The Prophecy (Daughters of the People Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Does everybody
know about the two hubba thing?” James asked.

“Probably.”

“But it’ll blow
over, right?”

“Eventually, if
you’re lucky.” Maya bit back a grin and tapped the notes tacked to the corkboard,
then turned toward her own office. “You have bigger problems right now and I’m
late for my own office hours. We can set a schedule for lab work tomorrow, if
you like.”

“Sure. How’s
Thursday sound?”

She turned back
to him, puzzled. “For what?”

“Supper.”

Maya paused and
really looked at him. “You’re serious.”

“Is that so hard
to believe?”

She shook her
head. “I’ll think about it.”

His smile was
slow and sexy, as if he knew thoughts of him had already kept her up at night.

Damn him.

She turned on
her heel and left, ignoring the skip in her heartbeat and the charming man
watching her walk away.

* * *

James called
Amelia the next night. He’d spent his first afternoon at the IECS setting his
office up and familiarizing himself with the campus. True to her word, Maya had
stopped by earlier that morning and scheduled lab time with him. Apparently,
Linear A was a hobby of hers. She’d been trying to crack it for years.

James snorted.
So had every other language geek in the world, including himself.

The phone rang
three times before Amelia picked up. She squealed when she heard his voice,
then chatted with him about shopping, boys, Linda, boys, summer camp, and boys,
in that order.

For some reason,
Dierdre’s face popped into his head.

After the fourth
time she mentioned a boy named Mark, James interrupted, purely for her own good
and not because he already wanted to strangle the young man his precious baby
apparently had a crush on. “Has your mom bought your plane ticket yet?”

“Geez, Dad, no.
I did that with the credit card you gave me.”

“Ah.” He made a
mental note to have somebody pick up his mail and forward it to him, now that
he had an address, so he could pay the credit card off when the bill came in. Because
he knew he’d forget, he searched through his briefcase for a scrap piece of
paper and a pen. “You’re going to love it here. I’ve got a suite with a spare
bedroom and there’s a school on campus with lots of kids your age.”

He hesitated for
a moment, unsure whether or not to mention Maya, and decided
why not
.
Amelia had to know that he and Linda would eventually begin dating again. “The
woman I’m working with. Maya? She has a daughter around your age. You’re
invited to go camping with her when you come down.”

“Oh?” Amelia’s
voice was as carefully casual as his own. He could picture her winding a strand
of hair around one finger, a habit she’d developed as a child. “What’s she
like?”

“Dierdre?”

“No, Maya.”

“Ah, well.” He
searched for something innocuous to say, sure his thirteen-year-old daughter
wouldn’t want to hear how compelling and sexy he found Maya, and that he spent
entirely too much time daydreaming about kissing her. “She’s pretty and smart.”

Amelia’s sigh
distorted the phone’s signal. “So’s Mom.”

James winced.
“Er, yes, she is.”

Please don’t ask
why we divorced if I still think she’s pretty and smart, he thought.

The phone gods
had mercy on him, or maybe Amelia didn’t want to talk about that either. “What
about Dierdre? Is she, like, cool or what?”

James exhaled a
relieved sigh and sent a silent thank you to the god of phone conversations.
“I’ve only met her once, but she seems nice. She’s in summer school here taking
martial arts and horseback riding. She mentioned taking you to the mall.”

“The Mall of
Georgia? That’s, like, the biggest mall in the South.”

Imaginary credit
card bills danced through his mind. He grimaced and rubbed a hand over his
eyes. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to go yet. There’s a picnic on Labor Day
and fireworks and an awful lot of interesting things to do around here.”

“Dad, the Mall
of Georgia is a historical landmark or something. Just think of what an
enriching experience it would be to go there.”

“Har.”

“Please?”

“We’ll see,” he
promised.

A knock came at
the door and he rolled his eyes, hoping it wasn’t another student dropping by
to meet him or a teacher needing advice on curriculum planning. After the third
interruption the day before, he’d finally done as Maya suggested and posted
office hours on the corkboard outside his office door. The knocks petered off,
but when he left for lunch, his corkboard had been covered with notes.

He opened the
suite’s door. Three men of various ages and builds stood in the hallway, all
strangers. He held up a finger, then pushed the door nearly shut.

“Amelia, I have
to go now. Somebody’s at the door.”

“Sure, Dad.
You’re just trying to avoid the mall talk.”

“No, I promise.
We’ll talk about that later, ok?”

“Ok. Call soon!”

“I will. Love
you.”

“Love you, too,
Dad.”

He hung up and
opened the door. The men were looking at each other, their expressions puzzled.
One gestured to the phone. “Wife?”

“Ah, no,” James
said. “Daughter. Why?”

The men grinned
and high-fived each other. One, a burly young man in his mid-twenties with wide
shoulders and sandy blond hair, said, “Tom’s got a hypothesis. Long story. I’m
Phil Walters, this is Tom Fairfax.” Phil pointed to a tall, lanky man with a touch
of gray in his dark hair. “And that’s George Howe.” George was a stocky young
man with a slight pooch and stylishly cut golden hair. “We’re the other three
visiting professors.”

He shook each
man’s hand in turn. He’d known there were other visitors, just not who. “James
Terhune.”

“We know,” said
George. “You’re the talk of the campus.”

“Two hubbas.”
Tom shook his head. “Dani only gave me a one point seven five.”

James leaned a
shoulder on the doorframe. “You know Dani?”

Phil crossed his
arms and rocked back on his heels. “Who doesn’t? It’s a small community. You’ll
find that out soon enough.”

Tom hitched a
thumb over his shoulder. “We’re going out to The Omega, a local sports bar. Thought
you might like to tag along.”

“Sure.” James
patted his pockets. Crap. He still had on his office clothes. He motioned for
the men to enter and shut the door behind them. “Sorry about the mess. I’m
still getting settled in. I, ah, need to change. Be just a minute.”

The men wandered
around the suite, chatting amiably. James changed into jeans and a t-shirt
emblazoned with a UConn basketball logo, then followed the men outside to
Phil’s car.

* * *

The Omega was
located a short ten minute drive away in Tellowee’s tiny downtown business
district. It was crowded for a Wednesday night and seemed to be less of a
sports bar than a local watering hole, judging by the large age range of the
people wandering around the interior. The staring guard from his first night
was in one corner, playing darts with an older man James didn’t recognize. A
group crowded around the bar, fixated on the baseball game showing on a large
flat screen TV mounted to the wall. Several bar-height tables with high-backed
stools took up the middle space, while a small stage with a dance floor in
front of it occupied a large space in another corner.

Through a large,
arched doorway, James spied pool tables. Several women clustered around one,
watching silently as a young woman with a very fine rear bent over to make a
shot. She stood and turned, and recognition hit. Maya. He rocked onto the balls
of his feet and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Suddenly, the evening looked
a lot more promising.

James followed
George to an empty table away from most of the crowd while Phil and Tom made
the rounds, greeting people they knew, just about everybody as far as James
could tell. He took a seat where he had a clear view of Maya’s game. As if she
could feel her eyes on him, she glanced around and raised an eyebrow, and he
grinned. Yup, very promising.

When all four of
the men were settled at the table, a waitress came by and took their drink
orders, smiling flirtatiously with the other three men.

As soon as she
whirled away, James said, “Is it just me or did the waitress give me the cold
shoulder?”

Phil barked out
a laugh. “Word is, you’re as good as taken, my friend. The women here don’t
poach, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I really
don’t.”

“Oh, come on,”
George said, his expression as skeptical as the tone of his voice. “Don’t tell
me you’re not in a relationship with Dr. Bellegarde.”

The waitress came
back and set their drinks on the table in front of them. She was friendly to
James, but no more than that. He took in the men’s knowing glances and a light
went off in his head. Dierdre and her two hubbas.

The waitress
whirled away again, her tray held high. James focused on the three men staring
at him with thinly disguised curiosity. “I barely know her.”

Tom waggled his
eyebrows. “But you’d like to, right?”

“She’s a beautiful
woman.”

“Understatement,”
Tom said.

Phil tilted his
bottle of beer toward the crowd. “Here’s to the beautiful women of Tellowee,
Georgia.”

George raised
his glass of coke. “I’ll second that.”

James clinked
his beer against the other men’s drinks. “Speaking of, what’s with all the
women? Everywhere I turn, there’s another young, athletic female. It’s kinda
weird.”

“Ah.” Tom leaned
back and scratched his lean torso. “You’ve noticed the low male-to-female
ratio.”

“Here it comes,”
George muttered into his glass.

Tom ignored him.
“But you’ve not been here long enough to notice that most of the younger men
seem to be relatives.”

“Can’t say that
I have,” James confirmed.

“And most of the
older men are married,” Phil added.

George’s pudgy
face sagged. He glanced toward one corner of the bar. “Regrettably.”

James followed
George’s gaze toward where the staring guard and the older man were playing
darts. He really needed to learn her name. “She doesn’t look old enough to be
married.”

“She’s not,”
Phil said. “That’s her step-father.”

George’s round
shoulders slumped. “He’s got a shotgun and he’s not afraid to use it.”

Tom leaned close
to James and muttered, “George found that out the hard way.”

“No shots were
fired,” George said, “but I got the picture.”

James reassessed
the couple playing darts. “I don’t know. She looks like she can take care of
herself.”

Phil snickered.
“George found that out the hard way, too.”

“If one of ‘em
offers to teach you a little hand to hand, don’t do it,” Tom offered. “Fight
like wildcats.”

“Skilled
wildcats,” Phil said. “But man, oh, man, what a sight.”

“Gotcha.” James
filed the advice away in the corner of his mind. Truth be told, he wouldn’t
mind Maya putting her hands all over him, hand to hand combat or not. He
glanced casually at the pool table and caught her watching him. He saluted her
with his beer and she nodded back.

Phil glanced
around, saw Maya, and turned back to the table with a low whistle. “You sure
you’re not seeing her? ‘Cause the look she just gave you was
scorchin’
.”

“There was a
definite heat factor,” George said.

Tom’s thin lips
twitched. “Or a
hawt
factor.”

James sank lower
in his chair.

Phil’s mouth
stretched into a knowing grin. “Yeah, we heard about that, too.”

“Jesus. Does
anybody here do anything but gossip?”

“Sure.” Tom
pointed to George, then Phil. “Shorty there is a genius with genetics, Phil’s
doing his doctoral dissertation. Don’t ask or you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Hey, now,” Phil
said.

Tom waved away
the protest. “And I’m working with the Archives to upgrade their procedures for
storage and conservation. We all work hard.”

George raised
his glass. “That we do.”

“But at the end
of the day, we’re visitors to a very small, tight-knit community. Everybody
here’s curious, so we’ve gotten to know a lot of the permanent staff, the
locals, hell, even the school kids.”

“And a lot of
that community consists of good-looking, eligible women,” Phil added.

Tom leaned back
in his chair. “Which brings me back to my hypothesis. It’s a definite
possibility that with the shortage of eligible men around here…”