Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel Read Free

enter, but instead of calling her on it, he decided to give her part of the truth in hopes it would improve her opinion of him. “I teach at a university back east. I’m on sabbatical, writing a book, and plan to do a lot of work here in the library.”
    Her eyes widened to the point he was afraid her eyeballs might roll out of her head. “You’re a university professor?” She stared at him and then at the book he’d been forced to buy.
    “It’s a small mind that thinks in cliches,” he reminded her. “What time tomorrow?”
    She was still staring at him as though in shock. “N-nine o’clock.”
    He let his gaze dwell insolently on her mouth. “It’s a date, then. Alex.”
    She swallowed, a convulsive jerk of her throat. She might have the personality of a death camp matron, but that didn’t prevent the impulse to run his lips over her long, smooth neck, his tongue along the strong hint of cleavage revealed by her tight black sweater.
    He trod slowly back to her, enjoying the way her eyes darkened and her breath jerked in her chest.
    He leaned once more over the counter, much more slowly this time, until he was close enough to catch another tantalizing whiff of jasmine, close enough to see her lips tremble slightly as they slipped apart.
    Close enough to kiss her.
    He spent a moment enjoying her reaction to his nearness. Not all ice, was she? Oh, no. There was warmth and passion under the surface. He derived a perverse pleasure from watching the pulse in her throat kick up.
    For one more moment he stayed there. Still, silent, and so far in her personal space he was practically sharing her underwear.
    Then he grabbed the printout off the counter. “Forgot my receipt.”

2
    Alex was never late for work, but this morning she made sure to arrive extra early. She was determined to have the library fully operational when—and if—the odious Duncan Forbes arrived. She couldn’t keep him out, unfortunately, since this was a public building, but she could certainly keep a close eye on him and his roving ballpoint.
    Not to mention his roving eye.
    Since it was a gorgeous fall day, normally she’d walk to work, enjoying the late September sunshine and the feeling of fresh air filling her lungs. But she planned to pick up groceries on her way home, so she drove.
    When she arrived, she took a few minutes to stand in the sunshine and breathe, then she unlocked the library’s back door and headed inside. She unlocked her office, booted up her computer and started the coffee, as she did every morning. She measured the coffee carefully, using the rich, dark rainforest blend she purchased from the Italian café on Main Street. As she wiped a trace of spilled coffee from the white counter in the tiny coffee room, she thought about Duncan Forbes as she’d been doing with annoying frequency since yesterday.
    There was something about him she didn’t trust. She’d been so flabbergasted when he’d announced he was a professor that she’d let him go without challenging him. But if he were an academician writing a book, why wouldn’t he go to one of the university libraries at Eugene or Portland or Corvallis? Even a big city library would make more sense. She did her best with a limited budget, and the internet brought instant access to all kinds of research, but Swiftcurrent was still a very odd choice for an academic author.
    She wondered what subject he taught. Wished she’d had wit enough to ask him. Outdoor recreation, maybe, or forestry. Something that kept him outside a good deal.
    Forbes didn’t look like a professor of anything. She tapped her fingers against the once-again immaculate counter as she tried to decide what he did look like.
    His image appeared in her mind immediately, and as clearly as though he stood in front of her. Brown hair streaked with blond, weathered skin, squint lines around the eyes, as though he’d spent a lot of time in the sun.
    His clothes were rumpled casual in natural fabrics. He