The Bachelor Meets His Match

He looked down at his plate. “Your family has cooks, do they?”

A heartbeat too late she said, “The Guillands keep three cooks, one for weekdays, which is four days a week, another for weekends, which is three days a week, and the third for special occasions.” It wasn’t a lie. The Guillands did have three cooks, and she hadn’t said that they were her family. Not anymore, anyway.

“They sound prosperous.”

She nodded, smiling slightly. He put down his fork, staring at her openly until she reached up a hand to smooth her hair again.

“You look fine,” he told her, trying to read her mind again. “The short hair becomes you.”

“Thank you. I—I sometimes think it makes me look too much like a child.” She shook her head, wondering why she’d told him that. “I, ah, used to wear it long.”

He looked down, picked up his fork again and said very casually, “Lost it to the chemotherapy, I suppose.”

And there it was. Big secret number one exposed.

She gulped, made herself stay calm and waited until he looked at her. “Yes.”

He sat back, touched a napkin to the corners of his mouth and asked, “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

“I was afraid the college would deny my admission application if it became known that I was recovering from cancer.”

“But you’re cancer free at this time, or so I assume.”

“Yes, and I have been for nearly six months.”

“But you’re still weak and vulnerable.”

She quietly said, “I’ve had a lot of upheaval in my life.” Clamping her lips together, she looked him squarely in the eye. If he wanted anything else out of her, he’d have to pry it out with a crowbar and a scalpel. She’d said—and been through—enough. His cinnamon eyes plumbed hers for several seconds until finally he chuckled and shook his head.

“All right. Keep your own counsel. After breakfast, I’ll drive you to class, and after class, I’ll take you to the boardinghouse to pack your belongings.”

“That isn’t necessary,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m fine now. You said yourself how well rested I look.”

“And I intend for you to stay that way until you’re fully recovered.”

“But—”

“No buts, Simone,” he told her firmly. “That’s my price for keeping your health issues between us. You move in here until you are fully recovered, according to Dr. Leland and myself, or I go to the BCBC administration with a recommendation that your studies be delayed for at least a semester.”

She gasped. “That’s blackmail!”

“That’s my considered judgment as your faculty adviser.”

Curling her fists against the urge to throw something at his handsome head, she huffed out a calming breath, saying bitterly, “You leave me no choice.”

“None at all,” he admitted shamelessly. Sitting forward, he covered her hands with his much larger ones, saying, “Simone, I’m trying to help you.”

Heat rolled up her arms, melting her fists into compliant little curls and filling her with an urgent need for...comfort, protection...something. That something felt alarmingly dangerous, like every mistake she’d ever made. She pulled her hands free, sitting back and folding her arms. Frowning, he blinked at her as if trying to decide what had just happened.

Picking up his fork again, he all but growled at her, “Eat your breakfast.”

Her appetite had gone, but she cleaned her plate anyway. The sooner she regained her strength and put on some weight, the sooner she could get out of here. Hopefully that would happen before she stumbled across her sister. Perhaps, if she kept to her room here, she could avoid everyone who had any reason to know her.

Oh, Lord, let that be enough, she prayed desperately. I just can’t face Carissa now, not after everything that’s happened. Please, just give me some time to get my strength back, at least. Then...then if she hates me, maybe I can bear it.

Tears filled her eyes at the thought, but she willed them away, dug down deep for the strength that the hospital chaplain had told her was now hers and repeated silently one of the verses he had taught her from John 16.

“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Those words of Christ calmed her. She recalled how far she had come, off the streets and out of bad relationships, through life-threatening disease to earn a degree and press on for another. One day in the not-too-distant future, she would do something real and significant with her life to make up for all the pain, sorrow and foolishness of her past. Then maybe she could approach what was left of her family, confess all and show them that she could be trusted to take part in their lives once again. Then, maybe, Carissa could forgive her and they could be the kind of sisters they always should have been. But if not, Simone would have something to return to, something to give her life to, something worth laying at the feet of Christ when she joined her father in Heaven one day.

That was all she wanted now, and no handsome, overbearing, if well-meaning, college professor was going to get in her way.

* * *

Clearly, Morgan had misread Simone at their first meeting. She wasn’t interested in him. Far from it. With every door that he opened for her, every hand of assistance that he offered, she gave a twitch of her chin that practically shouted, “Stay clear! Back away!”

He’d have happily obliged her if he could have, but for some reason he felt literally compelled to watch over her. Much thanks he received for his trouble. She grumbled and groused like the petulant child he was increasingly aware she was not.

“I don’t see why I should take ski clothes to Chatam House.”

“Why leave them here when you’re not going to be staying here?”

The boardinghouse was even more shabby than Morgan recalled, but Simone’s room was as neat as a pin, perhaps because most of her clothes were of the winter variety and remained packed away in boxes.

“Why do you have so many ski clothes anyway?” he asked. “I can’t imagine that snow skiing is a big pastime around Baton Rouge.” But then, she had done most of her undergraduate work in Colorado. He wondered if she would own up to it. She did and more.

“It is possible to travel outside of Louisiana, you know,” she told him haughtily, “but as a matter of fact, I used to work on the ski slopes in Colorado. That’s where I met my husband.”

“Your husband!” Morgan yelped the words, feeling pricked and, oddly enough, betrayed.

She went pale as a sheet. “My ex-husband,” she hurriedly amended, “or whatever you call him when the marriage is annulled.”

Annulled! Morgan didn’t think he’d ever heard of an annulled marriage in this day and age. The woman was a puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma. She put trembling hands to her head and sighed.

“Oh, now look what you’ve gone and done.” Dropping her hands, she stared at him accusingly. “There was no reason anyone had to know about that.”

“There’s nothing saying anyone does,” he told her. Anyone else, that was. Folding his arms, he prepared to wait the rest of the day for the story, if necessary.

Recognizing his resolve, Simone stamped a foot. He thought for a moment that she would explode, but she glanced at the open door—a house policy, and a wise one—and instead sighed, throwing herself down to sit on the edge of the narrow bed. Morgan pulled out the desk chair and straddled it, folding his arms across the top edge of the back.

She made a face and said, “He’s an only child from a wealthy family, used to getting his way, frankly, and...well, we had fun, so when he asked me to elope with him, I agreed. He told me up front that his parents, who were older, wouldn’t approve but that they’d change their minds when we presented them with their first grandchild.” She looked away, adding, “I actually thought I might be pregnant right away, but a routine physical exam turned up something else altogether.”