Читать книгу The Brain and The Beauty - Betsy Eliot - Страница 10

It sounded as if there was something being buried out behind the house.

Abby Melrose ignored the sound and pushed the doorbell, hearing the low-toned gong echo through the house. She waited for a servant or perhaps a butler named Igor to answer, but when there was no answer, she rang again. Then a third time, even knowing it was rude. Surely in a house this size there must be cooks or housekeepers, or at least a mad scientist or two.

She looked up at the dark stone exterior of the building and repressed a shiver. It wasn’t a castle, exactly, although it looked like something out of one of the spooky gothic novels she used to read before Robbie was born. She didn’t have time anymore to read about unsuspecting visitors held in spearing towers or innocent girls wandering through twisted halls.

But this wasn’t a chilling mystery novel and there was nothing she’d read about Dr. Jeremy Waters to suggest he had secret homicidal tendencies. Although the fact that he’d been certified as a genius at the age of seven was reason enough to make her jittery. After all, nobody had ever accused her of being too smart—as shown by her presence here today.

Dr. Waters hadn’t responded to any of her letters or phone calls, hadn’t indicated any interest in helping them. She’d driven over five hundred miles without any guarantee that he would even see them. If she could have come up with any better ideas, she’d have eagerly followed them. That was the problem. She was out of answers and nearly out of time.

When she’d stumbled on an old article about the former child prodigy, she knew she’d found someone who could help her. The story had described his ability to read at ten months and perform complex calculations by seven, reporting his talents with the tone of a carnival barker. A photo had shown a dark-haired boy with thick glasses and an oversize bow tie that made his head look too big for his little body.

Later, as little more than a young adult, he’d opened Still Waters, a school for gifted and talented children. From what she’d been able to discover, it had been a great success, but according to a form letter she’d received when she’d tried to contact him, the school had closed several years ago.

It would have been easier for Abby if it was still open, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She’d come too far and there was too much at stake to give up now.

She turned toward the car she’d left in the overgrown excuse for a driveway. Robbie waited patiently in the back seat, more patiently than any other five-year-old she’d ever seen. She gave him a cheerful shrug and held up her index finger with the signal to wait.

Trying not to feel like one of those silly heroines who hears a bump in the night and goes to investigate in her sheer white nightgown, she followed the sound around to the side of the house.

Just beyond the shroud of trees that had contributed to the gloomy feel, the land had been cleared and the hot sun of early summer once again beat down on her.

Instead of a gothic novel, the kind of book she’d been imagining shifted. Abby found her pulse racing for another reason entirely.

There was a man, all right, but he wasn’t digging the grave of his recently deceased wife. This was more like one of those books where the innocent, sexually frustrated wife of a neglectful husband stumbles upon the sexy gardener and is overcome with instant pangs of lust.

Well, she sighed, she wasn’t innocent, at least. She had a son to prove it.

Abby had to remind herself that she’d outgrown fiction the day Robbie was born. But she could look. She supposed there was no harm in just looking.

The man’s back was to her as he stabbed a hoe into the ground, loosening the dirt of a large vegetable garden. His hair was black and long, brushing his shoulders as he worked. An ancient pair of cutoff jean shorts rode low on his waist and hugged his behind when he bent. His shoulders were wide, his back solid, with the kind of powerful build that typically came from physical labor rather than pumping iron in a gym. The muscles in his arms bulged in a ragged sleeveless T-shirt as he swung the hoe and slammed it into the ground in a continuous motion. For a moment she was mesmerized by the swell and clench of the muscles, the almost poetic perfection of the male form. Abby had learned not to put much stock in appearance, but she couldn’t deny a purely female response.

She cleared her throat and concentrated on the matter at hand. “Excuse me.”

He didn’t appear to hear her, continuing with the repetitive motion that seemed to take his anger out on the rocky ground. It was a good thing he wasn’t a demented recluse, she thought. She wouldn’t have had a chance.

She stepped closer. “Excuse me,” she tried again. “I’m looking for Dr. Jeremy Waters.”

The hoe slammed into the ground with an angry whack and he turned to face her. The way he was glaring at her gave the impression that he’d known she was there all along.

Abby was used to people looking at her. The startling length of her white-blond hair and the green eyes that had been described as emerald so often that she’d come to hate the stone usually brought about an instant softening effect on the opposite sex.

Not on this man. Soft would be the last word she’d use to describe him. His face was a mass of contradictions, long and narrow with a square jaw and grooves instead of cheekbones. His nose looked like it had been broken on occasion and a tiny scar slashed across his chin. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes from this distance, but they were dark like his hair and the brows that scowled at her.

Abby had the strangest urge to run and check her own appearance. The old habit of carefully applied powders and paints caught her by surprise. For the last few years she’d done little more than pull her hair into an elastic and apply a gloss to her lips when she remembered. It was a long way for a woman who had once considered her looks her most valuable asset. That had been a lifetime ago, before Robbie had taught her what was really important.

“Who are you?” he demanded finally.

She jolted at the harsh tone, but refused to let him intimidate her. She’d allowed enough of that in the past. “My name is Abigail Melrose. Abby. I’m here to see Dr. Waters. Is he around?”

He continued to glare at her as if the force of his disapproval would chase her away. She’d have been tempted to take the hint if she had anywhere to run. “I’ve been in contact with him about my son, Robbie. I was hoping I could talk to Dr. Waters about him.”

He stared at her for so long, she began to wonder if he understood. Since people had always taken one look at her and assumed the same, she tried not to judge him based on his strong, silent type.

“You’ve come to the wrong place,” he said finally. “You should leave now.”

Abby took a deep breath and wondered what it was about her that made people want to tell her what to do. Her ex-husband had made the skill into an art form, always explaining to her in that smarter-than-thou tone that she should leave the thinking to him.

She wasn’t about to give up so easily. “Isn’t this the Still Waters School?”

“No.”

She frowned at his answer until she realized that technically it wasn’t a school anymore. “Is Dr. Waters here?” she tried again.

“I’m the only one here.”

Just her luck. She’d come all this way and he wasn’t even home. “Do you expect him back soon?”

It wasn’t a difficult question, but it appeared to give him trouble. Just when she was sure he wasn’t going to respond, he answered, “He’s not coming back.”

“Ever?”

He shrugged. “I suppose if he left he would have to come back sometime.”

“I see.” That was as clear as mud. “Maybe I could come back later. I want to talk to him about—”

“Talking’s not going to do you any good. Go away!”

This wasn’t just ill-mannered. This was rude. No wonder this man was working out here all alone, in the middle of nowhere. “I’m only asking for a minute of his time. Don’t you think he could give me that much?”

“Time can’t be given away.”

Abby paused. It was strange but his comment sounded like something Robbie would say. “That’s true, I suppose,” she responded finally. “Maybe I could borrow some.”

His frown deepened. “Are you making fun of me?”

Her mouth dropped. She’d be the last person to criticize. “Of course not. I’m just trying to explain…”

Once again, he interrupted her. “Were you invited?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then that’s not my problem.” He turned away as if their conversation had come to an end.

Abby resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Look, I’ve come a very long way—”

“Five hundred and sixty-three miles to be exact,” Robbie clarified, approaching from around the house. “At an average forty-seven point six miles per hour, it took us seven hours and thirty-eight minutes, including rest stops. It would have been only three hundred and seventy-two miles if we could have flown with the crows.”

Her son, Abby thought, as she turned to look at him crossing the yard, saw the world a little differently than most five-year-olds. She felt the swell of pride as well as the ever-present shock that she’d managed to produce such a remarkable child. Physically she knew he resembled her, his blond hair curling around his head like a bobbing halo, his eyes bright with curiosity and intelligence that no jewel could hold. For her, those looks had been what made her special, but for Robbie they were barely a consideration. She often wondered what hiccup in her gene pool had made him her son.

She stepped closer, automatically drawing him to her side and placing a hand on his shoulder. She wasn’t even aware of the protective action until she saw the way the man observed her, coldly eyeing them both as if they were the ones who posed a threat.

“Honey, I told you to stay in the car,” she admonished gently. She didn’t want to expose Robbie to yet another disappointment and she’d already come to the conclusion that this man had no intention of helping them.

“I was bored.”

She couldn’t claim to be surprised. He’d flown through the collections of puzzles and brainteasers she’d painstakingly gathered for the trip in the first hour. Despite having the mind of a brilliant adult, he was still a little boy.

“Hello,” Robbie greeted the man with a maturity that would have made her doubt his youth if she hadn’t actually been a participant in his birth.

“Hello.”

Thankfully Abby noted the hostility was missing from the man’s voice. Without it, the deep, husky rumble sounded a touch more accessible—and somehow vastly more dangerous.

“My name is Robbie Melrose. We’ve come to see Dr. Jeremy Waters.”

“What do you want him for?” the man asked.

Robbie thought about the question for a moment, while meeting the man’s gaze. “I’m not completely certain. My mother has chosen to keep her reasoning undisclosed from me.”

So much for secrets, Abby thought. She should have known she shouldn’t try to outsmart her son.

“I’m sure, whatever her reasons, she’s doing the right thing. My mother always knows what’s best.”

Abby’s eyes widened at the compliment. But then again, she was his mom. He had no idea how overwhelmed she was. And she intended to keep it that way. She would never allow her son to think he was a burden. She was all he had—heaven help him—and she wouldn’t let him down.

“However, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve chosen this area of the Berkshires for our vacation,” Robbie continued. “Although it’s certainly a beautiful place, I have a feeling that the appeal has more to do with the intelligence quotient of Dr. Waters. He’s got an IQ over two hundred, the highest ever recorded. Mine is only in the one-eighty range.”

The man looked at him blankly.

Abby felt the need to defend the claims. “I’ve got test scores and evaluations. He really is an extraordinary child.”

He frowned, appearing almost angry. “Those numbers mean nothing to me.”

Robbie nodded. “They’re subjective, it’s true. But at least they give the testers something to do.”

She could have sworn she saw the man’s lips twitch into something resembling a smile before his face settled back into a vacant stare. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. But I wish you the best of luck finding whatever you’re looking for.”

“Thank you,” Robbie answered, missing the obvious brush-off.

Abby didn’t miss it, but she chose to consider her decision to retreat a tactical maneuver rather than a defeat. She wasn’t finished yet.

She didn’t bother with goodbyes as she took her son’s hand and turned back toward the car. Once she had settled Robbie in the back seat, she began the next leg of her trip into the town that would be their home for the summer, struggling now to manage the fatigue that seemed to have finally caught up with her. It was almost as if the stranger had had some dangerous power after all, with the ability to somehow sap her of the rest of her energy.

“Are we going back to Pittsburgh, Mom?” Robbie asked tentatively.

Abby took a moment to make sure her voice would be calm when she answered. “I’m not going to give up on our summer plans so easily.” Or her own. “There will be another chance to talk to the famous doctor sometime in the future.”

Robbie paused, digesting her answer before following with another. “Dr. Waters didn’t seem too willing to help us this time.”

Abby nodded in agreement. She wasn’t surprised that her son had also figured out who they’d been talking to. He often saw things that other people missed.

“Well, if he thinks we’re just going to go away then he’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” she vowed.

Jeremy Waters listened to the car pull away and dropped the hoe on the ground. So that was the annoying Mrs. Melrose. She’d been pestering him with letters for months, describing how unusual her son was, how different, how extraordinary.

He’d heard it all before.

Not once had she mentioned whether or not he liked baseball or if he collected stamps. It was always the same, as if the child was one big brain with no other traits of importance.

He’d been expecting the pushy Mrs. Melrose to show up eventually, but he had to admit that her physical appearance had caught him completely by surprise. He’d been expecting the academic world’s equivalent of a stage mother, not a fairy princess. She’d been younger than he’d anticipated, probably in her mid-twenties assuming she hadn’t had a child when she was a baby herself. Her luminous eyes were fringed with dark lashes. And that stunning blond hair of hers, floating like a cloud around her face—he’d had to restrain himself from asking her to turn around so he could see whether it grew all the way down her back. Then, when she’d turned to leave, he couldn’t suppress a glimpse that had given him his answer in the affirmative. As always, it was the quest for knowledge that led to his downfall.

And the boy. Looking at him had been like looking in a mirror. Of course there was very little physical resemblance from the odd little minicomputer he’d been as a child, but the eyes had been the same, wide and inquisitive, taking in everything, thirsty for knowledge. His face was alive with intelligence, forever branding him as different from other “normal” little boys. He recognized the defensive angle of his shoulders, as if the boy could somehow protect himself.

Jeremy knew what it was like to be tested and probed, to be put on display. He’d given up being the main attraction in the freak show of life.

He didn’t want people around, especially a woman who looked like Abby Melrose. Although he didn’t care to admit it, he couldn’t deny that she’d induced a physical reaction from him. It was a conditioned response, he knew, programmed into his DNA to help propagate the species. But knowing the biology of his reaction didn’t make him feel it any less.

He supposed, in a way, it was fortunate that he would be unable to help her. Not only would it save his sanity, but it would protect both of them.

Because he would never again involve himself with a young person who had so much potential.

There was too much at stake if he failed. Again.