Love Inspired June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Single Dad CowboyThe Bachelor Meets His MatchUnexpected Reunion

by Brenda Minton

  He knew without a doubt that he should turn her down flat. The last thing he ought to do was spend an entire day in her company, but he didn’t really see that he had any other choice. If he didn’t do this, she’d just find someone else or try it all on her own. He supposed he could tap a couple of students to help out, but he couldn’t trust them not to let her overdo. He wondered if Brooks might be available and instantly nixed that idea, uncomfortable with it for reasons he didn’t want to ponder. Besides, he did love a good roller coaster.

  “You’re not to overdo,” he dictated, folding his arms.

  A wide grin split her face. “I won’t. I promise. I’ll pace myself. I’ll sit at every opportunity. I have several books on my phone so I can read. It won’t be a problem.”

  He shook his head, which needed a thorough examination, and asked, “How many young people are we expecting?”

  “I don’t know. As many as ten, maybe.”

  “I’d better see if I can round up a couple extra sets of eyes and ears, then.”

  “Could you?”

  “I do know a few graduate students.”

  “Oh, Morgan, you’re wonderful. You’re just wonderful. Forget all those things I said about you being bossy and high-handed and autocratic.”

  He frowned. He didn’t mean it, but he frowned. “I don’t think I heard autocratic. I did hear arrogant and insufferable.”

  “Well, those still apply,” she teased, all but dancing across the foyer. “You can forget the rest, though.”

  He chuckled. “We’ll see what you say after I drag you onto the roller coaster.”

  Her eyes grew round. “Oh, no.” She wagged a finger at him as she backed through the door, pulling it closed behind her. “No, no, no.”

  He just grinned. Yes, yes, yes.

  * * *

  “No, no, no.” Simone shook her head.

  She was glad that they’d heeded the gate attendant’s advice to head clear across the park to the Big Daddy roller coaster at the back. He’d promised them that the wait would be shortest if they started at the back of the hundred-acre park and worked their way forward rather than the other way around. He’d warned that wait times per ride could exceed two hours otherwise. Because they’d been waiting in line when the gates opened, they were first in line now, and their party of fourteen—she suspected Morgan had shelled out the nearly two hundred bucks for the two extra tickets—comprised of nine males and five females, was raring to go, all but her and Rina, who had disappeared into a bathroom.

  “Winded already?” Morgan asked, watching the others run ahead to get in line.

  It had been a long walk, but she wasn’t going to admit to weakness already. “No, I just don’t care for fast rides.”

  He cocked his head. “Really? I thought you were a skier.”

  “Yes, but on the slopes, I’m in control.”

  “Control freak, huh?”

  Ouch. If she’d learned one thing during her illness, however, it was how little control she actually had in life. “No. That would be you.”

  He lifted a shoulder, gave his head a shake. “Don’t see me sitting on the sidelines.”

  She squelched a sigh, admitting, “I distrust large mechanical contraptions.”

  “Huh. Never rode a ski lift, then. Odd.”

  “Of course I’ve ridden ski lifts.”

  “I guarantee you they’re far less safe than this thing is.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can, actually. I’ve read the studies.”

  “You are exasperating.”

  “You are illogical,” he retorted. “You zip around town on a fragile little two-wheeler that any nearsighted granny or distracted teenager can easily cremate, then worry about getting on one of the engineering wonders of the modern world. Come on. I’ll hold your hand.”

  “Bully,” she grumbled, casually letting her hand fall at her side as she trudged to the entry.

  “Coward,” he replied cheerfully, catching her palm against his as he matched his stride to hers. “You’ll like it.”

  “Ha.”

  She didn’t look at him, pretending displeasure as he tugged her up the ramp to the covered platform, where they negotiated a maze of roped-off lines to finally file into narrow spaces between numbered pipes at the edge of the rails. Vaguely aware of the hissing and clashing of hydraulics and metal parts, she didn’t really see or feel anything that wasn’t centered on the hand that he clutched in his, until suddenly a long line of sleek, linked cars painted a fiery red shot past them and came to a screeching, jarring halt.

  With a whoosh of steam and the clank of metal, a padded bar popped up, revealing two molded seats below. They looked like something out of a space capsule, without nearly enough capsule to protect them. Simone instinctively pulled back.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “Honey, you’re holding up the line,” Morgan said close to her ear. Then he simply picked her up and stepped down into the car with her. She didn’t even have time to grab hold of his neck before he deposited her in the outer seat and dropped down next to her. Sputtering, she gaped at him, but he just pulled down his three-point harness and snapped it closed, saying, “Buckle up, sweetheart. We’re about to ride.”

  Before she could tell him what he could do with his ride, buckles and all, an attendant swept by and checked her harness. Then the padded bar came down over her head, and the same attendant used his foot to lock it tightly into place against her thighs. The car lurched and slowly rolled forward, gradually picking up speed as it came toward a first precipitate drop.

  Simone cut her eyes at Morgan and promised, “I am going to get you for this.”

  He clasped her hand in his, grinned and said, “Okay,” just as the bottom dropped out from under them.

  She screamed like a lunatic and couldn’t seem to stop. He laughed, loud and long and heartily, and not once did he let go of her hand.

  After what seemed an eternity, or perhaps three minutes, of rolls and flips and mind-boggling drops and curves, they arrived right back where they’d started. The car came to a screeching, jarring halt, and she had just enough time to catch her breath before the padded bar whooshed up. Morgan released his belt and let go of her hand in order to release hers. They had to exit on her side, so she started to push herself up, but then she felt Morgan’s hands under her arms, lifting her. The others of their party, in cars ahead of them, had already exited, laughing, down the covered ramp to their right.

  “My legs are like jelly,” she complained, stepping up onto the platform.

  Laughing happily, he hopped up beside her. “I’ll carry you, then.” He swept her off her feet and spun with her before heading down the ramp.

  She set her arms about his neck, smiling. He seemed so open and happy, his cinnamon eyes completely unguarded today. “You make it awfully difficult to stay angry with you, but you can’t always carry me.”

  “Yes, I can,” he refuted gaily, but reality waited at the bottom of the ramp, and it smacked her hard in the chest. It wouldn’t do for the other graduate students to see them like this. She’d already read the policy in her student handbook and heard it giggled about by the girls on campus.

  “What a shame the professors can’t date students.”

  “If ever you were going to break the rules, that not-fooling-around-with-the-professors thing would be it, wouldn’t it?”

  “A professor would have to really be in love with you to risk his job for you.”

  “No,” she said softly, dropping her gaze, “you can’t.”

  He stopped and, a heartbeat later, let her down.

  “You’re right,” he said, the professor again. “Good call.”

  Nodding, she adjusted the hem of the little mint-green T-shirt that she wore
over lightweight olive cargo pants and her most comfortable athletic shoes. Then she turned and calmly walked down the ramp and out into sunshine that seemed to have lost some of its luster.

  As the day wore on, everyone appeared to have a great time—everyone but Rina. Simone wondered why the girl had even come. She refused to ride any of the rides and sat morosely during all the shows. Only as they were leaving a particularly crowded musical, while killing time before their dinner reservations, did Simone realize the problem. It happened because two of the guys were clowning around, hopping back and forth on the carpeted, backless concrete benches where they’d sat to watch the stage show. One of them bumped into Rina from the back, knocking her forward into Simone. It was with shock that Simone felt Rina collide against her. Rina’s was not the soft, mushy body of the overweight but the hard, distended belly of the pregnant.

  In a flash, Simone realized the problem. Rina wasn’t tubby; she was expecting a baby, and the oversize clothes were meant to disguise that fact, which they had done fairly successfully thus far, aided by Rina’s round face and sullen expression. Simone suddenly recognized how small and delicate the girl’s hands and feet were compared to her girth. She saw, too, the flash of fear in Rina’s blue eyes. Slumping, the girl muttered something unkind to the boys and slung an elbow at one of them.

  Simone did her best to remain impassive, saying calmly, “No harm done. But you probably ought to cool it, guys, before they kick us out of here.”

  Morgan, who was two or three bodies ahead of them in the line trying to push out into the crush of the aisle, looked back over his shoulder and asked, “Everyone okay?”

  “Sure,” Simone said. “Hungry.” And tired. She was abruptly weary. All of a sudden, it seemed that every other female she met was going to have a baby. She tried not to think about it.

  They eventually made their way out of the theater and across the way to the restaurant where they had vouchers. By the time they were finally showed to their seats, she was absolutely exhausted with waiting and not thinking. Night had fallen, and with it came a cool, light breeze. Simone pulled a rumpled beige powder jacket from a communal backpack toted by the guys in the group. It sported a hot-pink oversize zipper and cuffs and collar. With the collar turned up, it kept her quite cozy, so she didn’t mind that the table to which their party was showed stood in the open air. They were served a decent meal of grilled chicken, rice, green beans, salad and apple cobbler, a definite improvement over the dry, cold hamburger and fries she hadn’t had much interest in at lunch, but she was too tired to really do the dinner justice. She caught herself nodding off over a cup of cocoa, and when she looked up, Morgan was sitting on the bench next to her.

  “I think you’re done.”

  “I am tired,” she admitted. She had promised, after all, not to overdo. “I’ll just find a place to sit while the rest of you finish up.”

  To her surprise, the kids themselves objected, saying they were ready to leave the park at any time. She knew that there were rides and exhibits yet in which several of them had expressed interest, so she shook her head.

  “I’m perfectly content to sit and wait.”

  “Tell you what,” Morgan said, “I think we could wrap this up in about an hour if we use a little organization.” He quickly ascertained who wanted to do what and split the party into groups, sending them off with instructions to meet back at the main gate in an hour’s time or as close to it as possible. He then asked Rina to stay with Simone and set out on his own, returning about twenty minutes later with a wheelchair.

  Simone grimaced. “I’m not crippled,” she protested.

  “I’m well aware of that fact,” he told her. “Humor me.”

  She glanced at Rina, wishing she could countermand the chair for the girl, but unable to do so without revealing her pregnancy.

  “Hey,” Rina said, “if some dude got a wheelchair for me, I’d ride in it.”

  “Well, then, you take it,” Simone proposed hopefully.

  “Uh-uh.” Rina refused, grinning at Morgan. “I said some dude, not some uptight college professor.”

  “Rina!” Simone scolded, trying not to laugh.

  “The uptight college professor wants the exhausted graduate student in the chair,” Morgan ordered. “The rude teenager can walk.”

  “Y’all take your time,” Rina said, trudging off with a wave. “I gotta make a pit stop. I’ll catch you at the front gate.”

  Simone sighed and got in the chair.

  “That is one strange young woman,” Morgan muttered as he pushed the chair forward.

  “It’s not what you think,” Simone told him.

  “You don’t know what I think,” he retorted softly.

  She knew that even in a grossly unfair world it was possible to have exhaustingly wonderful days that left her equally torn between tears and laughter.

  * * *

  Someone should kick him. No one would, so Morgan mentally kicked himself. How could he allow her to exhaust herself like this? He couldn’t seem to get it right with her. He either got too close or he kept too much distance to realize when she needed protection. Her fragility was evident, but he’d let her go gallivanting all over town on a moped, of all things, and in the rain, and now she’d worn herself out at an amusement park, just as he had predicted and while he was with her, but he’d been so busy trying not to notice everything about her that he’d missed the most important thing. He wanted to howl with frustration.

  She was always subdued, almost regally so, but her quietness tonight almost frightened him. Something had happened. Something had changed.

  Who was he kidding? Everything had changed.

  He didn’t know for sure when it had happened. Maybe when he’d picked her up and put her on that roller coaster, maybe when he’d taken her hand. Maybe when she’d kissed him that night in his garage. Maybe even before that. All he knew was that he couldn’t seem to get his equilibrium with her. He was either too close or too far. Or maybe he hadn’t gotten close enough yet, and that was what really frightened him.

  Never before had he pushed anyone onto a roller coaster or anything remotely resembling one. But he’d wanted so badly to share that with her, something he loved, something he craved, something he really got a big kick out of, and for all her protestations, she’d had a blast with it. Still, he shouldn’t have done it, just as he shouldn’t have let her wear herself out.

  She leaned her head against the window of the van and was asleep before they got out of the parking lot, which was vast. The kids were great about it. They’d had quite a day and were ebullient, but they talked softly among themselves or not at all as he drove them back to Buffalo Creek. Rina sat alone, staring at Simone and occasionally at him, as if trying to puzzle something out.

  Join the club, he thought.

  He dropped off everyone at the mission, everyone but Simone, who slept so soundly that she didn’t wake until he gathered her into his arms to carry her up the walkway in front of Chatam House, where he’d picked her up that morning.

  “Oh, are we there?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Good.”

  Her arm about his neck, she laid her head on his shoulder and emitted a soft, snuffling snore. He grinned.

  “You can’t always carry me,” she’d said.

  “Yes, I can,” he whispered.

  He couldn’t, of course. He shouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Oh, but he wanted to.

  He carried her into the house, pushing the door closed with his foot, across the grand foyer and up the great staircase.

  This just got more and more dangerous all the time.

  She was a student. He loved his job; it was his calling. There were rules about professors and students.

  She was too young for him. Much too young. Almost twenty years too young. Well, fiftee
n. Okay, ten. Ten years too young.

  She’d been dreadfully ill, with cancer. He’d already lost too much to cancer.

  Morgan carried Simone along the landing to her room at the back of the house, dipped slightly to open the door, then stopped. His aunts were no doubt sleeping. The staff would have retired to the carriage house hours ago. There was no one to see him go into Simone’s room, but he wouldn’t do that. Instead of setting her on her feet, however, he shrugged his shoulder.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead. You’re home.”

  “Home,” she said groggily.

  “Home,” he repeated, so very thankful to have her safe at Chatam House.

  She sucked in a deep breath, kicked a foot, glanced around her. The bright deep pink collar of her jacket framed her lovely face. Her gaze came back to his, and she said softly, “You’re carrying me again.”

  “So I am,” he told her, aware that his face was too close to hers, their noses all but touching.

  She made a helpless sound, tilted her head slightly and kissed him, her hands sliding up the nape of his neck. He’d never felt quite so happy, so he kissed her back, deeply, joyously, unwisely. He felt like the most powerful man on earth, standing there with his feet braced wide apart, holding her in his arms, cradled against his chest, kissing her, feeling her delicate hands slip possessively about his head. She cupped his ears, sifted her fingers through his hair, measured the shape and size of his skull, as if storing up memories to savor, while he marveled that he should feel such things for this girl, this student, who could cost him everything. She was too young, too broken, too dangerous. And somehow perfect.

  He didn’t know who pulled back first. Perhaps it was mutual. One moment their lips were melded, and then their foreheads were touching. Finally, he had to let her down.

  Tears stood in her glorious eyes, but she wouldn’t shed them. He knew instinctively that no tears would fall. She was strong enough to hold them back. A part of him was glad; another part resented it greatly. She had been through much, but he was nineteen years her senior, by far the wiser of them, and torn to shreds inside. He had loved and lost in the cruelest of ways, and just as his father had buried two wives, he had buried two mothers. Yet here she stood, as fragile as eggshell outside but as strong as tempered steel inside. She was enough to make him want to risk it all, when he knew, knew how disastrous that would be.