into talking about why he’d
gone into law enforcement. “Is it a family thing?”

“As in, my dad, a cop?” He laughed. “Not a chance. He was a
banker. He actually grew up on a wheat farm outside town. His father was
disappointed he didn’t want to take over the farm. Like with a lot of the other
wheat farms around here, times got tougher and eventually the land was
sold.”

“Is it growing grapes now?”

“Yep. It’s part of the Frenchman Lake Vineyard & Winery. It
feels strange to drive by. I’ll think ‘Grandma and Grandad’s place is right
around this bend,’ only it’s not. Yeah, the house is still there, but nothing
looks the same.” He shrugged. “Even Grandad eventually admitted that Dad was
smart to find another way to make a living.”

“Did Dad ever decide
you
were smart
to do something else?”

His lashes veiled his eyes. “He never put it quite that way,
but he claimed to be proud of me. He and Mom were a lot happier when I left the
Seattle P.D. for Frenchman Lake, though. Not only because I’d be close to
them.”

“Because they thought you’d be safer,” she said gently.

“Parents.”

“If you had kids, would you want them to follow in your
footsteps?”

He frowned, and she saw that he was taking her question
seriously. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I tend to feel pretty protective of
anyone I care about. That might be a struggle for me.”

She almost hesitated to ask again. Maybe he didn’t want to tell
her why he’d become a cop. Or maybe she wouldn’t like his answer. He could like
the power trip, having the right to swagger around carrying a gun. Or what if he
was an adrenaline junkie?

Well, it couldn’t be that, or he wouldn’t have quit his
big-city job to come home to small-town policing, would he?

He was definitely hesitating about telling her, though. He set
down his burger at last and leaned back in his chair. “It was something that
happened when I was at the UW. I saw a homeless guy get beaten to death.”

She made an involuntary sound.

“I was walking home from a party late one night. I’d had a
couple of beers, but I didn’t have more than a buzz. I’m not much of a drinker,”
he said matter-of-factly.

Madison nodded. She’d noticed how he was nursing the one beer
along.

“I saw this flurry of motion up ahead, maybe a block and a half
away. At first I was only curious. I was within a block when I got a bad
feeling. I started walking faster. I saw a couple of guys kicking something in
the doorway of a closed business down the street. Next thing I knew I was
running.” Tension imbued his voice. “They saw me coming and took off. I might
have caught them if I’d kept after them, but I stopped to see what that was in
the recessed doorway.”

“And he was already dead.”

“Yeah. Jesus. It was sickening. I was naive as hell, but even I
knew it was too late to try to resuscitate him. I called 911 and waited for the
cops.”

“Did they ever make an arrest?”

His mouth twisted. “No. That upset me.” Clearly an
understatement. “It sort of ate at me. Eventually I decided
I
could have caught the sons of bitches. I went straight to the
police academy after graduation.”

“What did you major in?” Madison asked, her curiosity
irresistible.

The question seemed to erase his dark mood. He reached for his
burger again. “Guess.”

“Hmm.” She mulled over the possibilities, studying him.
“Psychology.”

“Not even close.”

Her eyes widened. “English?”

That earned her a bark of laughter. “Not a chance.”

“Biology.” Head shake. “German.” A laugh. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.
Computer Science. Horticulture. Political Science.” More head shakes and a whole
lot of amusement. She threw up her hands. “I give up.”

“Art.”

She was the one to laugh this time. “Were you serious? Or was
it part of your rebellious phase?”

“Oh, probably a little of one, a little of the other. Dad
couldn’t say much, though. After all, he was an English major. What’s more
useless than that?”

“Not much, if you look at it in practical terms.”

His gaze sharpened. “Don’t tell me you were an English
major.”

“No, Psych. I envisioned myself doing counseling, except I
never seriously pursued that route.” She frowned. “Wait. You’re not off the
hook. Tell me about you as an artist.”

He grimaced. “There’s not much to tell. I wasn’t going to take
the art world by storm. I do still work with clay, mostly as a hobby. I have a
wheel and kiln in my garage. It’s how I relax.”

“That’s fascinating. What do you do with your pieces?”

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Mostly, give ’em away.
These days, I’m selling some. I’m not doing anything artsy. I do vases and
bowls, plates.” He shifted under her stare. “Lately I’ve been experimenting with
teapots.”

“Teapots.”

“I don’t like the way you say that.”

Madison laughed. “I was expressing astonishment. It’s the
dichotomy. Tough cop who goes home and glazes a teapot.”

He scowled. “This is why I don’t tell people.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said honestly. “It makes me like
you even better than I already did.”

After a minute, one corner of his mouth lifted. “Then I’m good
with having told you.”

“Did I mention that I don’t have a single artistic bone in my
body?”

His chuckle was a bass rumble. “No, you didn’t. What do you do
for fun? Or to reduce stress?”

“A lot of days I swim half a mile before I go home. I listen to
music—I love jazz. I can’t carry a tune, though.” She loved his smile. “I cook,
although only when I’m in the mood.”

“I hope you get in the mood one of these nights soon.”

“Once this weekend is over,” she promised. “I should warn you I
don’t eat much meat.”

Troy glanced at his plate. The burger was gone, but he was
still working on the fries. “I’m not exclusively a meat and potatoes guy. It
just sounded good tonight.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty.”

“Wouldn’t have worked if you were. But I’m happy with a
vegetarian meal, too.”

“Good,” she said, pleased.

Eventually the waiter took away their plates. Troy ordered
blueberry cobbler à la mode and asked for a second fork. They split it and kept
talking. It seemed as if there was never a lull in conversation. Madison found
she wanted to know everything about him, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.
She was getting way more tingles than were justified, given that he hadn’t
touched her since laying a hand on her back to steer her to the table. It had to
be anticipation. Every so often she lost track of what he was saying because she
was watching his mouth instead. Or his hands. He had great hands—big, strong,
with long, blunt-tipped fingers. They weren’t hairy like some men’s. She tried
to imagine them shaping clay into a delicate piece like the spout of a teapot,
and then envisioned one wrapping the butt of his gun.

Or touching her. She kept imagining that, too.

Every so often his eyes would narrow or she’d see a flicker of
heat in them. Either he could tell what she was thinking, or he was doing some
imagining of his own. She had the giddy thought that the night felt like
magic.

She couldn’t possibly fall in love this fast, but it felt an
awful lot like a beginning. Or at least it didn’t feel like anything that had
ever happened to her before.

She flushed with the realization that she had no idea what
they’d been talking about and that Troy was watching her with amusement and
something more electric.

“Where’d you just go?” he asked.

“Oh, I...” She could say her mind had wandered and leave it at
that. But she felt unaccustomedly reckless. “I was thinking about you,” she
heard herself say. “How glad I am you were assigned to work with me. We might
never have met otherwise.”

“Unless I pulled you over for speeding.” His voice was a little
gritty. He reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m glad, too.” He
looked around. “I think they’d be glad if we left.”

Madison was shocked to see that the tables around them were
empty. She hadn’t even noticed other people leaving. At the moment, they were
completely alone, although she could still hear voices downstairs. “Oh, no!
We’re lucky they didn’t whisk the tablecloth off while we were still sitting
here.”

Troy laughed, stood up and tugged her to her feet. He kept
pulling until she bumped into him. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all evening,
Madison Laclaire.”

“I have no objection,” she managed to say.

“Good,” he murmured, and bent his head.

She rose on tiptoe to meet him, gripping his shoulders for
balance. Their mouths connected, and it wasn’t the tentative brush of lips she’d
expected. The kind that asked,
do you like this?
and
that she’d answer with a nibble that said,
oh, yes.
This was a full-out, hungry demand. Apparently John Troyer wasn’t a tentative
kind of guy.

Washed away by sensation, Madison discovered she felt
demanding, too. Her fingers dug into the sleek muscles in his shoulders and she
parted her lips to accept the thrust of his tongue. Her knees wanted to buckle.
She leaned against his solid frame and tasted beer, salt and something
distinctly him. His thighs were so strong, his hands powerful but still careful
as he positioned her to suit him. She was melting, too aroused to remember where
they were.