Love Lessons Read Online Free Page B

lives.” Nancy started for the door with Alexa next to her.
    Later, as Alexa left the Education Building on campus, she thought about what her adviser had said. Shake up their lives? Why does she think they need to be shaken up?
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    After parking her repaired car in the driveway on the following Monday, Alexa rang the bell at the Ferguson residence. While she waited, she tapped her booted foot to a country song she’d heard on the way over here. The tune continued to play in her mind.
    When the door swung open, she sucked in a deep breath at the disheveled sight of Ian Ferguson standing in the doorway, minus his wire-rimmed glasses, which only highlighted his startlingly blue eyes. His hair was still wet and messy as though he’d just finished towel drying it. He was barefoot but wore black slacks and a gray long-sleeve shirt, hanging out of his pants and buttoned wrong. What stunned her the most, however, was his unsettled expression.
    â€œYou’re early. Do you always arrive half an hour early?” He combed his fingers through his short hair, trying to bring order to it.
    â€œI didn’t want to be late for my first day on the job.” She pointed toward her car. “Although fixed, I never know how long the repairs will hold. I’ve got my cousin on speed dial. Is it okay to leave it parked there?”
    â€œFine.” He stepped to the side to allow her into the house. “Jana’s eating breakfast. Why don’t you go on into the kitchen and see her. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
    He padded toward the left, disappearing down a hallway, while she went to the right and immediately spied the girl sitting at an oblong glass table that seated six before a floor-to-ceiling window. As she ate her cereal, listening to her MP3 player, she had a book open on her place mat and was reading it, her forehead wrinkled, a small frown on her face. Jana didn’t look up at Alexa until she stopped near the child.
    â€œIt’s time for school?” Jana’s grim expression deepened.
    Alexa slipped into the chair near the girl. “No, not yet. I was a little early. I thought the first day we could spend time getting to know each other.”
    The child’s eyes widened. “Have you run that by Dad?”
    â€œWell, no, not yet.”
    â€œYou’d better. I have a timetable, and I’m sure he’s gonna want you to follow it.”
    A timetable? That sounded worse than a schedule, more rigid. She shouldn’t be surprised. But the idea sent a shiver down her length. The years she’d lived at home, her father had insisted she follow a strict schedule—he might as well have said timetable—to the point she’d never felt she could just be a child, spontaneous, perhaps daydreaming, free to let her creative mind come up with something to do. Her mother had been more encouraging of Alexa’s naturallycarefree nature, but she’d never directly interfered with her husband’s mandates.
    As soon as she’d graduated from high school, she’d gotten into the used car that her grandfather had given her, and drove until she’d ended up in Tallgrass, Oklahoma, where some of her mother’s cousins were. Her father had insisted she go to Vanderbilt University and become a doctor like him. He’d dreamed of his child going into practice with him. When he’d first told her that, she’d laughed, not thinking him serious. She went weak-kneed at the sight of blood. How was she going to be a doctor?
    â€œOkay, I’ll have a word with your dad.”
    â€œAbout what?” a deep, gravelly voice said behind her.
    Alexa glanced over her shoulder as Ian poured himself some coffee. Not a hair was out of place, and he’d buttoned his shirt correctly, as well as tucked it into his slacks. Didn’t he work at home? Or was he going out? “About spending some time with Jana getting to know her before we dig into