Her Man Friday(65)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

It was really too bad about that high IQ business, though, he thought further. Too much intelligence was never good for a human being, male or female. In order for a body to hold that much sagacity, it became necessary to cut back on space for other things. Like a person’s soul, for instance. Like a person’s affections. God knows Schuyler had learned that for himself firsthand.

Caroline, however, seemed not to have been robbed as badly as others of his acquaintance, though, in that respect. And Schuyler was determined to find out why. She still seemed capable of caring about others—to a fault, really, because no one should be that concerned about the well-being of people who’d made bad choices from the get-go. Yet Caroline Beecham, for all her smarts, was working not to make her immediate surroundings more beautiful and luxurious and convenient, as Schuyler had always struggled to do. No, instead, she toiled long hours in an ugly, dark building, for little salary and less satisfaction.

It made no sense. Not when she had the kind of brain and passion that would have taken her anywhere. Caroline could be worth millions today, had she just chosen her career path better, could have gone to work for and with people who would have known how to exploit her resources. Had she chosen a route that included science and mathematics and technology, Caroline could be heading up a business that would be giving Kimball Technologies a run for its money right now.

But no. She had opted to study education of all things. Child development. Sociology. And all Schuyler could do was wonder, Why?

Only one way to receive an answer for that, he thought, rapping quickly on her front door. Just go ahead and ask. He’d meant to last night, at several points in their conversation. But as they’d sat in a deli near the school while Claudio parked the car two blocks away, as they’d shared a dinner of cheesesteaks and French fries and draft beer, Schuyler had found himself unwilling to put voice to such a thing.

Caroline was an enigma, and he’d encountered far too few of those in his life. Still, surely there was an explanation for why she was the way she was, an explanation that, once uttered, would completely remove the magic and mystery that clung to her. But last night, he’d wanted to enjoy that magic and mystery. Even if it only lasted one night.

He heard the slink of a chain on the other side of the door just before the deadbolt groaned in its chamber. Then the door flew open and Caroline stood on the other side, looking—

Wow.

Looking like a woman for a change.

Her hair, which had always been swept back from her face and fixed behind her head in a knot of something intolerable, cascaded down around her shoulders like a river of henna-stained silk. And instead of some colorless, shapeless dress, she was wearing what Lily had always referred to as "leggings"—and what Schuyler had always referred to as "those incredibly erotic things women wear in place of pants"—and a longish shirt—whose top two buttons weren’t fastened, he noted with due interest—in a color reminiscent of a ripe strawberry. The fabric of each was a fleecy, sweatshirt material, something that suggested she was planning to stay in instead of go out, and he heartened quite a bit at the realization.

"Schuyler," she said, her soft voice tinted with more than a little surprise. "I mean… Mr. Kimball. What are you doing here?"

"Don’t ‘Mr. Kimball’ me, you uncooperative wench," he said as he pushed through the door without awaiting an invitation. Had he waited for that, after all, he never would have made it inside. He halted just inside the door and turned toward her. "Call me Schuyler, like you did last night," he added. Then, impulsively, he dipped his head to hers and brushed a brief, chaste kiss on her cheek.

Immediately, she lifted a hand to touch her fingertips to the spot he had kissed, and her cheeks grew pink with the stain of a blush.

"Wh-why did you do that?" she asked as she closed the door slowly, reluctantly, behind him. "Why are you here?"

He shrugged. "Because I like you. Dammit. Where shall I put these?" He held up the roses—all four dozen of them—for her inspection.

She laughed a little anxiously. "I have no idea. I don’t have anything big enough to hold all those." But she extended a hand gingerly toward the flowers, fingering one of the delicate red blooms as if it were spun glass. "I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you’re here."

Yes, well, that made two of them.

She chuckled a little anxiously again before adding, "And you’re dressed in… Why are you wearing a tuxedo?"

That, he thought, was a very good question. He only wished he had a good answer to go with. "Because I’m trying to impress you," he said. "There. I’ve admitted it. Dammit."

She laughed again, and he decided that he liked the sound very much. Hearing Caroline’s laughter once or twice a day, he thought further, would go a long way toward making life tolerable.

"I’m… I’m at a loss," she confessed. "I… I don’t know what to say."

Schuyler sighed. "Well, not to put words into your mouth, but how about something like, "Thank you, Schuyler. Won’t you stay for dinner?"

She smiled again. "Thank you, Schuyler. Won’t you stay for dinner?"

"I thought you’d never ask."

He extended the roses again, and, almost helplessly, she took them from him. She lifted the massive bouquet to her nose and inhaled their sweet fragrance, closing her eyes as she held the breath inside her. Something tightened inside him at seeing her enjoyment of such a simple act, and he marveled again that she had knocked him so thoroughly off-center. Funny, her coming out of nowhere like that, just when he least expected.

"I’m serious," she said as she cradled the bouquet in her arm as one might hold a sleeping infant. "I don’t think I have anything large enough to hold these. I’ll have to check. Come in, please," she added belatedly, gesturing over her shoulder. "But I don’t want to hear a word about the clutter. You did show up out of nowhere, without warning, after all."

Yes, well, that made two of them, didn’t it? Schuyler thought. It was only fair.

The clutter, he found, was actually quite nice. All the color that was absent from Caroline’s office at school was present here in her home. One entire wall was covered with books, many of them novels, he noted. Another wall was virtually floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the back of a building beyond. The window seats sported dozens of multi-colored pillows and throws and… stuff, and there was a cat sleeping on each of the three, none of whom seemed at all interested in Schuyler’s presence.