Thoroughly Kissed (3 page)

Except this time. He had gone in knowing that she was going to be an embarrassment to the university, hoping that she would prove him wrong, and then all he had done was stare at her like a lovesick puppy—which was exactly the way all the undergraduate men, including half the football team, were staring at her.

So he had challenged her, and she had actually answered him with something resembling an argument.

Still, he was unimpressed with her analysis and her so-called lecturing skills. Discussing Easter eggs and boar's heads might be fun over beers, but such things had no place in a two hundred–level history course. Those courses were difficult in the first place because the instructor had to cram as much information as possible into a very short semester. To waste time with frivolities like New Year's Resolutions and the Easter bunny was the sign of an undisciplined mind.

He climbed the stairs to his office two at a time, but the movement didn't drive the feeling from his stomach. She was beautiful and he wanted to go back down there and stare at her. He half envied those kids who got to see her every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

She was precisely the kind of woman a man could worship from afar.

***

Emma's hands were shaking as she picked up her books. The gorgeous man from her block had been in her 9:00 a.m. lecture, and she hadn't even noticed him until he stood to leave.

Michael Found. What a horrible, awful coincidence. She would bet that he was born with his name. In her day, very few people had last names—and usually they were descriptive, just like hers was. She had chosen the name Lost a few days after she had woken up in the Computer Age. She had felt it described her then. It didn't describe her nearly as well now, but it was what she was known as, well known, surprisingly enough.

She turned to see a handful of students hovering near the stairs. She suppressed a sigh. Usually she hurried out—she knew that half the boys had crushes on her—but she had forgotten this time. Michael Found—her new boss—had a lot to answer for.

She talked to the students—that was her job after all—reminding them about the readings, refusing offers of coffee, and telling inane anecdotes, all the while walking up the stairs. She had to hurry to get to the sanctity of her office. She didn't have office hours on Monday, and she might get some personal time.

Heaven knew she needed it.

She managed to escape quicker than she expected, and then took the stairs to the cubicle the university let her call home. She unlocked her office, and stepped inside. Her office was small and rectangular. She had decorated it herself with her own furniture—the book had paid for a lot of extras—which meant that she had a Danish modern desk, a thick leather chair, and a comfortable seat for students who needed help.

On the wall behind her desk, she put a Danish modern bookshelf covered with the books she'd assigned for class, as well as extra copies of her own book. On the wall across from her was a large photograph of Portland, Oregon, the city where she had “come to herself” as Aethelstan so euphemistically put it. She used that photo to ground herself and remind her where she had come from.

Her other decorations were her degrees—no one except her Oregon friends knew what a victory those degrees were—and literacy posters. She volunteered for two different literacy organizations and she tutored students who needed extra help. She figured it was the least she could do, considering all the tutoring and special help she had.

She pushed the door closed, flicked on the green desk lamp, and sank into her comfortable leather chair. Then she closed her eyes. When she did, she saw Michael Found. He was even more gorgeous up close—those blue eyes so startling that they seemed to blaze across a room. His voice was deep, rich, and musical, and he had a lovely subtle Midwestern accent.

She wondered if he had seen her reaction to the magic question. He probably had, and he probably thought her a cross and unhelpful teacher.

Unfortunately, that was a question she had no idea how to answer.

Scholars had the magic issue all wrong. First, they started from the premise that magic did not exist. Then they drew their conclusions from there. They believed that all medieval people who believed in magic were pagans—and that was not true—and that all pagans were the same. Actually, it was so much more complicated than she could ever explain. If she had trouble getting her students to believe that New Year's Resolutions were originally a medieval custom brought to the Computer Age, she had no idea how they would take the fact that half the mythical people they studied and a good eighth of the real people were mages just like Aethelstan.

And, if she were honest, like she would be someday. She hadn't come into her magic yet. She had twenty more years before that happened, and she wished it were longer. Men got their magic at the age of twenty-one, but women didn't get theirs until fifty or so. All magic arrived full-blown, so a mage had to learn how to control her magic before it arrived.

Emma had spent so much time studying that she didn't want to apprentice herself to anyone, at least not yet. And besides, the last time she had done that, it had gone badly as well.

Besides, there was plenty of time to deal with the magic before it came. Aethelstan would probably teach her, with Nora acting as referee. But Emma wanted to enjoy life as a normal—there was that word again! Well, as normal as she could be—American in the New Millennium.

She deserved that much.

Maybe the next time a student asked the magic question, she'd tell them what the other scholars believed. Who cared that it was wrong? Only she knew.

But she was such a perfectionist that knowing made all the difference.

A knock at her door made her jump. She sighed. If it was that football player again, she'd complain to his adviser. She got up and pulled the door open. The department secretary, Helen Knoedler, stood outside, hands clasped in front of her.

Helen had been with the department longer than anyone. She was a tiny elderly woman who seemed grandmotherly until she opened her mouth. Then she spoke with a voice so deep and powerful, it should have come from a man who wielded an ax instead of a woman who reminded Emma of a sparrow.

“I don't know what you did,” Helen said dryly, “but Michael wants to see you first thing tomorrow.”

Emma felt that blush return. He was probably going to take her to task for being so harsh on the students. Or maybe he was going to talk to her about staring at him. Or maybe he realized she was the person who had been spying on him when UPS delivered his boxes the day before.

Helen watched her reaction then raised her eyebrows. “You know him?

“I just met him this morning. Sort of.”

“Well, you made an impression.”

So did he. “What's first thing?”

“He gets in about nine, or so he tells me. Can you come?”

“Sure,” Emma said. “My first class isn't until eleven tomorrow. Do you know what it's about?”

“Not a clue,” Helen said. “And I don't want to know. I'm still handling the paperwork the changeover has caused.”

“I saw Mort yesterday,” Emma said. “I can't believe he's leaving.”

Helen frowned at her. “He's not leaving. He's just not going to chair the department anymore. He'll be back in his office, harassing all of us next semester.”

Emma smiled. She was glad of that. She hadn't realized that Mort would continue teaching. That was good. He needed to.

Then her smile faded. “I hadn't met the new chairman before. Was he brought in from somewhere else?”

“Michael?” Helen laughed. She had a deep-throated chuckle. “He's one of those rare lucky ones. He went to school here, then managed to get a job here. That almost never happens. Most graduates who stay in town—”

“Drive a cab.” Emma recited the litany. “I know.”

“He's been around forever. He was just on sabbatical in England.”

“England? What was he doing there?”

“Walking everywhere. The man is a health fanatic. And he was studying something. I never did pay attention.”

Emma felt a chill run down her back. She hoped it wasn't the Middle Ages. She definitely didn't agree with his comments on Alfred the Great. She had no idea how he would react to some of her “speculations,” which weren't speculation at all.

They were actually memories.

“Why would he want to see me? I mean, we met this morning?”

“Michael is a different animal from Mort. Now Mort would take you out for a beer and ask you about yourself.”

Emma smiled. “I remember.”

“But Michael believes in doing things by the book.” Helen shook her head. “Which means I'll have to redo my desk, believe me. So what he wants with you is beyond me.”

Then she grinned.

“Except the word is—and my ancient eyes tell me it's true—you are the most beautiful professor to grace the history department in some time. Michael's single.”

Emma felt her blush grow. She wanted to put hands to her cheeks and stop it, but she couldn't. She had never learned how to control that response. “Wouldn't it be illegal for him to date me? I mean, technically, he's my boss.”

“Technically, sweetie, the university is your boss. He's just the head of the department. And while this campus frowns on teacher-student relationships, you're at least two degrees and one bestselling book away from that distinction.”

Emma swallowed hard. She didn't want to fend off her boss for the rest of her tenure.

“Don't look so solemn,” Helen said. “Michael was voted one of Madison's most eligible bachelors a few years back. He's what we called in my day a good catch.”

“I'm not trying to catch anything,” Emma said.

“Looks to me, honey, like you're afraid you will catch something.”

That was more accurate than Helen knew. Emma shrugged. “I like my life.”

“You and that cat.”

Emma frowned. “How did you know I had a cat?”

Helen reached over and plucked a black hair off Emma's sweater. “I know the signs,” she said and held out an arm. She had short gray and orange hairs on hers. “But a cat isn't a substitute for a man.”

“I don't need a man,” Emma said.

“I never took you for a feminist,” Helen said.

Emma grinned. “Oh, Helen,” she said. “I'm the original feminist. That part of my history simply got lost in the translation.”

***

By the time Emma got home, the beautiful spring sunshine had given way to showers. The rain was cold, too, and reminded her of one of the worst days of an Oregon winter.

She lit a fire, ordered a pizza, and peered out the dining room picture window at the matching house down the block. The lights were off, so Professor Found wasn't home yet. She wondered what he was doing—having dinner with old friends? Seeing a movie with a woman? Catching up on his new work in the office?

Then she caught herself. Mooning. The worst thing she could do. The man was too handsome by half, and she didn't need to be thinking about him.

Thinking about him was almost as bad as looking at him, and looking at him made her forget all her vows.

Which would someday come back to haunt her.

She closed the blinds all through the house and put on some Brahms. She had fallen in love with her CD player, and the way music was available at the touch of a button. That was, in her personal and quite private opinion, the absolutely best thing about this brave new world she had woken up in.

If someone asked her, of course, she would lie and talk about indoor plumbing (which used to terrify her) or refrigerators (on her first day, she had asked Nora how they captured winter) or the amazing availability of food (even though she missed growing it by hand). But in reality, it was the luxuries that caught her. Shoes that actually kept the feet dry. Lights at the touch of a finger. And music whenever she wanted it.

Not to mention books and movies and audio books. Stories, like her father used to tell her, only more complex. When she had been a young woman, education was beyond her means—there was no such thing as education for all—and there was no way to mass produce books. No one had even dreamed of movies, and theater as people understood it now hadn't really been invented yet either. And the idea of television, well, it still boggled her. She had a few favorite shows, but she watched them in private, because she still stared at the box gape-mouthed, unable to fathom how other people took it so completely for granted.

Darnell was asleep in front of the fire, his long black body stretched out so that his stomach absorbed most of the heat. She had asked the person who took her order at Pizza Pit to make sure the delivery guy knocked this time. The last time, when he'd rung the doorbell, had been a disaster.

As if in answer to her thoughts, the doorbell rang. Darnell leapt out of his sleep onto all fours like a lion defending his turf. He growled softly in the back of his throat.

“Stay here,” she said, knowing it would do no good.

She walked to the front door, grabbed the cash she had placed on the table beside the entry, and peered through the peephole. Sure enough, it was the pizza guy, looking very damp, the pizza steaming in its thermal pouch.

Maybe she would have to add pizza as one of this age's greater achievements. She certainly ate enough of it.

She pulled the door open and put out a foot to hold Darnell back even though Darnell was nowhere in sight.

The pizza guy was young—a student, obviously, and just as obviously, he hated the job. He mumbled the price and as she opened the screen to hand him the cash, Darnell came at a flying run from the fireplace.

She figured her foot would be enough, but it wasn't. Darnell was prepared for it. He leapt over it as if it were a fence and he were a horse, and he wrapped his paws around the delivery guy's leg, biting and growling and clawing as he did so.