at that table in the sunroom. Then, when she’d passed out, dropping right into his arms...he’d never quite experienced anything like that. It hadn’t been panic, really, or even shock; it was more...a heightened awareness, a deep physical connection overlaid by concern for her well-being and something else he could only describe as possessiveness. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all, but something about Simone Guilland drew him. Hopefully, she hadn’t noticed.
He kept an eye on her, wandering in and out of the house regularly. She didn’t move from the couch. A few others went inside and joined her, making use of the video games he’d spoken of earlier. She chatted with them and cheered them on as they played, her husky voice seeming to deepen with use until the sound of it flayed his skin like velvet lashings and set his nerves on edge.
The party began to break up about dusk, as it was meant to. As usual, many hands made short work of the cleanup. Morgan could always count on his faculty in the History Department to pitch in and help. With Hilda and Chester overseeing everything, they were finished in no time at all. Still, dark had descended by the time he escorted Simone out to the two-seater parked beneath the porte cochere on the west end of the house. He’d treated himself to the Valencia-orange convertible when he’d made department chair last year. The BMW Z4 was a sharp, fast, classy bit of self-indulgence for which he refused to feel guilty. He worked hard, after all, tithed religiously, gave generously and spent what was left as he pleased. Simone dropped down into the passenger seat, her eyebrows rising, and fastened her safety belt as he strode around the front end to take his place behind the steering wheel.
“Am I going to regret this?” she asked cheekily.
He couldn’t help grinning as he put the transmission in gear. “Nope. I am, if I do say so myself, an excellent driver.”
“Modest, too,” she quipped, then she laughed outright at his look of dismay. He found himself laughing with her. He was rather proud of his driving skills.
After backing out, he drove the sports car sedately down the looping drive and south through town the dozen or so blocks to the university district. She directed him to a three-story boardinghouse on the north edge of the university campus. It was a ramshackle place, some forty or fifty years old. Once a dignified family home, it had long ago devolved to seedy, its large, airy rooms broken into small cells with common bathrooms on each story and a central living space and utilitarian kitchen on the ground floor. The yard had been paved over to provide parking, and bicycles and skateboards crowded the warped porch.
Morgan had been inside many times. While single men and women were never allowed to share living space in buildings on campus, the school had no control over off-campus housing. Typically, these three-story boardinghouses hosted men on the top story and women on the middle one, with the bottom floor reserved for common rooms. These places tended to be loud and run-down and catered to the poorest students living on the smallest of stipends. Just now, loud music poured from the building.
“We have a resident praise band,” she said wryly, explaining the music.
“No wonder you haven’t been getting much sleep.”
She shrugged. “They’re good people, and this is all I can afford on my wages.”
Morgan hated to think of quiet, physically fragile Simone here. However spunky she might be, he sensed shadows and sadness in her, trouble and need. It was his job to help her, if he could. That’s what faculty advisers at Buffalo Creek Bible College did. He’d had his share of troubled students. Christian colleges were not immune from the ills of society; perhaps the effects were mitigated somewhat, but the world was still the world, and Christians still had to cope with it. If she had been raised through the foster care system, as he suspected, he might be able to find resources for her of which she was unaware.
“Where do you work?”
“At the Campus Gate Coffee House.”
He knew it well. The proprietors were friends, and he ate breakfast there at least once a week. Located just across the street from the west gate to the campus, it was a very popular place.
She reached for the door handle, saying, “It doesn’t pay much, but when I’ve finished school, I won’t owe a dime to anyone.”
“Well, that’s a definite plus,” he told her, “but perhaps you should think about applying for a grant or a small loan.”
She shook her head. “That’s not for me.” With that she let herself out of the car, saying, “Thank you for the ride, Professor Chatam.”
Morgan frowned at the way she dismissed his suggestion so casually, but she was already moving away from the car. “Take care of yourself,” he called. “See you in class on Wednesday.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised, waving as she hurried up the walk to the house.
As he drove away, Morgan made a mental vow to keep track of her. He wasn’t yet convinced that she didn’t have an eating disorder. He’d seen bulimia more than once, not usually in young women from foster homes, though. He’d hate to see something like that derail Simone’s education—and it wouldn’t do to let an inappropriate attraction distract him from his duty. That wouldn’t do at all.
* * *
Simone closed the flimsy door of her shabby room and sagged against it. The beat of the bass guitar echoed up the stairwell from the floor below and throbbed inside her aching skull. The narrow bed against the far wall called to her, but she went to the laptop computer atop the rickety desk in the corner and turned it on. That, a pair of low, sparsely filled bookcases, a small lamp, a trash can, an oval rug, a pair of curtains and a desk chair comprised the furnishings of the room. It was little to show for nearly a decade, but such things had ceased to matter to her in a hospital bed in a cancer ward in Baton Rouge.
Without Morgan Chatam to distract her, she could no longer contain her need to know what had happened to her family. A simple internet search brought up her father’s obituary on the computer screen.
Marshall Doyal Worth, fifty-seven, had died on June 20 after a long illness. An old photo of him as a young man, one of her favorites, accompanied the text. Survivors included his mother, listed as Eileen L. Davenport Worth; his older brother, Chester; sister-in-law, Hilda; two daughters, Carissa, of the home, and Lyla—no residence mentioned—grandsons Nathan and Tucker; granddaughter Grace; a niece and a nephew; and several great-nieces and nephews. Marshall had died, it would seem, from cancer, as it was requested that memorials be made in the form of donations to fund research.
Obviously, cancer ran in the family.
At least Carissa and her children had been living with Marshall at the end, so he hadn’t been alone. Tears flowed from her eyes as Simone folded her arms across the edge of the desk and lowered her aching head to pray.
“Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. Please tell my daddy that I’m sorry. It’s too late. I left it too late. I thought I was doing the right thing by coming here now, but maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Show me what to do now, and forgive me. Please forgive me.”
She had more than nine years of “forgive me” stacked up, nearly a decade of penance to pay and mistakes to undo. And now it was too late. With her father gone, what was the point in coming here? Carissa wasn’t likely to want anything to do with her now.
Poor Carissa, to have lost Tom and then to have nursed their dad through cancer all on her own.... No, Carissa wasn’t likely to want anything to do with her wayward little sister now. And who could blame her? Tom had been Carissa’s high school sweetheart. She’d never showed any interest in any other guy. How tough it must have been for her to lose him!
Simone lifted her head and looked up Tom’s obituary. Four years. He had died in an accident of some sort more than four years ago.
Her tears became sobs of grief and shame and regret. Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop them, not even when she impulsively looked up the wedding announcements in the local newspaper and saw a photo of Carissa and her beautiful children posed with a tall, ruggedly