too?”
“Only when the girls were little. As soon as my youngest was out of diapers I went to work with a law firm. But now, if I want to advance any further I have to get my paralegal certification. I can’t do that without an undergraduate degree, and since they’re willing to pay for it, here I am.”
There was a ruckus a few tables away as young people who were playing cards broke into laughter. Sarah supposed there had been a day when she’d been so carefree but it had been so long ago it was nothing more than a distant memory. Their smiling faces reminded her of her daughters and she glanced at the wall clock above the exit door.
“Let me get out of here so you can finish.” Cullen gathered up the bits of trash from their coffee and swept the table clean with a napkin. “I’m sorry I interrupted your efforts,” he apologized.
“I don’t mean to run you off, but I have to get this to your Miss Nancy before the office closes.”
“By next week she’ll be your Miss Nancy, too.”
“Oh, gosh, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“There are probably a lot of things you haven’t thought of yet. When you want a class recommendation or even a cup of coffee with your new friend, Cullen Temple, just give me a holler.”
“Do I holler at any particular corner of the campus?”
“I can generally be found in the history department, Heath-Harwick Hall. But if you don’t spot me over there just leave a message with Miss Nancy.”
“And she’ll see that you get it?”
“Probably not, but it’s worth a try.”
Cullen tilted his handsome head in a gesture of respect, took his coffee mug and made his way toward the exit, stopping every few tables to speak to someone he knew. Sarah wouldn’t be hanging out in the student center often enough to have acquaintances on campus like Cullen did. But she had made one new friend—though if she didn’t finish the enrollment form soon she wouldn’t even get another chance to speak to him.
“My new friend, Cullen Temple,” she said only loud enough so that she could hear the words. “I like the way that sounds.”
CULLEN FIGURED A week of preparation for his first class was enough.
He’d figured wrong.
Standing before the small group in Blair’s lecture hall on Monday afternoon, he felt like a poor substitute for the professor the students had expected to hear. After he began to rush through the talking points, only one person bothered to make eye contact, and having that person’s blue eyes fixed on Cullen’s every move only made things more nerve-racking.
Twenty minutes short of the ninety-minute class he closed Blair’s carefully prepared notes and dismissed the group. He turned about-face as they hurried toward the exit as if their stand-in instructor might call them back for another hour of boredom on European civilization.
“The sign on the lecture hall door claims you’re Dr. Cullen Temple but you didn’t sound anything like the smooth talker I had coffee with last week.”
Cullen looked around to find Sarah Eason standing in front of him. She’d tried to be helpful by signaling him a couple of times during his lecture to slow his delivery down, without success.
“Was that awful, or what?” he asked, already well aware of the answer.
“I wouldn’t say awful. Awful is a dried-up, day-old hot dog. That was more of a cold, greasy onion ring. If you just warm it up there may still be potential.”
“I’m sorry you witnessed that debacle.” He slumped against the white board on the wall behind him. “I shouldn’t have agreed to take over this class. It’s one thing to be a guest lecturer on a subject of my own choosing and quite another to pick up where a tenured professor has left off.”
“So Dr. Mastal really was supposed to be teaching this class, as it says on the syllabus? I thought maybe I’d wandered into the wrong lecture hall, but when I saw it was you I decided to hang around. I’m only auditing this semester so it’s not as if anybody was expecting me.”
“I hope my performance tonight doesn’t stop you from sitting in on the class again. I’m really gonna have to cram so I can redeem myself on Wednesday. Otherwise, your husband’s going to complain that your time away from the family is being wasted.”
She took a seat in the front row, settled her notebook and purse on the adjacent chair and crossed one bare leg over the other beneath the full skirt of her faded yellow sundress.
“Come, sit,” she encouraged, probably in the same patient voice she used with her children.
He did as instructed, sitting two seats away with her things in between them.
“I’m a widow.” Her voice was soft but matter-of-fact.
Before he could stammer out condolences she reached across the vacant seat and placed a hand on his arm.
“Don’t say anything. It’s been three years and the girls and I are adjusting to our new normal.”
“How...” Cullen wanted to ask, not at all sure he should.
“Joe was diagnosed with leukemia right after we learned I was pregnant with our third daughter, Hope. He’d suspected something was terribly wrong for months but kept it to himself because he didn’t want to worry me. We were told from the start it was terminal but we’d have a few years. I don’t pretend it wasn’t devastating to our lives or that everybody’s fine now. We get through it one day at a time and treasure every blessing.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine losing a spouse. When I was in high school, both of my parents were killed in a private plane crash, so I understand a little of what your daughters are going through.”
“It’s tough for my girls. I try to meet all their emotional needs but nothing can take the place of a daddy, as you well know. And I’m sorry you had a tragic loss at such a young age.”
“Thank you.” Cullen released a sigh. He was a bonehead, making too much of one failed lecture when the woman beside him was struggling with problems that might eventually get better but would never completely go away. Something else he was well acquainted with.
After his parents’ deaths, he’d suffered terrifying anxiety attacks, and while they’d subsided years ago, the dread of their return never left him. He’d only ever told Blair and Alma, the woman who’d stepped in to care for the Temple brothers, of his fears.
Hoping to get them past these sad subjects, he said, “Do you have to rush home, or can I buy you a bite to eat? I’m suddenly starving and the grill in the student center makes great cheeseburgers. I’ll even spring for some onion rings so the evening won’t be a total loss.” He smiled to lift the mood.
“Could I get a rain check? Tonight I’m meeting my mother and the girls for pizza. It’s one of those family places where kids can stay
