“You’re crazy! It’s freezing out there.”

“We won’t stay long.” Without giving her a chance to argue, he pulled her away from the pool table and toward the back door.

All day the radio had been warning that temperatures would be dipping into the single digits that night, and as they hit the alley, their breath made vapor clouds in the air. Jodie shivered, and Cal regarded her with grim satisfaction. He was finally going to have his questions answered.

Mysteries had always made him edgy, both on the football field and in real life. In his experience a mystery generally meant somebody was getting ready to run a play that wasn’t in the book, and he didn’t like those kinds of surprises.

He knew he could have pressed the guys for some answers, but he didn’t want them to suspect how much time he’d spent thinking about Rosebud. Until he’d overheard Jodie’s conversation with Junior, it hadn’t occurred to him to talk to her.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to put the matter of Rosebud to rest. He found himself worrying about her at the strangest times. Who could predict how many hotel rooms she’d stumbled into recently, with her story about SPPs and spiritual advisors? For all he knew, she’d moved on to the Bears by now, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them she wasn’t undressing for.

“Who is she, Jodie?”

She wore only her hostess uniform, a clingy scooped-neck top with a zebra-striped short skirt, and her teeth were already chattering. “A hooker I found out about.”

Part of his brain whispered a warning that maybe he should let it go at that. How did he know he wasn’t poking into things he was better off not knowing? But one of the factors that made him a great quarterback was his ability to sense danger, and for some reason he didn’t understand, the hairs on the back of his neck had begun standing up.

“You’re bullshitting me, Jodie, and I don’t like it when people do that.” He let go of her arm, but, at the same time, he moved a few inches closer, trapping her between himself and the brick wall.

Her eyes darted to the side. “She’s somebody I met, okay?”

“I want a name.”

“I can’t- Look, I can’t do that. I promised.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

She started rubbing her arms, and her teeth began to chatter. “Jesus, Cal, it’s colder than hell out here.”

“I don’t even feel it.”

“She’s… Her name is Jane. That’s all I know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“This is bullshit!” She jerked to the side, trying to push past him, but he shifted his weight, blocking her way. He knew he was scaring her, and that was just fine with him. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Jane what?”

“I forget.” She clutched her arms tighter and hunched her shoulders.

Her defiance annoyed him. “Hanging around the guys means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

She regarded him warily. “It’s okay.”

“I think it’s a lot more than okay. I think it’s the most important thing in your sad little life. And I know you’d be real upset if none of the players came in to Zebras anymore. If none of them wanted to hang out with you, not even the backups.”

He knew he had her, but she made one last stab at defying him. “She’s a nice lady having a hard time, and I’m not going to hurt her.”

“Name!”

She hesitated, then gave in. “Jane Darlington.”

“Keep talking.”

“That’s all I know,” she said sullenly.

He lowered his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. “This is your last warning. Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make you off-limits to every player on the team.”

“You’re a real shit.”

He didn’t say a thing. He just stood there and waited.

She rubbed her arms for warmth and regarded him with belligerence. “She’s a physics professor at Newberry.”

Of all the things he had expected to hear, that one wasn’t even on the list. “A professor?”

“Yeah. And she works at one of those labs, too. I don’t know which one. She’s a geek-real smart-but she doesn’t have a lot of guys, and… She didn’t mean any harm.”

The more answers he got, the more the skin on the back of his neck tightened. “Why me? And don’t try to tell me she’s a Stars’ groupie because I know that’s not true.”

She was shaking with the cold. “I promised her, okay. This is like her whole life and everything.”

“I’ve just run out of patience.”

He could see her trying to figure out whether she was going to protect her own hide or rat on her friend. He knew the answer even before she spoke.

“She wanted to have a kid, all right! And she doesn’t want you to know about it.”

A chill shot through him that had nothing to do with the temperature.

She regarded him uneasily. “It’s not like she’s going to show up when the kid’s born and ask for money. She’s got a good job, and she’s smart, so why don’t you just forget about the whole thing.”

He was having a hard time dragging enough air into his lungs. “Are you telling me she’s pregnant? That she used me to get herself pregnant?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s really your kid. It’s like you’re just a sperm donor. That’s the way she thinks about it.”

“A sperm donor?” He felt as if he were going to explode-as if the top of his head was about to blow right off. He hated any kind of permanence-he wouldn’t even live in the same place for very long-yet now he’d fathered a child. He had to fight to stay in control. “Why me? Tell me why she choose me?”

A thread of fear reappeared beneath her hostility. “You’re not going to like this part.”

“I’ll just bet you’re right.”

“She’s this genius. And being so much smarter than everybody else made her feel like a freak when she was growing up. Naturally she didn’t want that for her kid, so it was important for her to find somebody who wasn’t like her to be the sperm donor.”

“Wasn’t like her? What do you mean?”

“Somebody who… Well, who wasn’t exactly a genius.”

He wanted to shake her until every one of her chattering teeth hit the ground.“What the hell are you trying to say? Why did she choose me?”

Jodie eyed him warily. “Because she thinks you’re stupid.”

“The isotope’s three protons and seven neutrons are unbound.” Turning her back on the eight students in her graduate seminar, six males and two females, Jane continued sketching on the board. “Take one neutron away from Li-11, and a second one will also leave. Li-9 stays behind, binding it and the two remaining neutrons as a three-body system.”

She was so intent on explaining the complexity of neutron halos in isotopes of lithium that she paid no attention to the slight disturbance that was arising behind her.

“Li-11 is called a Borromean nucleus along with…” A chair squeaked. She heard whispers. “Along with…” Papers rustled. More whispers. Puzzled, she turned to investigate the source of the disturbance.

And saw Cal Bonner leaning against the sidewall, his arms crossed, fingers tucked under his armpits.

All the blood rushed from her head, and for the first time in her life, she thought she was going to faint. How had he found her? What was he doing here? For a moment she let herself pretend that he wouldn’t recognize her in her professional attire. She wore a conservative double-breasted woolen dress, and her hair was pulled into the French twist that kept it out of her way when she worked. She had her glasses on-he’d never seen her with glasses. But he wasn’t fooled for a moment.

A thick silence fell over the room. Everyone in her class seemed to recognize him, but he paid no attention to their reactions. He only looked at her.

She had never been the target of such undisguised hatred. His eyes were narrowed and deadly, hard lines bracketed his mouth, and, as she watched him, she felt as unbound as the nucleus of the isotope she had just been describing.

With so many curious eyes looking on, she had to pull herself together. There were ten minutes left in the class. She needed to get him out of here so she could finish. “Would you wait for me in my office until I’m done here, Mr. Bonner? It’s just down the hall.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” For the first time he turned to stare at her eight graduate students. “Class is over. Get out.”

The students scrambled to their feet, closing their notebooks and grabbing their coats. Since she couldn’t engage in a public battle with him, she addressed them as calmly as possible. “I was nearly done anyway. We’ll pick up here on Wednesday.”

They filed out of the room within seconds, darting curious glances at the two of them as they left. Cal uncoiled from the wall, shut the door, and punched the lock.

“Open the door,” she said immediately, filled with alarm at being confined with him in this small windowless classroom. “We can talk in my office.”

He resumed his earlier position. Leaning against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms and tucked the fingers in his armpits. His forearms were tan and muscular. A strong blue vein throbbed there.

“I’d like to take you apart.”

She sucked in air as panic raced through her. His posture suddenly seemed full of significance, the sign of a man forcibly restraining himself.

“Nothing to say? What’s the matter, Dr. Darlington? You sure were full of words when we met before.”

She fought to calm herself, hoping against hope that he had simply discovered she wasn’t who she’d said she was and had come here to redeem his warrior’s pride. Please don’t let it be anything else, she prayed.

He walked slowly toward her, and she took an involuntary step backward.

“How are you living with yourself?” he sneered. “Or is that genius brain of yours so big it’s taken over the place where your heart should be? Did you think I wouldn’t care, or were you just counting on me never finding out?”

“Finding out?” Her voice was barely a whisper. She bumped into the chalkboard as dread slithered down her spine.

“I care, Professor. I care a lot.”

Her skin felt hot and clammy at the same time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. You’re a liar.”

He purposefully advanced on her, and she felt as if she were trying to swallow great lumps of cotton. “I want you to leave.”

“I’ll just bet you do.” He drew so close his arm brushed her own. She caught the scent of soap, wool, and fury. “I’m talking about the baby, Professor. The fact that you set out to get yourself pregnant with my kid. And I hear you hit the jackpot.”

All the strength left her body. She sagged against the chalk tray. Not this. Please, God, not this. Her body felt as if it were closing down, and she wanted to curl in on herself.

He didn’t say anything; he simply waited.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. She knew it was useless to deny the truth, but she could barely form her words. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you now. Please. Just forget about it.”

He was on her in a second. She gave a guttural scream as he gripped her by the shoulders and jerked her away from the board. His lips were pale with suppressed rage, and a vein pulsed at his temple. “Forget about it? You want me to forget?”

“I didn’t think you’d care! I didn’t think it would matter to you!”

His lips barely moved. “It matters.”

“Please… I wanted a baby so badly.” She winced as his fingers dug into her arms. “I didn’t mean to involve you. You weren’t ever supposed to know. I’ve never-I’ve never done anything like this before. It was an…an ache inside me, and I couldn’t come up with another way.”

“You had no right.”

“I knew-I knew what I was doing was wrong. But it didn’t seem wrong. All I could think about was having a baby.”

He slowly released her, and she sensed he was barely holding onto his self-control. “There were other ways. Ways that didn’t involve me.”

“Sperm banks weren’t a viable option for me.”

His eyes raked her with contempt, and the menace in his soft Carolina drawl made her want to cringe. “Viable? I don’t like it when you use big words. See, I ain’t a hotshot scientist like you. I’m just a dumb jock, so you’d better keep everything real simple.”

“It wasn’t practical for me to use a sperm bank.”

“Now why’s that?”

“My IQ is over 180.”

“Congratulations.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it, so it’s not something I’m proud of. I was born that way, but it can be more of a curse than a blessing, and I wanted a normal child. That’s why I had to be very careful in my selection.” She twisted her hands in front of her, trying to think how she could say this without angering him even more. “I needed a male with-uh-average intelligence. Sperm bank donors tend to be medical students, men like that.”