Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret by Tara Quinn (rosie project .txt) 📕

the Nathans of this world could ever conjure up.

Jamie sent Ashley to school with a note for Miss Peters the next morning. She thanked the teacher for her kind offer to help with Ashley's problem, but added that she and Ashley had talked and she'd decided just to let things lie for a while. She ended the note with a request that Miss Peters call her imme-

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diately if she became aware of any further altercations on the subject of Ashley's father.

Small moments. Not big pictures.

And the next small moment was getting Kyle Radcliff out of her life. Her fascination with him didn't matter. The fact that he seemed able to reach something in her that nobody else could—that didn't matter. The money mattered. All she had to remember was the wad of bills he'd left her five years before. And get rid of him.

"Brad, can I see you a second?" Kyle called out after dismissing class five minutes late on Friday afternoon.

' 'Sure, Professor Radcliff, wha''s up?'' The bulky linebacker lumbered up to Kyle's lectern.

Kyle waited until all the other students had vacated the classroom. "Coach Lippert tells me it's really important that you pass this course."

"Yessir, it is."

"We're almost four weeks into the semester and I'm rather concerned about your chances of doing that."

Brad shuffled his feet, looking like a little boy in spite of his imposing size. "Me, too, sir."

"So what do you think's the problem?"

"I don't know, sir." The young man shrugged, his face contorted in a serious frown. "I just don't get this stuff. A boy breaking rules, an old black slave running from the law. Just don't seem like no heroes to me. And the rest, I don't see it at all. You

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say it's got undercurrents, that it means stuff, but it ain't like no politics or religion talk I ever heard."

So the boy was listening. Kyle just wasn't reaching him.

"Okay," Kyle said, straightening his notes and placing them in the open folder on the lectern. "That's fair."

Brad grinned, looking immensely relieved.

"But I still can't pass you," Kyle added. "Not unless we find a way for you to learn about American literature."

"But I'm never going to use this stuff!" Brad said, his voice raised. He tossed his book bag on the desk behind him. "I just want to play football! Why do I need to know stories about fake people written by dead guys to do that?"

Kyle removed his glasses and set them down on top of his folder on the lectern. ' 'A college degree stands for something," he replied slowly. "It's the assurance to anyone who asks that the person holding the degree has been given a well-rounded body of knowledge. That this person can think logically about a problem or situation and come to an informed conclusion. That he or she can join in various conversations and actually have something to contribute."

The frown was back on Brad's face. But the momentary anger had abated.

"Let's say you're at a party sometime," Kyle continued. "Let's say some franchise owner's daughter's there."

"What she look like?"

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"She's a beaut. Great legs. Terrific body."

"Big breasts?"

"Sure, if that's what you like."

"Okay," Brad said. "So?"

"Well, she's looking for some fun, but she's bored by all her daddy's brute guys who have no brains. Nothing to talk about but football."

"Why would we need to talk?" Brad asked, his grin cocky. "I can make sure she ain't bored without ever saying a thing."

"But, you see, that's just it, Brad." Kyle leaned his forearms on the edge of the lectern, the way he always did when he was driving home a particularly important point. "She can have her pick of a roomful of men who've had lots of practice pleasing a woman. She's got so much money she can't be swayed in that direction. She wants…conversation. Somebody who can talk about something besides football."

Brad plopped his big body down into the chair. His bulky frame barely fit between the chair and the regulation college-classroom desk.

' 'You sure about this girl, Professor?'' he asked. He didn't seem at all convinced, but he was studying Kyle.

"I'm sure that sometime in your life, whether it be at the doctor's office, the bargaining table or when you're out with a beautiful woman, you're going to need to be able to think. To reason. To know something besides football."

"And you ain't gonna pass me, are you?"

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"Sure." Kyle put his glasses back on. "If you do passing work."

"An' how'm I gonna do that?" The linebacker was getting angry again.

Kyle couldn't lie to the kid. "I don't know for sure if there's time, Brad, but I'm willing to tutor you—no charge—and see where that gets us."

"Tutor me."

Kyle grinned. The idea seemed so foreign to someone who needed the service so desperately. "Yeah. Like private coaching to help you learn the right plays."

"When you gonna tutor me?"

Reaching for his planner, Kyle gave the kid a pained look. "Hey, don't make it sound like I just shot your grandma."

With a sheepish smile, Brad said, "She'd shoot you dead 'fore you even had a chance to pull your gun, Professor."

Kyle might have continued that conversation if he hadn't suddenly discovered that he had the wrong planner. He'd opened the book to the day's date to find only three words scribbled there. Dinner with Jamie. He'd been in such a hurry to get to class he'd grabbed his personal planner. Not the one he used for school.

Damn.

"How about Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays right after class?" he ad-libbed, hoping he was free then. After having gotten this far with his most recalcitrant and neediest student, he wasn't about to

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lose credibility by admitting he couldn't even bring the right calendar to class.

"I got gym time then."

"Can you make gym time an hour later?"

"Maybe." Brad's face was blank. "I'm not sure."

Kyle grabbed up his folder, the planner and the text he'd brought to class, and slid them all back inside the leather satchel that went