LITMIR.BIZ

      He picked her up for their first official date three nights later. He felt like a teenager getting ready. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, trying for just the right note of casual.

      As he approached her address, he was aware that for a man who had done the most dangerous things in the world with absolute icy calm, his heart was beating faster, and his palms were sweat-slicked.

      She lived on campus in what looked to be a very ordinary house until he went to the front door, rang the bell and was let in.

      There were girls everywhere, short girls, tall girls, skinny girls, heavy girls. There were girls dressed to go to nightclubs and girls in their pajamas. There were girls with their hair in rollers and girls hidden behind frightening facial masks of green creams and white creams. And it seemed when he stood in that front foyer, every single one of them stopped and looked at him. Really looked.

      “Sexy beast,” one of them called out. “Who are you here for?”

      The last time he had blushed was when Shoshauna had kissed him on the cheek and called him Charming in that little market in B’Ranasha. She was determined to put him in predicaments that stretched him! At least now he knew a little blush wouldn’t kill him.

      “I’m here for Shoshauna.” There were groans and calls of “lucky girl,” and he found himself blushing harder.

      But when he saw her, coming down the steps, two at a time, flying toward him, all thought of himself, of his wild discomfort at finding himself, a man so used to a man’s world, so surrounded by women, was gone.

      There was a look on her face when she saw him that he knew he would never forget, not if he lived to be 102.

      It was unguarded and filled with tenderness.

      A memory niggled at him, of a moment a long, long time ago. His father coming up the steps from work, in combat uniform, his mother running to meet him, a look just like the one on Shoshauna’s face now in her eyes. And he remembered how his father had looked at her. Despite the uniform, in that moment his father had not been a warrior. No, just a man, filled with wonder, gentled by love, amazed.

      In the next few weeks, even though Ronan had to run the gauntlet of her housemates every time he saw her, he spent every moment he could with her. Every second they could wangle away from hectic schedules, they were together. Simple moments—a walk, holding hands, eating pizza, playing darts at the pub—simple moments became infused with a light from heaven.

      Ronan was aware that, left to his own devices, he would have performed his duties perfectly on B’Ranasha. He would have been a perfect professional, he would never have allowed himself to become personally involved with the principal.

      And he would have missed this: the tenderness, the sweetness of falling head over heels in love. But somehow, some way, a kind universe had taken pity on him, given him what he needed the most, even though he had been completely unaware of that need. Even though he had strenuously denied that need and tried to fight against it.

      Falling in love with Shoshauna was like waking from a deep hypnotic state. When he woke in the morning, his first thought was of her. He felt as if he was living to make her laugh, to feel the touch of her hand, to become aware of her eyes resting on his face, something in them so unguarded and so breathtakingly, exquisitely beautiful.

      For some reason he, a rough soldier, had come to be loved by a woman like this one. He planned to be worthy of it.