Arlene James - The Bachelor Meets His Match

“The Worths have been with my aunts for, oh, twenty years or more. Hilda is the most amazing cook. Anyway, when Chester’s brother died recently, my aunts moved his widowed daughter and her children into the house. She married my cousin Phillip.” He chuckled again, thinking how often that sort of thing seemed to happen at Chatam House. “They started a business together, and—” He broke off, realizing that Simone had straightened away from the fireplace, a pained look on her face. “Is something wrong?”

“Died?” She put a hand to her temple. “Y-you’re saying that, um...Chester’s brother...”

“Are you all right?” Morgan asked, edging forward.

She shook her head as if to clear it. “Sorry. I—I seem to have bees in my head. Guess I should’ve eaten. Um, did...did I hear that correctly? He died?”

“Yes. Chester’s brother, Marshall, died,” Morgan muttered, moving closer.

She swallowed audibly. “And, ah, you said something about his daughter being a widow?”

“With three kids,” Morgan confirmed offhandedly, watching Simone as she swayed. “But not anymore. She married my cousin Phillip last month.”

Simone smiled slightly and nodded. “I see. Sorry. It’s...confusing.” Then her eyes simply rolled back in her head, and she melted like hot wax left too near a flame.

Morgan leaped forward, catching her in his arms before the back of her head could connect with the edge of the stone hearth. It was like catching smoke. She felt weightless, boneless.

Scooping her up, he rushed outside with her, shouting, “Need help here!”

People swarmed them. Going down on one knee, he dropped her on a quickly vacated chaise lounge. His aunts appeared at his elbows, and Chester handed him a towel that had been dipped in the pool.

“What happened?” Uncle Kent, his aunt Odelia’s rotund husband, asked as Morgan wiped Simone’s face with the wet towel.

“We were just talking and she fainted.”

A retired pharmacist, Kent knew a bit about medical matters, so when he told someone to get her a soft drink, something with sugar in it, Morgan simply added, “And put some food on a plate. She said she hadn’t eaten.”

Already rousing, she moaned. Morgan wiped the wet towel over her face again, taking away the makeup that had concealed the freckles across the bridge of her nose and the dark circles beneath those gorgeous eyes. Suddenly, Morgan wanted to shove away everyone else and hold her close. He told himself that she was just a kid, no more than twenty-one, probably, and a student, strictly off-limits for a professor. That was a line he had never crossed, one he had never even been tempted to cross, despite ample opportunity over the years. Until now. But why?

She had already proved herself untrustworthy, having dropped a class after the deadline and leaving her project teammates in the lurch. She had likely been a foster child and could well be anorexic, given her frailty and lack of eating. Moreover, she seemed to be a loner and something of a mystery, probably one of those kids with a tough past that she hadn’t quite left behind. He should have wanted to wash his hands of her, right then and there, but as her adviser and host he was responsible for her to a point, and until he was satisfied that she was well, he couldn’t relinquish supervision of her. More to the point, he didn’t want to.

It was that simple and, alas, that complicated.

* * *

Died. The word seemed to reverberate inside Simone’s skull, echoing so loudly that her eyeballs bounced. She blinked, realized immediately what had happened and opened her eyes to find herself face-to-face with the much too handsome Professor Chatam. He ran a hand through his damp, nut-brown hair, his cinnamon eyes crinkling as he smiled.

“Welcome back,” he said, sounding relieved. The smile cut grooves in his lean cheeks and flattened the fascinating cleft in his chin. Add a high, smooth forehead, the long, straight blade of his nose and a square jawline, and she could simply find nothing to dislike in that face.

Gulping, Simone sat up a little straighter and glanced around.

The kindly faces of three older women smiled down at her. All three had gently cleft chins. The one they called Hypatia wore a silk pantsuit, a string of pearls and pumps. To a pool party. Her silver hair had been swept into a sleek, sophisticated roll on the back of her head. Her sister Magnolia, on the other hand, wore trousers and rubber boots with a gardening smock, her steel-gray hair twisted into a grizzled braid. The third one—Odelia, Simone thought her name was—could have worked as a sideshow in a circus. The plumpest of the sisters, she wore her short, white hair in a froth of curls tied with a multicolored scarf that matched the rainbow print of the ruffled caftan. She accented this with stacks of bangles at her wrists and beads at her throat, as well as clusters of tiny rainbows that dangled from her earlobes.

“How are you?” asked the rainbow-festooned Odelia.

Simone managed to croak, “Fine.”

“Look at me,” Morgan Chatam commanded. Simone automatically bristled, but she fought back the impulse to snap and complied. “Have you fainted like this before?”

She considered lying but decided against it. She’d put such things behind her, so instead she nodded and cleared her throat. “I’m all right now.”

When she started to swing her legs to the side, however, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pinned her back against the chaise.

“Not until you answer a couple of questions.”

Her heart thunked with uncertainty. She hadn’t had a moment to think since she’d learned that her father had died, and this handsome man was making it difficult to order her thoughts. A plate of food hovered beside his head, and she glanced up at the familiar woman who held it. Had she been recognized, then? Now that it was too late? Simone had expected it upon her arrival, but when it hadn’t happened, she’d started to plan how to make herself known, then to realize that her father was dead...dead. She shivered uncontrollably.

“Is this the result of an eating disorder?” Morgan demanded. “Anorexia? Bulimia?”

Her brows jumped up, a short, almost silent laugh escaping her. “No.”

He considered, relaxed, dropped his hands and finally reached up for the plate of food. “You won’t mind eating this, then.”

She was hungry, so she didn’t argue. Taking the plate warily, she relaxed somewhat when Hilda, who happened to be her aunt by marriage, turned away without so much as a second glance. Not recognized, then. She supposed she had changed a good deal in the past nine, almost ten, years, and given the ravages of cancer... Simone sometimes wondered which was worse, the disease or the cure. She turned off the thought and smiled her thanks at those around her.

“This is exactly what I need.” She picked up the burger and bit into it. “Mmm.” After chewing and swallowing, she touched her fingertips to the corners of her mouth and said, “I prefer my cheeseburgers with mayonnaise.”

Chuckling, Morgan Chatam pushed up to his full height. “Mayo coming up.”

“And a napkin, please.”

“And a napkin.”

While he went off to fetch those things for her, she turned to sit sideways on the chaise. Her uncle Chester handed her a soft drink, nodding and moving off without so much as a glimmer of identification. Simone felt a pang of disappointment, but perhaps it was for the best. She couldn’t think of that now. The Chatam ladies stayed with her until Morgan returned with his own meal in hand. As they moved off, he sat down beside her, placed his drink on the ground and handed her a plastic knife, indicating the glob of white on his plate.

“Mayonnaise.” While she slathered the condiment onto her hamburger bun, he plucked paper napkins from a pocket and dropped several into her lap. “And napkins.”