For 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...
Yes, he told himself as he drove away from Chatam House, Brooks was definitely a better match for Simone, and now that he knew the good doctor was interested, the best thing he could do for everyone was quietly step back.
“And you always do the right thing, don’t you?” he mocked himself savagely.
* * *
Simone didn’t really want to go out to dinner, but she wanted to sit in her room and mope even less. If she and Morgan were going to dinner alone, she could talk freely, but it was nice of Dr. Leland to make the offer, and he had helped out that morning, more than he even knew. She wasn’t certain how much more she could have taken without flying apart at the seams.
She didn’t blame Carissa for being angry and resentful. Quite the contrary. That didn’t make her sister’s rejection and hostility any easier to bear, however.
The evening promised to be cool, so she chose to wear tweedy wool slacks, their slender legs tucked into a pair of tall leather boots, with a matching jacket and the same pink cashmere sweater from earlier in the day. She even wore her pearl earrings and the solid gold bangle with which she’d tried so mightily, and failed, to impress her sister earlier. She had come away from the Guillands with a few nice things to go along with her education, after all.
She was waiting in the foyer at precisely three minutes to six when Dr. Leland arrived, dressed just as he’d been that morning in a well-tailored brown-black suit the exact same shade as his hair and a dove-gray shirt that called attention to the distinguished spark of silver at his temples. He was a classically handsome man, very polished, with an engaging smile.
“Ah, you’re ready,” he said when she opened the door in answer to his knock. “Wonderful. Shall we go, then, before one of the old sweethearts catches us? I meant what I said about not keeping you out late.”
Simone glanced around, but she didn’t suppose she had any reason to inform anyone that she was going out, and her handbag was on her shoulder already. “Well, okay.”
She slipped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. A late-model luxury sedan sat at the top of the circular drive, and he escorted her across the porch, down the steps and along the walk to it.
As they were driving away from Chatam House, she asked, “Is Morgan meeting us at the restaurant?”
The car lurched to an abrupt halt. Leland hung his left wrist over the steering wheel and turned his head to stare at her.
“Simone, I didn’t invite Morgan to dinner. I invited you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh!” Oh, dear. It wasn’t that she wasn’t flattered—and a little irritated—it was just that she didn’t want to go out with Dr. Leland. He was Morgan’s best friend, and they had a history that she definitely did not want to get dragged into. “I-it’s just that he was standing right there, so I assumed...”
“But that was the whole point.”
“What?”
“I purposefully asked you out in front of him,” the doctor explained smoothly.
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Why would you do that?”
“I did it for him.”
Now that one she had to think through, and what she came up with infuriated her. “You think I’m out to get him. You’re trying to save him from my grasping clutches or some equally stupid—”
Brooks Leland put his head back and laughed until tears squeezed out the corners of his eyes.
“Sweetie,” he said, “I’m doing my best to throw him straight into your arms.”
She caught her breath. “Really?”
“Unless you don’t want him.”
“It’s not that I don’t want him,” she said, suddenly misty-eyed, “but—”
“Buts are for billy goats,” he told her, taking his foot off the brake and starting to drive. “Now, let me tell you about Morgan Chatam.”
And did he ever. Over the next three hours, Dr. Leland—Brooks, as he insisted she call him—talked nonstop about his good buddy and best friend. He told Simone things that Morgan himself did not know, specifically that the woman he had loved, Brigitte, had discovered her brain tumor before she’d broken their engagement.
“She was a nurse,” Brooks pointed out. “Knowledgeable enough to know that something wasn’t right. We did the tests in secret and found the tumor right after she and Morgan got engaged.”
As soon as it had been determined that the tumor was inoperable, she had broken the engagement.
“It wasn’t just that she wanted to spare him,” Brooks said. “We knew that we couldn’t really do that. But the only treatments available at the time were even worse than the disease and with a very low success rate. She knew that he wouldn’t let her rest until she’d tried everything possible, and she didn’t want that.”
Simone remembered Morgan saying much the same thing.
“I loved them both,” Brooks went on, “so I convinced her to marry me instead. That gave me the right to make end-of-life decisions for her when she no longer could, spared Morgan the worst of it and gave Brigitte and me some good time together.”
“And you’re convinced it was the best possible decision for all of you?” Simone asked over a plate of grilled salmon.
“Utterly. That isn’t saying it wasn’t hard or that I didn’t get the best end of the deal. You see, I had Brigitte, and I’d give just about anything to have a love like that again. Morgan...” Brooks pushed a sugar snap pea around on his plate with the tip of his butter knife. “I think Morgan is convinced that true love is not meant for him. Don’t get me wrong. I suspect he’s wild about you, completely around the bend.”
Simone’s heart flipped at the very notion, but she had to shake her head. “I don’t know what makes you say that.”
“Oh, you think that just because he’s nice and conscientious with everyone that you’re nothing special to him, but I know Morgan Chatam better than anyone on the planet, and I have never seen him look at another woman the way he looks at you.”
Simone bit her lip. If Morgan could look at her like that after everything he knew about her, maybe he did feel something special. A terrible kind of hope filled her. Could it be?
“Of course,” Brooks went on, “I’ve always said that Morgan is the dumbest smart guy I’ve ever known. The man is utterly brilliant, but I figure he’s worried about your cancer returning.”
“I can’t blame him,” Simone said, deflated. “I’m concerned about that, too. It’s not fair to ask someone to invest emotionally in a person who could have a serious illness.”
“You are talking to a man who married a woman he knew was dying,” Brooks pointed out. “But, hey, we’re all dying, some of us are just doing it faster than others. And some of us who are perfectly healthy get killed crossing the street. Look, God doesn’t promise us tomorrow. He promises us eternity with Him. So when He hands us love in this life, we ought to grab it with both hands, no matter what. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Simone said after a moment of thought. “Yes, I do.”
“The key,” Brooks told her, “is to know when it’s something God has planned for you and when it’s not. You see, the moment Brigitte told me she was breaking her engagement to Morgan, I knew exactly what God’s plan was, but Brigitte struggled, and that’s what I sense with Morgan right now. Like her, I doubt he can see past the issues to the design just yet, issues like the possibility of the cancer returning. And I suspect he may think he’s too old for you.”
Simone laughed dismissively. “That’s silly. It never even occured to me.”
“I know, but it would to Morgan because he’s had so many young girls throw themselves at him over the years.” Brooks made a face and rubbed a fist against his eye. “Boo-hoo. Poor professor.”
Simone laughed again. “You should hear the way they talk about him on campus. A rock star would be envious.”
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” He waved a hand. “But that’ll all calm down once he’s married.”
Married. Simone’s heart skipped a beat. “You make it sound so easy, but he hasn’t settled down yet.”
“You’ve only been on the scene a couple months. You don’t break a forty-five-year-long streak in a wink of an eye. Besides, you are a student, and that is a problem.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said softly. “I would quit school, but I’d lose a vast amount of money, enough to pay for the rest of my education. Still, it would be worth it if he really cares for me.” She shook her head, not quite able to believe it.
Brooks waved a hand flippantly. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. You’re a grad student. All he’d have to do is get you on staff. Then the nonfraternization rules wouldn’t apply.”
Simone didn’t realize that her jaw was swinging in the breeze until the good doctor reached across and gently pushed it back into place.
“Was it something I said?”
“More something he did,” she squeaked out, gulping back the tears. “Now, if I just get the job, I guess we can assume that it’s all part of God’s plan for me and Morgan.”
Brooks sat back and slapped the edge of the table, grinning. “Why, that sly old dog.”