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.”
“I thank you.” She bowed her head at him, adding, “And I apologize. I forget to eat, and I don’t always get as much sleep as I should.”
“And that’s all it is?”
“It’s certainly not an eating disorder,” she said with a wry chuckle, adding, “It probably didn’t help that I walked over here in the heat.”
“In that case,” he said, “I’ll be driving you home.”
“Oh, that’s not nece—”
“I’ll be driving you home,” he repeated, making it clear that the matter was not open for discussion.
She subsided at once, but it rankled. At twenty-six, Simone had been on her own for almost a decade. If anyone could claim the title of “adult,” then she could. She certainly wasn’t proud of being the black sheep of the family. She had run away from home at the tender—and stupid—age of sixteen, but she had survived. It had been a near thing at times, and she wasn’t always proud of how she had managed, but no one at the college needed to know that. Her family was another matter.
She’d intended to confess all to her dad and hope, trust, that he could forgive her. He’d been good like that, always willing to extend another chance. Her mother had seen that as weakness, and to her shame, Simone had, too, but she’d learned otherwise over the years. Now that it didn’t matter.
Grief loomed. She shoved it away. She had no right to it. Later, she would decide what to do.
After eating most of the food she’d been given, she shook her head and handed over the plate. “That’s all I can manage.”
Morgan Chatam stacked the plate atop his empty one and set both on the end of the chaise. “Good enough. Perhaps you’d like to go inside where it’s cool now and rest for a bit.”
“That sounds great.”
She got to her feet, as steady as could be. He lifted a hand and she preceded him back to the house, saying, “About that cousin of yours, the one who married the widow...”
“Phillip? What about him?”
“You said something about a business.”
“That’s right. Smartphone apps.”
Simone couldn’t help smiling. Yes, that sounded like her sister, Carissa. Tom, Carissa’s husband—first husband—had studied computer science, and Carissa had always been fascinated by the subject. Poor Tom. It was hard to believe that he, too, had died.
“And do they live around here? Phillip and...his wife?”
“They do. They bought a house and set up an office less than a mile away.”
“That’s nice.”
She
