by Claire Adams
"An English professor?" Barton asked as he kissed Alice's hand. "I hope he recites sonnets to you."
"Only as much as I recite the law to him," Alice laughed.
"A lawyer. Beauty, brains, and an empty drink. Here, allow me." Barton signaled the bartender, who left another couple waiting as he poured a second wine for Alice.
"Thank you, Mr. Barton."
"Please, call me Wesley," Barton said with a warm smile.
Jackson appeared before anyone noticed my clenched fist. I considered following through with the punch just for the hell of it, but remembered both my department head and the college president were present.
"Wesley Barton, this is my husband," Alice said. She threaded an arm through Jackson's and leaned into him.
Next to Alice's slim and compact figure, Jackson was too tall and gangly. Barton gave him a sardonic smile. "Nice to see you again, professor."
"Why are you here?" I asked.
Everyone blinked, but Barton recovered in two seconds. "My friend, Michael Tailor, has a son starting here next year, and I'm always willing to help a good cause."
"Does he have a nephew that plays football? Brian Tailor?" Jackson asked.
I scowled, wishing the conversation would end so I could get my friends far away from Barton. "The running back," I said.
Barton cocked an eyebrow at me. "You really do notice everything, eh, Bauer?" He smiled at Alice, though she had caught the grim expression of her husband. "The Tailors have a long history with Landsman College, and my friend makes many generous donations. Perhaps there is something the English Department needs? Do people actually read books anymore?"
Jackson lifted a foot to step forward, but Alice steered him away. "How about a turn around the dance floor? Still remember those lessons we took before the wedding?" she asked her husband.
"I need to wait for a waltz or I'm lost," Jackson lied, eyeing Barton again.
Alice, tucked under her tall husband's arm, pulled him off balance, so he had to move. "Too bad Ford's pretty partner is gone, otherwise they could show you how it's done."
"Dancing with a pretty partner?" Barton turned his narrow gaze on me. "And here I thought you were all work, work, work. Which lovely lady is it?"
"Back off, Barton," I snarled as soon as Jackson and Alice were out of earshot. "You've got a lot of nerve coming up to me here and acting as if everything is fine between us."
"But it is," Barton smiled. "It was just business. Ask anyone of the donors here. Making money is a team effort, and you just weren't willing to play."
"That bullshit doesn't make what you did right, and I don't care who your friends are," I snapped.
"Oh, but you do. People like us run things, and there is nothing you can do about it." Barton sipped his drink and smiled at the other guests. "The truth is that Michael's son, Junior, is dumber than a tree stump. He once almost drowned using a beer bong. But, because of who he is and who his father knows, he'll be accepted at Landsman College without a problem. Just wait and see. Maybe I'll suggest he look at a career in journalism."
"Just what you need: a reporter too dumb not to spew out the crap you pretend is the truth." I finished my drink and walked away.
I searched the dining hall for someone I wanted to talk to, but Jackson and Alice were still on the dance floor. Dean Dunkirk was surrounded by alumni eager to hear stories. It was also difficult to talk to him without feeling like I was just as low as Wesley Barton. He entrusted me with his daughter, and he treated me like a friend. In return all I could do was fight off my growing attraction.
I turned and saw Clarity from across the room. From the distance, her eyes were a deep forest green that hid her thoughts. My heart pumped against my ribs as it occurred to me she was the only person I wanted to see.
She waited until I didn't look away, and then she wove through the crowd to join me. Our eyes were still locked as she neared, a rosy hue warming her cheeks. Then she shook it away and put a polite smile in place.
"Do you have any ideas for an article?" she asked. "You look so serious. Like you overheard something big."
I considered telling her about the string-pulling donors but thought better of it. If I hadn't learned my lesson, I knew better than to drag Clarity into a similar situation. "Lady's choice," I said.
Clarity beamed. "Good because I have this great idea to write a story about the catering. Why would Landsman College spend so much money to pay servers when students could do it? It would be great networking for the students and a chance for the alumni to share wisdom with them."
"Wisdom?" I snorted.
"Fine," she swiped back an errant curl, "but I'm right about the networking part."
"I don't know. It just seems like another opportunity that would be rife with nepotism," I said.
Clarity's nostrils flared. "Landsman College does not have a problem with nepotism, and I don't like what you are implying."
I held up both hands. "I'm offering the opposite viewpoint to make your core claims stronger. How about the fact that alumni and donors may not be able to relax and enjoy the bar as easily with students watching?"
Clarity put a hand on her hip and pointed the other at my chest. "Are you speaking for the faculty or for yourself personally?"
"I could use a drink. And I pride myself on treating my students as adults, not children," I said.
"That's the spirit I think this event could capture. Maybe students should be allowed to raise enough money to attend themselves. Different groups of students could band together and build up interest in specific funding." Clarity’s eyes shone.
Her enthusiasm made me smile. "Are you telling me you'd trade looking gorgeous in that dress for black pants and a white button-down shirt?"
She stopped and blinked. "Gorgeous?"
I felt a flash of heat rise to my ears. "I find it hard to believe you've never heard that before."
Clarity couldn't meet my eyes. "Um, thank you. You look very handsome tonight, too."
My burst of laughter cooled the conversation. "I wasn't fishing for a compliment, Ms. Dunkirk. Are you going to get all stutter-y if I tell you I like your story idea? Why don't you run it by some of your father's friends and see if you can get some quotes."
Her brow furrowed, but the polite smile slipped back into place. "Sure thing, Professor Bauer."
I stopped a passing server. "I'll tip you directly if you bring me a scotch." The server nodded, and I shook my head. That was definitely not something I would say to a student.
Then again, I wouldn't normally compliment a female student on her looks. No matter how innocent it was intended to be, that just begged for problems.
I looked down at my scuffed shoes. My problem was the compliment had popped out of its own accord. Clarity had a way of eliciting responses from my brain and body that were not in any way appropriate.
That made me angry. In any other room, in any other place, she would just be an attractive young woman. Her maturity set her apart from other students, and the more times I talked to her, the more I connected with her on an intellectual level. But no one would ever see that; they would only see an old professor leering at a student.
Thirty-one was not old—I was practically a baby when it came to professors—but I felt old. I watched as Clarity joined her father in an animated and smiling conversation. That was the biggest difference between us—she was all hope and ideals while I was all cynicism and experience. The last thing I would wish on Clarity was a man like me.
"What are you scowling at?" Jackson appeared at my elbow. "Or whom? You know, she can't help who her father is."
I stiffened at his keen observation. "Clarity? She's lucky to have him as a father."
Jackson shrugged. "Yeah, I can see that. You know he raves about you, right?"
"What?"
"Dean Dunkirk. He's always going on about how you bring realism and experience to Landsman. The rest of us are sheltered scholars, but you've been out in the world and have r
eally seen some things." Jackson watched me as the server arrived with my drink.
I took a long sip. "He keeps pushing his daughter to wander off her path and explore a little. I'm not sure he knows how hard it can be to get back on the straight and narrow."
Jackson followed my eyes back to Clarity. "Maybe that's why you're his favorite. If anyone can do that, it's you."
Chapter Seven
Clarity
Racing waves of sensation rolled up my back and over my shoulders from the place where Ford's hand had touched my bare back. My body reverberated with the awkward strength I had felt from him on the dance floor. The masculine pull of his body during the waltz still tugged at me, and my eyes sought him out again.
He stood with a colleague, an English professor, across the dining hall, and I wished we were anywhere but Landsman College. In any neighborhood, in any city, our age difference would not be an issue, and I wouldn't feel the bonds of an honor code strangling my natural responses to him.
My stomach warmed with a hunger to be near him again, but Ford was doing his best to avoid me. He had practically run off the dance floor. My cheeks burned with the thought that he had felt my attraction and dismissed it with distance, but my heart wondered if maybe he felt the same.
If only we had met in some big, anonymous city. I played over the cocktail party in my mind, an urban skyline replacing the manicured lawns and fall leaves of Landsman College.
"Having fun?" Thomas popped out of the crowd in front of me.
I clapped a hand over my chest as the fantasy shattered. "Sure, yeah, I guess," I said.
"I'm sorry we couldn't be partners. I tried," Thomas' smile was crooked.
"I thought Ford, I mean, Professor Bauer chose them at random."
Thomas scrubbed a hand over his opposite shoulder. "Yeah, but we would have written a great article. Don't you think?"
I shrugged. "What did you and Allison come up with?"
"She thinks the silent auction should include eco-friendlier items in order to raise awareness of global warming." Thomas crinkled his nose.
"That's a good way to spin the assignment to something you think is important." I shifted so I could see Ford again across the dance floor. He was heading out the door, and my thoughts stumbled.
Thomas followed my gaze. "Professor Ford wants everyone to meet in the foyer so we can compare story ideas and make sure we're not overlapping."
"Oh, god, I was supposed to mingle with my father and get quotes from alumni for our story idea." I clutched my champagne flute with both hands. All I had done was stand in the corner and daydream.
Thomas brightened. "That's okay, I'll stay with you if you want. We can hear what Professor Bauer has to say then come back in here and try to have some fun."
I threaded my way through the crowd with Thomas close on my heels. "I haven't even come up with a good lead yet. I don't even really have my opinion fully formed. Oh, my god, I hope this assignment isn't due soon."
"Don't worry, I'll help," Thomas said.
"No, that's okay, you have your own article to write, and it looks like Allison is waiting for you," I pointed to our classmate.
Thomas took one look at Allison and crinkled his nose at her hopeful smile. Then he grabbed my arm and steered me to the opposite side of the door. I couldn't dodge around a tall table without wrenching my arm away from him and making a scene, so I found a spot in the corner and turned on him.
"Thomas, what has gotten into you?" I asked.
"Sorry, Clarity, I just wanted, I just thought we could take a second." He looked around in panic and then snagged a wilting rose from the centerpiece of the tall table. "I just wanted to know if—"
"Are you two coming?" Ford appeared behind Thomas. The college kid shrank despite their almost equal height. "Sorry, did I interrupt something?"
"No, we were just on our way to the class meeting." I stepped around Thomas and caught Ford's sleeve. "I haven't gotten any quotes from people."
He patted my hand. "That's alright, we don't want to bury our own opinions for this assignment. Op-eds are a vital part of a student newspaper."
He shrugged off my touch, and the bubble in my chest deflated. I followed Ford out to the foyer, and Thomas trailed after us. "But op-eds very rarely share a byline. Shouldn't we be sticking to the assignment like everyone else?"
"Why don't you let me check in with the other students and see where we all stand, Ms. Dunkirk," Ford said. The blue in his eyes was hidden under a shade of hard gray. "Unless you have further issues with this assignment, can I address the newspaper staff?"
The push and pull of Ford made me step carefully. I stood on the opposite side of the circle from him, arms crossed. Each brush of his eyes called up sparks that his serious expression extinguished. My early fantasy cooled and hardened as he clearly regarded me as just another student.
As he talked, I suddenly couldn't take it. "Shouldn't this have been an individual assignment in order to get the best variety of opinions and ideas? You could have asked us each to find a topic and then assigned partners after the most compelling stories were chosen," I said.
Ford's gray eyes flashed over me again. "Ms. Dunkirk, I think you'll find, in the real world, editors very rarely tell you what to write. Yes, there are expectations, but if you cannot discover those and cater to them, your articles will not be included."
"But you've told us to write a co-authored piece," I snapped.
"In order to facilitate your learning. Is that something you are still interested in, Ms. Dunkirk?"
When the quick meeting broke up, Thomas leaned in to nudge my shoulder. "I'll stay if you still want to get those quotes," he said.
"Clarity," Ford strode across the dispersing circle. "If we're done discussing tonight's assignment, I have that feedback you asked for."
"My story?" I asked. "Yes, I'd like to see what you thought."
"It's in my office, if you're interested." Ford said. He gestured towards the doors, and I went with him.
The cool air after a formal event always felt freeing, but tonight it only whipped up a stir of nerves. I shivered.
"Did you have a coat?" Ford asked.
"No, there was valet parking," I said.
He unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and slipped it around my shoulders. I tried to protest, but he shook his head. "It's a rental, might as well get some good use out of it."
Ford's spicy musk surrounded me, and I breathed it in deeply. Feeling his amused attention on me, I tried to recover myself. "I love the smell of autumn, all the leaves and wood smoke."
He nodded. "You know, I don't mind typing up my comments if you send me it."
Fear gripped me. "You didn't like it. I knew it was a frivolous waste of time, but it felt like I just had to get it out." I wrapped his coat tighter around me and shuffled my high heels through the dried leaves.
Ford laughed. "Spoken like a true writer. All I meant was I could save you a trip."
"Thanks," I glanced at him, "but it was nice to have an excuse to leave."
It sounded innocent, but echoes of other thoughts loudly contradicted me inside my head. Ford's dark hair curled over the crisp collar of the white tuxedo shirt, and my fingers itched to sweep it clear. To tangle my hands in the hair at the back of his neck, the neck that already showed dark stubble. I wondered what it would feel like against my cheek, the bare skin of my arm.
I shivered again, and Ford jumped ahead to open the door of Thompson Hall. "One nice thing about a top floor office is that it's always hot," he joked.
His narrow office was so warm that I immediately shed his tuxedo jacket and slipped it onto the hanger I found on his couch. Ford opened the small, ivy-covered window and let in a soft, autumn breeze to cool us.
"So you really liked it? You're not just being nice to me?" I asked.
Ford tossed me the short story and leaned against his desk. It took a moment before I could tear my eyes from the shirt that was tight against his muscles when he
crossed his arms.
"I loved it," he said.
The words sent a honeyed delight over my body until I looked down at the pages. "There's so much red ink. Oh, my god, it's like a blood bath."
Ford chuckled as I sank onto the small sofa in his office. He stepped over and sat on the arm next to me. "Don't let that get you down. Most of my comments are about structure and clearing out the extra images. Your writing itself is impressive."
I gripped the pages and pored over each mark. Ford cleared his throat and went to reopen his office door. The breeze made it waver closed again, so he leaned against it. The faint light from the hallway cast him into silhouette, and I realized neither of us had bothered to turn on more than the small desk lamp.
In the dim light, he could still read my expression and chuckled again. "You have to think of all criticism as constructive or it'll sink you," he said.
"Do you mind going over it with me? I'm not sure I can interpret all of this as positive unless you explain it," I said.
Ford pushed off the office door and went to one of the sparsely occupied shelves. He pulled a bottle of scotch from behind a wide textbook. "Would my comments go down better with a drink?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I had champagne at the event," I confessed.
He smiled at me, then pried his eyes away and poured an extra finger of scotch. I tugged my thin dress strap back into place and wished the breeze would blow through the open window again. His office was getting warm.
"You seem used to events like that. Does your father make you go with him a lot?" Ford asked.
I looked up from the pages of my short story and met his eyes. In the dim light, the gray was shifting to a deeper, fathomless blue. "You don't like events like that, do you?"
"The event's fine, I just have a problem with a lot of the people there," Ford said.
I shrugged, and my dress strap slipped again. "My father is great at those events. Maybe knowing how to schmooze is an inherited trait."
Ford finished his drink and settled onto the arm of the sofa next to me again. His fingers plucked my errant strap and tugged it back in place. "You inherited that but not your father's passion for creativity in everyday life?" he asked.