His attention snapped back to her. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, I still have no idea who you are,” she admitted.
“That makes two of us.” He saw her bafflement and shrugged wide shoulders. “I was a guitarist in a band that did well.”
And now you’re going back to school? But he probably had enough of people prying into his private life. “That’s why I don’t know your name then. I don’t keep up with contemporary pop.”
He winced. “Rock.”
“Excuse me?”
“We were rock.”
Something in his pained tone made her smile. “Was that like comparing Gilbert and Sullivan to Puccini?”
An answering glint lit his eyes. “Sorry, I’m not an opera buff. It’s always struck me as a bunch of overemoting prima donnas going mad or dying.”
“Whereas rock and roll …?”
Devin laughed. “You’re right,” he conceded, “no difference.” He thrust out a hand. “Anyway, thanks for your help.” She took the warm tapered fingers, careful to avoid the dragon’s tongue flicking at the tip of one knuckle. “I’ll hang around a bit longer till the coast clears,” he added. “Read the brochures.”
“If it’s any consolation, they run a tight ship here,” she said. “I doubt you’ll get harassed past the first day.”
“That’s one of the reasons I chose this campus. I wanted fossilized conservatives dressed in …” His gaze slid over her gray pin-striped trousers and pale blue satin blouse with short puffed sleeves. “Thanks again.”
Rachel felt a spike of irritation before her sense of humor kicked in. What did she care what a guy wearing purple boots thought about her vintage fetish? Still, she gave the boots a pointed look before she said kindly, “You’re very welcome.”
The edges of his irises were bright green, with copper-brown starbursts around the pupils. When he smiled with his eyes the effect was unnerving. “Ma’am,” he drawled, flicked an imaginary hat brim, then strolled toward a reading nook.
Smart aleck. People rarely challenged Rachel and never teased her; the world of academia was a civilized one. She sighed.
“Hell bod,” said Trixie, coming up beside her. Then she started. “Hey, isn’t that—”
“Devin Freedman,” said Rachel knowledgeably, and went back to unpacking books and brooding on why someone who was desperate for kids couldn’t cross the first threshold.
As though she’d conjured him, Paul reeled through the library’s double doors. Rachel gasped. The side part that normally flipped his gray-streaked black hair rakishly over one eye zigzagged across his skull as crookedly as he now staggered across the navy carpet.
His corduroy jacket—the same soft brown as his eyes—had pizza stains on it and the blue chambray shirt that normally buttoned neatly under his chin flapped open halfway down a pale hairy chest. And the designer jeans …
Rachel rushed over and jerked up his fly. “You’re drunk!”
“Are you surprised?” His voice rang loudly.
“Shush….”
She tried to drag him into the staff office, but he clutched at the countertop, swaying slightly. “You led me on!”
Heads began poking out from the aisles of books as readers took an interest. “Paul, please,” she begged. Regardless of whether she deserved this humiliation, he was jeopardizing his job by showing up inebriated. She had to get him out of here. Rachel grabbed his arm again, called over her shoulder, “Trix, help me.”
He flung them both off with a dramatic gesture, ruined by a loud belch. “When I’ve had my say.”
Until last night she and Paul hadn’t seen each other in six months because he’d been on sabbatical, studying some obscure Germanic dialect in Munich. Their reunion had come to an abrupt end on the way back to his apartment from the airport, when he’d proposed to her.
And Rachel had said no.
Their eighteen-month relationship had come to an even more abrupt end on his front doorstep as she’d desperately tried to explain a decision she couldn’t justify except by describing her feelings. Unfortunately, terms like “panic” and “claustrophobia” didn’t help him take the news any better.
Paul swallowed. “You broke my heart.”
“It’s not like you were crazy in love with me,” she reminded him gently. In fact, they’d never been as fond of each other as when they’d been apart and their unremarkable sex life had been supplanted by romantic telephone calls and e-mails.
He refocused on her with bleary-eyed outrage. “I proposed to you, didn’t I?”
“Well, yes,” Rachel admitted. “Kind of.”
“Guess we should think about getting married,” had been his exact words. But their relationship had always been fueled by pragmatism, not passion. Paul wanted an independent, low-maintenance wife to support his brilliant career. And she wanted to start a family with a nice guy. Because Trixie was right, Rachel was running out of time. And her dating pool had always been the size of a goldfish pond. She was too self-sufficient for most guys … and too smart to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
Paul seemed to realize she wasn’t reacting as she should. His face crumpled and he started to sob with a drunk’s easy tears. “You really don’t care, do you?”
Rachel blanched. Had his affections run deeper than she’d thought? “Of course I care.” But much as she hated hurting him, she couldn’t marry him. Even if only her right brain knew why. Seeing their audience growing, she tugged desperately on his arm. “Please, Paul, let me take you into the office, make you some coffee. You’re doing yourself no good here.”
“No!” He wiped his face with his sleeve and nearly fell over. “I don’t want to.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Devin Freedman appeared from out of nowhere and tipped Paul over one of his shoulders. “Where do you want him?” he asked Rachel.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SMART-ASS LIBRARIAN looked at him with none of the self-possession she had earlier. In fact her big gray eyes were haunted. “In here,” she said, ushering Devin into the office. “Trixie, take over.” With trembling fingers, she pulled the venetian blinds closed, then shut the door and leaned against it.
Devin dumped the drunk on the couch and ran a professional eye over him. He’d quit bawling and was rolling his head from side to side and moaning faintly. “Some kind of container might be useful,” he suggested. “He’ll hurl at some point.” Rachel looked at him blankly and he tried again. “Barf.” Still nothing. Where was a translator when he needed one? “Throw up … vomit.”
“Oh … oh!” She scanned the room, then found an empty cardboard box and bent over to pick it up. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed she had a nice ass. Rachel placed the box by the couch and backed away, her expression guilt-stricken. He suspected he knew what was worrying her. “Alcohol makes some people maudlin,” he offered. Particularly those who took themselves way too seriously. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You don’t understand,” she murmured. “He proposed yesterday and I turned him down.”
“That’s no surprise. There must be