and Mrs. Phillip Chatam,” the caption read, “and family.”
The article beneath detailed that the couple had been “united in holy wedlock” on Friday, August 8, at Chatam House, the home of the groom’s aunts, by the groom’s uncle, Hubner Chatam Jr. Maid of honor was Dallas Chatam, sister of the groom.
Simone felt a pang at that. She had been the maid of honor at Carissa’s marriage to Tom, but she hadn’t been here when Carissa had buried Tom or their father or when she’d married Phillip Chatam. Simone hadn’t even known that she had a niece and nephews. Carissa had been pregnant when Simone had left, but she hadn’t given that much thought at the time. All things considered, that was probably best. Simone tore her gaze away from the photo of the children and continued reading.
Asher Chatam, brother of the groom, had served as best man. The bride was given in marriage by her uncle, Chester Worth. The happy couple’s parents were listed as the late Marshall Worth and Alexandra Hedgespeth and the doctors Murdock Chatam and Maryanne Burdett Chatam.
“Hedgespeth,” Simone murmured, swiping ineffectually at her tears. That was a new one. She couldn’t help wondering how many other last names and husbands her mother had claimed in the past nine years.
Simone hadn’t expected life to stand still in Buffalo Creek while she was gone. It certainly hadn’t stood still for her. But she hadn’t expected this.
Her dad had been only fifty-seven, and Tom had been in his thirties. So young.
Fresh tears gushed from her eyes. She cried for her father, for her late brother-in-law, for Carissa and her children, but she refused to cry for herself. She knew only too well what her dad must have suffered and could only hope that Tom had not suffered anything similar. What Carissa had endured Simone could only imagine. At the same time, Simone prayed, hoped, that Alexandra had not spent the intervening years flitting from man to man, demanding that everyone stop and think of her, put her needs and desires first. Yet that new last name, Hedgespeth, suggested that her mother had not mended her self-indulgent ways. That meant that Carissa had, indeed, dealt with it all alone.
Could Carissa ever forgive her only sister for abandoning her to deal with such tragedies and their demanding mother alone? The very question so smacked of their self-absorbed mother that Simone vowed never to ask it. She had no right to ask it, no right to dump her problems and failures on the sister who had stayed to do what a good daughter should.
Carissa had happily remarried. She didn’t need a prodigal sister turning up to complicate her life just when things were going well for a change. No, it was too late for that.
It would have been better if she hadn’t come to BCBC and Buffalo Creek, but what was done was done. Aaron, her former husband—if he could be called that—had paid her tuition in full, just as she’d requested. It was all Simone had asked for in the settlement, a college education, and his cagey parents had seen to it that the funds they’d dispensed to be rid of her could not be used for any other reason. She had specified Buffalo Creek Bible College, and that’s where they had sent the money, so this was where she would have to attend school. That meant she would just have to keep to herself.
If her own aunt and uncle hadn’t recognized her, then it wasn’t likely that anyone except those closest to her would, at least not in her present condition. She saw no reason, then, for anyone to equate Simone Guilland with Lyla Worth—no one, that was, except her sister and mother. Those two alone might recognize her, so she would just have to keep her distance from everyone connected to either of them. That included the kind, charming and debonair Professor Morgan Chatam, even if he was her faculty adviser and she had to take his class.
It was a pity that she couldn’t take Professor Chatam’s course online again, but school policy made that difficult because she’d dropped it before without explanation. That hadn’t seemed important at the time, given the severity of the circumstances. Once she’d understood that she was moving to Buffalo Creek and would have access to the BCBC campus, she’d simply accepted that she would take the course in person. She hadn’t known then, of course, what she knew now. Still, all she could do was keep her distance and let Carissa live her life without worrying about her foolish baby sister.
Her decision to remain incognito made, Simone sat in the back of the class on Wednesday and tried to blend in with the eager young students around her.
She needn’t have bothered. Professor Chatam’s warm, cinnamon-brown gaze nailed her the moment he strode into the room. He wore that tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches about which he’d teased her, but he immediately shrugged out of it and slung it over the back of his desk chair, rolling up the sleeves of the tan pinpoint shirt that he wore with a brown tie and brown slacks. His hair seemed lighter than she’d remembered, a medium golden-brown with glints of silver, brushed straight back from the slight widow’s peak in the center of his high forehead. He took a pair of gold, half-frame reading glasses from a pocket and slid them onto his nose. Suddenly, the cleft in his chin seemed more pronounced, more compelling.
Before, at the party, he’d appeared engaging, urbane, a tad dangerous and undeniably attractive. Now he had a commanding air about him. At once authoritative and yet affable, he looked devastatingly handsome. Every girl on campus probably had a crush on him. Simone ducked her head.
Thankfully, he wasted no time in getting down to business. She’d admired his easy, informative style on his recorded lectures, but that paled in comparison to his classroom persona. Morgan Chatam, professor, held a class of seventy students rapt, imparting knowledge with such facility and precision that it became obvious he had been born for this. He didn’t just lecture, he engaged, using banter as well as media to get his points, facts and ideas across. At times, everyone seemed to be talking at once, yet he never lost control of the lecture hall, not for an instant, and he seemed aware of what everyone was doing all the time.
His memory proved phenomenal—that or he’d done some research on her since he’d seen her last. It would be flattering to think that it was the latter, so she didn’t dare, not that he gave her time.
“Ms. Guilland had an interesting observation on that point,” he said when the subject turned to a particular discussion item. Then he accurately quoted what she had written in an online chat. At the same time, he invited her to elucidate with a gesture of his hand. She cleared her throat and voiced her thoughts. Nodding, he moved on. She tried not to feel pleased when the students around her glanced her way with something akin to admiration, scribbling furiously as if her thoughts were important.
He hailed her as she followed the throng to the door at the end of class. Unlike other professors, he’d arranged his lecture hall so that the students filed past his lectern. “Simone, how are you feeling?”
“Great. Just great.”
“No more fainting?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Stay that way.”
“I plan to.”
Parked on the corner of his desk, he flashed that suave smile at her and nodded. She turned away, wishing that her heart wasn’t beating just a little faster than it ought to and that so many others weren’t following the brief conversation with such avid curiosity. The last thing she needed was speculation about her and a man, any man, but especially a Chatam. She’d had enough trouble with men in her lifetime. What she needed now was to forget that the male of the species existed. Moreover, she had to keep her distance from the Chatams and anyone else with a connection to her sister and family. All she wanted, all that was left to her, was to finish her education and make a difference in this world.
The chaplain at the hospital in Baton Rouge had told her that she had a destiny to fulfill in Christ, and she believed it with all her heart. Why else would He spare her life when all hope had seemed lost? Perhaps when He was done punishing her for past mistakes, He would make His purpose known to her. Until then, she would just have to bear up under the pain of her father’s death and the losses she had dealt herself with her own foolish, selfish behavior.
* * *
Anyone