in the midst of a particularly brutal stretch. He hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours. The autumn sun seared his eyeballs after being holed up in the medical library for he couldn’t even remember how long. The quad was packed with booths and students, and he wished like hell he was headed home for a few hours of shut-eye. No such luck.
The Feminization of Poverty event beckoned.
Dr. Nan Bryson was a popular anthropology professor from Harvard who toured the country speaking on an alarming trend gaining speed in academic circles. The fact that she was coming to Van Cortlandt was a big deal, particularly as one of the undergrads had managed to do what the deans of the anthropology and sociology departments combined hadn’t been able to do—get Dr. Bryson to speak while traveling through the Catskills. To honor this visiting professor, the faculty had pulled out all the stops to ensure the talk was well attended.
Charles had zero interest in sociology, anthropology or women’s issues but after bombing an exam, he’d appealed to the professor for mercy. Charles hadn’t had time to study because he’d been invited to observe surgeries at St. Joseph’s Hospital—no way could he pass up the opportunity. The professor had offered an opportunity for some extra credit.
Charles wouldn’t have missed the event if he’d had to be carried here on a gurney. He needed every dime of his scholarship money so he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life paying off student loans. That meant keeping up his GPA.
He was assigned to work the book booth and did nothing but try to keep his foggy brain functioning. While using hands that were learning to perform delicate maneuvers on organs and arteries to count out ones, fives and tens, he saw her.
Hot. The hottest. Details didn’t register. The punch to his gut did. Suddenly, all the tired vanished and his pulse pumped at warp speed. Blurry vision instantly saw with clarity as if he'd sharpened his sight on the edge of a scalpel. Only after he could breathe again did he notice details.
Blonde. Lean. Tall. She barely looked real with that pale silky hair blowing around her face. A face as exquisitely feminine as the rest of her. He couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but they were lighter. Blue or gray, maybe.
Then she smiled.
That full pink mouth made him think about kissing.
He had no idea who she was but even sleep deprived, he knew she was someone important. She walked with the college president, several of the deans and a woman he recognized from the jacket of the book he was selling—Dr. Nan Bryson. Then she disappeared backstage with her group and was gone.
But not from Charles’s thoughts.
He couldn’t get the image of her out of his head. He sold books, made change, but his brain replayed every detail he could remember, ached with trying to remember more. And the most important detail of all: who was she?
He intended to find out.
Once Dr. Bryson’s talk started, the book booth would quiet down and he could slip away to grab coffee. No one would miss him for ten minutes and he’d make a few calls on the way.
When the president took the stage and announced the beginning of the program, the noise level on the quad dropped. Charles tucked the cash box under his arm and timed his exit. While listening to the president welcome their guest to Van Cortlandt, he slipped the cell phone from his pocket. Then the president introduced the person responsible for Dr. Bryson’s visit, the person privileged with introducing their speaker.
The blonde walked onto the stage.
She wore a blinding smile, seemed completely at ease in front of the crowd as she began the introduction in a honeyed voice that matched up with every sleek inch of her.
Charles set the cash box on the table. He slipped the phone into his pocket.
Karan Kowalski.
Now, here she was again, two husbands later. Standing in New Hope’s reception area, which was exactly the last place on the planet she should be.
And he had that same knot in his stomach. Only the years had turned anticipation into dread.
“Charles?” Rhonda’s voice penetrated his brain. “Charles, are you all right?”
Was she joking?
He dragged his gaze from the observation panel, and found Rhonda watching him, seeing way too much with her trained psychotherapist gaze.
“Are you going to be able to handle this?” she asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
“One that doesn’t involve abandoning my post and losing my shot to join the Catskill Center?”
She shrugged, and he could tell she was fighting a smile. “We’ll have to figure that part out. I’m curious, though. Does your ex-wife know you’re affiliated with this program?”
“I have no idea. I never see her.” He stopped short. “Correct that. I run into her at the hospital on occasion.”
“Hmm. I just wondered. From what I understood from Chief Sloan, she had to agree to the alternative sentencing. I’m interested to know if she knew you’d be here.”
Interested? There was only thing Charles wanted to know. “What are you planning to do with her?”
“I have no idea until we talk and figure out what she can do.”
“Good luck with that. We didn’t install a tanning bed, so I can’t imagine—”
Rhonda stopped him with a raised hand. “No opinions please. I’m intrigued enough. I’d rather form my own impressions without yours coloring my professionalism. Your ex-wife has been ordered into counseling. I thought it made sense for me to treat her since she’s our trial run with alternative sentencing.”
He nodded, still struggling to pull the pieces together to decide what he was going to do with this. Running into Karan each and every time he walked through the door wasn’t going to work. That much he did know.
“Why is she in court-ordered community service and counseling?” he asked. “What in hell did she do?”
“DUI? DWAI? One of them.” Rhonda twisted around and flipped open the folder on her desk. “Driving while ability impaired.”
“Drugs?”
She shook her head. “Alcohol.”
“That’s about the last thing I would have expected.”
Rhonda waved him off again. “Shh.”
Karan didn’t drink. Never had. When other college students had been getting plowed during rush week, she’d made it her life’s quest to find other ways of unwinding and having fun. Picnics. Boating. Trips into the city for gallery showings.
He remembered how much he’d once liked that about her.
Karan’s dislike of alcohol was deep-rooted, physical and psychological, the result of a low blood sugar condition and an alcoholic
