The door to his office opened, Kim stepped aside and Jane walked past her. His mouth dropped open. He’d known her his whole life and he almost didn’t recognize her. Her old high school nickname was hardly appropriate anymore. There was nothing plain about the woman before him. She was wearing a lime green suit that flattered her coloring and slinky heels that flattered her long legs. Her hair was shorter, with a sassy, trendy cut that feathered against her cheeks, then skimmed to her shoulders in layers. The red highlights glinted brighter than ever. She looked more sophisticated than he remembered. Sexier, too. Then her familiar sweet, shy smile came and went and his heart flipped over, just as it always had.
“Hello, Mike. Happy birthday.”
His own grin broadened. “I can’t believe it. Come here, you.”
He opened his arms and, after an instant’s hesitation, Jane stepped into the embrace. When she was settled against his chest, her head tucked under his chin, the oddest sensation crept over him. It was as if he knew, at long last, what had been missing.
But, of course, that couldn’t be. He’d put Jane Dawson firmly in his past when he’d made the move to San Francisco. He’d given her his word that the break would be clean and he’d kept it. With his parents dead, his brothers and sisters scattered and the family home sold, there’d been no reason to go home again. He hadn’t looked back, not once. Well, hardly more than once.
He stepped back eventually and looked her over. “You look fabulous. Sit down. Tell me what you’re doing in San Francisco. Is it a teachers’ convention of some kind? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? How long are you staying?”
She laughed at the barrage of questions, the sound as clear and melodic as a bell. “Last question first. I’m here for a week. I didn’t let you know because I didn’t know myself until the last minute. Spring break crept up on me and I decided not to spend it cleaning the house the way I have every other year since I started teaching. This is pure vacation.”
She regarded him uncertainly. “I hope you’re not about to take off on an assignment or something. Will you have time to have dinner at least? We haven’t missed celebrating your birthday together since we were kids.”
“Dinner will be a start,” he agreed, thinking of all he could show her in a week, imagining her excited reaction. That was the thing he had loved about Jane. She brought such enthusiasm to every discovery, whether it was finding an arrowhead in the clay banks of the Potomac River or seeing the first crocus pop up in the spring. It was the quality that made her such an excellent teacher. She was able to communicate that enthusiasm to her students.
She’d always been able to communicate it to him, as well. Maybe that was why they’d been so good together, even though her pursuits were far more sedate than those he might have chosen for himself. Once they’d toured Stratford Hall, Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, together. When she’d suggested it, Mike had shuddered at the prospect. He’d been barely into his teens and a whole lot more interested in playing ball than touring a musty old plantation.
Afterward, to his amazement, he’d felt as if he’d been caught up in the middle of an incredible family drama that had eventually played itself out on a Civil War battlefield. There was no denying that Jane had a gift for teaching, a gift for firing the imagination.
At the moment, with her looking the way she did, his imagination was taking off in a much more provocative direction, remembering the feel of her in his arms, the burning of her lips on his.
His intercom buzzed way before he was ready for the interruption.
“Sir, your appointment’s here,” Kim announced with a touch of triumph and the obvious expectation that he would promptly shoo his unscheduled visitor out of his office.
“Get him a cup of coffee or something and tell him I’ll be right with him,” Mike told her. He turned back to find Jane staring out the window, her eyes wide and shining with excitement.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” he asked, moving up behind her to gaze at the Golden Gate.
“Better than the pictures,” she agreed. She turned. “I can see why you were drawn here. The Golden Gate always did inspire you. Even when we were kids, that was your favorite picture in the encyclopedia. You must have sketched it a million times. Now it’s right outside your window.”
For a few weeks that had awed him, too. Then he’d begun to take it for granted, just as he once had the love of the woman standing here with him now. The sound of his buzzer reminded him that he had a prospective client waiting and an impatient secretary who wasn’t likely to let him forget it.
He touched Jane’s cheek with regret. “I do have to take this meeting. Where are you staying?” he asked. “I’ll have Kim clear my schedule this week. I’ll be by at six to pick you up.”
“Are you sure? I don’t expect you to drop everything for me.”
“I’m sure,” he said with no hesitation at all.
In fact, he hadn’t been more sure of anything in a very long time.
* * *
Jane still couldn’t believe it. Her first flight had been a real nail-biter even before the first pocket of turbulence, but it was nothing compared to walking into Mike’s office, staring down that snippy, protective secretary of his, then actually seeing him again. She’d been stunned by the surge of old feelings, startled by an unfamiliar rush of uncertainty until she had seen the warm welcome in
