She traced her finger along his notations, feeling the indentation the pencil had made in the page. The words seemed almost engraved, as if he had gripped the pencil too tightly.
"What are you doing?"
Sara felt a flicker of guilt, as if she had been caught reading his diary instead of a textbook from long ago. "The Civil War?"
He kneeled beside her, taking the book. "I majored in American History."
"You're just full of surprises, Slick."
He winced at the name as he slid the book back into place, lining it up carefully so that it was flush with the others. A thin line of dust marked the exact spot. He pulled out a slim leather-bound volume. Gold letters stamped the cover, saying, simply, LETTERS.
"Soldiers wrote these to their sweethearts back home." Jeffrey said, thumbing through the fragile-looking book, turning to a page he must have known from heart. He cleared his throat and read, " 'My darling. Night comes and I lay awake, wondering at the character of the man I have become. I look at the velvet sky and wonder if you look up on these same stars, and pray that your mind holds on to the image of the man I was to you. I pray that you still see me.' "
Jeffrey stared at the words, a smile at his lips like he shared something secret with the book. He read the way he made love: deliberately, passionately, eloquently. Sara wanted him to continue, to lull her to sleep with the deep cadence of his voice, but he broke the spell with a heavy sigh.
"Anyway." He tucked the book back into place, saying, "I should have sold these back when the classes ended, but I didn't have the heart."
She wanted to ask him to continue, but said, "I kept some of mine, too."
He sat down behind Sara, his legs on either side of her. "I couldn't afford to."
"I wasn't exactly rich," she told him, feeling defensive. "My father's a plumber."
"Who owns half the town."
Sara did not comment, hoping he would drop it. Eddie Linton had invested well in real estate down by the college, which Jeffrey had found out on a couple of landlord calls about soon-to-be-evicted noisy tenants. She supposed by Jeffrey's standards the Linton family was wealthy, but Sara and Tessa had grown up with the impression that they should never spend more money than what they had in their pockets – which was never much.
Jeffrey said, "I guess Nell told you about my dad."
"A little."
His laugh had a harsh edge to it. "Jimmy Tolliver was a small-time crook who thought he was walking into a big score. Two men were shot and killed robbing that bank, and now he's locked up with no chance of parole." Jeffrey picked up the hairbrush. "You talk to anybody in town, they'll tell you I'm just as bad as he is."
"I seriously doubt that," Sara countered. She had worked with Jeffrey for a while now, and knew that he always went out of his way to do the right thing. His integrity was one of the main things that had attracted her to him.
He said, "I got into trouble a lot when I was a kid."
"Most boys do."
"Not with the police," he countered, and she did not know what to say. He couldn't have been that bad or there was no police force in the country that would have accepted him, let alone given him the keys to the station house.
He added, "I imagine Nell gave you an earful about my mother."
Sara did not answer.
He started to brush her hair. "Is that why you sucked at Trivial Pursuit? You were too busy trying to follow what Nell was saying?"
"I've never been good at board games."
"What about other games?"
She closed her eyes, enjoying the stroking bristles. "I beat you at tennis," she reminded him.
"I let you," he said, though she knew he had nearly killed himself trying to win.
Jeffrey pulled back her hair and gently kissed her neck.
"We could have a rematch?" she suggested.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. He did something with his tongue that made her sink back into him without thinking.
She tried to sit up but he would not let her. She whispered, "Your mother is in the next room."
"The toilet's in the next room," he told her, slipping his hands under her shirt.
"Jeff -" She gasped as his hand dipped below her pajama bottoms. She stopped him before he could go any farther.
Jeffrey said, "Trust me, she can sleep through anything."
"That's not the point."
"I locked the door."
"Why did you lock it if she can sleep through anything?"
He growled at her much the way he had growled over his high school teacher. "Do you know how many nights I laid awake in this very room when I was a kid, wishing I had a beautiful woman in here with me?"
"I seriously doubt I'm the first woman you've had here."
"Here?" he asked, indicating the floor.
She twisted around so she could see him. "Do you think that's some kind of aphrodisiac, telling me how many women you've had in your bedroom?"
He scooted a few inches across the floor, dragging her with him. "You're the first one I've ever had here."
She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Finally, a way to distinguish myself."
"Stop that," he said, suddenly serious.
"Or what?" she teased.
"I'm not playing around."
"According to what I've heard -"
"I mean it, Sara. I'm not having fun."
She stared at him, not following.
"What you said to your mother," he told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm not just having fun with you." He paused before looking away from her, staring at the bookshelf. "I know that's what you're doing, but I'm not, and I want you to stop saying stuff like that."
Every warning Sara had heard over the last few months came flooding into her brain, and she bit back the raging impulse to throw her arms around him and declare her love. Instinctively, she knew that part of the reason Jeffrey was saying this to her now was because he had no idea how she felt. Sara was not foolish enough to tell him.
Her silence obviously unnerved him. She saw his jaw work, and he stared somewhere over her shoulder.
Sara tried to face him, but he would not look at her. She traced her finger along his lips, smiling as she realized he had shaved for her. His skin was smooth, and she smelled his aftershave along with something like oatmeal.
He said, "Tell me how you feel."
Sara could not trust herself to answer. She kissed his jaw, then his neck. When he did not respond, she kissed the palm of his hand, knowing better than to tell him that was exactly where he held her.
Jeffrey put his hands on either side of her face, his eyes intense and unreadable. He gave her a long, sensual kiss as he pushed her back, and Sara felt herself melt to the floor. He cupped her breasts, using his tongue to bring out chills along her skin. Slowly, he started to work his way down, his breath a feathery kiss across her belly, then lower. He put his tongue inside of her, and Sara felt a momentary weight-lessness as everything in her body focused on that one spot. She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him up toward her, making him stop.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. "What?"
She drew him closer, kissing him, tasting herself in his mouth. Nothing was rushed, but Sara felt the need for urgency as she fumbled with the zip on his jeans. He tried to help, but Sara told him, "No," relishing the weight of him in her hand.