Chapter Two

Veronica walked down the corridors of the Old Main building on campus yawning. She never should have stayed up so late last night. Regardless, she hadn’t been able to sleep because she couldn’t get a certain blue eyed, nameless cowboy out of her mind.

Her slim gold watch said she was almost late for her Senior Accounting class. A panicky feeling came over her, as she abhorred being late and prided herself for always being on time.

She couldn’t believe she went to a strip club last night. A very clean and nice strip club, but nevertheless, it was a strip club. Full of strippers!

And she’d liked it. Couldn’t fool herself about that.

She shoved thoughts of her cowboy, gorgeous as he was, to the back of her mind, right where they belonged.

****

Simon had a meeting in the music department and he was late. The quickest way to the music department was through the math wing of Old Main. He shuddered. Math was made of evil.

Bean counters was what they were, pushing around numbers instead of pulling out emotions. He’d go stark raving mad if he had to count higher than eight. Even though he tried, he couldn’t even balance his checkbook. Given his income, miniscule as it was, that shouldn’t be hard to do, yet there he was, defeated by his calculator.

The people at H&R Block groaned when he showed up with a shoebox stuffed full of receipts. He couldn’t say he blamed them.

“Mr. West!”

He turned to see who’d called his name.

He promptly got tossed on his ass by another person coming from the opposite direction. “Oof!”

Someone, definitely female, sprawled on top of him. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” She tried to roll off but only succeeded in planting her knee in the family jewels.

Pain shot from his groin to every other part of his body. He had trouble dragging in a breath. He drew his knees into his chest and rocked like a baby.

****

Veronica knew it was bad and cursed her clumsy self. Grace wasn’t her middle name. She’d gotten thrown out of elementary ballet because they said she was hopeless. That she didn’t possess one ounce of coordination and that her parents shouldn’t waste their money. It still stung, even if the truth of it followed her.

Never mind. She had to get off this guy without causing him further damage. She locked her body into a plank position and rolled away.

Fortunately, she didn’t cause further pain for the man. At least he didn’t groan again. She scrambled to her knees. “Did I hurt you?”

He struggled onto his elbows. “What do you think?”

Veronica glanced at her watch. “I’ll make it up to you later! I’ve got class right now and I’m going to be late.” She got to her feet and scurried away.

She would make it up to him as soon as she found out who he was.

****

“Who the hell was that?” Simon chuffed out on a labored breath.

Some students stopped to help him up. “That’s Ms. Cooke from the accounting department.”

A damn bean counter! Of course she’d run him down and kicked him in the balls.

He refused help to stand upright but somehow his usual grace and equilibrium deserted him as he struggled to his feet. He would have something to say to Ms. Cooke from the accounting department as soon as humanly possible.

The sooner, the better.