Love Inspired June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Single Dad Cowboy\The Bachelor Meets His Match\Unexpected Reunion (30 page)

* * *

Morgan's surprise and pleasure when she turned up for class the next day couldn't have been more evident, but Simone would much rather have been at the university than Chatam House, where her uncle and aunt tried to convince her to call her sister and the Chatams asked how she was feeling every time they saw her. She couldn't even check on Rina without someone checking on her. At least the Chatams called her Lyla Simone, using both names, while her uncle and aunt insisted on calling her Lyla. She wanted to snap at them that Lyla was an idiot child, while Simone was a woman, but they had reluctantly agreed to delay informing Carissa of her presence for the time being, so she said nothing. In truth, she was both—the child who still suffered for her mistakes and the woman who paid for them. She was only too happy to escape to class when the opportunity came.

“You look good,” Morgan said by way of greeting when she first came into the lecture hall. Some of the girls around them tittered, so he immediately amended the statement. “
Well,
I mean. You look
well.
How are you feeling?”

“I'm quite recovered,” she said. “Thank you.” Then for good measure, she added, “Dr. Leland has taken good care of me.”

Morgan nodded and grinned. “I always recommend Dr. Leland.”

“I can see why,” she murmured, heading for her seat.

“Uh, stop by my desk after class, Simone,” Morgan called. “I want to talk to you about that staff position we discussed.”

She shot him a surprised look and a curt nod before hurrying on her way. She hoped that was good news. Surely he wasn't going to withdraw his recommendation. As she took her seat, she heard the two students in front of her whispering.

“A staff position? How did she swing that?”

“She's a graduate student picking up a prerequisite.”

“Oh. Slumming, eh?”

Stung, Simone bent toward them and hissed, “You don't know what slumming is until you've lived on the street and eaten out of garbage cans.”

To her surprise, they did not recoil. Instead, they turned in their seats to face her.

“Did you really?” the young man asked. “Live on the street, I mean.”

Simone dropped her gaze, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to lie, though. She had tried so hard not to lie throughout all this, though some would say she was merely playing at semantics. Well, no more. Finally, she gave a brief nod.

“Wow,” he said, “what a testimony you must have.”

She jerked her gaze up. Was he serious? “T-testimony?”

“Look at you now, a graduate student in Bible college.”

“God must have done a real work in your life,” the girl surmised, her smile warm and accepting.

A work in her life? Through homelessness and cancer?

The boy pulled a card from a pocket and pressed it into Simone's hand, saying, “We're always looking for people to speak to our group, if you're interested and have the time.”

Speak to a group? Simone didn't know what to say to that. “I—I'm pretty busy.” For good measure, she added, “I work part-time at the DBC mission for youth and young adults over next to the rail yard.”

“Yeah? That sounds interesting,” the girl said. “What's it like?”

Simone relaxed, and they discussed the mission for several minutes until Morgan started class. Afterward, the young man rose to his feet and smiled down at Simone, suggesting, “Hey, maybe our group could come over to the mission sometime, and you could talk to us there.”

Once again, Simone didn't know what to say. “Uh, maybe. I'll...see what the director thinks about that.”

“We'll pray about it,” the girl said, getting up.

“Cool deal,” the guy called, starting off. The girl followed.

Simone blinked at them, wondering what had just happened. Could she really tell her story to a bunch of kids? She would die of embarrassment and shame.

Then again, if just one of them learned something from it...

She shook her head. No, no, not these kids. These kids didn't need to learn from her. They had it together. They were in Bible college, leading good, pure lives. No, the kids who needed to hear what she had to say were the kids at the mission. But did she dare? She bit her lip, pondering the matter as the room emptied. Eventually, she stood, packed her wheeled case and made her way to Morgan.

He handed her a sheaf of papers. “The job is in the Records Department. Work from home, make your own hours. It's mostly typing. Fill-in-the-blank sort of stuff. Entry-level. I'm told it's a good department to get into because every department has records. Even the Records Department has its own records. It's administrative, not academic, but it gets you on staff, and that's what I'm—” He broke off, huffed and said, “Maybe it's not what you're after.”

“No, it sounds fine,” she told him. “In fact, it sounds great.”

“The pay isn't stellar,” he warned, “but it's far above what you're earning now.”

She thumbed through to that section of the paperwork and literally gaped at the salary offered. “That's fantastic! Oh, my.”

“Okay, then. The top sheet there tells you how to go online and fill out the application.”

“I'll do it right away,” she promised, smiling broadly.

“You do that, and I'll pray,” he said.

Touched, she tilted her head. “Thank you, Morgan.”

“No, not this time,” he refuted, shaking his head. “This time, I honestly don't know if I'm doing the right thing.”

“Of course you are.”

“I don't know,” he told her. “I just really don't know.”

She knew that he was worried about her health. “I'm fine. Truly. And what isn't fine is my own fault, not yours.”

“That isn't what I mean,” he said. “My motives may not always be as pure as you think.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek, whispering, “One thing I know about you, Morgan Chatam, is that you always do the right thing.”

“I hope so,” he replied softly, blanketing her hand with his. “I pray so.”

* * *

He didn't sleep well.

And that,
Morgan told himself blearily the next morning,
is what comes of a guilty conscience.

Simone didn't even realize that he'd maneuvered her into a staff position for his own purposes or why, and it did no good to tell himself that it was for her benefit when he knew his own motives. If she was on staff at the university, he could openly date her—even if he had no business doing so. Okay, so it was an easy job and she'd make more money, a lot more money; that didn't change why he'd done it.

Repeatedly throughout the night, he had told himself, and God, that he wouldn't take advantage of the situation. He wouldn't spend time with her just because he could, wouldn't take her out, wouldn't do all the little romantic things that kept popping into his head, and he definitely wouldn't hold and kiss her. The problem was that he didn't believe it, for as wrong as he knew he was for her, he wanted her with a desperation that frightened him.

For the first time in his life, he was afraid. Not angry or hurt, as he had been when Brigitte had broken their engagement. Not grief stricken and broken, as he had been when those he loved had died. Not ashamed and contrite, as he had been when he'd realized what a fool he'd made of himself after Brigitte and Brooks had married. He was afraid that his life would never be the same again because his heart would never be the same again, and he honestly was not sure that he could ever truly be happy without Simone. For whom he was all wrong.

Perhaps if she could bear a child... He couldn't believe that he was even thinking about that at his age, but no one could tell him that he wasn't allowed to start a family the natural way; they could, however, when it came to adoption. He'd known one couple turned down several times by different agencies precisely because of age, so he'd done a little research, and what he'd found hadn't helped. Simone's health history was already a strike against her when it came to adoption through normal channels; she didn't need to add a middle-aged husband to the equation. Funny, he'd never thought of himself as middle-aged before.

Private adoption was fraught with difficulties, from scams to women who simply changed their minds and too many couples who couldn't qualify through normal channels. No, he was a strike against her, no matter how he looked at it, so he prayed that God would take this desire, this obsession, from him. It hadn't helped at all. He didn't understand. His house felt foreign now, the same house that he'd loved and treasured as his haven all these years. This neat, orderly, clean, spacious bachelor's paradise suddenly seemed sterile, cold and empty as he sat at the bar in his gourmet kitchen with a mug of coffee in hand, his glasses perched on his nose and his Bible open before him, reading aloud from Proverbs 3.

“‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.'”

Setting aside his coffee, he tossed the glasses and dropped his head into his hands. He was trying. Oh, how he was trying.

When the phone rang, he nearly jumped off the stool. Rolling his eyes, he dug into the pocket of his terry-cloth robe and came up with the thing. Swiping his thumb across the screen, he brought it to his ear.

“Good morning.”

Simone's tear-choked voice came to him through the tiny speaker. “Morgan, they called Carissa! They said they'd wait, but they've already called her, and she's coming over with her husband. Morgan, I can't do this! I can't! Not alone.”

“You won't have to,” he promised her, pushing back the stool. “I'll get dressed and be right over.”

“Oh, Morgan. What am I going to say to her? How am I going to face her?”

“I don't know,” he said, “but you won't be alone.”

Not today, at least. Not so long as he could help, and not hurt, her. For now, that was all that mattered.

Chapter Eleven

F
or some reason, Morgan felt he should look his best. He grabbed a pair of dark brown dress slacks and a crisp white shirt, leaving the collar open and rolling up the cuffs. As a concession to the November chill, he threw a tan sweater over his shoulders, looping the sleeves across his chest. When he got to Chatam House, he found that other reinforcements had been called in; the aunties had thought it wise to have Brooks on hand. Considering the toll that the initial discovery of her true identity had taken on Simone, Morgan couldn't argue the point, but he didn't like walking in to find Brooks there dressed in a suit with only the tie missing, looking entirely too good, like he'd just come from a photo shoot for a men's fashion magazine.

Simone, too, had dressed for the occasion in a simple but expensive-looking olive-green skirt and pale pink sweater set, unadorned flats on her feet. She wore pearls at her earlobes to match the buttons on her cardigan and a gold bangle bracelet. Sitting rigidly on the very edge of the settee, she seemed wound as tightly as an eight-day clock.

Morgan took the seat next to Simone, nodding at Brooks, who stood directly behind her. Kent overflowed the occasional chair next to Odelia's to one side of the fireplace, where a cheery blaze burned far enough back in the recess not to risk smoking the ornate white plaster front. Odelia had made a statement by covering herself in peace symbols from her earlobes to the buckles on her shoes. Hypatia, in her regal silk, and Magnolia, in a cardigan over a shirtwaist dress over a pair of trousers over muck boots, had taken the two wing chairs. Chester, meanwhile, stood sentinel beside the doorway, and Hilda bustled around the tea tray on the low piecrust table, serving everyone with forced cheer. Simone waved away the offering, but Brooks intruded on her behalf.

“If there's mint and honey for the tea, that might be calming.”

“I'll get it,” Hilda offered at once, scurrying away as fast as her girth would allow.

She had just returned with a small container of the prescribed additives when a faint knock came at the front door. Chester slipped out into the foyer. Muted voices could be heard conversing softly for several seconds. Then three persons stepped into the wide, open doorway. Morgan curled his hand around the inside of Simone's right wrist, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Both Phillip and his wife had dressed casually in corduroy jeans and hiking boots, but Phillip, who had spent years in the cool Pacific Northwest, wore only a tan T-shirt, while Carissa sported a dark green sweater. Morgan was struck immediately by the similarities between his cousin's wife and Simone. He'd only seen Carissa a few times, but he was surprised he hadn't noted their resemblance before this. She was of a height with Simone but sturdier, and her hair was longer, thicker and of a medium golden-brown color. By comparison, Simone's shorter, wispier, paler hair seemed almost red. They had the same cheekbones, however, and the same eyes, though Carissa's seemed darker and Simone's were larger and more affecting. Carissa had obviously been crying, and her tears started again when she spied her sister sitting so rigidly and silent.

Phillip slid a protective arm about his wife and glanced around the room, frowning at Brooks and lifting an eyebrow at Morgan before letting his gaze rest finally on his sister-in-law.

“She looks like Grace.”

It was as if that one statement set off a bomb in the room.

“Oh, my. She does!”

“I knew there was something!”

“The hair.”

“It's the eyes.”

“And that chin.”

“The cheeks, too.”

Simone sat there frozen like a mannequin while they all stared at her and picked her apart, until Carissa spoke up, her words clipped, the tone sharp enough to eviscerate.

“Grace, in case you're wondering, is my daughter, your niece, whom you've never seen and probably didn't even know existed.”

Simone dropped her gaze, but otherwise neither moved nor responded. Carissa dashed away tears and stalked deeper into the room, toward the tall, round table in the center of the floor, where Magnolia kept a large arrangement of freshly cut flowers year-round. For a moment, Morgan feared that Carissa would bump into the table and send the flowers and expensive vase flying, but she drew to a jerky halt, putting out a hand to steady herself. Phillip followed her, clasping her shoulders with his big hands. They made a striking couple, him tall and dark and ruggedly handsome, her feminine and pretty in a no-nonsense way. She didn't have Simone's ethereal elegance, though, or her wistfulness. Carissa's strength was solid, muscular; Simone's was spiritual, intelligent.

“Grace has two brothers,” Carissa informed her brokenly. “Tucker is seven. Nathan is nine. You've never even held either one of them in your arms!”

“I know,” Simone whispered, bowing her head. “I'm sorry.”

“And to come back without a word to anyone.”

“I meant to contact Dad as soon as I—”

“Well, Dad's not here!” Carissa interrupted angrily. “He died without knowing where you were or if you were all right.”

“He knows now,” Phillip said gently.

“That's right,” Morgan agreed. “Let there be consolation in that.”

But Carissa wasn't about to let her off that easily. “Where were you?” Carissa demanded.

Simone gulped. “Colorado, mostly,” she answered in a rusty voice. “I knew some older kids who were going rafting there, so I went along, and I didn't come back.”

“Why?”
Carissa asked, obviously trying to understand.

Simone shook her head. “It was a lark at first, just something fun to do, but I knew I'd be in trouble with Dad when I got back home, and I was so tired of all the fighting, especially with Mom. It just seemed easier to be away from it. Then when things turned bad...” She took a deep breath and admitted, “I was too ashamed to come home.”

Carissa narrowed her deep blue eyes at Simone and asked, “Turned bad how?”

It was the question Morgan knew Simone had been dreading. He edged a little closer to her and felt her stiffen.

“I got involved with a pimp,” she stated baldly. “He tried to put me to work for him.”

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Someone, Morgan thought it was Hilda, emitted a soft little moan, but Carissa just stared at her sister mutely, as if she didn't know who or what she was. Morgan couldn't stand it.

“Tried,”
he said in his most authoritative tone, “is the operative word here.”

To his surprise, Simone laid a quelling hand on his knee. He covered it with his own. Brooks weighed in then, swinging around the end of the settee and going down on his haunches to take Simone's left wrist between his fingers.

“I think you should rest now,” he said. “You've been through enough these past few days.” He looked over his shoulder at Carissa. “Your sister has suffered severe physical trauma.”

Carissa turned to Chester. “I thought you said she was well.”

Before Chester could speak, Brooks did. “She is well. The cancer is gone, but it takes time to regain one's strength and stamina, especially when you work as hard and suffer as many emotional blows as Simone has.”

“I'm fine,” Simone croaked, but it came out as dry and crinkly as last autumn's leaves. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I'm fine.”

“Nevertheless,” Brooks said, “I want you to relax.”

“Just one more thing,” Carissa insisted. “Where did Guilland come from?”

“My husband,” Simone told her. “After the marriage ended, I kept it, though I suppose legally I should go back to Worth.” She looked down, adding softly, “I was going to ask Daddy's permission first.”

“Well, don't ask mine,” Carissa said coldly, and with that, she turned and walked out of the room.

In her wake, Simone caught her breath. Morgan squeezed her hand, but then Phillip caught his eye. Giving his head a decided yank, he let Morgan know that he wanted a word with him. Morgan didn't want to leave her, but there was Brooks practically kneeling at her feet, and Phillip might well have important information to impart.

Murmuring, “Excuse me a minute,” he got up to follow his cousin into the foyer. Carissa, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen. Behind him, he heard Chester explaining that he and Hilda attended church with Phillip and Carissa.

“We couldn't very well see them there tomorrow and say nothing.”

“I understand, Uncle Chester,” Simone said huskily.

“At least we've broken the ice,” Hilda opined cheerfully.

At that point, his aunts began urging Simone to have some tea. Phillip, meanwhile, pulled Morgan across the foyer and practically into the library.

“Man, what are you doing mixed up in this?” he asked.

Morgan said the first words that came into his head. “Simone is my...” What?
Girlfriend? Sweetheart? Possible love?
None of those! Yet
student and friend
seemed entirely too lame a description. He started over again. “I am Simone's faculty adviser at BCBC. She's enrolled there as a graduate student. Didn't you know?”

Phillip shook his head. “No. I guess that got lost somewhere in the translation. We knew she'd been in town and here at Chatam House for a while, but not exactly why.”

Morgan quickly told Phillip about the fainting and that she'd obviously been planning to reconnect with her family before she'd returned to Buffalo Creek, because she'd taken BCBC classes remotely. “She had to withdraw when she became ill, then had to make up one of my classes, which is how I wound up as her adviser. I first met her at a grad student mixer right here back in September.” Thinking about that day, he snapped his fingers. “In fact, I guess I was the one to tell her about her father. I didn't know we were talking about her dad, of course. I was talking about Chester's brother passing. She must have decided then to keep her identity a secret. She is sure that with her father gone, the rest of the family won't want her.”

Phillip rubbed his hand over his face. “I make no promises on that score,” he said. “Carissa is plenty hurt by this, but I know my wife, and she hasn't got a mean particle in her. I'll tell you something else. She's had more than her fair share of emotional upheaval, too, but there's no quit in my girl. None.”

“Simone feels terrible guilt for things she shouldn't,” Morgan divulged, “and she's been through things that would have killed a lesser woman, Phillip. They're hers to tell, so I won't elaborate. I'm just saying that these Worth women must be made of some strong stuff.”

Phillip straightened, looking down his princely nose at his slightly shorter and older cousin. “Is that some manly regard I hear there?”

Morgan tried to make light of it. “No. She's a student. There are rules about that sort of thing.”

Phillip grinned. “Uh-huh. Never been much of one for the rules myself.”

Morgan didn't know what to say to that, so he just slapped Phillip on the back and settled for a one-of-the-guys chuckle.

“Tell you what,” Phillip went on. “Carissa and I will be praying about this together, and I haven't found anything so far that can't be fixed.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Morgan said.

“Well, better get back to the kids. They can level a building inside of thirty minutes.” He said it with such pride that Morgan laughed.

Phillip went on his way, and when Morgan looked once more toward the parlor, he saw Brooks Leland standing in the foyer, unabashedly eavesdropping.

“Did you need something?” Morgan asked, more testily than he'd intended.

“No, I heard everything I needed to,” Brooks replied smoothly.

Morgan was just about to ask what that meant when Simone appeared.

“Are they gone?”

“Yes,” Morgan confirmed. “Phillip said they had to get home to the children.”

She nodded stoically. “I guess I'll go up and change.”

“All right.” As she drew near, Morgan took her hand. “From what Phillip said, I think Carissa will come around.”

“We'll see,” she hedged. “At least it's over for now.”

“That's right,” Brooks put in. “The worst is over.”

“Once my mother finds out I'm here, it will never be over,” Simone said glumly.

“All the more reason for you to take it easy the rest of the day,” Brooks prescribed.

Simone nodded. “I have some reading to do, anyway.”

“Good. You do that,” Brooks said approvingly, “and later we'll have dinner together. How would that be?”

Morgan felt his stomach drop. Brooks and Simone having dinner together?

She glanced from Brooks to Morgan and back to Brooks again, gave a little shrug and said, “Okay. Sure.”

Morgan's next breath burned like a firebrand, while Brooks stood there smirking like the cat that had eaten the canary.

“Let's make it early,” he said. “I don't want you out late. So about six o'clock?”

“Fine,” she said.

Then they both looked at Morgan, and what could he do but stand there, his chest so tight that it felt banded with steel? After a moment, he forced himself to speak.

“Have to get going. Lots to do.”

She nodded and swiped her fingers across his cheek. “Thank you for coming.”

“Always,” he told her, and God help him, he meant it, even if she had just accepted a date with his best friend.

He turned and walked out of there without so much as a word of farewell for anyone.

He had never felt so betrayed or so alone. All he could think, all he could see, was Simone and Brooks.

Brooks and Simone.

Surely Brooks knew how Morgan felt about Simone—or did he? And what difference did it make? It might make all the difference, actually. Brooks was only a little younger than he, but that might be significant, and given Simone's health needs...