He skimmed a hand over her cheek and said, “That cannot happen again.”
Then he left her as quietly and quickly as possible, shaken to his core.
Chapter Eight
Morgan and his father had always had a good relationship. For that matter, Morgan was on good terms with everyone in the family. Bayard, the oldest of Hubner’s four children, was a dutiful if somewhat distant son and brother, his and Morgan’s mother, Ardis, having died in a silly accident when Morgan was ten.
Their younger siblings, Chandler and Kaylie, were the children of their stepmother, or “second mom,” Kathryn. She had been pure joy, and Hub had cratered after her death from cancer. He’d aged twenty years in two and had chained Kaylie, a nurse, to him with guilt, fighting with Chandler over every little thing.
Thankfully, those days were behind them. Chandler and his wife, Bethany, were happily raising their son on a prosperous horse ranch in Stephenville. When Kaylie had married, she’d planned for Hub to live with her and Stephen. Hub had insisted, however, that he would have his own space, so they’d built him an apartment with a private entrance.
Hub, eldest Chatam, former pastor, father, grandfather, twice-widowed husband, was himself again, a wise and caring man, so even at forty-five years of age Morgan didn’t hesitate to go to his dad when he had a problem that he couldn’t solve alone. He waited until after the morning service on Sunday, shamefully glad that Simone had not come even if the aunties had scolded him for letting her tire herself out the day before, before he tooled up the impressive drive of Kaylie and Stephen’s soaring house on the southwest outskirts of Buffalo Creek, seeking wisdom and strength and confirmation, he supposed, of what he knew was right and best.
He drove around to the far end of the house and parked in front of the single-bay garage where his dad kept his old car. Hub steadfastly refused to allow Stephen to buy him another, saying that he could buy his own anytime he wished, which was true. Morgan got out of the BMW—it had seemed the appropriate auto for this address—and walked up to knock on his father’s door.
Hub answered a few moments later in his house slippers and suspenders, blinking owlishly behind the lenses of his wire-framed glasses. “Morgan! What brings you out this way, son?”
“Simone,” he answered simply.
“Ah.” Hub nodded in understanding, almost as if he’d been expecting this visit and its subject matter. “Come in. Let’s talk it through.”
He led the way down a terrazzo-tiled hallway, bypassing a tiny, barely used kitchen on the way to a comfortable sitting room with a cheery gas blaze in a lovely rock fireplace. A wall of glass overlooked a professionally maintained garden in the backyard, and a large flat-screen TV took up another.
“You find her a temptation,” Hub surmised, waving Morgan into a seat on the comfortable leather sofa.
“To put it mildly.”
Hub chuckled, sounding genuinely pleased. Morgan came right back up off the sofa to pace the room with agitated strides.
“It’s not a laughing matter! I could lose my job over this. You know what strict policies are in place for Bible College professors.”
“Yes, of course, and rightly so,” Hub said solemnly. “But the strictest policies concern undergraduate students.”
Stopping in midstride, Morgan gaped at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Obviously, Simone is a graduate student, and mature for her age, I’d say. I like her.”
Morgan glared at him, astonished. “You’re not helping! I expected a stern lecture...”
“Great lot of good those do,” Hub muttered.
“...a helpful meditation exercise...”
“Oh, those I have in abundance. But so do you.”
“...maybe even a stunning insight into midlife crisis.”
Hub shook his head, brow furrowed. “You know, I’ve never figured out when midlife is. I don’t think anyone does until it’s long past.”
Morgan dropped down onto the sofa again, his head in his hands. “I’m terrified that I’m going to do something stupid, and you’re talking esoteric nonsense!”
“Morgan,” Hub said calmly, “half your problem is that you haven’t done anything truly stupid in decades.”
Morgan looked up sharply at that. “Well, how’s this for stupid? I keep kissing her!” Hub beamed so brightly that Morgan felt duty bound to amend the statement. “Actually, she keeps kissing me, and I sort of kiss her back.”
“And why is that?” Hub asked with a face as straight as a plumb line.
“Because I want to,” Morgan admitted baldly. “Because I like how it makes me feel.”
“And how is that?” Hub asked.
Morgan threw out his arms in disgust. “Like I’m ten feet tall and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”
Hub clucked his tongue. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
“No, that’s wonderful. But it’s all wrong, Dad, for so many reasons. It’s not just my job or my career that we’re talking about. It’s my calling. If I’m not true to that, I’m not true to God.”
And there it was, the worst of it, the thing that frightened him most. Morgan rubbed his hands over his face. Could he really be tempted to so grievous a failing? His father seemed to think so.
“This I understand,” Hub told him soberly.
“And she’s so very young,” Morgan went on, eager to lay it all out now. “I know Kathryn was younger than you—”
“Nineteen years.”
“Really? That much exactly?” Morgan was surprised. He’d thought fifteen years or so. At every birthday, they’d joked about keeping her age a secret, and everyone had known it was because of the age difference between them, but somehow it hadn’t seemed important, especially as she had died first. It had been five, six years now since her passing. Whoa. Time passed so quickly.
“Gave me pause,” Hub was saying, “but I had you, and you needed a mother.”
“She was a wonderful mother,” Morgan said, smiling.
“And a wonderful wife, and I’ll tell you what she told me when I balked. You come to a point where you’re either both adults or you’re not, and she figured she’d given me long enough to mature.”
Morgan could just hear Kathryn saying it. He hadn’t been quite eleven years old when they’d married, but it had seemed to him that she had made his careworn father younger with her vibrant love and personality. The whole church had been abuzz with talk that Kathryn had pursued the widowed minister, and she’d freely admitted it.
Simone was not Kathryn, however. They were as different as night and day. Kathryn had been all flutter and gaiety, all sparkle and whirlwind; Simone was quiet, self-possessed, sometimes stormy, sometimes a serene zephyr, a little mysterious, often unexpected. Kathryn had always left Morgan feeling stuffed with her presence; Simone left him wanting more, as if he couldn’t get quite enough of her. It disturbed him, that feeling, worried him. He feared that she could become an addiction.
“There are things you don’t know, Dad,” Morgan said softly, aware that he was betraying a confidence. “Please don’t tell anyone else.”
“I’m adding pastor’s vestments to my father’s mantle now,” Hub told him in all seriousness.
“Simone cannot have children. She’s had cancer.”
Hub winced at the news. “Dread disease.”
“That’s why I’ve been so concerned about her. Brooks says she’s beaten it and just needs time to recover.”
“But the specter is always there, especially after Brigitte and your stepmother.”
“It’s not that so much,” Morgan said, realizing that was true, “but realistically speaking, for Simone to have children, she will need to adopt.”
“And you’re too old to begin that process in the normal way of th
ings,” Hub surmised. “Yes, I see. But, Morgan, we’ve gone from kissing to marriage and raising children in a single conversation.”
“I seem to recall you telling me that’s where kissing leads,” Morgan teased, feeling better for simply having it all said aloud now.
Hub chuckled. “So I did, and so it does. But there is a little thing called courtship first.”
“Yowza,” Morgan joked, “maybe in a past generation.”
“You know what I mean.”
“And that brings us full circle to right back where we started. BCBC has clear-cut policies against professors and students dating or otherwise becoming romantically involved.”
Hub tapped a finger against the cleft in his chin. “I seem to recall a few exceptions to that rule.”
“Spouses who enroll as students. Faculty who are also students. That’s about it.”
Hubner spread his hands. “Is there no faculty position for which Simone might be qualified? The good Lord knows we don’t pay her enough to keep body and soul together at the mission. She’d starve if she wasn’t with your aunts.”
Morgan shook his head. “That wouldn’t be a true solution. It would only take care of one problem.”
“Well, we’ll pray about it,” Hub said. “There’s your only real solution, anyway.”
“I know, Dad,” Morgan told him. “I feel better with you praying about it, too.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Hub told him warmly, “to pray for my children. It’s my burden and my privilege, as much my calling as the pastorate ever has been, a joy among sorrows, more precious to me than jewels.”
For the first time, Morgan felt a definite pang at his lack of offspring. He prayed for his students, of course. Simone was just one for whom he’d prayed over the years. Many more would need his care and concern in the years ahead. Which was all the reason he needed to avoid temptation and protect his calling. Why did it suddenly feel like such a gargantuan task?
* * *
She lay in wait like a thief, and in her own house, no less, but Hypatia felt compelled to have a private word with Simone. The child had looked like death warmed over on Sunday morning, with dark circles under her eyes and an alarming pallor. Clearly the trip to the amusement park—Hub had told them all about it—had been too much for Simone. Hypatia had seen no choice but to press the girl to stay home in bed, and she’d felt quite put out with her nephew about it. She’d thought that Morgan, above all others, could be trusted to see to it that Simone did not overtax herself, but there the poor thing had stood, looking on the verge of collapse.
“I’ll have a word with Morgan Charles Chatam,” Hypatia had announced, feeling Simone’s forehead for sign of a fever. “What was he thinking to let you get into such a state?”
“Were there roller coasters involved?” Odelia had asked, all worried curiosity. Roller coasters! Hubner seemed to find Morgan’s fascination with the things amusing, but Hypatia couldn’t help thinking that it was rather undignified for a grown man.
Simone’s reaction had been most telling, however. She had paled even whiter, before her face had bloomed bloodred, and she had grabbed Hypatia’s hand in both of hers, imploring her, “Oh, no, you mustn’t blame Morg—er, Professor Chatam. He was such help to me! He’s always been so very much help to me.”
Hypatia had exchanged a glance with her tittering, romantically minded sister, then quickly shooed the same from the room. It wouldn’t do to have Odelia building love affairs out of blushes and chance remarks, but Hypatia hadn’t been able to dismiss so lightly the troubled softness in Simone’s tired gray eyes or her concerns about a developing relationship. A crush on Simone’s part was one thing; anything more could be catastrophic.
She lifted the edge of the lavender silk sleeve at her wrist and checked the time on the face of her watch. If Simone proved true to form, she’d be coming down those stairs anytime now on her way to Monday morning class. Morgan’s class. Simone never missed it. On occasion, she skipped one or the other of her classes but never, apparently, Morgan’s. That could be because Morgan’s class was a prerequisite for her acceptance into the graduate program, or it could be because Simone felt a debt of gratitude toward him. Or it could be...
Hypatia frowned. She was not given to romantic nonsense herself, but even she had to admit, secretly, that of all her nephews Morgan was by far the most appealing. Everyone knew that half the females on campus threw themselves at his feet every semester without fail, but stalwart fellow that he was, he had remained true to his calling and the memory of his Brigitte. Hypatia had always considered him a Chatam after her own heart, happy in his single state. Now she feared that Simone might upset that balance a bit, and someone could get hurt, perhaps Simone, perhaps Morgan, perhaps both.
Simone came skipping down the stairs in a whispered rush, her tread so light that Hypatia would have missed her if she’d waited in the parlor or library as she’d considered doing. Calmly rounding the curved post at the foot of the staircase, Hypatia put on a welcoming smile.
“There you are. Looking fit, I see, and feeling better, I trust.”
Simone drew up on the bottom step, smiling down at Hypatia. She looked slim and sleek but healthy in wheat-colored jeans and a matching hooded jacket worn over a bright orange T-shirt and orange canvas shoes, the ubiquitous backpack slung over one shoulder. “Thank you. I feel well.”
“That bag looks heavy.”
“It is, but I only carry it to and from the car.” She leaned forward, winking conspiratorially, and added, “Don’t tell the professor. He gave me a rolling case some time ago, and it’s a great help on campus, but it’s more trouble to lug up and down the stairs than the backpack.”
“He does try to see to your needs,” Hypatia mused.
“Oh, yes. He’s very kind.”
“And you are falling in love with him,” Hypatia ventured gently.
Simone seemed more dismayed than shocked. “Ma’am,” she said carefully, “you know that students cannot date professors. It’s strictly forbidden.”
“And that has precisely what to do with your feelings?” Hypatia asked in a kind tone.
Licking her lips, Simone let down the backpack. She seemed to be breathing with some difficulty. “I—I’m trying to explain to you that I can’t have feelings for Professor Chatam.”
“Of course you can,” Hypatia refuted. “Perhaps you should not—”
“Must not,” Simone interrupted firmly. “I must not have feelings for him. You see, it isn’t just that I am forbidden to involve myself with him, it’s that I could never give him—” she looked down “—any of the things that other women can.”
Bemused, Hypatia asked, “Such as?”
“Children,” Simone answered in a husky whisper. “I can never give him a child, which he surely deserves.”
Surprised but not unduly troubled by this admission, Hypatia nodded. So the cancer had taken that choice from her. How sad for her. Still, not every woman chose to be a parent, herself included, and not every man.
“I’ve never known Morgan to voice a yearning or even a preference for children.”
Simone looked up in surprise. “Oh, but he’s so wonderful with them. You should have seen him with the kids in my group on Saturday! Granted, they aren’t little children. Some of them are actually adults. Or should be. But I see him around campus, and Saturday with the children in the park, little strangers running wild, he was so patient, so indulgent. I think he had more fun than they did. I saw all these exasperated fathers, dragging their little kiddies around by the arms and threatening them with shaking fingers, and I thought, ‘Morgan wouldn’t be like that. Morgan would know what to say and do to make them want to obey.’ I may want to smack him sometimes, but he’d be a wonderful dad. I know it.” She smiled to herself, and Hypatia felt her heart turn over.
“One wonders how he feels about you,” she heard herself say, wishing that she could call back the words, but Simone merely shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, stepping down onto the foyer floor. “Whatever he might feel for me now, he wouldn’t if he knew all there is to know.”
Hypatia tilted her head, studying that piquant face. Something about the eyes—or was it the cheekbones?—struck her as oddly familiar, but she couldn’t quite... Perhaps it was the sadness, such a depth of sadness. They’d certainly had a season of sadness in this house not too long ago, but joy had followed it. Hypatia trusted that such would be the case again, for the psalmist said that those who sowed with tears would reap with songs of joy, and so it had proven time and again.
“I think perhaps you underestimate both Morgan and our Lord,” Hypatia said at length, speaking as much to herself as to Simone. She tried on a smile and said, “Why don’t we just pray about it and see what God has in store, hmm?”
Simone smiled, nodding, but Hypatia could see that her heart wasn’t really in it. She wasn’t convinced that anything could change. It must seem to her that God had spoken already, that His will had been done when the cancer had taken certain female organs. Hypatia wondered again how likely it was that Simone’s cancer would return.
Mumbling that she had to get to class, Simone dragged the backpack from the step and shouldered it before sweeping around the end of the staircase and hurrying off toward the back of the house.
Love Inspired June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Single Dad CowboyThe Bachelor Meets His MatchUnexpected Reunion Page 29
