Spiral of Bliss: The Complete Boxed Set Page 5

  “I’m…” My throat tightens. I force the words past the constriction. “That’s what you think?”

  “I’m asking if that’s what you think.”

  “No! No, of course not.” I can’t stop the rush of tears, the ache spreading through my entire being. “God, Dean, you think I brought up the idea of a baby just to give me something to do? What the hell?”

  “You’ve never mentioned it before, Liv,” he says gently, but with annoying reason. “And I know you’ve been at loose ends, that you—”

  “So I must think of a baby as a hobby? Something to pass the time in between soap operas and grocery shopping?” Anger erupts in me and I stride across the room to shove him in the chest. “I might not have an illustrious academic career, but I’m not an airhead, dammit. I’ve been thinking about a baby because I fucking love you and I thought we had a good life, and it’d be something we could go through, you know, together—”

  “Liv, you don’t go through having a baby. There’s no end to it.”

  “I meant…” What the hell did I mean?

  I take a breath. “Look, we’ve gone through a lot already, right? You and I? But we’re happy now. Secure. Isn’t this the next logical step?”

  Dean shakes his head. “Liv, I don’t think of having a baby as a step in some process. A baby would change everything, change us, forever. If that’s what you want, then yes, we need to talk. But stopping birth control and leaving things up to chance is a lousy way of going about it.”

  Of course he’s right again. That makes it no easier for me to contend with this sudden tangle of emotions.

  “Liv, you need to be sure about what you want and why you want it,” Dean says, his voice softening as he approaches me. “But there’s no hurry. The timing’s bad anyway.”

  “Why is the timing bad?”

  “I just started this job.”

  “Almost two years ago.”

  “Yeah, but I’m spearheading a whole new program with half-a-dozen other departments,” he says. “I’m organizing an international conference, I’ve got a book deadline, classes, journal editing. It’s a lot of work.”

  “It’s not going to get easier, Dean,” I say, “if that’s what you think has to happen before we even consider having a baby. We’re settled here, right?”

  “If the establishment of the Medieval Studies program goes well,” he replies. “If I’m not offered something better somewhere else. If I get tenure.”

  “So we just put the idea on hold until you know the answers to all those ifs? That could take years.”

  “It won’t take years.” He brushes my hair back from my forehead.

  “Then how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That is not a phrase Professor Dean West often uses.

  For a minute, we just look at each other. And then, because it seems like an earthquake is starting to tremble beneath our feet, I lean my forehead against his chest and spread my hand out to feel his heartbeat.

  Ugly thoughts pop and blister in the back of my mind. A shudder splits my heart. I try to breathe. Dean tightens his arms hard around me.

  “Okay?” he asks.

  The word fine sticks in my throat. This time, I can’t respond.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  August 20

  THE PROMISE OF AUTUMN IS IN the air. Breezes sweep from the surface of the lake, trees rustle, and ducks waddle along the beaches. The tourists are leaving town, and university students bustle around with their backpacks and laptops. Dean is mired in planning fall semester classes, advising, department meetings, committees. We talk, but not about anything important. Not about us.

  I’ve agreed to work three days a week at the Happy Booker, and I volunteer for a few hours at the public library and the Mirror Lake Historical Museum. After an afternoon spent organizing an exhibition on colonial currency, I stop at a coffeehouse for a mocha. The scent of roasting coffee beans makes me think of my first few months with Dean.

  I was twenty-four years old and had been accepted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a transfer student. I’d spent the previous three years in rural Wisconsin, working at a clothing store and taking night courses at a community college to earn transfer credits.

  When my application was accepted at the UW, I’d packed up everything I owned and moved to Madison to start what I hoped would be a new life. The day I registered for classes, a woman at the registrar’s office gave me a hard time about the transferability of my community college work.

  I was upset, trying not to cry while pleading with Mrs. Russell to work out a solution.

  “There must be something we can do,” I said.

  “Miss Winter, the courses you took won’t cover the requirements,” she informed me.

  “But I wouldn’t have taken them otherwise. If I can’t get them to transfer, it puts me behind an entire semester.”

  “Look.” Mrs. Russell swept the papers into a stack and pushed them toward me. “It’s all in the catalog, if you have questions. We can’t retroactively allow the credits to transfer.”

  “I’m not asking you to do it retroactively!” I said. “This is my first semester here, and I’m trying to get my courses in order. If I have to take another foreign language translation class, then I’m already behind. And those classes are full already anyway.”

  “The courses you took aren’t equivalent to the requirements for your academic program.” Mrs. Russell glanced pointedly at the line of students behind me. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  I blinked back tears, refusing to budge. “Why would they have told me the credits would transfer if they’re not equivalent?”

  Then a tall, handsome man approached from another section of the office, his dark eyes fixed on me, his deep voice rolling over my skin like a wave of heat on a cold winter night.

  “Can I help with this?” he asked.

  My breath stopped in my throat. The sight of him jolted something loose inside me, and for an instant I could only stare at him, struck by the sharp, masculine planes of his face, the steadiness of his expression, his aura of complete control and self-possession.

  He was wearing black trousers and a navy blue shirt open at the collar to reveal a V of taut, tanned skin. His hair shone under the fluorescent lights, and I was seized by a sudden urge to tunnel my fingers through the strands to see if they felt as thick and soft as they looked.

  Unnerved, I jerked my attention back to Mrs. Russell, who was explaining the situation to him. She called him “Dr. West.” Likely a professor, then. I wondered what he taught.

  Dr. West listened patiently, glancing at me every so often. “What classes are you trying to take?” he asked me.

  “She’s a library sciences major, and she has to register for foreign lit translation and intro to biology,” Mrs. Russell said.

  “But I shouldn’t have to take those because my credits should transfer,” I persisted.

  “Make an appointment with a guidance counselor, Miss Winter,” Mrs. Russell suggested. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  “By the time I do that, classes will already have started.”

  “You have a couple of weeks yet to finalize your courses,” she continued. “I’m sure they’ll help you sort this out.”

  I knew by the tone of Mrs. Russell’s voice that she wasn’t going to give in, and the hopelessness of the situation crashed over me.

  “The professors can—” Dr. West started.

  “Never mind.” Because I didn’t want to start crying in front of him, I grabbed my bag and left the office.

  Halfway down the sidewalk, my vision blurry with tears, I tripped on an uneven piece of concrete and went sprawling onto my hands and knees. My open satchel thumped onto the ground, papers spilling out.

 
“Are you okay?” Then he was there, crouching beside me to pick up the papers before the wind caught them. He reached out a hand but stopped an inch from my arm, his fingers brushing the sleeve of my gray sweatshirt.

  “I… I’m okay,” I said.

  He could have touched me. He was close. Close enough that I caught a whiff of him, a clean, soapy smell that settled in my blood and loosened the knot of frustration stuck in my throat. Close enough that I noticed the size of his hands, his long fingers and the dark hairs dusting his forearm where his sleeve inched up.

  Awareness shot through me. I dusted the grit from my palms and straightened. He stood between me and the street, waiting in silence for me to collect my composure. A few people passed behind me, forcing me a few steps toward him.

  He held out my satchel, his gaze moving over me, eliciting a surge of heat. I pushed strands of hair away from my face and looked at him. My heart hammered, my chest pooling with warmth. I was shaken all over again by the way my body reacted to him, with this hot pull of attraction I had never experienced before.

  Not for any man. Ever.

  “Thank you.” I took my satchel from him and straightened the papers. All I had to do now was turn and walk away.

  I didn’t. He was still looking at me, his hands in his pockets, his hair ruffled by the breeze.

  “Are you a professor here?” I asked.

  He was big. Not all bulky and heavy, but tall with broad shoulders, long legs, and that air of self-control that made him seem in total command. The wind flattened his shirt over his muscular chest, and I had a sudden image of folding myself against that chest and feeling his arms close around me. Safe. Protected.

  Nothing to fear. Not from him.

  I stepped back, not having felt this way before and not knowing where it was all coming from.

  Why him? Why now?

  “I’m a visiting professor for the year,” he said. “Medieval history.”

  He was a medieval history professor. For whatever reason —the sheer dorkiness of the field?—this admission eased some of my tension.

  “Oh.” I hitched the satchel over my shoulder and folded my arms across my breasts. “Well, thanks for your help back at the registrar’s.”

  “The professors of whatever classes you need to take can approve your transfer credits,” he said. “You don’t need to go through the registrar’s office first. Get the course syllabus and bibliography from your previous college, and bring them to the professors to see if it fits their curriculum. If it covers the same ground, they should approve the transfer as a direct course equivalent.”

  “Why didn’t Mrs. Russell tell me that?”

  “She probably didn’t know. Professors have a lot of power.”

  I almost smiled. “Even medieval history professors?”

  “Especially medieval history professors,” he assured me.

  “Knights on horseback and all that?”

  A responding smile tugged at his mouth. “And damsels in distress.”

  My heart constricted. Ah, fairy tales.

  “Hey, Professor West!” A young man jogged up to him. “I heard you were teaching here this year. I was at Harvard when you were a grad student. Tom Powell.”

  The kid stuck out a hand. Professor West shook it and made a few appropriate comments. I backed up a step, not wanting to leave him and yet not knowing how to stay.

  The other guy kept talking. Something about a paper he was working on.

  Professor West glanced at me. I had the sense he was about to make an excuse, extract himself from the conversation so that he could turn back to me.

  So we could finish what we’d started.

  I retreated another step, staring at the sunlight glinting off his hair, the sharp edges of his profile, the muscles of his neck, and the confidence of his stance.

  Professor West was beautiful. He was beautiful and warm and wanted to help a distraught girl in a ragged gray sweatshirt. Even though his eyes seared me like a caress he hadn’t made a move to touch me or invade my space. If anything, he seemed to restrain himself from doing so.

  If I could trust myself with anyone, I thought, it might be him.

  Before he looked at me again with those penetrating eyes, before I could think of an excuse to stay, I surrendered to my fear and hurried away. I had to force myself not to look back.

  I thought I’d never see him again. If I’d been another kind of woman, I could have sought him out, taken one of his courses, dropped by his office.

  But I wasn’t the kind of woman who did things like that. I couldn’t be, even if I’d wanted to. I’d worked hard to get into the UW, and I had a very strict schedule of classes I needed to take to graduate.

  I had a part-scholarship and a job at a coffeehouse on State Street, a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and an unwavering notion that graduation would put me on a path toward something normal.

  While I nourished a secret hope of one day finding a man who would help rid me of my inhibitions, I had to focus on other things first. I’d spent years figuring out what I needed to do, and I couldn’t deviate from that course now that I was finally accomplishing something. Seeking out a medieval history professor who made my heart race certainly wasn’t part of my plan.

  Two weeks after our encounter on the sidewalk, the semester started. I managed to get my transfer credits approved by appealing to the professors of two courses. I immersed myself in classes on digital communication, international studies, database management, and American literature.

  When I wasn’t in class or at the library, I studied or worked. I forgot all about Professor West—or tried to tell myself I had.

  Until he walked into Jitter Beans one morning.

  I was helping another customer, answering a question about the difference between a cappuccino and a caffe latte.

  “So a cappuccino has a stronger coffee flavor?” the guy asked, peering at me intently.

  “That’s correct.” I looked over his shoulder to check how many other customers were waiting.

  My gaze collided with Professor West’s.

  I drew in a sharp breath, my pulse thudding a stream of heat through my blood. How had I not known the instant he stepped inside?

  I couldn’t stop staring at him, tracking my gaze over his ruffled, dark brown hair, the angles of his features, the curve of his beautiful mouth. He was all-professor in a tailored suit and a perfectly knotted tie, his briefcase in hand.

  A smile crinkled his eyes as he looked at me, then he tilted his head slightly toward the guy I was supposed to be helping.

  “Oh.” I swung my attention back to the customer, who looked a little annoyed at having been dismissed. “Sorry, what?” I said.

  “I asked if you could make the latte with an extra shot of espresso,” he repeated.

  “Sure.” My hands trembled as I rang up the order and conveyed it to the girl who was making the drinks. “It’ll be ready in a sec.”

  The guy took ten years to get out his wallet and pay for the latte. By the time Professor West approached the counter, my stomach was taut with nerves.

  “Um…” I gripped the edge of the counter. “Hi.”

  Amusement flashed in his expression. “Hi.”

  “Can I help you?” I tried to muster a professional tone, aware of my coworkers bustling around behind me, the hum of conversation from other customers.

  “Medium coffee, please.” He slid a hand into his pocket. “For here.”

  I turned to grab a cup and pour the coffee. “Room for cream in your coffee, sir?”

  “No, thanks. Did you get everything straightened out with the registrar?”

  I looked at him in surprise, wondering why he cared. “Yes, I did what you suggested. A couple of professors filled out the right forms indicatin
g I’d already covered the curriculum.”

  “Good.”

  “Thanks for the help… Professor West.”

  “Dean.”

  I put the cup on the counter, painfully aware of the beat of my heart, fast as a hummingbird’s wings. “Dean?”

  “My name. Dean West.”

  “Oh. I’m—”

  “Olivia,” he said.

  The sound of my name in his deep voice rolled through me like a breaking cloud.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I saw your name on the papers at the registrar’s office.” He handed me a couple of dollars. “I remembered it. Olivia R. Winter.”

  I rang up the order and counted out his change. “Why did you remember my name?”

  “Actually…” He lifted the cup and turned to the tables. “I remembered you.”

  I stared after him as he sat at a table beside the window and opened a newspaper. We didn’t speak again that day, but I saw him leave and gave him a little wave of farewell. I had the instinctive sense he would come back. I wanted him to.

  And he did. He always ordered a medium coffee, no room for cream, and sometimes a muffin. It was my favorite time of year—early September with crisp, clean air and warm colors and a touch of fall.

  I couldn’t help it. Every time I went to work, I hoped I’d see him. I didn’t want to hope for it, didn’t think anything could come of it, but a thousand happy sparks twirled through me whenever he came into Jitter Beans.

  I liked everything about him—his masculine features and thick-lashed eyes, his jaw sometimes dusted with a hint of stubble. I liked his dark hair, his tall, strong body, his smile, and the twinkle that shone in his eyes when he looked at me.

  I started to welcome the feelings he aroused in me, all so utterly different from the narrow practicality that had driven my life for years. One morning he pushed a folded piece of paper across the counter along with his dollar bills.