The Bachelor Meets His Match. Arlene James

laying at the feet of Christ when she joined her father in Heaven one day.

      That was all she wanted now, and no handsome, overbearing, if well-meaning, college professor was going to get in her way.

      * * *

      Clearly, Morgan had misread Simone at their first meeting. She wasn’t interested in him. Far from it. With every door that he opened for her, every hand of assistance that he offered, she gave a twitch of her chin that practically shouted, “Stay clear! Back away!”

      He’d have happily obliged her if he could have, but for some reason he felt literally compelled to watch over her. Much thanks he received for his trouble. She grumbled and groused like the petulant child he was increasingly aware she was not.

      “I don’t see why I should take ski clothes to Chatam House.”

      “Why leave them here when you’re not going to be staying here?”

      The boardinghouse was even more shabby than Morgan recalled, but Simone’s room was as neat as a pin, perhaps because most of her clothes were of the winter variety and remained packed away in boxes.

      “Why do you have so many ski clothes anyway?” he asked. “I can’t imagine that snow skiing is a big pastime around Baton Rouge.” But then, she had done most of her undergraduate work in Colorado. He wondered if she would own up to it. She did and more.

      “It is possible to travel outside of Louisiana, you know,” she told him haughtily, “but as a matter of fact, I used to work on the ski slopes in Colorado. That’s where I met my husband.”

      “Your husband!” Morgan yelped the words, feeling pricked and, oddly enough, betrayed.

      She went pale as a sheet. “My ex-husband,” she hurriedly amended, “or whatever you call him when the marriage is annulled.”

      Annulled! Morgan didn’t think he’d ever heard of an annulled marriage in this day and age. The woman was a puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma. She put trembling hands to her head and sighed.

      “Oh, now look what you’ve gone and done.” Dropping her hands, she stared at him accusingly. “There was no reason anyone had to know about that.”

      “There’s nothing saying anyone does,” he told her. Anyone else, that was. Folding his arms, he prepared to wait the rest of the day for the story, if necessary.

      Recognizing his resolve, Simone stamped a foot. He thought for a moment that she would explode, but she glanced at the open door—a house policy, and a wise one—and instead sighed, throwing herself down to sit on the edge of the narrow bed. Morgan pulled out the desk chair and straddled it, folding his arms across the top edge of the back.

      She made a face and said, “He’s an only child from a wealthy family, used to getting his way, frankly, and...well, we had fun, so when he asked me to elope with him, I agreed. He told me up front that his parents, who were older, wouldn’t approve but that they’d change their minds when we presented them with their first grandchild.” She looked away, adding, “I actually thought I might be pregnant right away, but a routine physical exam turned up something else altogether.”