Slowly, on silent footsteps, he backed away from the glass panes to the stairs and, as he descended the well-worn steps, he tamped down his need.

He could not be rash.

He could not give in to quick judgments.

He had to follow the plan.

Meticulously.

Or all would be lost.

“Jay! Professor McKnight! Hey, wait up!” Kristi walked as fast as she could, trying to catch up with him. She’d left right after class and started home, then decided they needed to clear the air, so she’d retraced her steps, only to spy him heading out a back door. By the time she’d gotten close enough to call to him, he’d reached a staff parking lot. In the watery pool of illumination cast from a security light, he was loading his books and briefcase into the cab of a beat-up old pickup.

He looked over his shoulder and his jaw slid to one side. “Kristi Bentz.”

“Hi.” She nearly slid to a stop a good ten feet away from him. “I, uh, I was surprised that you were taking over Dr. Monroe’s class….”

“I bet.”

She inclined her head, feeling her face flush. “This is awkward. Look, I know we—I—didn’t leave things very good between us, and I thought—”

“Ancient history, Kris.”

She’d forgotten he’d called her that. He’d been the only one in her life who had shortened her name. “Okay.” She nodded. “But who knew we would be in the same classroom, or that you would be my professor, or—wait a minute,” she said as the truth suddenly dawned on her. “You knew. You had to have known.”

“As of a few days ago, yeah.” He nodded and opened the door a little wider.

A deep “woof” escaped from the darkened cab and a huge, muscular dog leaped to the ground. In the streetlight, the animal’s muscles rippled beneath a coat that looked like burnished copper.

Kristi took a step backward.

“This is Bruno,” he said.

“He’s mammoth!”

“Nah, just a little guy.” Leaning down, he stroked Bruno’s big head. “Gentle as a fawn unless you piss him off.”

“I won’t be doing that.”

Jay flashed a smile and scratched the big dog’s floppy ears. “Hurry up,” he said to Bruno. “Take care of your business.” Jay motioned to the edge of the lot where crepe myrtles lined the flower beds separating the campus from the parking area.

Bruno complied, sniffing the moist ground, then lifting his leg on a shrub while staring at Jay with baleful eyes.

“Good boy,” Jay said as the dog finished relieving himself and began to sniff the ground. “Later. Come on, load up.”

Bruno glanced at Kristi, then sprang into the passenger seat of the cab.

“So…why are you teaching here?” she asked.