Worth the Trip

by Penny McCall

  About the time Trip decided he’d been creeping the crowd of young women, he plucked up the courage to step forward and actually speak.

  “I know my grades aren’t great, Professor MacArthur,” he mumbled from behind his curtain of hair, “but all I need is some tutoring. I want to be a psychologist, just like you.”

  Want and psychologist were the operative words there, but judging by the way the kid was invading Norah’s personal space he wasn’t making a career path so much as trying to make time.

  “I could come to your house,” the kid said, clinching Trip’s opinion of his ulterior motives. “You wouldn’t even have to talk that much, just help me when I have a question about the reading.”

  “You are . . .”

  “Uh, having a hard time with, like, the big words, and—”

  “I was asking your name,” Norah said with a perfectly straight face.

  “Oh, right, my name. Bobby,” he said, nodding the entire time. Or maybe he was just bobbing his head out of habit, which gave his name a whole new meaning and made Trip laugh.

  Norah shot him a look. Bobby didn’t notice.

  “Bobby,” Norah repeated. “I don’t tutor. If you’re having this much trouble with a one hundred level course, perhaps you should be rethinking your educational path.”

  “Man, you’re, like, cold, Professor MacArthur.”

  “I find it saves time.”

  “Yeah, but, like, a little sympathy wouldn’t hurt, y’know?”

  “Sympathy is highly overrated,” she said, patting him on the arm. “Directness is often the best course when I feel someone can handle the truth.”

  “Okay then.” Bobby turned around and shambled up the aisle, mumbling to himself and shaking his head.

  She had that effect on him, too, Trip thought as she strode past him, that little annoyed frown on her face, and all he could do was jump up and trot along behind her like a puppy.

  Balance of power, hah.

  “That kid has a crush on you,” he said as they walked out of the lecture hall.

  “I didn’t get that impression.”

  Trip shrugged. “You’d be the expert.”

  “He probably doesn’t have a very good home life,” Norah said. “So many of these kids are a product of divorce or single-parent homes, and psychology seems to offer a way to understand what they’ve been through.”

  “Is that the voice of experience?”

  She shot him a look, not amused.

  “You can’t cure the problems of the world.”

  “I can’t even solve my own at the moment,” she said, clearly identifying him as a problem by the way she was glaring at him.

  Trip just grinned, getting the point but not taking it personally. “The parking lot is this way,” he said, trying to steer her in that direction.

  She slipped around him and continued on her way. “I have a couple of appointments.”

  This time he took her by the elbow. “Reschedule.”

  She shook him off. “I’m booked for six months, and with my other commitments—” She stopped walking. “You can’t be in session with me,” she said. “Patient confidentiality, not to mention having an audience makes people uncomfortable talking about their problems.”

  “I get it,” he snapped, and just before she turned away he saw her mouth quirk up, just a little, and he caught on to her game. Stupid of him not to see it before, but then he was dealing with a lack of sleep and an overabundance of testosterone.

  “I’ll be busy for a while. You should take off.”

  “Got nothing else to do.”

  Her frown intensified, but she only said, “Fine, you can wait in my outer office.”

  “Sure, I could use a nap. We have a long drive ahead of us.” And who was smiling now, he thought, but when they got to her office a couple stood up from the sofa and Trip wasn’t so amused anymore. “Did Mike send you?” he asked them, referring, of course, to Mike Kovaleski, his—their—handler, since they all worked for the Bureau.

  “We came because Aubrey is intrigued,” Jack Mitchell said, referring to his partner, Aubrey Sullivan.

  “You’re an FBI agent?” Norah asked Aubrey, taking in her outfit, which even Trip could tell was high fashion, a flirty little wool suit in fuchsia—hardly an unobtrusive color—and pointy-toed stiletto-heeled shoes that he was already picturing on Norah. Just the shoes.

  “Jimmy Choos, right?” Norah said, her voice low and breathy, which did amazing things for the fantasy, even if it was only the shoes winding her up.

  Aubrey smiled, transforming her plain features to pretty, if not compelling, which seemed to be of more interest to Norah than the expensive feathers. “I think of myself as an agent,” she said around that wide smile. “So does the FBI. Jack—”

  “I think Aubrey’s a pain in the ass. I was saddled with her on a case last year—”

  “I saved your job,” Aubrey reminded him. “And your ass. Jack got burned,” she said for Norah’s benefit. “The Bureau thought he was a mole, and I was targeted for death by Pablo Corona.”

  “The drug lord?”

  “The insane drug lord,” Aubrey said, “but it all worked out in the end.”

  “I think she gets that, since we’re not corpses,” Jack said.

  “And you’re here about the robbery,” Norah said, “but my usual clients seem to be missing.”

  “Your twelve o’clock canceled.” Jack handed Norah a note. “Your secretary left you this.”

  Trip leaned over her shoulder, read the note in what he assumed was her secretary’s handwriting, telling her the noon clients had been cancelled, then filled with a last-minute call in.

  “Convenient,” Norah said, ranging herself opposite the three of them, tapping foot, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.

  Trip refused to cave in to her body language; no point in letting her get used to having her own way. On the other hand, he was still walking a fine line between tolerance and banishment, and presented with another pair of agents, one of them a woman, he wasn’t sure she’d choose him . . .

  And she had him second-guessing every word and every action he took, Trip realized, worried about how she was reading him. Well, the hell with that. He needed to treat this like any other case—and bottom line? It was his case. “Don’t tell me Mike sent you,” he said to his competition.

  “Aubrey heard about the missing loot,” Jack said, shooting his partner a long-suffering look that Trip took to mean she’d nagged him into coming. “She got bit by the treasure-hunting bug.”

  “Take your butterfly nets and run around in someone else’s garden,” Trip said.

  Jack shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”

  “If you need any help,” Aubrey said to Norah.

  Norah slid a glance in Trip’s direction. “Well . . .”

  “Honey, I read your book,” Aubrey said with a small chuckle. “Chapter four.”

  “What?” Trip looked from one woman to the other, feeling his face heat even though he had no idea why. “What about chapter four?”

  Aubrey and Norah burst out laughing. Even Jack was smiling.

  “What are you grinning about?” Trip grumbled.

  “They’re just poking fun at you.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Aubrey popped up an eyebrow, leaned close to Norah, and whispered something. Norah’s eyes widened, as her gaze shifted to Trip’s face, then slipped down.

  “What?” Jack asked Aubrey, who said, “Just rumors, nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Aren’t there any rumors about me?”

  “Of course, although not the same kind.”

  “What kind are they?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “I hate this shit,” Jack said as they walked off. “You know I hate this shit. Tell me what the rumors are or there won’t be a later.”

  “Now, Jack,” Aubrey said, reaching up to pat his cheek, “you should never withhold sex to make
a point.”

  “Who’s withholding sex? I was talking about my gun.”

  “They’re adorable,” Norah said once they were out of earshot.

  “Don’t let Jack hear you say that.”

  “Aubrey has him wrapped around her little finger.”

  “Maybe in this kind of situation, but when they’re on a job, they make a hell of a partnership.”

  “That’s what every woman wants in life,” Norah said, sighing. “Someone to have amazing sex with, and someone to talk to after sex.”

  “They seem kind of . . . contentious.” Trip exited her office, Norah following along absently as she took the verbal bait.

  “It’s banter, Trip, and banter is really just another way of saying I care for you. Jack clearly isn’t the kind of man who talks about his feelings easily. When Aubrey teases him, it’s just like the eight-year-old boy on the playground who pulls the little girl’s braid and runs away because he wants her to notice him. Aubrey knows Jack very well, I’d say, and she’s careful to poke fun at him without crossing any lines. He gets the kind of attention he’s comfortable with from her, and she gets attention back from him. It’s a win-win.

  “And you’ve checked out of the conversation.”

  “I’m listening to every word,” Trip said as they passed the dean’s office, “just keeping an eye on the surroundings. That’s my job.

  “You have a real knack for translating psychobabble into English,” he added nonchalantly. “Maybe I should read your book.”

  “Maybe you should find out what the dean’s secretary wants first. Since you’re keeping an eye on our surroundings.”

  Trip halted a couple of steps past Norah, huffing out a breath and wondering when he was going to get his shit together on this job. He held up a finger for the benefit of the dean’s secretary, a thin, washed-out slip of a woman who looked like the first stray breeze would float her off to bank against the nearest curb with the last of the fall leaves. She shrank back into a doorway, just her head peeking around the frame and all but vibrating with apprehension.

  No threat there. “You and I need to get some things straight,” he said to Norah.

  “If you’re about to tell me you’re in charge, you can save your breath.”

  “My first responsibility is staying alive and keeping you alive. I can’t do that if you won’t listen to me.”

  “Professor MacArthur?”

  “I have a perfectly sound mind—”

  “Which doesn’t do you any good when you have to act without thinking, like last night when you tried to coldcock me.”

  “Professor MacArthur?”

  “What,” they bellowed in unison, both whipping around.

  The dean’s secretary froze, but only for a split second before her eyes landed on Trip, her cheeks glowing the slightest shade of pink. “The dean would like to see you, Professor MacArthur,” she said, apparently forgetting her shyness.

  “I’ll wait for you out here,” Trip said.

  Norah hooked him by the arm and towed him into the dean’s office. “Maybe the dean and his secretary are conspiring to kidnap me.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Violence was not the first impression Raymond Kline, dean of the Midwest School of Psychology, made. Tall, thin, pale, sandy blond hair smoothed back from a receding hairline, and the sort of superior attitude that came from spending a lot of time in a self-made ivory tower. Dean Kline gave the impression that the mere suggestion of physical violence would make him faint dead away. He was also responsible for the safety of the entire student body, both character flaws Trip had used against him. And Norah. Which she was about to find out.

  “Trip,” Dean Kline said, smiling his thin, ascetic smile, his hand flaccid and just a bit damp when Trip shook it.

  “Raymond,” Trip said, squelching the urge to wipe his palm on his jeans. How Norah could have dated this guy was a complete mystery, Trip thought, which was beside the point.

  “You two know each other?” she said, which was obvious since they were on a first name basis, but she was just getting on board with reality, her expression boding ill for Trip. Hell, her expression would have boded ill for the Titanic.

  “Norah, why don’t you sit?” Kline suggested.

  The withering glance she sent them both was really just overkill for Trip. Kline didn’t get it. Kline thought he was in control of the situation. Trip lounged back against the wall, prepared to enjoy the verbal evisceration. Then she looked at him and he remembered his guts were in her sights, too.

  “Let me see if I have this right,” she said, pacing the length of the room and back. “The two of you got together and discussed the situation and decided what I should do.”

  “Now, Norah—”

  She whipped around and glared at Kline.

  He took a step back, caught himself, frowned, and stepped forward again, popping his chin up so he could stare down his nose at her. Moron.

  “My. Personal. Business,” she said, not raising her voice but enunciating each word very carefully.

  Trip couldn’t see her face, but this time when Kline stepped back he stayed there. He wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “Since you’re going to be difficult about this,” Kline said, “I’ll get right to the point. I’ve decided it’s best if you take some time off. For the good of the student body.”

  “Time off?” Norah went so pale she was practically transparent, except for a spot of hot pink in each cheek. She held it together, though. Faced with losing what she treasured the most, she held it together.

  “You must see the logic in my decision,” Kline said.

  “Must I?”

  “In cases such as this I have full discretion. The board—”

  “You went to the board?”

  “Not yet, but I will if you make it necessary. Look, Norah, it’s for your own good. Considering our relationship—”

  “Our relationship is over.”

  “But—”

  “Over. Done. Finished. History.”

  “Like your job,” Raymond said coldly.

  Norah seemed to falter a bit.

  Without thinking, Trip sidled a step closer in case she needed his support. “How long?” she asked, stiffening her spine and lifting her chin.

  “Until this issue is resolved,” the dean said. “Of course, if you were inclined to share your father’s story, and anything that results from it, with the college . . .”

  “You’re blackmailing me?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that the publicity is so disruptive, and if the treasure were found that would stop.”

  “You were happy about the publicity from my book, and all the attention it brought the college.”

  “Yes, but you don’t want anyone hurt on your account.”

  Norah looked over at Trip. “No one is going to get hurt.”

  “Well, now, we don’t want to take any chances.”

  Norah digested that for a moment. “And what are the chances my position will still be open when this . . . stupidity is over?”

  Dean Kline gave her a slight smile. “I’ll do everything in my power to see that you have a place here to come back to, once you’ve dealt with your personal unpleasantness.”

  Trip fielded a look from Norah, pure fury. “Thank you,” she politely said to Kline, then whisked out of the office, rounding on Trip the second they were in the hall again. “You went to that ass behind my back.”

  “Actually, my boss called that ass behind your back, then he sent me to see him.”

  “I’m not tenured. I could lose my job.”

  “Kline assured Mike you wouldn’t.”

  “Did he also mention that we dated for three years?”

  “And he slept around.”

  She frowned. “Actually, he didn’t, not that I could ever find out. He did a lot of looking, and he wasn’t really in the relationship for the last year, but I can’t say there was someone else. In fact, he want
s”—she smiled faintly—“wanted to get back together. I doubt he still feels that way. Silver lining. Which doesn’t absolve you.” Norah hefted her briefcase and started walking, this time heading for the faculty parking lot.

  “You don’t need that job.”

  “I like that job. And don’t tell me what I need.”

  “You don’t want to know what I think you need.”

  “Does it include you going away?”

  Trip chose to ignore that remark.

  “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

  “I’m not going to explain why I’m here again. You’re stubborn, not stupid.”

  She glanced over at him, so angry that Trip wondered why she didn’t burst into flame. “You seem to be quite intelligent, and yet you have a real problem figuring out when you’re not welcome.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass. A wordy pain in the ass.”

  “Here are two more words for you. Interfering jerk.”

  “Stubborn idiot.”

  “Government patsy.”

  “Bookworm,” Trip shot back, and then he had her up against her car, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, taking as much of her as he could get. She came right back at him, curling her hands into his shirt, trying to drag him closer, which was impossible since the only thing between them was a couple of thin layers of clothing and enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion.

  And then she was pushing him away. Trip surfaced enough to hear the catcalls and whistles of a group of students passing by. Instinctively he shielded her from them, telling himself he’d caused her enough trouble for one day.

  If not for the taste of her still lingering on his tongue, the feel of her body against his, the need pounding through his bloodstream, he might actually have believed it.

  chapter 6

  “I TRIED. TWICE.”

  “Tell me.” And make it fast, he added, but he kept his impatience to himself. Time was at a premium, but pushing the kid only discombobulated him, and then it would take twice the time to get the facts.