Dr. Pearson clasped her outstretched hand, winced at the chill (she didn’t take it personally; everyone did), and shook it like a pepper shaker. “Hi there. Please call me Thomas.”

“Muh,” she replied. But then, he was gorgeous. Tall, really quite tall (she was lanky but he had a good three inches on her), with brown hair—except it wasn’t just brown; even in the yucky fluorescent lighting she could see the gold and red highlights—cut short and neat. A lab coat, she noted disapprovingly; but then, he was new, and Dr. Barb probably wrestled him into it. Brown eyes—but again, not just brown. Brown with gold flecks. The flecks twinkled at her and sized her up at the same time. Strong nose. Swimmer’s shoulders, long legs and narrow hips. And… dimples?

“—new to the area so I hope you’ll help the NEA family show him what a wonderful part of the country this is, particularly this time of year,” Dr. Barb was yakking.

“Yeah,” Fred said. What was she talking about? What time of year is it?

Dr. Barb must have interpreted the usual blank expression on Fred’s face. “You know. New England in the fall, and all that.”

“Um,” she replied.

“Leaves changing? Autumn nip in the air? Kids going back to school, fresh beginnings?”

“Okay.”

“Dr. Bimm. You had no idea it was September already, did you?”

“Not part of my job.”

“Chatty, aren’t you?” Thomas twinkled. There was no other word for it: he was grinning and his dimples were showing and his big dark eyes were shining and he was twinkling at her.

She shrugged.

“I love your hair,” he said. “That’s the most amazing green I’ve ever seen.”

Dr. Barb frowned, “Dr. Bimm has blue hair.”

Thomas shook his head. “No, it’s the color of the grass on the first day of summer.” He lowered his voice. “I write romance novels under the name Priscilla D’Jacqueline.”

“You what?”

“But it’s blue,” Dr. Barb insisted.

“Um, shut up about my hair now?” Fred suggested.

“Right, right. Well, on with the tour.” Dr. Barb started her hallway trot, dragging Thomas by the elbow. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Bimm. We’ll leave you to your work.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t forget to say hello to the new intern.”

“I won’t,” she lied.

“It was nice to meet you, Fredrika!” he managed as he was dragged away.

“Not Fredrika. Fred. Not Dr. Bimm,” she continued to the now-empty hallway. “Fred.”

New water fellow. Yum.

After a moment’s thought, she shoved Thomas out of her brain (he went fairly easily) and went back to work.

Tried to, anyway. On the way to her lab, she nearly collided with a creature of unspeakable evil and annoyance: an undergrad.

“Oh, hiiiiii!” the creature burbled, straightening her perfectly straight bangs and sticking out a small warm paw for Fred to shake. “Gosh, Dr. Bimm, right? Gosh! I’m super happy I have a chance to meet you! Yeah! Because I’m hoping to learn so much from you!” She laughed, as if the very idea was so exciting it could not be contained. “Yeah!”