Window on Yesterday Read Free

table, staring at her strangely. “I—ah—I...” She lowered her gaze to the oversize menu. The elegantly handwritten words blurred and she frowned.
    “May I order for you?” His voice had deepened into a tone more suitable to a bedroom than to a restaurant.
    Alycia shifted her gaze to his, and immediately wished she hadn’t. A light in those blue depths told her he recognized, and appreciated her confusion. Who was this man? she asked herself, even as she replied to him. “Yes, please.”
    Nibbling on the tip of her thumbnail, Alycia didn’t hear whatever it was he ordered for them to eat. A tiny frown line drew her eyebrows together as she reached the decision that it was long past time for introductions. The instant the waiter walked away, she withdrew her left hand from his caging fingers and, extending her right hand, gave substance to her decision.
    “I’m Alycia Matlock,” she said firmly. “And you are ... ?”
    “Very delighted to meet you,” he replied seriously. “I am Sean Halloran”—he grinned—”your most obedient servant.”
    The use of the old-fashioned complimentary close, used by letter writers of ages past, would have sounded ludicrous uttered by any other person—but Sean Halloran! Alycia’s entire nervous system went into spasm. She had hurtled into the very man whose upcoming lectures had her in such a lather!
    “You ...” Alycia had to pause to wet her suddenly parched lips. “You’re the Sean Halloran?” she asked in a whispered croak.
    “Alive and in color,” Sean confessed.
    “But you can’t be!” Alycia protested, frowning fiercely.
    Sean’s eyebrows shot into an arch. “No? Damn!” His grin wreaked havoc with her equilibrium. “I could have sworn that’s who I was when I faced the beast in the mirror this morning.”
    A wild rosy glow tinted Alycia’s cheeks. “No—I’m sorry. I mean—” She hesitated to collect her breath, and her common sense, then ruined her effort by blurting out, “You’re too young to be a famous historian!” Her flush deepened and she shook her head in despair. She was prattling on like an awed teenager, not responding at all like the rather reserved twenty-seven-year-old she really was.
    Alycia paused to inhale. When she continued, her tone was even, calm. “I am sorry, but you see”—she gestured vaguely with one slender hand—”I had assumed that Sean Halloran was a much older man.”
    Sean’s broad hand captured hers again, holding it still. “Let me assure you,” he said, very softly, “that at this moment, Sean Halloran is greatly relieved to be thirty-six” Slowly, tantalizingly, he stroked the tip of one finger over the fine gold chain encircling her wrist above her pulse.
    The feather touch of his warm skin against hers, and the tingling friction of the chain against her pulse, robbed Alycia of what few wits she still possessed. Her breathing growing alarmingly shallow, she lowered her gaze to his caressing finger, “Mr.”—she swallowed roughly—”Mr. Halloran, I...”
    “Sean,” he filled in when her voice failed. “Please call me Sean—Alycia?” One russet eyebrow peaked.
    The mere idea that Sean Halloran was asking for permission to address her informally stunned Alycia. Unable to articulate her feelings, she nodded and produced a wobbly smile, amazed at her lack of poise. It was not at all Alycia’s style to be tongue-tied, wide-eyed, and impressed by a celebrity. But this was Sean Halloran, the historian Alycia admired above all others!
    “I was—I was rushing to—ah—register for your lectures when I—umm—ran into you!” she blurted out, aware that she was babbling, yet helpless to halt her waggling tongue. “That’s why I was so angry at you for dragging me here.”
    “Dragging?” Sean challenged sardonically.
    Feeling gauche, Alycia flushed and lowered her long lashes. “I’m sorry, I...”
    His warm laughter flowed over her words, and over her embarrassment, like balm.