Her own college experience consisted of a handful of classes she’d taken since graduating high school, something which had thrilled her father about as much as Gram’s decision to remain in her own apartment. It wasn’t that Aimee had anything against higher education; it was just that she defined it much more broadly than most. No doubt Doyle would disapprove.
Peeking through the inset window of the door to the sixth classroom she passed, Aimee spied Doyle standing at a lectern before three white boards mounted end-to-end on the wall behind him, all of them covered with the kind of detailed notes that probably made most students tremble as they copied them. The classroom itself was huge, much larger than any Aimee had ever been in, and the rows upon rows of student seats angled upward as if Doyle was a performer in a tremendous amphitheater.
She strained to see as far as she could to the side and guessed there were over a hundred students in the room. One more person would be unlikely to attract attention, especially if she came in quietly enough.
Waiting until Doyle turned to add something more to the copious notes already on his boards, Aimee ducked silently into the room, careful not to let the heavy door clang as it shut behind her. Her arrival drew glances from the nearest students, but since she was only a few years older than them, she doubted she looked all that out of place. She nodded at them and slipped into an empty seat moments before Doyle turned back around.
“…And then in a dramatic and even symbolic culmination of the Franco-Prussian War, William the First is proclaimed German emperor at the former palace of France’s own kings, at Versailles,” he said, leaning forward on the lectern and addressing his students. “But wars never do end simply, do they? And the impact of that particular war reached far beyond the latter part of the nineteenth century and even helped shape events well into the twentieth. The Germans’ victory over the French solidified their confidence and faith in Prussian militarism, which remained a heavily dominant force in German society up and into World War II and, in turn, colored events in the world’s history in a way that will never be forgotten.”
His voice carried effortlessly throughout the room, strong and clear, and for a moment Aimee almost didn’t recognize it. Not because the sound was really all that different, but because his manner was. He might not have been smiling, but he seemed very much at ease and in his element, and this afternoon the intensity in his eyes came from something other than the friction that was perpetually between her downstairs neighbor and herself. Whatever it was, it intrigued her.
Glancing around, she saw several students scribbling notes while others sat like lumps on a log and wore the glazed expressions of those who were only there to fulfill credit requirements. The only time they stirred was when they stole glances at their cell phones or their watches. But some students watched him with rapt attention. They were, she realized with dawning comprehension, all female.
Aimee turned her attention back to the man at the front of the room and studied him with greater interest. Professor Doyle Berkley, a heartthrob? Really?
He turned his head to address a student whose hand was up, and Aimee leaned forward to get a better look at his profile. Truthfully, it wasn’t bad. In fact, his features were very good ones when he wasn’t glowering the way he usually did. Even the black-as-night hair that was just slightly due for a trim was striking against his skin, now that she thought about it. And as he warmed to the topic of his student’s question—Aimee had no idea what it was, her attention was so firmly fixed on Doyle’s face—he was more animated than she had ever seen him before.
It was rather appealing.
She caught the girl next to her giving her a strange look and realized she had been staring at Doyle. So much for being inconspicuous. Aimee leaned back again.
A young man in the third row caught her eye then, primarily because while Doyle’s attention was elsewhere, the boy in question appeared to be trying to use his cell phone to snap a picture of the thong poking up from the low-slung pants of the unsuspecting girl in front of him. Grinning, the young voyeur stretched his arm out a little further with his finger camera-ready—
—and then jerked it back as Doyle finished whatever he’d been saying and turned back around.
Some bit of motion must have caught Doyle’s eye, though, because he abruptly fixed his gaze on him and spoke. “Mr. Reynolds,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “You have a question?”
The young Mr. Reynolds, who had more of a beer-bong look to him than a crack-open-the-books one, blinked and shrugged. “Me? Nah, man. I’m fine.”
“I’m sure I saw your hand up. Don’t be shy. Would you like to weigh in on Miss Peterson’s question about William the First?”
The two stared at each other for a moment, and then Reynolds smiled insolently and sprawled back in his chair. “Yeah, okay, sure. Here’s me weighing in. Why are we sitting here talking about a bunch of guys who’ve been dead for like, a hundred years? What’s the point?”
“The point?”
“Yeah, who cares? I mean, I get that they were a big deal way back then, but none of that’s got anything to do with us now.” His grin grew wider. “Except, you know, that it gives history professors something to torture their students with.”
A few chuckles from the back of the room were poorly smothered. Some weren’t smothered at all.
Obnoxious little punk, Aimee thought, and then she realized she was leaning forward again so as not to miss Doyle’s response.
“The point,” said Doyle, his voice quiet as he toyed with a pen in his hands, “is that decades and sometimes centuries after their deaths we’re still feeling the effects of the actions these people took, even if some of us may be ignorant of that inconvenient fact, and they continue to have an impact on social and economic policies today. ‘The point’ is to learn how the choices people make can influence the futures of entire civilizations and those that come after them—hopefully so that we can keep from repeating the same mistakes and even, you know—” For those two words, Doyle’s voice and manner were so spot-on in their imitation of Reynolds that Aimee almost laughed out loud. “—build upon their achievements.”
She couldn’t see all of the younger man’s face from this angle, but Aimee thought his smile faltered.
Doyle approached the section in which Reynolds sat, stopping when he was about a foot away from the front row. “And the point is that the people we discuss in this class lived and died to create the world in which we’re living today. Many of them were willing to bleed for causes that they felt were more important than themselves, and what I find incredibly ironic, Mr. Reynolds, is that had some of them chosen not to do so, you might not be here in this classroom today freely debating the merits of their contributions to history.”
Reynolds’s nonchalance seemed somehow more forced now, and he shifted position slightly in his seat.
“Are we wasting your time here, Mr. Reynolds? You have more important things to do today?” Doyle thrust his hand down onto an open textbook of a student in front of him and then flipped through its pages. “History is more than just words on a page. These were real people whose lives made a difference, some for the greater good and some not.” He stopped at one picture. “Edith Cavell saved the lives of over two hundred Allied soldiers, and her death may have even swayed American opinions about entering World War I.” He flipped more pages. “Witold Pilecki, a man who left a wife and children behind in order to voluntarily infiltrate Auschwitz as a prisoner and smuggle out vital intelligence—could you do that, Mr. Reynolds?”
The young man was silent.
“Probably not. I couldn’t. We can, however, take the time to remember them. At least we will in my classroom.” And then Doyle stared at Reynolds so hard that Aimee was surprised the younger man’s hair didn’t burst into flames. “What we will not do is use this classroom as a place in which to violate a young woman’s privacy. Do you understand?”
Reyn
olds twitched.
“It’s called peripheral vision, Mr. Reynolds. If you want to continue taking this class, from now on you’ll be doing it from the front row. See me in my office tomorrow morning.” Clearing his throat, Doyle returned to his lectern. “We’ll take a closer look at the long-lasting effects of the Franco-Prussian War next time, so please take a look at the next chapter before then. See you all Wednesday.” And then he picked up an eraser and began erasing the first white board.
The girls nearest to Reynolds gave him a scalding look, and he hastily slunk past them and away.
The rest of the students collected their things and funneled out of the room through the two doors on either side until only Aimee remained, and when the door closed behind the last one, she finally spoke. “What happened to him?”
Doyle’s hand that held the eraser jerked at the sound of her voice, and his head turned so quickly to look up at her that it was a wonder he didn’t give himself whiplash. He stared at her with astonishment on his face before recovering enough from his startle to frown at her in his usual way. Turning back to the board, he continued erasing it until it was clear. “Who?”
She was sorry to see the frown return, but at least now she knew he was capable of other expressions, too. That discovery alone had been worth the trip today. “The man you said went into Auschwitz. Did he make it out?”
“Guess you’ll have to look it up.” Setting down the eraser, he began gathering papers off the lectern and stuffing them into the book bag that had been resting at the base of it until now.
Getting up from her seat, she made her way down toward him. “I’m pretty sure it’s unethical for a professor to assign homework to someone who isn’t his student.”
Doyle didn’t look up. “And I’m pretty sure you don’t have legitimate business on this campus.”
“Define ‘legitimate.’”
“To what do I owe the honor of this dubious pleasure, Miss Beasley?”
“Aimee.” She stopped in front of the remaining notes on the two white boards he had left untouched and read them over. “I had some time to kill before this thing later, and I wanted to see what you were like in action—in the classroom, I mean.” Aimee turned to look at him. “Not bad, Doyle.”
He paused for the briefest of moments before resuming packing up his papers in silence.
“That was a nice speech you gave. Never raised your voice once, but that Reynolds guy sure got out of here in a hurry with his tail between his legs.”
“If Travis Reynolds spent half as much time thinking before he spoke as he does chasing after women and a good time, we’d all be better off,” Doyle muttered. “The women included.”
“Well, he didn’t score many points with the ladies in here today. Besides,” she added, watching him for a reaction, “they were all too busy staring at you. You have quite the fan club going on, Professor.”
He blinked at her with his cool, grey eyes open a little wider than usual.
His obvious surprise at her announcement made her somehow like him a little more. “What, you didn’t know?”
Instead of answering, Doyle grabbed a final paper from off the lectern and began copying notes from it onto the white board he had just cleared.
It wasn’t shyness that sent him retreating, she was sure. But beyond that, it was a mystery to her, and one that she was increasingly interested in solving. “Must be the smoldering intensity of your gaze when you’re putting twerpy frat boys in their place,” she continued. “Women go nuts for that kind of thing. So do you ever date any of your students?”
“No,” he returned shortly without looking up from his paper.
“What about—”
“Miss Beasley,” he interrupted, facing her again. “Don’t you have someplace you have to be?”
“I’m supposed to sing with a local blues group tonight, but—” She glanced at her watch. “—that’s not for a couple more hours.”
“You can sing?”
“In the shower, sure. Outside? Guess we’ll find out.”
He stared at her. “You signed up to sing in a band, and you don’t even know if you can sing?”
“They’re friends of mine, and they were in a bind. I know the words to their songs, so…” She shrugged. “It’s just for one night.”
“Do you ever stop to think things through?”
“I did think it through. If I don’t sing tonight, they’re screwed. Their lead singer is doped to the gills on pain meds after she slipped on a patch of ice and broke her ankle this morning, and they can’t afford to lose tonight’s gig.”
Doyle continued to stare at her, but the nature of his expression changed to something she wasn’t sure she recognized. Not surprise, exactly…
“Besides,” she continued, “I’ve never had a chance to be a lead singer before. Could be fun. Maybe I’ll wind up with groupies.”
“Fun,” he repeated.
“Yes. You know, that strange phenomenon people experience when they get out and try new things. You should look into it.”
He looked away and began writing on the white board again.
And then she surprised herself with her next words. “You could start tonight. Want to swing by?”
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, clearly startled and nearly losing the grip on his pen.
Doyle Berkley relaxing after hours in a smoky room with a beer and some music. Now that would be something to see. “The club I’m singing at tonight. Well, actually it’s more like a bar than a club. Want to come? I promise I won’t try to get you up onstage to sing.”
Then she held up her hand so he could see she had two fingers crossed before flashing him a wicked smile.
A huff of laughter escaped Doyle before he could help himself, or at least that was the way it struck Aimee. She’d never met anyone as resistant to enjoying himself as he was. Or was he just resistant to her? “I have quizzes to grade tonight,” he said after a moment.
She nodded, more surprised that he hadn’t turned her down more vehemently than she was by the fact he’d said no. “So Gram and Theodore have lunch plans this week,” she said, trailing her fingers over the lectern and wondering what it would be like to stand behind it and address a roomful of people. Most people would probably rather walk barefoot over hot coals, but Doyle had seemed comfortable enough. Funny how a man who seemed to avoid casual human contact could stand in front of so many people at once for a living. “I’d say our dinner party was a hit, wouldn’t you? Maybe we should have another one.”
His expression turned guarded. “We had a deal. One dinner.”
“Are you always this uncooperative, or do you save it all up for me?”
Finished copying his notes, Doyle reached for the book bag to sling it over his shoulder. “You’re pushing, Miss Beasley.”
“Somebody has to.”
“Why is it so important to you to see the two of them paired up together?” he asked, retrieving his coat from a hook on the far wall and then beginning up the steps that led to the exit.
Aimee followed him, hot on his heels. “Seriously? You really have to ask?”
Pausing halfway up the steps, Doyle turned around, and Aimee was so intent on keeping up that she nearly collided with him. He reached out automatically to steady her but then was so quick to release her and step back that she wondered if she ought to be offended. “He’s my uncle, so yes.”
“Because I want Gram to have something more than Wheel of Fortune matches with me to look forward to,” she blurted out, and even she was caught off guard by the slight waver in her voice. She cleared her throat. “I swear half the people in my own family don’t get that she’s not ready to be packed up and stuffed in a corner somewhere, and I don’t think your uncle’s ready to call it quits on life either. Do you?”
Doyle stared at her for a long moment. “No,” he said finally, his expression difficult for her to read. “But—”
“Professor Berkley?”
The new voi
ce made both Aimee and Doyle look up to see a comely young coed standing in the doorway nearest to them as she propped the door open with one hand.
She gave Aimee a cool look and then scooped long, silky hair behind one ear, cocking her head ever so slightly as she smiled at Doyle. “Can I ask you a question about the syllabus?”
“What?” he answered, sounding disoriented. “Oh. Yes, of course, Miss Stevens.”
“Cynthia,” the young brunette offered, smiling more brightly than ever.
Yeah, right, Aimee thought. Good luck with that. Oddly enough, she felt a twinge of resentment toward the girl for interrupting their conversation, which was a true first for her since before she had always looked for reasons to cut her time around Doyle short. “I guess duty calls, Professor. Catch you later,” she said, brushing past him on her way out and aware of how he stiffened at even that slight contact.
“Miss Beasley—”
She paused at the top of the steps to look back at him.
For a moment she thought she saw a hint of that same remarkable intensity she’d seen in his eyes earlier, when he’d been less guarded than usual and had been unaware of her presence. Then it was gone again. “Good luck tonight.”
Somehow she didn’t think that was what he’d originally intended to say, but she let it go unaddressed. “Thanks.”
And then she ignored the icy look the brunette gave her and slipped out the door.
Chapter Six
“I believe that’s Gin, dear,” Gram said matter-of-factly, laying her cards out on the kitchen table before her and then coughing delicately as she reached to claim the small pile of individually wrapped chocolates that was the pot.
Aimee blinked. “You’ve cleaned me out again. Are you sure you won’t let me teach you how to play poker? I’ll bet we could make a mint in Vegas.”
Despite the cluck of disapproval Gram made, the older woman looked anything but displeased by her granddaughter’s assessment.
The Heavenly Bites Novella Collection Page 17