Taming Natasha(15)

She had found her way to shore, just as her family had once found its way across the wilds of the Ukraine to the jungles of Manhattan.

She liked herself better—the independent, ambitious American woman she had become. As she was now, she could walk into the big, beautiful old building on campus with as much pride as any freshman student.

There were footsteps echoing in the corridors, distant, dislocated. There was a hushed reverence that Natasha always associated with churches and universities. In a way there was religion here—the belief in learning.

She felt somewhat reverent herself as she made her way to her class. As a child of five in her small farming village, she had never even imagined such a building, or the books and beauty it contained.

Several students were already waiting. A mixed bag, she noted, ranging from college to middle age. All of them seemed to buzz with that excitement of beginning. She saw by the clock that it was two minutes shy of eight. She'd expected Kimball to be there, busily shuffling his papers, peering at them behind glasses, his hair a little wild and streaming to his shoulders.

Absently she smiled at a young man in horn-rims, who was staring at her as if he'd just woken from a dream. Ready to begin, she sat down, then looked up when the same man clumsily maneuvered himself into the desk beside her.

"Hello."

He looked as though she'd struck him with a bat rather than offered a casual greeting. He pushed his glasses nervously up his nose.

"Hello. I'm—I'm…Terry Maynard," he finished on a burst as his name apparently came to him at last.

"Natasha." She smiled again. He was on the sunny side of twenty-five and harmless as a puppy.

"I haven't, ah, seen you on campus before."

"No." Though at twenty-seven it amused her to be taken for a coed, she kept her voice sober. "I'm only taking this one class. For fun."

"For fun?" Terry appeared to take music very seriously. "Do you know who Dr. Kimball is?" His obvious awe made him almost whisper the name.

"I've heard of him. You're a Music major?"

"Yes. I hope to, well one day, I hope to play with the New York Symphony." His blunt fingers reached nervously to adjust his glasses.

"I'm a violinist."

She smiled again and made his Adam's apple bob. "That's wonderful. I'm sure you're very good."

"What do you play?"

"Five card draw." Then she laughed and settled back in her chair. "I'm sorry. I don't play an instrument. But I love to listen to music and thought I'd enjoy the class." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "If it ever starts, that is. Apparently our esteemed professor is late."



At that moment the esteemed professor was rushing down the corridors, cursing himself for ever agreeing to take on this night class. By the time he had helped Freddie with her homework—how many animals can you find in this picture?—convinced her that Brussels sprouts were cute instead of yucky, and changed his shirt because her affectionate hug had transferred some mysterious, sticky substance to his sleeve, he had wanted nothing more than a good book and a warm brandy.

Instead he was going to have to face a roomful of eager faces, all waiting to learn what Beethoven had worn when he'd composed his Ninth Symphony.

In the foulest of moods, he walked into class. "Good evening. I'm Dr. Kimball." The murmurs and rattles quieted. "I must apologize for being late. If you'll all take a seat, we'll dive right in."

As he spoke he scanned the room. And found himself staring into Natasha's astonished face.

"No." She wasn't aware she'd spoken the word aloud, and wouldn't have cared. It was some sort of joke, she thought, and a particularly bad one. This—this man in the casually elegant jacket was Spencer Kimball, a musician whose songs she had admired and danced to.

The man who, while barely into his twenties had been performing at Carnegie Hall being hailed as a genius. This man who had tried to pick her up in a toy store was the illustrious Dr. Kimball?

It was ludicrous, it was infuriating, it was—

Wonderful, Spence thought as he stared at her. Absolutely wonderful. In fact, it was perfect, as long as he could control the laugh that was bubbling in his throat. So the czarina was one of his students. It was better, much better than a warm brandy and an evening of quiet.

"I'm sure," he said after a long pause, "we'll all find the next few months fascinating."

She should have signed up for Astronomy, Natasha told herself. She could have learned all kinds of interesting things about the planets and stars. Asteroids. She'd have been much better off learning about—what was it?—gravitational pull and inertia. Whatever that was.