“My wife,” he explained. “Gotta run. See you tonight.”
“I thought your Ranger had plans for you tonight,” Olivia muttered as Dan walked away.
“I’ll have to take a rain check.” The anticipation might drive her crazy, but she didn’t have a choice. Everything she’d worked for was within her grasp. Fantasy sex would have to wait. “Carter has the power to deci
de my future. I need to be there.”
“I take it Dan is your competition.”
“Yes, but he hasn’t published in years. Once I finish this book, I’ll be more qualified. But my department is an old boys’ club. If Carter throws his support behind Dan, others would likely follow his lead.”
Maggie found her phone and dialed the number Hunter had given her.
“Chief Cross.” His greeting sounded more like a salute.
“Hunter, it’s Maggie. I need to take a rain check on tonight. We’re going to a pool party.”
“You can still wear your shoes.”
“Not a chance. It’s with my coworkers,” Maggie said, taking the bag from the sales clerk. “I need to focus on work, and I’ll need you on your best behavior.”
“Done. But tomorrow night? You’re mine.”
* * *
BEER IN HAND, Hunter followed Maggie away from the folding table set up as a bar and around the pool. Their host, who’d greeted him with a used-car-salesman smile when they first arrived, owned a simple one-story colonial on a street just outside of town. The pool and the cement deck encompassed most of the backyard. Tiki torches stood in a line where the pool deck stopped and grass began.
Everything about the backyard screamed pool party—except Maggie. Tonight, she’d dressed the part of the responsible professor in her black slacks and white button-down shirt. He’d taken one look at her when she’d come down the stairs earlier and thought he’d mistaken “pool party” for “wake.” But no, he’d arrived to find her fellow professors in shorts and T-shirts and their wives in sundresses. Some even wore bathing suits. And they all looked ready to party, everyone but Maggie.
The woman who’d turned down a wild night in bed to be here looked about as serious as a soldier locked and loaded for battle. He couldn’t help himself. He leaned toward her, close enough to smell her sweet, soapy-clean scent, and dropped his voice. “I suppose now is not the time to tell you sex in an empty bedroom at your coworker’s party is at the top of my fantasy list.”
Without touching her, he felt the tension in her skyrocket from a one to an off-the-charts fifteen. She stepped away from him. “No, I can’t. Not here.”
“Relax.” He reached out to stop her from backing into a lit torch. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
She eyed him suspiciously then turned her attention to the older gentleman walking toward them. “That’s Professor Carter,” she hissed. “Whoever he recommends for tenure will likely get it.”
The old man bore a stronger resemblance to Santa Claus than any professor Hunter had ever seen. Then again, he’d joined the army at eighteen so he didn’t know much about academics. But he’d pictured an old man in a tweed jacket with a hat, not a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man in a Hawaiian shirt with a white beard.
“Margaret, what a surprise. I thought you would be too busy writing to attend,” the older man said, grinning from ear to ear. “But I see you brought your book with you.” The jolly professor turned to him and extended his free hand, the one not cradling what looked like three fingers of scotch. No wonder the man’s nose was Rudolph-red.
“Gerry, this is Chief Hunter Cross with the U.S. Army Rangers,” Maggie said. “Hunter, this is Professor Gerald Carter.”
“Call me Gerry,” he said, shaking Hunter’s hand. “Must have done something amazing over there if Margaret wants to write about you. She’s one smart cookie.”
“She is,” Hunter replied. He watched as Carter wrapped his arm around Maggie’s waist, attempting to draw her closer. Maggie sidestepped, moving dangerously close to a tiki torch.
“Chief Cross is one of the soldiers who rode through Afghanistan.”
“Ah, one of the cowboys,” Carter said. He took a swig from his glass and closed in on Maggie. With her only escape blocked by a flaming torch, the drunk Santa impersonator caught Maggie around the waist.
Hunter waited for her to slap his hand away. Instead, she smiled and said, “They’re not crazy about that moniker. Yes, they rode horses, but they are still soldiers. The interviews I’ve conducted so far have been fascinating. All the readers who raced out to buy the SEAL book will be lining up to learn about the Ranger’s heroic mission.”
Maggie rested her hand on his arm and tried to guide it away. Gerry didn’t take the hint. Or maybe he thought she wanted his hand on her ass. Hunter watched Gerry’s hand drift down to her lower back and dip below the waistline of her black pants.
Hunter studied Maggie, waiting for her to ask for his help. But she remained frozen in place, her body stiff as a board except for the hand holding a wineglass filled with seltzer. The fingers on that hand tapped the glass stem as if she was sending out a message in Morse code.
“Cowboys, soldiers—the man’s a hero,” Gerry said, raising his glass in Hunter’s direction. “And your book sounds like a bestseller, Margaret. The college loves having bestselling authors in the classrooms,” he added, giving her bottom a pat.