A Kiss Remembered

by Sandra Brown

  “Shelley?”

  He routed her out of her unpleasant musing by speaking her name as though he’d had to repeat it several times. “Yes?” she asked breathlessly. Why was oxygen suddenly so scarce?

  “I asked how long you’ve been Mrs. Robins.”

  “Oh, uh, seven years. But then I haven’t been Mrs. Robins for two years.”

  His brows, which were a trifle shaggy and thoroughly masculine, lifted in silent query.

  “It’s a long, boring story.” She glanced down at the toe of her flat-heeled cordovan shoe. “Dr. Robins and I parted company two years ago. That’s when I decided to go back to school.”

  “But this is an undergraduate course.”

  Had any other man worn jeans and western boots with a sportcoat he would have looked as though he were imitating a film star, but Grant Chapman looked absolutely devastating. Did it have anything to do with the open throat of his plaid cotton shirt, which revealed a dark wedge of chest hair?

  She forced her eyes away from it to answer him. “That’s what I am. An undergraduate, I mean.” She had no idea how delectable her mouth looked when she smiled naturally. For the last few years smiles hadn’t come easily. But when they did, the weariness that had been etched on her face by unhappiness was relieved, and her lips tilted at the corners and were punctuated with shallow dimples.

  Grant Chapman seemed intrigued by those indentations at either side of her mouth. It took him a long time to reply. “I would have thought that since you were such a good student, you would have gone to college as soon as you graduated from Poshman Valley.”

  “I did. I went to the University of Oklahoma, but …” She glanced away as she remembered her first semester in Norman and how meeting Daryl Robins had changed the course of her life. “Things happen,” she finished lamely.

  “How are things in Poshman Valley? I haven’t been back since I left. God, that’s been …”

  “Ten years,” she supplied immediately and then wanted to bite her tongue. She sounded like a good little girl giving her teacher the correct answer. “Something like that,” she added with deliberate casualness.

  “Yes, because I went to Washington directly from there. I left before the year was up.”

  Self-defensively she averted her eyes. The next hour of afternoon classes must have begun. Only a few students drifted by on the sidewalks outside the multipaned windows.

  She couldn’t talk about his leaving. He wouldn’t remember, and she had tried for ten years to forget. “Things in Poshman Valley never change. I get back fairly often to see my folks. They still live there. My brother is teaching math and coaching football at the junior high.”

  “No kidding!” He laughed.

  “Yes. He’s married and has two children.” She adjusted her armload of heavy books into a more comfortable position against her breasts. When he saw the gesture, he leaned forward to take them from her and set them on the desk behind him. That left her without anything to do with her hands, so she folded them awkwardly across her waist, hoping he wouldn’t guess how exposed she felt.

  “Do you live here in Cedarwood?”

  “Yes. Since I’m going to school full-time, I rented a small house.”

  “An older one?”

  “How did you know?”

  “There are a lot of them here. It’s a very quaint little town. Reminds me of Georgetown. I lived there the last few years I was in Washington.”

  “Oh.” She felt terribly gauche. He had hobnobbed with the elite, the beautiful, the powerful. How provincial she must seem to him.

  She made a move to retrieve her books. “I don’t want to keep you—”

  “You’re not. I’m finished for the day. As a matter of fact, I was going to get a cup of coffee somewhere. Would you join me?”

  Her heart pounded furiously. “No, thank you, Mr. Chapman, I—”

  His laughter stymied her objection. “Really, Shelley, I think you can call me by my first name. You’re not in high school any longer.”

  “No, but you’re still my teacher,” she reminded him, slightly perturbed that he had laughed at her.

  “And I’m delighted to be. You decorate my classroom. Now more than ever.” She wished he had kept laughing. That was easier to handle than his intent scrutiny of her features. “But, please, don’t categorize me as a college professor. The word ‘professor’ conjures up a picture of an absentminded old man with a headful of wild white hair searching through the pockets of his baggy tweed coat for the eyeglasses perched on top of his head.”

  She laughed easily. “Maybe you should try teaching creative writing. That was a very graphic word picture you painted.”

  “Then you get my point. Make it Grant, please.”

  “I’ll try,” was all she would promise.

  “Try it out.”

  She felt like a three-year-old about to recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for the first time. “Really, I—”

  “Try it,” he insisted.

  “Very well.” She sighed. “Grant.” The name came more easily to her tongue than she had imagined. In all her fantasies over the past ten years, had she called him by his first name? “Grant, Grant,” she repeated.

  “See? See how much better that is? Now, how about coffee? You don’t have another class do you? Even if you do, you’re late, so …”

  Still she hesitated. “I don’t—”

  “Unless you’d rather not be seen with me.” His change of tone brought her eyes flying up to his. The words had been spoken quietly, but there was a trace of bitterness lying just below the surface.

  She caught his meaning instantly. “You mean because of what happened in Washington?” When he answered by silently piercing her with those gray-green eyes, she shook her head vehemently. “No, no, of course not, Mr… . Grant. That has nothing to do with it.”

  She was touched that his relief was so apparent. “Good.” He raked strong, lean fingers through his hair. “Let’s go for coffee.”

  Had the look in his eyes and that boyishly vulnerable gesture not compelled her to go with him, the urgency behind his words would have. “All right,” she heard herself say before a conscious decision was made.

  He smiled, turned to pick up her stack of books and his own folder of notes, and propelled her toward the door. When they reached it, he leaned across her back to switch off the lights. She was aware of his arm resting fleetingly on her back and held her breath.

  For an instant, his hand closed around the base of her neck before sliding to the middle of her back. Though the gesture was nothing more than common courtesy, she was acutely aware of his hand through the knit of her sweater as they walked across the campus.

  Hal’s, that microcosm of society that is on every college campus in the country, was noisy, smoky, crowded. Neil Diamond was lamenting his loneliness from the speakers strategically embedded in the ceiling. Waiters with red satin armbands on their long white sleeves were carrying pitchers of draft beer to cluttered tables. Students of every description, from preppies and sorority girls to bearded intellectuals to muscled jocks, were smelted together in convivial confusion.

  Grant took her arm and steered her to a relatively private table in the dim far corner of the tavern. Having secured them their seats, he leaned across the table and said in a stage whisper, “I hope I don’t have to show my I.D.” At her puzzled frown he explained, “I don’t think anyone over thirty would be welcomed in here.” Then, at her laughing expression, he clapped his hand to his forehead, “By God, you’re not even thirty, are you? Why do I suddenly feel more and more like our white-haired, doddering professor?”

  When the waiter came whizzing by, Grant slowed him long enough to call, “Two coffees.”

  “Cream?” the fleeing waiter asked over his shoulder.

  “Cream?” Grant asked her. She nodded.

  “Cream,” he shouted to the waiter. “You weren’t even old enough to drink coffee the last time I saw you, were you?” he asked her.
r />   Not really listening to his question, she shook her head. She was having a hard time keeping herself from staring at him. His hair was attractively windblown. The open “V” of his shirt continued to bemuse her. Daryl Robins had thought himself the epitome of masculinity, yet his chest had had only a sprinkling of pale hair in the center, while this was a veritable forest growing from darkly tanned skin. An urge to reach out and touch it with her fingertips was so powerful, she looked away.

  One glance around the room confirmed what she had suspected. Coeds were eyeing Grant with the unconcealed sexual interest of the modern woman. She was the subject of their cool appraisal. Grant Chapman was a celebrity in a notorious, dangerous way, with the kind of reputation no woman could resist being curious about. Shelley had tried to ignore the ripple of attention that their arrival had created, but the bold stares being directed toward them now were most disconcerting.

  “You get used to it,” he said softly after a moment.

  “Do you?”

  “No, you don’t really get used to it, you just learn to live with it and ignore it if you can.” He twirled a glass ashtray on the highly glazed wooden tabletop. “That’s only one consequence of having your face in the news every day for several months. Whether you’re the good guy or the bad guy, the culprit or the victim, guilty or innocent, notoriety shadows you. Nothing you do is private anymore.”

  She didn’t say anything until after the harried waiter had served them their coffee. Shelley stirred cream into her cup and said gently, “They’ll get accustomed to seeing you around. News that you’d be joining the faculty this fall spread through the campus like wildfire last spring. Once you’re here for a while, the excitement will die down.”

  “My classes filled up quickly. I don’t find that flattering. I realize most of the students who registered for them did so out of curiosity. I saw the cowboy sitting next to you sleeping today.”

  She smiled, glad that he didn’t have that intense, guarded expression on his face any longer. “I don’t think he appreciated the finer points of your lecture.”

  Grant returned her smile briefly and then gazed at her earnestly, searching the depths of her eyes with an intensity that made her quail. “Why did you take my class, Shelley?”

  She looked down into her coffee; then, thinking that silence would incriminate her, she said spiritedly, “Because I needed the credit.”

  He ignored her attempted levity. “Were you a curiosity seeker, too? Did you want to see if I’d grown horns and a long tail since you’d seen me?”

  “No,” she cried softly. “Of course not. Never.”

  “Did you want to see if I’d remember you?” He was leaning forward now, his forearms propped against the edge of the table. The distance between them was visibly decreased, but rather than shrinking from him, she felt an irresistible urge to move closer still.

  “I … I guess I did. I didn’t think you would remember. It’s been so long and—”

  “Did you want to see if I remembered the night we kissed?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. The noise of the room diminished under the thundering pulse in her eardrums. Her mouth went dry.

  “Look at me, Shelley.”

  No, no, don’t, Shelley. You’ll be lost. He’ll see. He’ll know. Her eyes disobeyed the frantic order of her brain and lifted to meet his. She saw her reflection in the greenish depths, a shattered expression, a face full of sadness, of perplexity.

  “I remember kissing you. Do you remember it?”

  She nodded before she spoke. “Yes.” Momentarily she closed her eyes as a wave of vertigo seized her. She prayed he’d drop the subject, go on to something neutral that they could discuss openly and easily. She didn’t think she’d survive reliving that life-altering night while he sat just inches from her.

  The times she had reviewed it privately were innumerable. The memory was locked away in the most secret part of her being, a treasure trove that no one knew about. She had been miserly with that memory, bringing it forth and reliving it only when she was alone. But discussing that night with him would be like undergoing a medical examination. Nothing would be hidden. She couldn’t do it.

  He was unmerciful. “It was after the championship basketball game. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” she answered, forcing a leaden dullness into her voice to keep from screaming. “Poshman Valley won.”

  “And everyone went crazy,” he said softly. “The band must have played the fight song ten times in succession. Everybody in town was there, yelling and screaming. The players were lifting the coach over their heads and parading him around the gym floor.”

  She could see it all. Hear it all. Smell the popcorn. She could still feel the floor vibrating beneath her feet as everyone stamped in time to the blaring music the band was playing.

  “Shelley, go get the victory banner,” one of the other cheerleaders had screamed into her ear. She had nodded and fought her way through the rejoicing spectators to the office where the cheerleaders had left the banner.

  Shelley had been dashing out the door with it tucked under her arm when Mr. Chapman came running in. He had been sent for the trophy that was to be presented to the victors.

  “Mr. Chapman!” Shelley had shrieked excitedly as she rushed toward him.

  He was as caught up in the enthusiasm of the victory as anyone. Without thinking, he clasped his arms around her waist, lifted her off the floor, and whirled her round and round, their laughter filling the small confines of the office.

  When he set her back on her feet, he paused a moment too long in releasing her. When his arms should have fallen to his sides immediately, he hesitated and they remained locked behind her back. The moment was unpredictable, possibly unfortunate, certainly unplanned. That one heartbeat in time was both her death and her birth. For in that moment, Shelley was forever changed.

  Astonishment choked off laughter. Silence, except for the dull roar coming through the walls from the gym, reigned. Their hearts seemed to pulse together. She could feel the pounding of his through her sweater with its stiff felt “PV” appliquéd in the center. The hard muscles of his thighs pressed against her legs, bare beneath her short wool skirt. One of his hands stayed at her waist while the other opened wide and firm over the middle of her back. Their breath intermingled as his face lowered imperceptibly.

  They stood frozen, staring at each other in mute wonder. He tilted his head to one side, as though he had just been struck between the eyes and couldn’t quite figure out yet what had hit him.

  Then swiftly, almost as if just realizing the precariousness of their situation, he ducked his head.

  His mouth touched hers, sweetly, sweetly. It lingered. Pressed. It parted her lips. Then the tip of his tongue touched hers. Sizzling electricity jolted through both of them.

  He released her with jarring abruptness and stepped away. He saw the mortified tears spring into her frightened eyes and his heart twisted with self-loathing. “Shelley—”

  She fled.

  The banner was still tucked under her arm when she ran headlong out of the gymnasium to her family’s car. When her worried parents found her huddled in the backseat a half hour later, she told them she had become ill and had had to leave.

  “I terrified you that night,” Grant said now. He didn’t touch her, though his hand lay close to hers on the table-top. If he were to lift his little finger and move it a hair’s breadth, he would be touching her.

  “Yes, you did.” Her voice had deserted her. She could barely croak. “I told my parents I was sick and stayed in bed for three days during Christmas vacation.” She tried to smile but found that when she did, her lips trembled.

  She had lain in her bed, confused and distressed, wondering why her breasts throbbed each time she remembered the way Mr. Chapman’s lips felt against hers. Why, when her boyfriend’s anxious groping had never done anything except irritate her, had she longed to feel Mr. Chapman’s hands on he
r everywhere. Stroking. Petting. Closing over her breasts. Touching their crests. Kissing them. She had wept with shame, huge, scalding tears that were absorbed by her pillow.

  “You weren’t the only one who was terrified. You scared the hell out of me,” Grant said quietly. Shelley looked at him in bewilderment. He laughed without humor. “Can you imagine what a community the size of Poshman Valley would have done to a teacher seen kissing one of his students? I would have been lucky to die quickly. Thank God no one saw us that night. For your sake more than mine. I could leave. You couldn’t.”

  “You left right after that.” She had dreaded going back to school after that holiday. How would she face him? But she had learned before the first class convened that Mr. Chapman would no longer be teaching at Poshman Valley. He had resigned to accept a post as a congressional aide in Washington, D.C. Everyone had known that he was marking time teaching until he could go to the capital, but everyone was surprised that he had left so suddenly.

  “Yes. I went to Oklahoma City over the holiday and pestered my contacts until one of them finally lined me up a job. I couldn’t go back to the high school.”

  “Why?”

  He pierced her with his moss-colored eyes. His voice was quiet and intense when he spoke. “You may have been an innocent then, Shelley, but you aren’t now. You know why I had to leave. That kiss was far from fraternal. It had never occurred to me to touch you like that, much less to kiss you. Please believe that. I hadn’t harbored any lecherous thoughts about you or any student. But once I held you in my arms, something happened. You were no longer a student of mine, but a desirable woman. I doubt I would have ever been able to treat you as a schoolgirl again.”

  She thought the pressure in her chest might very well kill her. Yet she lived long enough to hear him ask, “Are you finished? More coffee?”

  “Yes. I mean yes, I’m finished, and no thank you. No more.”

  “Let’s go.”

  He stood and held her chair for her. She rose quickly, careful not to touch him.