None of them acknowledged him, but the loudest of the group left.
The dark-haired woman took the seat beside him. She leaned in to whisper softly so only he could hear. “Dr. Asshole is on the tenure committee.”
Lance didn’t know much about academics,but he figured that was a bad sign for Kaci.
“If she makes it to Germany for this conference, she’d basically have to be tossed in jail for some kind of heinous crime before they could deny her tenure. She’s eligible to go before the board in another two years.” She leaned back and crossed her arms. “So make sure she goes,” she said softly.
He nodded.
Wasn’t his fight.
But he liked Kaci. And she was good at her job. Also, consideringhisjob depended on the laws of physics, it was technically in his best interest to make sure the people designing those planes had the best education possible.
Just as it was in Uncle Sam’s best interest to make sure every pilot flying one of his birds was as well-trained and motivated as he or she could be.
Lance’s gut tightened.
He didn’t want to stay in Georgia. Didn’t want to give up his deployments.
He shouldn’t have come here this afternoon.
Up front, Kaci moved to the whiteboard. “Okay, we’ll try it this way,” she said. “How are we going to calculate where to aim to compensate for gravity?”
The second man across the aisle left.
Kaci flicked a glance in their direction when she turned to face her students, and a glimmer of a smug smile crossed her features.
The third older dude across the aisle looked at Lance. “You’re right,” he said. “She’s damn good.”
“And he’snoton the tenure committee,” Kaci’s friend murmured.
Twenty minutes later, the kids had figured out a better way to impale the pig that didn’t involve any equations at all, and Jess walked away with a holey pig as a souvenir.
The last dude left along with the two women. Kaci stuck around answering individual questions, but eventually, the last student hightailed it out of the lecture hall too.
Kaci leaned back against her table, arms crossed, and waited until Lance reached the front of the lecture hall. “If you’re fixin’ to start a fight, I don’t have a lick of care left in me,” she said.
He pulled a small box from his pocket and popped it open. “Still owe me some ring disposal.”
She eyed the box with Allison’s one-point-five carat, princess-cut diamond engagement ring and the two simple his-and-hers wedding bands that went with it, then lifted her gaze to his face.
“That’s all you want?”
Not nearly. But it was all he could ask for. And if he had to be stuck here at Gellings,shutting a few more doors on what should’ve been his life with Allison was a good step. “Yep.”
“Huh.” Her redneck side visibly glimmered to life in that smile. “Let me get all this cleaned up. If Miss Higgs is doing okay, I got an idea where we can go.”
God help him, he was irrationally excited to find out what she had in store. “Great lecture,” he said while she shooed him away from the crossbow.
“More fun than cherry bombs in a barrel of fish guts,” she said.
Had any other woman said that, he might’ve laughed. But this was Kaci, and the probability that she’d actually done it was too high. “Have you tossed cherry bombs in a barrel of fish guts?”
“Sugar, if you don’t know the answer to that question, you ain’t half as observant as I give you credit for.”
He was ninety percent sure that was a yes. “Was this sometime in the last few months, or were you significantly younger?”
She grinned. “Bless your heart, you don’t really think I’m gonna tell you all my secrets, do you?”
