A Kiss Remembered Read Free Page B

to the waiter. “You weren’t even old enough to drink coffee the last time I saw you, were you?” he asked her.
    Not really listening to his question, she shook her head. She was having a hard time keeping herself from staring at him. His hair was attractively windblown. The open “V” of his shirt continued to bemuse her. Daryl Robins had thought himself the epitome of masculinity, yet his chest had had only a sprinkling of pale hair in the center, while this was a veritable forest growing from darkly tanned skin. An urge to reach out and touch it with her fingertips was so powerful, she looked away.
    One glance around the room confirmed what she had suspected. Coeds were eyeing Grant with the unconcealed sexual interest of the modern woman. She was the subject of their cool appraisal. Grant Chapman was a celebrity in a notorious, dangerous way, with the kind of reputation no woman could resist being curious about. Shelley had tried to ignore the ripple of attention that their arrival had created, but the bold stares being directed toward them now were most disconcerting.
    “You get used to it,” he said softly after a moment.
    “Do you?”
    “No, you don’t really get
used
to it, you just learn to live with it and ignore it if you can.” He twirled a glass ashtray on the highly glazed wooden tabletop. “That’s only one consequence of having your face in the news every day for several months. Whether you’re the good guy or the bad guy, the culprit or the victim, guilty or innocent, notoriety shadows you. Nothing you do is private anymore.”
    She didn’t say anything until after the harried waiter had served them their coffee. Shelley stirred cream into her cup and said gently, “They’ll get accustomed to seeing you around. News that you’d be joining the faculty this fall spread through the campus like wildfire last spring. Once you’re here for a while, the excitement will die down.”
    “My classes filled up quickly. I don’t find that flattering. I realize most of the students who registered for them did so out of curiosity. I saw the cowboy sitting next to you sleeping today.”
    She smiled, glad that he didn’t have that intense, guarded expression on his face any longer. “I don’t think he appreciated the finer points of your lecture.”
    Grant returned her smile briefly and then gazed at her earnestly, searching the depths of her eyes with an intensity that made her quail. “Why did you take my class, Shelley?”
    She looked down into her coffee; then, thinking that silence would incriminate her, she said spiritedly, “Because I needed the credit.”
    He ignored her attempted levity. “Were you a curiosity seeker, too? Did you want to see if I’d grown horns and a long tail since you’d seen me?”
    “No,” she cried softly. “Of course not. Never.”
    “Did you want to see if I’d remember you?” He was leaning forward now, his forearms propped against the edge of the table. The distance between them was visibly decreased, but rather than shrinking from him, she felt an irresistible urge to move closer still.
    “I … I guess I did. I didn’t think you would remember. It’s been so long and—”
    “Did you want to see if I remembered the night we kissed?”

CHAPTER 2
    H er heart slammed against her ribs. The noise of the room diminished under the thundering pulse in her eardrums. Her mouth went dry.
    “Look at me, Shelley.”
    No, no, don’t, Shelley. You’ll be lost. He’ll see. He’ll know. Her eyes disobeyed the frantic order of her brain and lifted to meet his. She saw her reflection in the greenish depths, a shattered expression, a face full of sadness, of perplexity.
    “I remember kissing you. Do you remember it?”
    She nodded before she spoke. “Yes.” Momentarily she closed her eyes as a wave of vertigo seized her. She prayed he’d drop the subject, go on to something neutral that they could discuss openly and easily. She didn’t think she’d survive