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that she wasn’t a complete bore than in using common sense.
    Jordan knew she had no one to blame but herself for her present circumstances, but she still wanted to blame Noah, simply because doing so made her feel better.
    She leaned against her dilapidated rental car on the side of the beat-up, two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere, Texas, while impatiently waiting for the engine to cool down so she could pour more water into the coolant reservoir. Thank goodness she’d stopped awhile back on the interstate to pick up a couple of bottles of drinking water for the rest of her trip. She was fairly certain the radiator had a leak, but she’d need to keep the engine running long enough to get to the next town to have a mechanic look at it. It was at least a hundred-ten in the shade, and of course the car’s air conditioner had bit the dust about an hour ago, along with the super-duper satellite system the rental agency had thrown in as a consolation prize for messing up her reservation and knowingly dumping a lemon on her.
    Sweat trickled down between her breasts; the bottoms of her sandals were melting into the pavement, and the sunscreen she’d lathered on her face and arms was giving up the fight. Jordan had dark auburn hair but a redhead’s complexion, and it didn’t take much sun for her to burn and freckle. She supposed she had a choice. She could either sit in the car and die of dehydration while she waited for the engine to cool down, or she could stay outside and be slowly cremated.
    Okay. She was being a little overdramatic. That’s what the heat will do to you, she thought.
    Fortunately, she had her cell phone with her. She never left home without it. Unfortunately, since she was temporarily stranded in the middle of the vast flatland, she couldn’t get a signal.
    Serenity, Texas, was fifty or sixty miles away. She hadn’t been able to find out much about the town, only knew that it was so small the name warranted only the smallest typeface on a map of Texas. The professor had called Serenity a charming oasis. But when she’d met him he’d been wearing a heavy wool, tweed blazer in the summer heat. What did he know about charming?
    She had checked the professor out before leaving Boston, and although he was strange and eccentric, he was the real deal. The man was multidegreed and certified to teach. An assistant in the Franklin College administration building, a woman named Lorraine, had raved about his teaching abilities. According to her, the professor made history come to life. His classes were always the first to fill up, she said.
    Jordan found that nearly impossible to believe. “Really?”
    “Oh my, yes. The students don’t mind his accent, and they must be hanging on every word because no one ever fails his classes.”
    Ah, now Jordan understood. An easy grade.
    The woman also mentioned that he’d taken early retirement, but she hoped he would reconsider and come back.
    “Good teachers are so hard to come by,” she had remarked. “And on the salaries they’re paid, most can’t afford to retire at such an early age. Why, Professor MacKenna is barely in his forties.”
    Lorraine obviously didn’t mind divulging personal information about a past faculty member, and she hadn’t even asked Jordan why she was so interested. Granted, Jordan had lied and told the woman she was a distant relative, but Lorraine hadn’t required any verification.
    She was a talker, no doubt about that. “I’ll bet you thought he was much older, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “I did too,” she said. “I could look up his birthday for you if you’d like.”
    Good heavens, she was accommodating. “That won’t be necessary,” Jordan answered. “You said he officially retired? I thought he’d taken a sabbatical.”
    “No, he retired,” she insisted. “We’d be thrilled to have him back. I doubt he will ever teach again though. He received such a nice inheritance,” she continued. “He told