CALEB
“‘Morning, Jen,” I greeted the department’s desk assistant.
“Hey, Caleb,” the redhead chimed back. “What are you drinking today?”
Taking a sip from the steel thermos, I smiled. “Oh, the usual homemade coffee, black like my heart.”
Jen laughed, but as I turned to head down the hall. “You’ve got your new assistant waiting in your office.”
“Assistant?”
“The research temp,” she clarified.
On any other Monday morning, I stepped into my office, expecting to find it empty. I liked walking down the narrow halls of the astronomy department and starting my workdays with quiet, but when I opened the door, I found exactly who Jen meant.
A young woman sat with her back to me, parked in one of the chairs facing my desk. A brown leather shoulder bag at her feet, her red flats tapping on the floor. All I could see of her was a mess of thick ringlet curls pulled back from her hidden face.
I wondered, for a fraction of a moment, what it would be like to run my fingers through that messy dark mane. Quickly, I checked myself. There was no room for the kind of impulsive thoughts running through my head. I had to cool my ardor. Most of the research temps were graduate students or doctoral fellows. Thoughts like mine weren’t merely inappropriate. They were lose-your-job worthy, and no sweet-smelling student was worth losing my job.
“You must be the research assistant,” I declared.
Turning her head, the woman stood up and turned to face me with a diplomatic smile. While the moniker ‘dirty professor’ wasn’t something I aspired to hold, it fit from time to time. This was one of those times.
She had the kind of eyes any man would like to see first thing in the morning, dark and dreamy through a veil of thick lashes. Before I even shook her hand, I imagined what it might be like to kiss her. My hands twitched with an impulse to outline her feminine curves, but I stopped myself before I went too far.
It was important to maintain my sanity, and if I let myself get carried away, I would lose all ability to hold down a conversation.
“Good morning,” she offered with her manicured hand. “You must be Dr. Harrow.”
“Feel free to call me Caleb,” I told her, “Ms….?”
“Jackson, Millie Jackson.”
Setting my coffee thermos and bag down across the room down, I settled behind the heavy old desk. It put some much-needed distance between Ms. Jackson and me. I had the wherewithal to move through the familiar motions of my Monday, turning on my computer and pulling out the wireless keyboard.
“So, tell me about yourself,” I asked, getting down to business. “What’s your regular field of study here?”
“Oh, I’m not a student,” she said quickly. “I’m contracted by the university. They mentioned you needed help with your research on stars, I believe? I was told you needed a bibliographer, some fact-checking, and possibly copy editing.”
I blinked in surprise for more reasons than one. I thought I might be dreaming, but her voice had the slightest twinge of an Irish lilt. However, her words were far more enticing than her accent.
“About that…,” I began, pushing back the hair falling across my eyes.
I didn’t need or want a research assistant. The head of the department wanted me to publish some of my studies on the star cluster I was charting. In her mind, it was “publish or perish”, and she wanted the accolades that came with name recognition.
If the University of Chicago could say the Caleb Harrow was in their department, then they could turn around and sell that to the students.
The only trouble that I wasn’t in becoming some kind of scientific celebrity. I understood where the university was coming from, but I felt like it was all smoke and mirrors. I had been hired to teach, and that’s what I was doing. It was frustrating to be asked to perform tricks like some kind of trained animal.
“About what?” she asked with curiosity.
I could see the wheels spinning inside her pretty little head. She was well versed in research, I was sure, but she was likely a veteran at helping stodgy old professors who struggled with technology. I was sure she would be able to help me too, in her way. I just didn’t know what tasks to give her or what to say.
“Let me guess,” she said, adjusting the billowing sleeves of her black blouse. “You don’t think you need a research assistant.”
“No, I’m not sure if I do,” I admitted.
“They told me that you might have some complaints. Why don’t you tell me what they are? I’ll be happy to… assuage any of your concerns about having me around.”